Atlas / Comparisons / Mensheviks vs Institutional Revolutionary Party
Mensheviks and Institutional Revolutionary Party
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, AU, ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | RSDLP(m) | PRI | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −08 | +01 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −05 | +04 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −04 | +08 | 12 | 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 | +03 | 10 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +02 | −04 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
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.
PRI · EC +01
Coded +1: the same party redistributed land, nationalised oil and then signed NAFTA and privatised.
- Documented act or statuteOil was nationalised in 1938; the banks were nationalised in 1982 and reprivatised from 1991.
- Documented act or statuteNAFTA entered force in 1994 under a PRI president.
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.
PRI · CU +04
Coded +4: revolutionary anticlericalism succeeded by a conservative corporatist order.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1917 constitution's anticlerical articles were softened by amendment in 1992.
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.
Institutional Revolutionary Party
1929– · Mexico
A party built to institutionalise a revolution and end military coups, which then held the presidency for seventy-one consecutive years.
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.
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