Worldwide there are and have been many Trotskyist parties since the 1930s but no Menshevik groups as far as I know. Initially there were more Menshevik intellectuals in exile from the Soviet Union than Trotskyists. What explains its' comparative lack of popularity?

I read this in a biography on him.

Cheers

It seems like spears and pikes should be more effective weapons than a knife.

I ask this question based upon my experience with veterans. Most spoke more about the war with Japan and had little mention of Germany. Is this possibly regional perception based on deployment during the War? (Example; more Soldiers from the NE went to Europe, and more western states were sent to the Pacific.)

What were the interests of the Americans? How did it influence the outcome? What were Wilson's responses to the member states of the Versailles meeting?

I was having a little discussion the other day with /u/idjet, and I thought I'd open it up to a broader audience.

The past three decades of scholarship on Christian heterodoxies or heresies have involved substantial pushback against the uncritical adoption of terms used for those beliefs found within orthodox literature. This was first noted with the high medieval use of "Arian" to denote heterodoxy in general, not just that which insisted on the creaturehood of Christ. More recently, we have seen the deconstruction of the term "Gnostic" in a book by Karen King, in which she persuasively argues that scholars have fabricated the existence of a group from polemical pieces of 'orthodox' rhetoric.

In this same line of questioning, there is the term "Cathar", traditionally used to denote a dualist or semi-dualist heterodox belief that came to prominence in the south of France in the 12th and 13th century, eventually spurring Pope Innocent III to call for a crusade against the count of Toulouse, and, in the long run, contributing substantially to the creation of the modern French state.

My question is this: is there actually anything we can call "Catharism"? Did contemporaries have specific heterodoxies in mind when they used the term? More generally, when confronted with a movement or movements which lack an organized center, what principles do we use to determine whether such groups should be classified together under a single term, or defined as distinct units, and what do we gain and/or lose by doing either of these things?

Would the average worker in Industrial Revolution-era Britain or US have a longer or shorter working day than his equivalent in the century preceding it?

Hey all, I was wondering if anybody could tell me about Reconstruction in the American South. Primarily, what were the main political policies the created the reconstruction, what the political landscape was like during the reconstruction era, and how the Compromise of 1877 essentially ended reconstruction in the south.

What about the gunpowder and supplies as well?

Were there practices that remained that people knew were of Pagan origin? Were there any difference in the amount of knowledge in different social castes?

Also, bonus question: Do we know anything of "pockets" where pagan beliefs and customs remained for a considerable longer time than in other areas? I know that much of Scandinavian mythology about trolls, gnomes etc are of pre-Christian origin, but did other practices such as ancestor worship (which IIRC at least one missionary claimed were common in pre-Christian Scandinavia) and worship of the old Norse gods linger for any considerable time?

I'm studying ancient roman history and I was a little confused as to how laws and litigation worked. I realize that the Praetors were directly involved in the formation of Roman Law. Tribunes of the plebs were also influential law makers and bring in prosecution against an individual. The comitia tribute can approve laws of the Roman people. This is where I do not understand. If there are 2 governing bodies with the same function, how are laws formed and approved? Does it go from Praetors, Consul + senate, then to the tribunes for final approval? If so, what is the point for the imperium if the tribunes have that much power?

The Western Roman Empire collapsed due to the continuous wars it had with the "barbarian" invaders. Swabians, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards, Franks, and various other Germanic tribes came to Roman territories, conquered them, and established their own kingdoms.

What I don't get is why were they quick to abandon their Germanic languages and instead adopt Vulgar Latin, which would eventually become the Romance languages spoken throughout Europe.

And why didn't the same happen in, say, Roman Britain after the Anglo-Saxon invasions?