Andre Liebich is Professor of International History and Politics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. The manuscript of this book was awarded the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History, Wiener Library, London.

Klappentext

This book is an inquiry into the possibilities of politics in exile. Russian Mensheviks, driven out of Soviet Russia and their party stripped of legal existence, functioned abroad in the West for an entire generation. For several years they also continued to operate underground in Soviet Russia. Bereft of the usual advantages of political actors, the Mensheviks succeeded in impressing their views upon social democratic parties and Western thinking about the Soviet Union.

Zusammenfassung
This book is an inquiry into the possibilities of politics in exile. The Mensheviks, driven out of Soviet Russia, functioned abroad in the West for a generation. For several years they also continued to operate underground in Soviet Russia, and succeeded in impressing their views on social democratic parties and Western thinking about the U.S.S.R.

Inhalt
Part 1 The Menshevik Family: a group portrait; a portrait gallery. Part 2 1903-1921: Mensheviks and Bolsheviks - a phenomenology of factions, the second congress and its aftermath, revolutionary rehearsal, after the revolution (1905), into the Great War; from exile to exile - war, revolution, facing Bolshevik power, within the party, personal itineraries. Part 3 1921-1933: inside and outside - settling into exile, the political economy of NEP, the nature of NEP Russia, the party underground, watching the Kremlin; Mensheviks and the wider world - into the international arena, Menshevik foreign relations, fraternal parties; Stalin's revolution - the great turn, socialist debates, the Menshevik trial. Part 4 1933-1965: hard times - life in France, contacts, the totalitarian nexus, purges and politics, search for unity, division and defeat; sea change - new roads and old, the last of the Martov line, the end of the foreign delegation, waging the Cold War, the American file, the final campaign; conclusion.