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).
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!’”
House of Commons.”
Portrait of Clare Sheridan (then Ms Frewen) (1907), oil on canvas by Emil Fuchs (1866-1929) (left) and a sepia print of the younger Leon Trotsky (circa 1908) (right). She would live to 84 but he would be murdered on the orders of comrade Stalin.
Churchill didn’t approve of communism, his attitude hardened by the new regime in Moscow having murdered the last Tsar and his family. Very much a monarchist (his wife once described him as “the last man in Europe who believes in the divine right of kings”), Churchill thus took a dim view of the Bolsheviks and while serving as Secretary of State for War and Air (1919–1921) was involved in the allied intervention supporting anti-Communist White forces in the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), his mood not improved when he learned his favorite cousin, the sculptor Clare Sheridan (1885–1970), had enjoyed a brief affair with comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder of the Fourth International). Whether he ever called Trotsky “the hairiest Bolshevik baboon of all” remains uncertain but it’s at least plausible and he would later tell his cousin “we shall never speak of this unpleasantness again”. Her memories of the tryst remained fonder, recalling the time her lover had whispered: “a woman like you should be the whole world to a man.” At least one “Bolshevik baboon” could be poetic.
By 1941, however bad he thought were the communists in Moscow, the Nazis in Berlin were worse so an alliance with the Soviet Union, unholy though it would have felt, Churchill welcomed with barely a qualm. In 1941, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union (a unilateral repudiation of an earlier unholy alliance (the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939) which was one of history’s more cynical arrangements between adversaries, both parties knowing it was being pursued for mutual advantage as a prelude to an eventual conflict between them), the UK suddenly had gained a wartime ally albeit one with which relations had been hardly friendly and often strained since the revolutions of 1917. In a radio broadcast that evening Churchill announced: “No one has been a more consistent opponent of communism for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no word I have spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding. The past, with its crimes, its follies, its tragedies, flashes away.… The Russian danger is therefore our danger, and the danger of the United States, just as the cause of any Russian fighting for hearth and house is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe.” When one of his colleagues noted the queerness of him being the one to announce such an alliance, he remarked: “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
He was also more perceptive in his assessment of Russian resistance to the invasion than most military & political figures in London, Washington DC or Berlin, the consensus in those circles being the Red Army would be defeated within a few months. Given the bloody purges comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) had committed against his military leadership and the poor performance of the Russian army against the Finns in 1940, the grim expectations weren’t unreasonable but Churchill offered good odds to anyone willing to take his bet: “I will bet you a Monkey to a Mousetrap that the Russians are still fighting, and fighting victoriously, two years from now.” That was slang from the turf, a “Monkey” being a £500 wager and a “Mousetrap” a gold sovereign with a nominal value of £1 (ie odds of 500-1). Unholy the alliance may have been and there were tensions throughout between Moscow, Washington & London but the need to defeat Nazism meant it survived long enough to fulfil its purpose before the Cold War became the world’s new primary political dynamic.
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).
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 a somewhat 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? advocated a rigid centralism in party
structure, the vetting of members and a tightly enforced discipline. Later, comrade Stalin would find this sound advice.
Lenin actually borrowed the title from Nikolay Chernyshevsky's (1828-1899) 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 tone 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 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.
Agitprop redux.
The techniques of agitprop are often seen in the twenty-first century, either as political critique or humor. Although the motifs of the school of Soviet Realism continue to appear in Western art, in its pure form it's probably agitprop which is the enduring Bolschevik style. 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 Bolsheviks, 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 ordered it all burned.
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