Bolshevik
볼셰비키
A radical faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party formed in 1903 when Lenin's supporters won a majority (большинство) in elections to the party's central bodies at the Second Congress. Unlike the minority Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks stood for a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries, democratic centralism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They became a de facto separate party at the Prague Conference of 1912, seized power in the October Revolution of 1917, and governed Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union as the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and later the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The parenthetical '(Bolsheviks)' was formally dropped at the 19th Party Congress in 1952, when the party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) Comprehensive article on Bolshevik faction origins, split with Mensheviks at 1903 Second Congress, Lenin's vanguard party concept, seizure of power in October 1917, and party name evolution through 1952.
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia article covering the faction formation at the Second Congress, organizational split, 1912 Prague Conference as de facto separate party, and the Bolshevik-Menshevik tactical differences during the 1905 Revolution.
- Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive glossary entry on Bolshevik party, covering the 1903 split, Lenin's argument for professional revolutionaries in What Is to Be Done, and the party's historical development.