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.
Read more about this topic: Julius Martov
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
“The utter helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.”
—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)