Concept
Bolsheviks
Overview
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism.
The origin of the RSDLP split was Lenin's support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries, as opposed to the Menshevik desire for a broad party membership. The influence of the factions fluctuated in the years up to 1912, when the RSDLP formally split in two. The political philosophy of the Bolsheviks was based on the Leninist principles of vanguardism and democratic centralism. Lenin was also more willing to use illegal means such as robbery to fund the party's activities. By 1917, influenced by the experiences of World War I, he reached the conclusion that the chain of world capitalism could "break at its weakest link" in Russia before it assumed the level of the advanced countries, opposing theorists such as Georgi Plekhanov. Lenin had also come to view poorer peasants as potential allies of the relatively small Russian proletariat.
After the February Revolution of 1917, Lenin returned to Russia and issued his April Theses, which called for "no support for the Provisional Government" and "all power to the soviets." During the summer of 1917, which saw events including the July Days and Kornilov affair, large numbers of radicalized workers joined the Bolsheviks, which planned the October Revolution that overthrew the government. The Bolsheviks initially governed in coalition with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, but increasingly centralized power and suppressed opposition during the Russian Civil War. After 1921, it became the sole legal party in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union. Under Joseph Stalin's leadership, Bolshevism became linked to his policies of "socialism in one country," rapid industrialization, collectivized agriculture, and centralized state control.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Its method is not, for the present, to preach Communism, since the Persians and Hindoos are considered scarcely ripe for the doctrines of Marx. It is nationalist movements that are supported by money and agitators from Moscow. The method of quasi-independent states under Bolshevik protection is well understood. It is obvious that this policy affords opportunities for imperialism, under the cover of propaganda, and…
Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
States what Bolsheviks is; names Bolsheviks twice.
We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones and all the things made by the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were…
Ayn Rand, Anthem
States what Bolsheviks is; the author is tied to Bolsheviks in the knowledge graph.
For the actual revolution the Bolsheviks have thereby accomplished a great work--_grosses geleistet_." (Page 233.) This announcement stuns us as a completely unexpected recognition of historical truth from a quarter whence we had long since ceased to await it. The Bolsheviks have accomplished a great historical task by existing for two years against the united capitalist world. But the Bolsheviks held out not only…
Leon Trotsky, Dictatorship vs. Democracy
Names Bolsheviks several times.
Philosophers who discussed Bolsheviks
- Lev Shestov
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Thomas More
- Ayn Rand
- Alexander Bogdanov
- Georgi Plekhanov
- Peter Kropotkin
- Nikos Kazantzakis
- Antonio Gramsci
- Georges Sorel
- Emma Goldman
- Camillo Berneri
- Nikolay Lossky
- Aleksei Losev
- Marian Massonius
Related ideas
- Yale University Press
- Vladimir Lenin
- Idealism
- Joseph Stalin
- Bolshevism
- London
- Leon Trotsky
- Marxism
- Russian Empire
- October Revolution
- Maximilien Robespierre
- Russian language
- Russian Revolution
- Soviet Union
- Socialism
- Adolf Hitler
- Anatoly Lunacharsky
- Utopia
- Cold War
- Alexander Bogdanov
- Georgi Plekhanov
- Socialist Revolutionary Party
- Mensheviks
- Class struggle
Opposing perspectives
- Bolshevism
- Nazi Party
- Republic
- Socialist Revolutionary Party
- Vanguardism
- Democratic centralism
- World War I
- Bourgeois nationalism
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.