Julius Martov - History

History

Martov was born to a Jewish middle-class family in Constantinople. In Russia, Martov was originally a close colleague of Vladimir Lenin and with him founded the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1895. Both were exiled to Siberia for this but Martov was sent to Turukhansk in the Arctic while Lenin was sent to the comparatively warm 'Siberian Italy'. This was because Martov was Jewish while Lenin was a nobleman. Forced to leave Russia and with other radical political figures living in exile, Martov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) and, in 1900, was one of the founding members, with Lenin, of the party journal Iskra. At the Second Congress of the RSDLP in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Martov and Lenin over who was to be considered a member of the RSDLP. Lenin had published his ideas for moving the party forward in his pamphlet What Is to Be Done?, which was considered to be a document putting forward the views of the entire Iskra group led by Lenin and Martov. However, in the London Congress of the party differing definitions of party membership were put forward by the two men, with Lenin arguing for a restricted membership of fully committed cadre while Martov argued for a looser interpretation of membership.