Ответ на этот вопрос должен разъяснить очень важную разницу в буржуазно-демократической и социал-демократической постановке вопроса о религии.
The answer to this question will serve to explain the very important difference in the way the question of religion is presented by the bourgeois democrats and the Social-Democrats.
I think you are right that by 1920s that term was mostly associated with Mensheviks but I swear I’ve seen bolshevik references to it even in 1910s, so it wasn’t as clearly defined as it is now.
I think Social-Democrat back then meant something similar to what “Socialist” does today. Lenin was, by his own words, a Social-Democrat.
That was earlier. The Bolsheviks split from the social democratic labour party in 1903 denouncing the term social democracy
But them using the “aesthetic” of socialism to win over the workers for their own fascist benefit is true (obviously)
I swear I’ve seen his post-split works still referring to his movement as social-democrats.
Found it (1906): https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Социализм_и_религия_(Ленин)
I think you are right that by 1920s that term was mostly associated with Mensheviks but I swear I’ve seen bolshevik references to it even in 1910s, so it wasn’t as clearly defined as it is now.
yes – these people were just opportunists calling themselves socialists (or “social-democrats”) because it was popular among the workers