Bolshevization

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of transforming a political party, state, or society so that it adopts communist doctrine and Bolshevik methods of rule
2. The act of forcing an organization or nation to take on the ideology and structure of Bolshevism, as in early Soviet politics
3. Making a movement, institution, or country conform to the revolutionary communist principles and practices associated with the Bolsheviks

Etymology: Bolshevization comes from "Bolshevik," the name of the faction that Vladimir Lenin led within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The word is Russian for "member of the majority," from "bolshe" ("more") and "bolshinstvo" ("majority"). The label arose at the party congress of 1903, when Lenin's supporters won a vote on organizational rules; their rivals, the Mensheviks, took the name "minority" from the same episode. The irony is that the Bolsheviks were often the smaller group in later party politics, so the "majority" label was more a matter of a single vote than of numbers. The English noun is built from "Bolshevik" plus the suffix "-ize" (to make into or conform to) and the noun ending "-ation." It describes the process of making a country, party or institution adopt Bolshevik, or communist, principles. The base word entered English around 1917, when news of the Russian Revolution reached the West, and writers quickly coined related terms to describe the revolution's spread.