The epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution gave birth to a new struggle of tendencies within social-democracy, which was a direct continuation of the previous one. "Economism" transformed into "Menshevism." The defence of the revolutionary tactics of the old *Iskra* created "Bolshevism."

In the turbulent years of 1905–1907, Menshevism was an opportunistic tendency, supported by liberal bourgeoisie and which carried liberal-bourgeois tendencies into the workers' movement. The adaptation of the struggle of the working class to liberalism – therein lay its essence. By contrast, Bolshevism set before the social-democratic workers the task of rallying the democratic peasantry to revolutionary struggle in defiance of the waverings and betrayals of liberalism. And the workers' masses, as the Mensheviks themselves repeatedly acknowledged, went forward during the revolution with the Bolsheviks in all the major uprisings.

The Revolution of 1905 tested, strengthened, deepened, and tempered the uncompromising revolutionary social-democratic tactics in Russia. The open manifestation of classes and parties repeatedly exposed the connection between social-democratic opportunism ("Menshevism") and liberalism.