10 Facts About Bolsheviks

1.

Bolsheviks, known in English as the Bolshevists, were a far-left, revolutionary Marxist faction founded by Vladimir Lenin that split with the Mensheviks from the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898, at its Second Party Congress in 1903.

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2.

Bolsheviks ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

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3.

Bolsheviks remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat" until August 1917, when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as their positions resembled his and he came to believe that Lenin was correct on the issue of the party.

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4.

Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 Revolution and were a minority in the Saint Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky.

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5.

However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Centre, the de facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP.

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6.

At the 5th Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other.

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7.

Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law who was with the Bolsheviks, was added to the editorial board; but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations.

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8.

Factions permanently broke relations in January 1912 after the Bolsheviks organised a Bolsheviks-only Prague Party Conference and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party.

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9.

Bolsheviks were in constant need of money because Lenin practised his beliefs, expressed in his writings, that revolutions must be led by individuals who devote their entire lives to the cause.

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10.

Bolo was a derogatory expression for Bolsheviks used by British service personnel in the North Russian Expeditionary Force which intervened against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.

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