Bolshevism

Bolshevism is the term used to describe the beliefs and practices of the Bolsheviks, a political movement in Russia in the early 20th century. This movement, founded by Vladimir Lenin, led the Bolsheviks to seize power in October of 1917 as part of the Russian Revolution. This event was a culmination of the strategy that had been in development since 1903, to take control of the government. Originally, the terms "Bolshevism" and "Bolshevik" referred to members of one faction of the Socialist Democratic Labor Party, who favored a hard line and the acceptance only of full-fledged revolutionaries into the party. Bolshevism has since come to be synonymous with Soviet-style communism. The Russian word "bolshe," meaning "larger," or "more," is the origin of "Bolshevism." n reality, the Bolsheviks did not constitute a clear majority compared to their opposition, the Mensheviks, but did narrowly defeat them in deciding the question that had divided them in the first place, regarding party membership. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks shared a general political philosophy, but they tended to operate more or less independently of each other. The philosophy they shared was Marxism, more widely known as communism. It predicted a revolution in which the working class would rise up and overthrow the capitalist class. The result of such an overthrow would be wide popular control of the factors of production, rather than these remaining in the hands of the capitalists. Workers, instead, would run government and industry, in what was called the "dictatorship of the proletariat."

While the party which the Bolsheviks had been part of did focus on the Russian working class in its efforts, Lenin and Bolshevism ultimately won control, because they recognized the political value of appealing to the peasantry as well. Most Bolsheviks were either intellectuals with considerable education, or factory workers. This dichotomy would lead to considerable division later on. For most of their history before 1917, the Bolsheviks were not successful in achieving widespread public support. This was in part because they had their own internal divisions to deal with, even after a formal split from the Mensheviks. For instance, factory workers understandably favored the aspects of Bolshevism that would help their families, but not those which would put the intellectuals in power. Also, while Lenin believed in strict adherence to the principles of Marxism, there were other party intellectuals who considered Marxism as not so much a set of truths, but a collection of untruths or myths that were nevertheless useful if workers believed them. Bolshevism eventually evolved into a one-party dictatorship.