Bolshevism

Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".[1][2]

Bolshevism originated at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia and was associated with the activities of the Bolshevik faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party led by Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevism's main theorist. Other theoreticians included Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin and Yevgeni Preobrazhensky.[2] While Bolshevism was based on Marxist philosophy, it also absorbed elements of the ideology and practice of the socialist revolutionaries of the second half of the 19th century (Sergey Nechaev, Pyotr Tkachev, Nikolay Chernyshevsky) and was influenced by Russian agrarian socialist movements like the Narodniks.[3][4]

In October 1917, the Bolshevik Party won a majority in the revolutionary workers' councils (soviets) which had been formed throughout Russia following the February Revolution. It subsequently organized the October Revolution, which overthrew the Provisional Government and replaced it with a state power under the control of the soviets, led by the Bolsheviks along with other left-wing socialists.

Some researchers[5] attribute to Bolshevik theory the program of Joseph Stalin, who headed the All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and at the same time possessed full state power in the Soviet Union. However, others (both Stalin's contemporaries and later) do not confuse "Bolshevism" and "Stalinism" proper, considering them to be multidirectional (revolutionary and thermidorian) phenomena.[6]

The expression "Bolshevism", and later "Communism", has become established in Western historiography in the sense of a certain set of features of Soviet power in a certain political period. At present, the name "Bolsheviks" is actively used by various groups of Marxist–Leninists and Trotskyists.

  1. ^ Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1912. Documents and Materials – Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2008 – 1120 Pages – (Series "Political Parties of Russia. Late 19th – First Third of the 20th Century. Documentary Heritage") – ISBN 5-8243-0390-8, ISBN 978-5-8243-0954-6
  2. ^ a b Alexander Tarasov. The Sacred Function of the Revolutionary Subject
  3. ^ Osipov 2004–2017.
  4. ^ Zevelev, Sviridenko & Shelokhaev 2000.
  5. ^ Vladik Nersesyants. History of Political and Legal Doctrines
  6. ^ See various works by Trotsky, Martemyan Ryutin (Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship), Fyodor Raskolnikov (An Open Letter to Stalin), Boris Kagarlitsky, Alexander Tarasov