Bolshevism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Bolsheviks were the party that V. I. Lenin created in exile in 1903 and then used to conduct the successful Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917. Bolshevism is a western intellectual construct that helped to focus a debate on whether the Stalinist system was the logical consequence of Lenin’s principles, or whether Bolshevism was a more subtle and complex phenomenon with which Stalinism had only a tangential relationship.

Lenin firmly rejected the growing movement that promoted a peaceful evolution of socialism. In 1902 he split with his closest revolutionary allies over control of their newspaper, Iskra, and over who could join their party: Lenin insisted that the party membership be limited to those who accepted strict party discipline and the duty to work actively for the revolution. The opposition had a more western view of a decentralized party that accepted anyone who would support the party program and pay dues. When it was put to a vote, Lenin had a (narrow) majority, so he called his supporters the Bolsheviks (from bolshinstvo, “majority”) and his opponents the Mensheviks (from menshinstvo, “minority”).

The tsar responded to the Revolution of 1905 by creating a limited parliament, the Duma, and expanding political rights. Lenin was willing to use these institutions only tactically, to promote revolution, but the Mensheviks gradually became a western, social-democratic party that saw capitalism as the next long-term stage in Russian history. Other issues became politically crucial. Lenin’s centralized party implied a strong Russian empire, whereas the Mensheviks’ position implied a looser one. Lenin’s rigid orthodoxy implied that modern western culture was the tool of bourgeois rule, and his rejection of cooperation with liberals appealed to those who rejected westernization.

When Russia’s failure in World War I led to the overthrow of the tsar in March 1917, plunging Russia into chaos, Lenin rallied a large coalition—his traditional worker-peasant support, intellectual radicals, and antiwar forces, including some in the military. In these conditions, the party was opened to all applicants, and this continued during the civil war. There is still debate about whether the broader membership of the party, together with Lenin’s toleration of private agriculture and trade in the New Economic Policy, would have produced a more tolerant one-party system in the Soviet Union had Lenin or an appropriate successor been chosen. Some historians contend that Lenin’s massive purge of party members from 1921 to 1923 and his decision to rule through the party apparatus under Stalin’s control suggest that the openness in 1917 and during the civil war was an aberration. The answer is unknowable.

During the late Soviet period, reformers painted a softer picture of Lenin in order to claim they were true Leninists: The modern generation is less concerned about “what if” questions about Lenin and more likely to focus on Bolshevism’s appeals. The successes of both Lenin and Stalin rested on the peasants and first-generation workers who flowed into the cities in massive numbers. Around the world, Communism was most successful at that stage of history, and it collapsed in Russia when the nation reached a new stage of development. In other countries, however, frightened peasants moving to the cities continued to be attracted to leaders who appealed to their grievances with a rigid doctrine, a centralized control of disorder, and antiwesternism. Other doctrines that appealed to the same social forces took hold, and religious fundamentalism was the first of them.

SEE ALSO Lenin, Vladimir Ilitch; Leninism; Peasantry; Revolution; Russian Revolution; Stalin, Joseph; Stalinism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cohen, Stephen F. 1973. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. New York: A.A. Knopf.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 2001. The Russian Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press.

Haimson, Leopold H. 2005. Russian Revolutionary Experience, 1905–1917. New York: Columbia University Press.

Jerry Hough

Bolsheviks (‘the majority’) The radical group of the Russian Social Democratic Party. It derived its name from the 1903 party congress, when it won the vote about the composition of the editorial board of the party newspaper, Iskra, against the future Mensheviks (‘the minority’). The term disguises the fact that Lenin's faction actually lost the most important vote at the congress, the issue of party membership, with the definition proposed by the future Mensheviks being accepted by a majority. Henceforth, the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks oscillated between cooperation and opposition, until in 1912 the Bolsheviks formally constituted themselves as a separate party under Lenin's leadership. By this time, they advocated violent revolution, in contrast to the Mensheviks' more gradualist approach to change. The Bolsheviks accepted Lenin's fundamental belief in the need for an elite leadership which would guide the proletariat to revolution and, ultimately, to Communism. With their leaders (Lenin, Zinoviev, and Stalin) in exile, they were surprised by the Russian (February) Revolution of 1917. Even after that, it took all of Lenin's political skills and his personal authority to forge a common response to the provisional government, and to organize the October Revolution. Once in power, the party leadership quickly established a hierarchical and authoritarian system of government, while seeking to establish the new Communist state through Cheka terror and the Russian Civil War. Once the Bolsheviks had established their control over all of Russia, they adopted the official title of Communist Party of Russia (and then Soviet Union), though the synonymous name of Bolsheviks continued to be in use until 1952.

Bolshevik (Russian, ‘a member of the majority’) The wing of the Social Democratic Party in Russia which, from 1903, and under the leadership of LENIN, favoured revolutionary tactics. Their opponents, the Mensheviks (‘members of the minority’), led by Martov and Georgi Plekhanov, favoured a loosely organized mass labour party, in which workers had more influence, and which was prepared to collaborate with the liberal bourgeoisie against the Tsarist autocracy. After the abortive RUSSIAN REVOLUTION of 1905 Bolshevik leaders fled abroad, having made little appeal to the peasantry, and it was the Mensheviks led by KERENSKY who joined the Provisional Government, following the February RUSSIAN REVOLUTION in 1917. The infiltration by Bolsheviks into soviets and factory committees contributed to the success of the October Revolution. During the RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR the Bolsheviks succeeded in seizing control of the country from other revolutionary groups. In 1918 they changed their name to the Russian Communist Party. The Mensheviks were formally suppressed in 1922.

Bol·she·vik / ˈbōlshəˌvik/ • n. hist. a member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which was renamed the Communist Party after seizing power in the October Revolution of 1917. ∎ chiefly derog. (in general use) a person with politically subversive or radical views; a revolutionary. • adj. of, relating to, or characteristic of Bolsheviks or their views or policies. DERIVATIVES: Bol·she·vism / -ˌvizəm/ n. Bol·she·vist / -vist/ n.

Bolshevik a member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which was renamed the Communist Party after seizing power in the October Revolution of 1917. The name is Russian, from bol′she ‘greater’, with reference to the greater faction.

The informal term bolshie meaning deliberately combative or uncooperative derives from this.

Bolshevik XX. — Russ. bo shevik, f. bó shi. compar. of bol shóì big. Orig., group favouring a maximum socialist programme. Cf. MENSHEVIK.

Bolshevik •homeopathic, polymathic, psychopathic, telepathic •ethic •Eolithic, megalithic, Mesolithic, monolithic, mythic, neolithic, Palaeolithic (US Paleolithic) •Gothic, Visigothic •Sothic • anacoluthic •Narvik, Slavic •pelvic • civic • Bolshevik • Ludovic •Keflavik • Menshevik • Reykjavik •Chadwick • candlewick • Gatwick •Sedgwick • Prestwick • bailiwick •Warwick • Brunswick • Lerwick •Herdwick • Ashkenazic • Keswick •forensic •aphasic, phasic •amnesic, analgesic, mesic •metaphysic • music