A Note on the Translation

Iulii Martov composed the monograph World Bolshevism (Mirovoi bol’shevizm) in 1919. Yet only nine of its twelve chapters were published that year. It was only in 1923, in the months after his death, that the Russian text appeared in its entirety in one volume—a Russian-language edition prepared by Fedor Dan and published in Berlin by Martov’s co-thinkers in exile, complete with an appendix, an essay originally published in Moscow in 1918. Only in 2000 were portions of the book published within Russia. In English translation, Martov’s text has had very limited circulation. In 1938, sections II and III (chapters 6 to 12) and the appendix essay were translated by Herman Jerson and published in New York as a pamphlet titled The State and the Socialist Revolution (with an updated and annotated version published decades later by the British journal What Next?). But the 1938 translation omitted the five chapters in section I. At last, in 2008, an English-language translation of that first section, “The Roots of World Bolshevism,” was made available on the Marxists Internet Archive, although the translator is not identified.

In this edition, Martov’s book is for the first time presented in its entirety in English-language translation—all twelve chapters and the appendix as published in Russian in 1923. Throughout, Mariya Melentyeva and I, while retaining some elements from earlier translations, have adopted a “minimalist” approach, sticking as closely as possible to the structure and style of Martov’s original, including preserving all his many points of emphasis.

The many quotations in the text—some in Russian, which Mariya Melentyeva and myself worked on together, others in English, French, and German, for which I took sole responsibility—had to be brought into line with the contemporary literature, avoiding wherever possible “twice-removed” translations. For instance, Martov uses many French-language sources in his treatment of the Paris Commune and quotes extensively from several non-Russian authors, including Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky. He either used the existing Russian translations of those texts or provided his own translation, in both cases creating a Russian-language version at “one remove” from the original. If we were simply to take his Russian translation and translate it directly from Russian to English, we would be at “two removes” from the original. So, where possible, we have used standard English translations of the texts concerned. Where none could be found, we have translated directly from the original—in the case of the section on the Paris Commune, for example, from the French original to English. In certain cases, even where standard English translations exist, we have either amended those translations to some extent, where some clarification or improvement seemed necessary, or have chosen not to use them in favour of a fresh translation. On occasion, small errors were discovered in the original and these have either been “silently” corrected or, if necessary, the corrections indicated in the endnotes. On other occasions, Martov’s Russian-language excerpts differed to a lesser or greater extent from contemporaneous sources. The English translations have been amended to account for these factors, and again those amendments are indicated in the endnotes.

When Martov is quoting from Russian-language sources, these quotations have been checked against the standard sources available to a contemporary audience. For Lenin’s Collected Works, this meant comparing the English-language versions in the readily available fourth edition, Lenin: Collected Works (LCW), against the Russian-language version in the standard fifth edition, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Complete collected works) (PSS), amending and retranslating where necessary. Again, on occasion, Martov’s Russian-language version differed to a lesser or greater extent from the sources we were using, and this is so indicated in the endnotes. On two occasions, where it was impossible to track down the originals from which Martov was quoting, there was no choice but to translate directly from Martov’s version, and to leave a note indicating “translated directly from Martov.”

In addition to endnotes indicating the works cited, there are also citations that Martov himself provided, along with notes added by the editor of the 1923 edition, Martov’s brother-in-law Fedor Dan (whose life partner was Martov’s sister, Lidiia). Within these notes a concluding “—Martov” or “—Dan” will clearly indicate who is responsible for the material presented. All others are my responsibility. Most of these are annotations which I thought necessary to help a twenty-first century reader navigate the many historical, biographical, and cultural allusions used by Martov.

As in “Truth Behind Bars,” transliteration of Russian names and terms follows the system used by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Library of Congress (LC), although without recourse to diacritics—except where a name has acquired a standard English spelling, such as Abramovitch, Kerensky, Krupskaya, Lunacharsky, Trotsky and Zinoviev. For Martov’s first name, we have two standards, “Julius” and “Iulii.” As in “Truth Behind Bars,” the text uses the latter, a transliteration that offers a reasonable clue in English as to the correct pronunciation, as well as being as true as possible to the Cyrillic alphabet. Mariya Melentyeva pointed out to me that for authors of Martov’s generation, German was a much more important second language than English, and it was quite reasonable to use “Julius Martow” as the transliteration of Martov’s name in German, encouraging English-language translators to use “Julius Martov.” But this leads to a distinct mispronunciation of his first name, the German j being pronounced like the English y.

Martov was a European intellectual deeply immersed in the mores and culture of his day. This meant that, like many of his peers, he took for granted a framework whereby some countries were deemed “advanced” and others “backward.” Where possible, we have made translation choices that preserve the original meaning but are less discordant to a contemporary ear. There remain, however, several paragraphs, involving brief comparative descriptions of the place within the world system of various nations, that reflect the Eurocentrism typical of Martov’s generation of European intellectuals.

Until February 1918, Russia used the Julian calendar, whose dates were thirteen days behind the Gregorian. On a handful of occasions, I will provide both dates, putting the Julian first, followed by the Gregorian in parentheses.

Mariya Melentyeva was indispensable in helping to translate the text from Russian to English. Megan Hall, director of Athabasca University Press, skillfully helped navigate the copy editing and production process. The Russian-language copy editing of Elizabeth Adams from World Communications, and the copy-editing of the entire text by Ryan Perks led to a much-improved final product. Many thanks to Adrian Mather for preparing a professional and comprehensive index.

It was an unexpected pleasure to read this manuscript, discovered while researching “Truth Behind Bars.” What began as an exercise in ensuring the accuracy of English translations of excerpts from the text became a labour of love as I realized the importance of the document Martov had penned, in the very midst of the great upheavals of his era. One hundred years is long enough for this document to be out of circulation.

Mackenzie Paul Kellogg

Toronto, November 2021