Editing Bolshevism (section)

==History==
{{Quote|Bolshevism has existed as a current of political thought and as a political party since 1903.|{{cite journal|title=Childhood Disease of "Leftism" in Communism|author=Vladimir Lenin|edition=Vladimir Lenin|journal=Full Composition of Writings|volume=41|page=6}}<ref name="PSS">{{cite journal|title=Childhood Disease of "Leftism" in Communism|author=Vladimir Lenin|edition=Vladimir Lenin|journal=Full Composition of Writings|volume=41|page=6}} [http://vilenin.eu/t41/pXXXV Text]</ref>}}

The concept of Bolshevism arose at the Second Congress of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] (1903) as a result of the split of the party into two factions: supporters of Lenin and the rest.<ref group="K">Despite the ordinal number adopted in Soviet historiography, the London Congress was actually a constituent one, since the [[1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|Minsk Congress]] had no practical significance</ref> One of the main reasons for the split was the question of a party of a new type. In the course of work on the Charter of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, Vladimir Lenin and [[Julius Martov|Yuliy Martov]] proposed two different wordings of the clause on party membership. According to Lenin's wording, a party member is a citizen who recognizes the program and charter, pays membership fees and works in one of the party organizations. Martov suggested limiting the charter to the first two requirements. During the elections to the central organs of the party, the majority was won by supporters of the Leninist formulation, after which Lenin began to call his faction "Bolsheviks", while Martov called his supporters "Mensheviks". Although in the subsequent history of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, Lenin's supporters often found themselves in the minority, they were assigned the politically advantageous name "Bolsheviks".<ref group="K">There is an opinion that the adoption of such an unprofitable name of the faction was a major blunder for Martov and, on the contrary: the consolidation of the momentary electoral success in the name of the faction was a strong political move of Lenin</ref>{{sfn|Service|2002|p=179}}

As Lenin's biographer [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]] points out, the division of the newly created party into two factions "plunged Russian Marxists into a state of shock". All but the extreme left Petersburg Marxists disagreed with Lenin's party policy.{{sfn|Service|2002|p=187}}

At the [[4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|Fourth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]] in 1906, the organizational unity of the party was temporarily restored. At the [[5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|Fifth Congress]], the Central Committee was elected, which, due to disagreements between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, turned out to be unworkable, and the [[Bolshevik Centre|Bolshevik Center]], headed by Vladimir Lenin, which was created during the Congress by Bolshevik delegates at one of its factional meetings, arbitrarily took over the leadership of the Bolshevik organizations of the party.

At the [[Prague Conference|Sixth (Prague) Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]], held on January 18–30, 1912, which constituted itself as the all–party conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and the supreme organ of the party, almost exclusively Lenin's supporters were represented. By this time, the central committee of the party had virtually ceased to exist (its last plenum was held in January 1910), and the party found itself without an official leading center. In this regard, a Bolshevik Central Committee was elected at the Prague Conference.

In 1916, Lenin wrote his work ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism|Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'', which was a major contribution to the development of classical Marxism in the new conditions. In this work the thesis about the unevenness of economic and political development of capitalism in the epoch of imperialism was expressed and theoretically grounded, which leads to the conclusion about the possibility of the victory of socialism initially in a few or in one single country, which is not yet economically developed enough – such as Russia – provided that the head of the revolutionary movement will be a disciplined avant–garde, ready to go all the way to the establishment of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]].

Immediately after the outbreak of the [[World War I|World War]], Lenin and his supporters advanced the slogan of the defeat of tsarism in the war and the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war. It was with this that Lenin's criticism of the so–called "[[Social patriotism|social–chauvinists]]", who supported their governments in the world war, was connected.<ref name="lenin26_1">Vladimir Lenin. Full Composition of Writings – 5th Edition – Moscow: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1967. Volume 26. "On the Defeat of Your Government in the Imperialist War. 1915". Pages 286–291</ref><ref name="lenin26_2">Vladimir Lenin. Full Composition of Writings – 5th Edition – Moscow: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1967. Volume 26. "Socialism and War (Attitude of the Russian Social–Democratic Labor Party to War). 1915". Pages 307–350</ref> Lenin viewed the civil war as "an inevitable continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle".<ref name="lenin30">Vladimir Lenin. Full Composition of Writings – 5th Edition – Moscow: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1967. Volume 30. "The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution". September 1916. Pages 133</ref>

By the beginning of the February Revolution, the leading figures of the Bolshevik faction were mainly in exile or in emigration, and therefore the Bolsheviks did not take an organized part in it. The Bolshevik leaders who returned from exile, who, along with the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, became members of the Petrograd Soviet, at first tended to cooperate with the Provisional Government. From the very beginning, while still abroad, Lenin insisted on the immediate break of the Petrograd Soviet with the Provisional Government in order to actively prepare for the transition from the bourgeois–democratic to the next, "proletarian" stage of the revolution, the seizure of power and the end of the war. Returning to Russia, he came up with a new program of action for the Bolshevik party – the [[April Theses]] – in which he put on the agenda the demand for the transfer of all power to the Soviets in the interests of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry. Faced with resistance even among the representatives of "theoretical", "scientific" Bolshevism, Lenin managed to overcome it, relying on the support of the lower classes – local party organizations, adherents of immediate practical action.<ref name="BB1">{{Cite web |url=http://www.goldentime.ru/nbk_01.htm |title=Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean–Louis Pannet, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartoszek, Jean–Louis Margolen, With the Participation of Remy Coffer, Pierre Rigulo, Pascal Fontaine, Yves Santamaria, Sylvain Buluc, "The Black Book of Communism: Crime, Terror, Repression", Three Centuries of History, Moscow, 1999, Translated Under the Direction of Evgeny Khramov. Part 1. "The State Against Its People". Chapter 1. Paradoxes of October |access-date=August 23, 2020 |archive-date=August 8, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210808120745/http://www.goldentime.ru/nbk_01.htm }}</ref> In the course of the unfolding controversy about the possibility of socialism in Russia, Lenin rejected all the critical arguments of the Mensheviks, socialist revolutionaries and other political opponents about the country's unpreparedness for a socialist revolution due to its economic backwardness, weakness, lack of culture and organization of the working masses, including the proletariat, about the danger the split of the revolutionary democratic forces and the inevitability of a civil war.

In April 1917, the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was finalized. During a heated discussion at the 7th All–Russian (April) Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) ( April 24–29), the April Theses received the support of the majority of delegates from the localities and formed the basis of the policy of the entire party. The Bolshevik faction became known as the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks).

The [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] was renamed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) at the 7th (April) Conference in 1917. In March 1918, the party adopted the name of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]],<ref group="K">The famous theorist of Marxism [[Karl Kautsky]] explained the change in the name of Lenin's party as follows:

{{Quote|[The Bolsheviks] destroyed the democracy that the people had conquered in the March revolution. Accordingly, the Bolsheviks ceased to call themselves social democrats, and adopted the name of communists. <br /> True, they do not want to completely abandon democracy. Lenin, in his speech on April 28, calls the Soviet organization "the highest type of democracy", "a complete break with its bourgeois caricature". For the proletarian and the poor peasant, complete freedom has now been restored. <br /> But democracy is still understood as the equality of political rights for all citizens. The privileged layers have always enjoyed freedom. But this is not called democracy.}} Quote by: [http://revarchiv.narod.ru/kautsky/oeuvre/diktatur.html Karl Kautsky. "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"]</ref> and in December 1925, the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]. At the 19th Congress in October 1952, the All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was renamed the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]].

In 1990, at the last, [[28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], during the legalization of political platforms within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the [[Bolshevik Platform of the CPSU|Bolshevik Platform]] was formed, giving rise to several modern political parties and social movements.

===Bolshevism and private property===
Realizing the Leninist slogan "plunder the loot", the Bolsheviks en masse carried out a complete confiscation (expropriation) from the owners of private property, which they considered acquired through the exploitation of the working people, that is, the robbery of the workers. At the same time, the Bolsheviks never found out whether private property was obtained through their own labor, or through the exploitation of other people, whether the owners adequately paid for hired labor, what part of the confiscated private property the owner created with his own labor.<ref>[http://vilenin.eu/t36/p268 Vladimir Lenin. Full Composition of Writings. Volume 36. Vladimir Lenin, Meeting of the All–Russian Central Executive Committee On April 29, 1918. Page 269]</ref><ref>[http://www.bibliotekar.ru/encSlov/4/77.htm Encyclopedic Dictionary of Winged Words and Expressions. Rob the Loot]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://topetot.ru/4617.html|title=Confiscation of the Means of Production From the Capitalists in the First Months of the Socialist Revolution (November 1917 – June 1918)|access-date=August 23, 2020|archive-date=October 4, 2013|archive-url=https://archive.today/20131004053501/http://topetot.ru/4617.html}}</ref><ref>Yuri Felshtinsky, Georgy Chernyavsky. Leon Trotsky. Book Two. Bolshevik. 1917–1923. Chapter 6. Bolshevik Dictator. 8. Confiscation of Church Property</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://vilenin.eu/t35/p107|title=Theses of the Law on Confiscation of Homes with Rented Apartments. Vladimir Lenin. Full Composition of Writings. Volume 35. Page 108}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://istmat.info/node/28148 |title=Decree on the Audit of Steel Boxes in Banks |access-date=August 23, 2020 |archive-date=October 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005164850/http://istmat.info/node/28148 }}</ref><ref>Igor Bunich. Party Gold</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://vilenin.eu/t35/p155|title=Note to Felix Dzerzhinsky with the Draft Decree on the Fight Against Counter–Revolutionaries and Saboteurs. Vladimir Lenin. Complete Works, Volume 35, Page 156}}</ref>

===Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution===
There is an opinion that the Bolsheviks strove for revolution, regardless of the political situation and historical realities. This is how the famous Social Democrat [[Alexander Parvus]] wrote about the topic in 1918:{{sfn|Parvus|2017|p=108}}
{{quote|The essence of Bolshevism is simple – to ignite the revolution everywhere, not choosing the time, regardless of the political situation and other historical realities. Whoever is against is the enemy, and the conversation with the enemies is short – they are subject to urgent and unconditional destruction.}}

Bolshevik figures such as [[Anatoly Lunacharsky]], [[Moisei Uritsky]] and [[Dmitry Manuilsky]] agreed that Lenin’s influence on the Bolshevik party was decisive but the October insurrection was carried out according to Trotsky’s, not to Lenin’s plan.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1283|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>