Bolsheviks

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A political group that surfaced in early 20th-century Russia, advocating for Marxism as the foundation of socialism while leading a revolutionary movement that resulted in a one-party governance system
2. This revolutionary faction, gaining prominence in the early 1900s, sought to implement Marxist principles to transform society and played a crucial role in establishing a communist regime after the Russian Revolution
3. Individuals belonging to a radical political group in Russia that aimed to promote Marxist ideas and overthrow the existing government

Etymology: "Bolsheviks" is the plural of "bolshevik," and the singular comes from Russian "большевик" (bolshevik), literally "a member of the majority," from "большинство" (bolshinstvo), "majority." The name dates to 1903, when the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party split at its second congress. Vladimir Lenin's faction won a vote on party membership rules, and that narrow majority gave the group its name, while their opponents, the Mensheviks, took the label "minority." The irony is that the Bolsheviks were never a clear majority in the party as a whole. The name stuck anyway, and it outlived the split. After the 1917 revolution the faction took power and renamed itself the Communist Party, but "Bolshevik" remained the everyday term for its members and for the movement that built the Soviet state.