Bolsheviki

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that led the October Revolution in 1917
2. An advocate of Marxism who promotes the ideas and policies implemented by the Bolshevik Party
3. A supporter of the political principles associated with the leadership of Lenin and his followers during the early Soviet period

Etymology: "Bolsheviki" is the plural form of "bolshevik," and the singular is the one that carries the history. It comes from Russian "большевик" (bolshevik), a word built on "большинство" (bolshinstvo), meaning "majority," because the faction led by Lenin won a majority vote at the 1903 congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Their rivals, the Mensheviks, took their name from "меньшинство" (menshinstvo), "minority," a pairing that is still visible in the two words' shared stems. The plural "bolsheviki" keeps the Russian-style ending, the "-i" of "bolsheviki," which English writers used to mark the group as Russian rather than as ordinary English party members. Over the following years the word spread from Russian politics into English newspapers, where it was often used as a loose term of alarm for any radical.