Abstract

Relying on the rich documentation on Russian socialism available after the opening of the archives immediately following the end of the ussr, the text reconstructs the crucial political role played by the Mensheviks under the leadership of Irakly Cereteli between February and October 1917. Convinced that Russia was experiencing finally its bourgeois revolution, Cereteli, pursuing a compromise at all costs with the Liberals, ended up by compromising the realization of a unity government of the left. As a consequence radicalism grew among the Bolsheviks, and the way was paved for the birth of the Bolshevik dictatorship.