Menshevik

Menshevik (Russian): literally "a member of the minority." A member of the Russian Social Democratic party who, for the realization of socialism, advocated less violent and more democratic methods than those advocated by the Bolsheviks from whom they split in 1903. After the November 1917 Russian Revolution, the one-party Communist dictatorship established by the Bolsheviks suppressed all opposition movements, including that of the Mensheviks.