Bolshevism

“BOLSHEVIK” AND “BOLSHEVISM” derive from the Russian word that means “majority.” In historical terms, Bolshevik was first employed to describe people associated with a splinter group formed in 1903 within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (a Marxist organization formed in Minsk, Russia, in 1898), a group formed at the party's congress in London, England, when many of the organization's leaders decided to support the ideas of a young intellectual, Vladimir Lenin. Those in the party who did not support Lenin were known as the Mensheviks, or “minority,” and were led by Julius Martov. Arguably, the most famous of the Bolsheviks was its first leader, Lenin, a revolutionary heavily influenced by the work of Karl Marx. The term “Bolshevik” also has a derivative meaning and is often employed to mean communist. It is often used in this particular context by those of the right as a derogatory adjective for those belonging to the left of the political center.

Historically at least, the Bolsheviks are most famous for their overthrow of Tzar Nicholas II and the Kerensky government in 1917, the brutal assassination [Page 51]of the Russian royal family in 1918, and the subsequent establishment of the communist political system in Russia and its sister states—a system based on the economic and social theories of Marx. With Lenin appointed as the first leader of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks changed the name of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party to the All Russian Communist Party in 1918, and by 1936 this name had become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As such, the Bolsheviks were able to embark on a course of power that existed from 1917 up to the fall of communism in Russia in the August coup of 1991 when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was banned by Boris Yeltsin.

While internationally the Bolsheviks are often seen as purely Russian in nature, their actual composition was not so straightforward. Many of the original Bolsheviks were, for example, not only Russians but also many were of Jewish descent, particularly those of high status in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party before 1917, and they were drawn toward Bolshevik ideas due to the oppression of non-Russian states within the Russian Empire. The participation of many Jews in the Russian Revolution and subsequent development of the Communist Party in Russia has led enemies of the Bolsheviks to theorize that communism is a political system that benefits Jewish interests. Arguably the most famous proponent of this notion was Adolf Hitler, who proclaimed in Nazi Germany a Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy, which proclamation ultimately led to millions of Jews being killed in concentration camps in Europe during World War II. In reality though, many Jews were removed from Russian power and society by Josef Stalin, the communist leader after Lenin, during his Great Purges of the 1930s.

The ruthless policies and international aspirations of the Bolsheviks won them many opponents around the world. Their brutal disposition of the Russian royal family in 1918 drew much contemporary criticism, for instance. In addition, the Bolsheviks, after the Russian Revolution, often employed equally violent means to deal with enemies. For example, the Bolsheviks invigorated the Soviet state security force (Cheka) once power had been obtained, and the problem of dealing with un-wanted political opponents was solved through the opening of labor camps in the remote north of the country and in Siberia. After the death of Lenin in 1924, and during the leadership of Stalin, these labor camps were developed into the infamous gulag prison structure within which up to 10 million people were held in the 1930s and early 1940s. Many prisoners in the system did not live to see freedom again, and many, including intellectuals, disappeared within the highly controlled penal system. Additionally, state or class enemies such as the kulaks, a peasant social class, were forcefully moved and resettled in remote rural areas. Such a system provided a means to remove people from society without having to deal with the problem of execution.

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