In 1903, at the close of the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the socialist party had split into two factions, those that would follow Lenin's proposed revolutionary path and those that would follow Iulii Martov-a group that would call themselves the Mensheviks.

A Jewish Marxist, Martov was known among fellow party members as an intellectual, an anti-war internationalist, and a successful organizer. He wrote prolifically for a number of important revolutionary outlets inside and outside Russia including Iskra and Zarya, Nashe Slovo, and Golos.

Despite his significant contributions to the Russian Revolution, Martov's only book, World Bolshevism, has seen very little circulation since its first publication in Berlin in 1919. Parts of that first edition, a Russian-language edition, appeared for the first time in Russia in 2000, when it was deemed safe enough to circulate his work once again. In English, his work has reached the public in fragments, often as a part of pamphlets. In this edition, ably translated by Paul Kellogg and Mariya Melentyeva, Martov's work is available in English in its complete form for the first time in a hundred years.