What does Bolshevism mean?
Bolshevism is the strategy developed by the Bolsheviks between 1903 and 1917 with a view to seizing state power and establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat. IOW, Soviet communism. Political theory and practice of the Bolshevik Party which, under Lenin, came to power during the Russian Revolution of October 1917. The Bolshevik (meaning ‘majority’) radical communist faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour party emerged during the 1903 Party Congress following the split with the more moderate Mensheviks (meaning ‘minority’). After a period of intermittent collaboration and schism with the latter, the Bolshevik Party was formally constituted in 1912. The 1905 Revolution took the Bolsheviks by surprise and there was little formal activity. The ensuing repression forced the party into clandestinity, and contact with the exiles, led by Lenin, was difficult. After the outbreak of the First World War, whilst Lenin proclaimed ‘revolutionary defeatism’, the Bolshevik organizati
