Bolshevik & Menshevik

Bolshevik (pronounced bohl-shuh-vik, bol-shuh-vik or buhl-shi-vyeek (Russian))

(1) A member of the more radical majority of the Social Democratic Party, 1903–1917, advocating, inter alia, the immediate and forceful seizure of power by the proletariat (in Russia and in some factions, beyond); after 1918, a member of the Russian Communist Party.

(2) In the West, historically (mostly early-mid twentieth century), a disparaging or contemptuous term used to refer to an extreme radical or revolutionary (often lowercase).  Applied loosely, it was used (even neutrally) to refer to any member of a Communist party.

(3) In the West a term, sometimes humorous, used as an adjective (often as bolshie) applied to anyone deliberately combative or uncooperative and strident or assertive in their actions or expression of view; used especially where there was a perception of behavior of attitude in conflict with socially constructed expectations (women, nuns etc).

Circa 1915: From the Russian большеви́к (bolʹševík), from большинство́ (bolʹšinstvó) (majority) (those in the majority (Majoritarians)), the construct being bólʾsh(iĭ) (larger, greater (comparative of bolʾshóĭ (large) and thus the sourced of bolʾshinstvó (majority)) + -evik (one that is (a variant of –ovik, the noun suffix)).  The adjective bol'shiy (greater), comparative of the adjective bol'shoy (big, great) is probably most familiar from the famous Bolshoi Ballet and was from the Old Church Slavonic boljiji (larger), from the primitive Indo-European root bel- (strong), source also of the Sanskrit balam (strength, force), the Greek beltion (better), the Phrygian balaios (big, fast), the Old Irish odbal (strong), the Welsh balch (proud) and the Middle Dutch, Low German & Frisian pal (strong, firm).  The popular contraction in the West (and one now remote from its party-political origins) should always be spelled bolshie.  Bolshevik & Bolshevist are nouns & adjectives, Bolshevism is a noun and Bolshevistic an adjective.  The noun plural is Bolsheviks (Bolsheviki in the Russian which is pronounced buhl-shi-vyi-kyee).

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) and bolshie woman Germaine Greer (b 1939) at the Town Bloody Hall debate between the author and a panel of feminists, 30 April 1971, The Town Hall, New York City.  Both were well chosen, Greer was the author of The Female Eunuch (1970) which remains one of feminism's seminal texts and Mailer regarded (fairly or not) as a misogynist and one who received a suspended sentence for (twice) stabbing the second (the artist Adele Morales (1925–2015)) of his six wives.

In the twentieth century, “bolshevik” was often used as a term of disparagement, often from establishment figures disturbed by challenges to the status quo, subversive types like TS Elliot (1888-1965) and James Joyce (1882-1941) both called literary bolsheviks and some painters wore “artistic bolshevik” as a badge of honor; later, there would be feminists who proudly described themselves as “bolshie women”.  Winston Churchill (1875-1968; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) abhorred communism and not infrequently referred to the new order in Moscow as the “Bolshevik baboons” and was supportive of a multi-national military intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918-1920) but was also, strategically, a realist.  His biographer recounted how he note there were:

“…nearly half a million anti-Bolshevik Russians under arms, and the Russians themselves planned to double this figure.  If we were unable to support the Russians effectively, it would be far better to take a decision now to quit and face the consequences, and tell these people to make the best terms they could with the Bolsheviks.”

So it transpired and the small foreign forces were withdrawn but he always made clear that as Minister for War, he did this out of military necessity and not any lack of conviction that the communists should have been overthrown, telling a press conference in Washington DC in 1954 that had he “…been properly supported in 1919, I think we might have strangled Bolshevism in its cradle, but everybody turned up their hands and said, ‘How shocking!’”

Menshevik (pronounced men·she·vik, men-shuh-vik or myin-shi-vyeek (Russian))

A member of the faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party opposed to the Bolsheviks; inter alia, they advocated a gradualist approach to the attainment of socialism through parliamentary government and cooperation with bourgeois parties.  By 1918, the remaining members had been absorbed into the Communist Party of Russia, formed that year.

1907: From the Russian меньшеви́к (menʹševík) from меньшинство́ (menʹšinstvó) (minority) from ме́ньше (ménʹše), the comparative of ма́лый (mályj) (little), the sense being “those in a minority” (the Minoritarians), the construct being ménʾsh(iĭ) (lesser, smaller (comparative of málenʾkiĭ (small) and thus the source of menʾshinstvó minority)) + -evik (one that is (a variant of –ovik, the noun suffix)).  The source the Russian men'she (lesser), was a comparative of malo (little), from the primitive Indo-European root mei- (small).  Menshevik & Menshevist are nouns & adjectives, Menshevism is a noun and Menhevistic an adjective.  The noun plural is Mensheviks (Mensheviki in the Russian which is pronounced myin-shi-vyi-kyee).

The noun minimalist dates from 1907 in the sense of “one who advocates moderate reforms or policies" and was originally an adapted borrowing of Menshevik; as understood as "a practitioner of minimal art" it dates from 1967, the term “minimal art” being noted first in 1965.  It was an adjective from 1917 in the Russian political sense and since 1969 in reference to art.  It was comrade Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov 1870–1924 and known by his alias Lenin; revolutionary, political theorist and founding head of government (Soviet Russia 1917-1924 and the Soviet Union 1922-1924) who vested Bolshevik (as Bolsheviki meaning Majoritarians or those in the majority) and Menshevik (as Mensheviki meaning Minoritarians or those in the minority).

Comrade Lenin Agitprop.

Lenin was a classic example of a political phenomenon which would so frequently feature in twentieth century revolutionary politics: the middle-class radical.  His intellectual predisposition had already tended that way but it was after the regime in 1886 hanged his elder brother in punishment for his involvement in an attempt to assassinate the reactionary Tsar Alexander III (1845–1894; Emperor of Russia 1881-1894) that his interest shifted from the mostly theoretical.  Apparently somewhat an inept activist in his younger years, he was soon apprehended by the Tsar’s secret police and transported to Siberia where he wrote a treatise on Russian economic development in which he claimed that capitalism was already the country’s dominant mode of production, quite a startling assertion given the state of things.  He found himself on a sounder intellectual footing as a political tactician, his 1902 pamphlet What Is to Be Done? which advocated a rigid centralism in party structure, the vetting of members and a tightly enforced discipline.

Lenin actually borrowed the title from Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), a book not without critics but one which exerted a still often underestimated influence on those who would in the years to come build the political movements which culminated in the events of 1917.  It also drew the attention of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) who in 1886 wrote his own What Is to Be Done? although it’s a work more of moral theology and was published sometimes as (the probably more accurate) What Then Must We Do? and (in English) as What to Do?

Lenin knew what to do.  A brief work of stark clarity, his pamphlet was quite a change from the verbose and discursive stuff of the era and attracted much attention although its uncompromising was too much for many, the second party congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party in 1903 ending in acrimony although Lenin did secure one pyrrhic victory, his faction winning a majority in the congress vote, enabling him to label his group the Bolsheviki (Majoritarians), the opposition responding, with some implied irony, that they were therefore the Mensheviki (Minoritarians).  The Bolsheviki accused the Mensheviki of being anti-revolutionaries and the Mensheviki labelled the Bolsheviki (and especially Lenin) dictatorial and intolerant.  Had the word fascist then existed, both sides would have used it.  As things soon transpired, defections meant Lenin didn’t long have the numbers and the Mensheviki became the majority (although both sides kept their names), prompting Lenin to damn them as usurpers and it was in this spirit the congress ended, the two factions setting up their own newspapers and network of spies, little time devoted to the revolution because of the internecine conflict.  The outbreak of revolutionary protest in 1905 was thus a surprise to both Mensheviki and Bolsheviki and neither side was sufficiently organized to take advantage of the situation which the Tsar’s forces soon suppressed with a mixture of carrot and stick.

Whether the revolution was to be in than hands of the Mensheviks or Bolsheviks was decided in the war-time chaos of 1917.  Without the war, the Tsarist regime might have endured but when in February it became clear the army were either unable or unwilling to act against the strikes and demonstrations, it became apparent to all the Tsar must abdicate which he did on 15 March (under the Gregorian calendar or 2 March under the Julian calendar then used.  The “administration” which formed in the wake of the revolution (of which the Mensheviks were a part) was from the start beset with problems, some of its own making and few were responsive to the methods adopted, the factionalized and quasi-democratic structures adopted ill suited to deal with the multiple crises of the time.  Strikes and other industrial disruptions may not have made the subsequent Bolshevik insurrection inevitable but the failure to extricate Russia from the war and the not unrelated shortages of food and medical supplies probably did.  What’s remembered as the October revolution (on 7 November (Gregorian calendar) or 25 October (Julian calendar)) was organized by the Bolshevik party and, having seized power, it wasn’t for decades relinquished.  Were there any doubt about the methods and morality of the Bolsheviks, the tsar and his family, under house arrest since March 1917, were on 16 July 1918 murdered although historians continue to debate whether Lenin personally ordered the shootings, documentary evidence impossible to assess because comrade Lenin order it all burned.