[An] important new book...From the Other Shore raises the question of what would have happened if the Mensheviks had prevailed in 1917. Would they have gone the route of the Bolsheviks, laying the groundwork for the repressive totalitarianism to follow? Or would they have found another path committing themselves to a radical transformation of Russian society while at the same time...respecting the political liberties of their opponents?...Although Liebich identifies closely with Martov's group, he avoids the temptation of reading back into its history an early and absolute division from the Bolsheviks...Liebich asks us to see the Mensheviks as something more than political losers. They stand, he writes, 'at the very heart of the crisis of Marxism.' Our judgment of them as political actors and thinkers--as a possible alternative leadership for a revolutionary Russia--can help determine whether Marxism has any legitimate claim as a serious and honorable political tradition or deserves nothing better than its current consignment to the dustbin of history.