Julius Martov - Civil War

Civil War

The Mensheviks were banned along with other political parties (except for the Bolshevik led Communist Party of the Soviet Union) by the Soviet government during the Russian Civil War.

Martov supported the Red Army against the White Army during the Civil War; however, he continued to denounce the persecution of liberal newspapers, the Kadets and the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Speaking of the Red Terror, Martov said, "The beast has licked hot human blood. The man-killing machine is brought into motion.... But blood breeds blood.... We witness the growth of the bitterness of the civil war, the growing bestiality of men engaged in it."

In 1920 Martov was allowed to travel legally to Germany. He had not intended to stay in exile in Germany, and only did so because of the repression by the ruling Communist Party in Russia. He died in Schömberg, Germany three years later. In the period before his last fatal illness, however, he was able to launch the newspaper Socialist Messenger which remained the publication of the Mensheviks in exile in Berlin, Paris and eventually in New York until the last of them had died. It has been rumoured that Lenin, also on his deathbed at the time and worried about the rising Stalin, may have provided funds for this last venture of Martov.