100 Years After The Bolshevik Revolution
Anyone who is sceptical about claims made of the Bolshevik Revolution by its supporters ,but who has also been reluctant to accept the accounts of it by right wing and Cold War historians, will find much of value in John Medhurst’s ‘ No Less Than Mystic ’ ( 2017 ) An active socialist and trade unionist, Medhurst takes the title of the book from Martov’s description of the Bolshevik Revolution . Martov was the leader of the Mensheviks, opponents of the revolution and advocates of a more gradualist approach. Medhurst summarises Martov's view of Bolshevik political strategy as "a cocktail of utopian desire and adventurism lacking solid plans for creating a socialist society and likely to degenerate into its opposite" and concludes that it “is a judgment supported by history". For Medhurst the real revolution of 1917 took place in February not October, " led by a wide alliance of socialists, trade unionists, peasants and populists in which the Bolshe