Atlas / Comparisons / Mensheviks vs Pinochet Regime
Mensheviks and Pinochet Regime
Measured distance across six axes
Opposite ends of the recorded space. They agree within three points on CH. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, AU, ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | RSDLP(m) | Pinochet Regime | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −08 | +09 | 17 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −05 | +08 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −04 | +10 | 14 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +03 | +07 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −07 | +05 | 12 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +02 | +04 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
RSDLP(m) · EC −08
Coded within one point of the Bolsheviks: the disagreement was about sequence and method, not about ownership.
- Programme textBoth factions accepted the same Second Congress programme of 1903 on socialisation of the means of production.
Pinochet Regime · EC +09
Among the deepest market liberalisations attempted anywhere, executed under a military government.
- Documented act or statutePensions were transferred to private individual accounts in 1981.
- Documented act or statuteState enterprises, health and schooling were privatised or voucherised through the late 1970s and 1980s.
RSDLP(m) · CU −05
Shared the Bolshevik cultural programme; the split was never about social questions.
- Programme textBoth factions campaigned on universal suffrage including for women, civil marriage and secular schooling.
Pinochet Regime · CU +08
Social order restored by decree alongside the economic liberalisation.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1980 constitution was drafted by an appointed commission and ratified under a state of siege with no electoral register.
- Documented act or statuteAbortion, legal in some circumstances since 1931, was banned outright in 1989.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Mensheviks
1903–1921 · Russia
Russia must pass through a bourgeois-democratic stage; socialism cannot be decreed by a minority.
Pinochet Regime
1973–1990 · Chile
Free-market restructuring imposed by a military junta after the violent overthrow of an elected government.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas