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This article is about the Bolshevik faction in the RSDLP 1903-1912. For other uses, see Bolshevik (disambiguation).
Bolshevik Party Meeting. Lenin is seen at right.
Bolshevik Party Meeting. Lenin is seen at right.
Boris Kustodiev's 1920 painting "Bolshevik"
Boris Kustodiev's 1920 painting "Bolshevik"

The Bolsheviks, originally[1] Bolshevists[2] (Russian: Большевик, Большевист (singular) Russian pronunciation: [bəlʲʂɨˈvʲik], derived from bolshe, "more") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction[3] at the Second Party Congress in 1903 and ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev (Бори́с Миха́йлович Кусто́диев ( March 7, 1878 &ndash May 28, 1927) was a Russian Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP ( Росси́йская Социа́л-Демократи́ческая Рабо́чая The Mensheviks (Minority (Меньшевик) were a faction of the Russian Revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between Vladimir The 2nd Congress of the RSDLP ( Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) was held during July 30 – August 23 ( July 17 – August 10, [4] The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and founded the Soviet Union. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The October Revolution (Октябрьская революция Oktyabrskaya revolyutsiya) also known as the Soviet Revolution See also Russian Revolution (1905 The Russian Revolution of 1916 refers to a series of popular revolutions in Russia, and the events surrounding them The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991

Bolsheviks (or "the Majority") were an organization of professional revolutionaries under a strict internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism and quasi-military discipline, who considered themselves as a vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat. The concept of professional revolutionaries, alternatively called cadre, is in origin a Leninist concept used to describe a body of devoted Communists who @@@ main@@@ - title Hierarchy@@@ keywords structure; sociology; information@@@ review@@@ - Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist Military courtesy is one of the defining features of a professional Military force The proletariat (from Latin la ''proles'' "offspring" is a term used to identify a lower Social class; a member of such a class is proletarian Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism. [5] The party was founded by Vladimir Lenin, who also led it in the October Revolution.

Contents

History of the split

In the Second Congress of the RSDLP, held in Brussels and London during August 1903, Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a small core of professional revolutionaries, leaving sympathizers outside the party, and instituting a system of centralized control known as the democratic centralist model. The 2nd Congress of the RSDLP ( Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) was held during July 30 – August 23 ( July 17 – August 10, Brussels (Bruxelles pronounced; Brussel pronounced) officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist Julius Martov, until then a close friend and colleague of Lenin's, agreed with him that the core of the party should consist of professional revolutionaries, but argued that party membership should be open to sympathizers, revolutionary workers and other fellow travellers. Julius Martov or L Martov ( Ма́ртов, real name Yuli Osipovich Zederbaum ( Russian Ю́лий О́сипович Цедерба́ум In some political contexts the term fellow traveler refers to a person who sympathizes with the beliefs of a particular organization but does not belong to that organization The two had disagreed on the issue as early as March-May 1903, but it wasn't until the Congress that their differences became irreconcilable and split the party. [6] Although at first the disagreement appeared to be minor and inspired by personal conflicts, e. g. Lenin's insistence on dropping less active editorial board members from Iskra or Martov's support for the Organizing Committee of the Congress which Lenin opposed, the differences quickly grew and the split became irreparable. Iskra (Russian Искра means Spark, was a political Newspaper of Russian Socialist emigrants established as the official

Origins of the name

The two factions were originally known as "hard" (Lenin's supporters) and "soft" (Martov's supporters). Soon, however, the terminology changed to "Bolsheviks" and "Mensheviks", from the Russian "bolshinstvo" (majority) and "menshinstvo" (minority), based on the fact that Lenin's supporters narrowly defeated Martov's supporters on the question of party membership. Neither Lenin nor Martov had a firm majority throughout the Congress as delegates left or switched sides. At the end, the Congress was evenly split between the two factions.

From 1907 on, English language articles sometimes used the term "Maximalist" for "Bolshevik" and "Minimalist" for "Menshevik", which proved confusing since there was also a "Maximalist" faction within the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1904–1906 (which after 1906 formed a separate Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists‎) and then again after 1917. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party (the PSR the SRs, or Esers; Партия социалистов-революционеров (ПСР эсеры was a Russian Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists was a Political party in Russia, a radical wing expelled from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in [7]

Beginning of the 1905 Revolution (1903–1905)

The two factions were in a state of flux in 1903–1904 with many members changing sides. The founder of Russian Marxism, Georgy Plekhanov, who was at first allied with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, parted ways with them by 1904. Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Георгий Валентинович Плеханов ( December 11, 1856 &ndash May 30, 1918; Leon Trotsky at first supported the Mensheviks, but left them in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Leon Trotsky ( Russian:, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij He remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat" to until August 1917 when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks as their positions converged and he came to believe that Lenin was right on the issue of the party.

The lines between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks hardened in April 1905 when the Bolsheviks held a Bolsheviks-only meeting in London, which they call the Third Party Congress. The Mensheviks organized a rival conference and the split was thus formalized.

The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 revolution, and were a minority in the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky. St Petersburg Soviet of Worker's Delegates was a Workers' council, or soviet in St The less significant Moscow Soviet, however, was dominated by the Bolsheviks. A soviet (сове́т, "council" originally was a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia. These soviets became the model for the Soviets that were formed in 1917.

("The minority") (1906–1907)

As the Russian Revolution of 1905 progressed, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and smaller non-Russian social democratic parties operating within the Russian Empire attempted to reunify at the Fourth (Unification) Congress of the RSDLP held at Folkets hus, Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, April 1906. See also Russian Revolution (1917 The 1905 Russian Revolution also known as the Failed Russian Revolution of 1905 was an empire-wide struggle of The Fourth (Unity Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, from April 10-25 (April 23 to May 8 1906 Folkets hus, Swedish "The People's House" in Sweden is the name of Proletarian Community centres located in almost all cities Norra Bantorget ( The Northern Railway Square) is an area in central Stockholm. ('stɔkhɔlm is Sweden 's Capital and its largest City. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the parliament, and the With the Mensheviks ("The minority") striking an alliance with the Jewish Bund, the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority. However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Center, the de-facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP. At the next, Fifth Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other.

Split between Lenin and Bogdanov (1908–1909)

With the defeat of the revolution in mid-1907 and the adoption of a new, highly restrictive election law, the Bolsheviks began debating whether to boycott the new parliament known as the Third Duma. State Duma of the Russian Empire was a Legislative assembly in the late Russian Empire. Lenin and his supporters Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev argued for participating in the Duma while Lenin's deputy philosopher Alexander Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled. Gregory Yevseevich Zinoviev (Григо́рий Евс́еевич Зин́овьев alternative transliteration Grigorii Ovseyevish Zinoviev born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich ( Russian: Лев Борисович Каменев born Rosenfeld, Розенфельд ( – August 25, 1936) was a Bolshevik Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov Александр Александрович Богданов (born Alyaksandr Malinouski, Аляксандар Маліноўскі( Mikhail Nikolayevich Pokrovsky ( - April 10, 1932) was a Bolshevik Russian historian The latter became known as recallists ("otzovists" in Russian). Otzovists (or Recallists) were a group of radical Bolsheviks who demanded to cease all participation of the RSDLP in legal state establishments in particular A smaller group within the Bolshevik faction demanded that the RSDLP central committee should give its sometimes unruly Duma faction an ultimatum, demanding complete subordination to all party decisions. This group became known as "ultimatists" and was generally allied with the recallists.

With a majority of Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909 he published a scathing book of criticism entitled Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909),[8] assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism. [9] In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris organized by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine Proletary and expelled from the Bolshevik faction. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Proletary (The Proletarian was an illegal Russian Bolshevik newspaper edited by Lenin; it was published from September 3, 1906 [10]

Final attempt at party unity (1910)

With both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks weakened by splits within their ranks and by Tsarist repression, they were tempted to try to re-unite the party. Tsar csar and tzar redirect here For other uses see Tsar (disambiguation. In January 1910, Leninists, recallists and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Paris. Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea, but were willing to give it a try under pressure from "conciliator" Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin. Viktor Pavlov Nogin (Виктор Павлович Ногин (1878–1924 was a prominent Bolshevik in Moscow, holding many high positions in the party and in government Lenin was adamantly opposed to any re-unification, but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership. The meeting reached a tentative agreement and one of its provisions made Trotsky's Vienna-based Pravda a party-financed 'central organ'. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Pravda (Правда "The Truth" was a leading Newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law, was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations.

Forming a separate party (1912)

The factions permanently broke off relations in January 1912 after the Bolsheviks organized a Bolsheviks-only Prague Party Conference and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party. The Prague Party Conference was a conference of Vladimir Lenin 's Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. As a result, they ceased to be a faction in the RSDLP and instead declared themselves an independent party, which they called RSDLP (Bolshevik).

Although the Bolshevik leadership decided to form a separate party, convincing pro-Bolshevik workers within Russia to follow suit proved difficult. When the first meeting of the Fourth Duma was convened in late 1912, only one out of six Bolshevik deputies, Matvei Muranov, (another one, Roman Malinovsky, was later exposed as a secret police agent) voted to break away from the Menshevik faction within the Duma on 15 December 1912. Matvei Konstantinovich Muranov ( 29 November 1873 — 9 December 1959) was a Ukrainian -born Bolshevik revolutionary and The Soviet Union had a succession of Secret police agencies over the course of its existence The Mensheviks (Minority (Меньшевик) were a faction of the Russian Revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between Vladimir Events 533 - Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, at the Battle of Year 1912 ( MCMXII) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year starting [11] The Bolshevik leadership eventually prevailed and the Bolsheviks formed their own Duma faction in September 1913.

Bolsheviks with Lenin in the middle.
Bolsheviks with Lenin in the middle.

Political philosophy

The Bolsheviks believed in organizing the party in a strongly centralized hierarchy that sought to overthrow the Tsar and achieve power. Tsar csar and tzar redirect here For other uses see Tsar (disambiguation. Although the Bolsheviks were not completely monolithic, they were characterized by a rigid adherence to the leadership of the central committee, based on the notion of democratic centralism. The Central Committee, abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka" was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist The Mensheviks favored open party membership and espoused cooperation with the other socialist and some non-socialist groups in Russia. Bolsheviks generally refused to co-operate with liberal or radical parties (which they labeled "bourgeois") or even eventually other socialist organizations, although Lenin sometimes made tactical alliances. Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of Government that consider individual Liberty to be the most important political goal Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution

Left to right: Trotsky, Lenin, and Kamenev
Left to right: Trotsky, Lenin, and Kamenev

From Bolshevism to Communism

Under Lenin and Stalin the words Bolshevik and Communist were synonymous, and the official name of the ruling party was: the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Leon Trotsky ( Russian:, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij ( Russian: Лев Борисович Каменев born Rosenfeld, Розенфельд ( – August 25, 1936) was a Bolshevik However, in 1952 at XIX Party Congress Stalin declared: "There are no more Mensheviks. Why should we call ourselves Bolsheviks? We are not the majority, but the whole party. " According to his suggestion, the Communist party was renamed as the Communist Party of Soviet Union. Since that time, the term Bolshevik has been regarded as obsolete, and relevant only to the pre-Revolutionary times and the Russian Civil War.

Derogatory usage of "Bolshevik"

During the days of the Cold War in the United Kingdom, labour union leaders and other leftists were sometimes derisively described as "Bolshie". Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The usage is roughly equivalent to the term "Red" or "pinko" in the United States during the same period. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Pinko is a derogatory term for a person regarded as sympathetic to Communism, though not necessarily a Communist Party member The United States of America —commonly referred to as the However these days it is often used to describe a difficult or rebellious person e. g. :"Timothy, don't be so bolshie!" An alternative spelling is "bolshy". (Collins Mini Dictionary, 1998)

See also Jewish Bolshevism

Non-Russian/Soviet groups having used the name "Bolshevik"

See also

References

  1. ^ Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary of Russian Language, article "Большевистский"
  2. ^ Dictionaries define the word "Bolshevist" both as a synonym to "Bolshevik" and as an adherent of Bolshevik policies. Old Bolshevik (ста́рый большеви́к is an unofficial designation for a member of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917, most of National Bolshevism is a political movement that claims to combine elements of Nationalism and Bolshevism. Nineteen Eighty-Four (also titled 1984) by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) is a 1949 English Novel Dmitry Nikolayevich Ushakov (Дмитрий Николаевич Ушаков January 24, 1873 &mdash April 17, 1942) was a Russian
  3. ^ Derived from menshe ("less"). The split occurred at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Congress of the CPSU (Russian съезд КПСС) was the gathering of the delegates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its predecessors
  4. ^ After the split, the Bolshevik party was designated as RSDLP(b) (Russian: РСДРП(б)), where "b" stands for "Bolsheviks". Shortly after seizing power in November 1917 the party changed its name to the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (РКП(б)) and was generally known as the Communist Party after that point, however, it was not until 1952 that the party formally dropped the word "Bolshevik" from its name. (See Congress of the CPSU article for the timeline of name changes. The Congress of the CPSU (Russian съезд КПСС) was the gathering of the delegates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its predecessors )
  5. ^ Leon Trotsky frequently used the terms "Bolshevism" and "Bolshevist" after his exile from the Soviet Union to differentiate between what he saw as true Leninism and the regime within the state and the party which arose under Stalin. Leon Trotsky ( Russian:, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party However, "Bolshevism" today is commonly associated with the Stalinist regime which existed in the Soviet Union. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991
  6. ^ See Israel Getzler. Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat, Cambridge University Press, 2003 (first edition 1967), ISBN 0-521-52602-7 p. 78
  7. ^ See Étienne Antonelli, Bolshevik Russia, A. A. Knopf, 1920, tr. by Charles A. Carroll, 307pp. : "the term "Maximalist" rather widely used as a translation for "Bolshevik" is historically false. " (p. 59)
  8. ^ First published in Moscow in May 1909 by Zveno Publishers, available online
  9. ^ See Alan Woods. Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution, Wellred Publications, 1999, ISBN 1-900007-05-3 Part Three: The Period of Reaction available online
  10. ^ English language excerpts from the resolution are quoted in A Documentary History of Communism in Russia, ed. Robert V. Daniels, UPNE, 1993, ISBN 0-87451-616-1 p. 33
  11. ^ Robert B. McKean, St. Petersburg Between the Revolutions: workers and revolutionaries, June 1907-February 1917, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1990, pp. Yale University Press is a book Publisher founded in 1908. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remained 140-1.

External links

Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian

Dictionary

Bolshevik

-noun

  1. A Russian communist revolutionary, member of the Bolshevik Party in the 1917 Communist Revolution of Russia.
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