defencist , also: defensist

Many internationalists wanted nothing to do with the Defencist leaders of the old Second International.

In 1914, Potresov immediately adopted a Defencist position.

He now supported a 'Revolutionary Defencist' position, supporting war in defence of the revolution but not for imperialistic aims.

During the First World War Prokopovich was a 'Defencist'.

Internationalist and defencist were the broad opposing camps in the international socialist movement during and shortly after the First World War.

Before Lenin's return to Russia, Joseph Stalin had even briefly adopted a Revolutionary Defencist position.

However, after the February Revolution of 1917, Liber called for war 'in defence of the revolution' and took up a 'Revolutionary Defencist' position.

For a while he became a qualified Revolutionary Defencist, siding with Mensheviks like Dan and Tsereteli against Martov.

This put him in opposition to the Revolutionary Defencist SR and Menshevik leaders who dominated the soviets during Kerensky's government.

During the First World War, Argunov was a 'Defencist' and was associated with the right wing of the PSR.

Rubanovich sided with the 'Defencist' wing of the Russian PSR and the 'social patriots' in the SFIO, who supported the Entente war effort.

During the First World War Minor took a Defencist position, which put him at odds with the PSR leader Viktor Chernov and with his old associate Natanson.

In 1914, Miakotin adopted a 'Defencist' position with regard to the First World War, although he had previously been sharply critical of official tsarist Great Russian nationalism and rejected imperialist war aims.

Hyndman was a leading figure in the early party, but a growing party split over which position to take in the First World War saw him leave to form in 1916 a rival "defencist" National Socialist Party.

With respect to World War I, which bitterly divided the PSR, Zenzinov adopted a 'Revolutionary Defencist' position: opposed to the war before the February Revolution, he supported the 'defence of the revolution' against Germany.

The term 'Defencist Bloc' was used by V.I. Lenin and others to refer to the coalition of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who, after the February Revolution of 1917, dominated the soviets, and who wished to continue Russia's war effort.

Kerensky had been one of them, a Zimmerwaldist until 1917, then a Revolutionary Defencist; however, as, initially, the only socialist in the Provisional Government, he had adopted a more and more unqualified stance in support of the war, in line with his liberal colleagues.

Kuskova launched the democratic socialist journal Vlasti Naroda (The People's Power), which united Defencist socialists from a variety of parties, including right-wing Mensheviks like Aleksandr Potresov, veteran Narodniks like Nikolai Tchaikovsky and right wing SRs like Boris Savinkov.