History
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.Despite the ordinal number adopted in Soviet historiography, the London Congress was actually a constituent one, since the Minsk Congress had no practical significance 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 Yuliy Martov proposed two different wordings of the clause on party membership. Lenin – 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".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 As Lenin's biographer 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. At the Fourth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1906, the organizational unity of the party was temporarily restored. At the 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 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 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 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, 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–chauvinists", who supported their governments in the world war, was connected.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 286–291Vladimir 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 Lenin viewed the civil war as "an inevitable continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle".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 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 – thehe Bolsheviksdestroyed 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.Quote by
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.
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.
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.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 in 1918: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.
Support for the Bolsheviks by the people
According to the British historian Orlando Figes, the opinion that the Bolsheviks were raised to the top of power by massive popular support for their party is not true and is a delusion. According to Figes, the October Uprising in Petrograd was a coup d'état supported by only a small part of the population. Figes explains the success of the Bolsheviks by the fact that the latter were the only political party that uncompromisingly advocated the slogan "all power to the Soviets", which gained great popularity in 1917 after the unsuccessful Revolt of General Kornilov. As Figes points out, in the fall of 1917, there was a stream of resolutions from factories, from villages, from army units, calling for the formation of a Soviet government. At the same time, the authors of the resolutions understood "the power of the Soviets" as the All–Russian Council with the participation of all socialist parties. Meanwhile, the commitment of the Bolsheviks to the principle of Soviet power was not at all so unconditional. In July 1917, when the Bolshevik Party was unable to obtain a majority in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, it "temporarily removed" the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!". After the October coup, during the so–called " triumphal march of Soviet power" in those cases when individual councils did not agree to become the organs of the dictatorship of the Russian Social–Democratic Workers' Party (Bolsheviks), the Bolsheviks did not hesitate to disperse them and replace them by emergency bodies – revolutionary committees, military revolutionary committees, etc. Alexander Parvus wrote in 1918:The present Soviets terrorize not only the reactionaries and capitalists, but also the democratically inclined bourgeoisie and even all socialist workers' organizations that disagree with their opinion. They dispersed theConstituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...and are holding on, having lost their moral authority in the eyes of the masses, exclusively with bayonets.
Supporters and opponents
The Bolsheviks were supported, although not without criticism of their political practice, by left–wing theorists in Europe, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. At the same time, this political trend rejected the...But on the other hand, a number of scientists are of the opinion that Bolshevism has undergone changes over time, and as a phenomenon, it ended only in the early 1990s.Heinrich Ioffetalin Talin may refer to: Places *Talin, Armenia, a city * Tálín, a municipality and village in the Czech Republic *Tallinn, capital of Estonia * Talin, Iran, a village in West Azerbaijan Province *Talin, Syria, a village in Tartus Governorate Other * ...managed to destroy almost all of Lenin's comrades–in–arms inRussia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ..., becoming by 1928–1939 "the Russian Bonaparte– Robespierre" in the country, "especially double types of cultures of the pre–bourgeois order, that is, the cultures of the bureaucratic,serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ..." (andterrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...– we add), which Lenin feared so much, grew up in the country.
Social democratic views
Bolshevism was criticized by the Social Democrats. Thus, the famous Social Democrat Alexander Parvus wrote in 1918:IfMarxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...is a reflection of the social history ofWestern Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ..., refracted through the prism of German philosophy, then Bolshevism is Marxism, emasculated by amateurs and refracted through the prism of Russian ignorance.
Criticism and historical estimates
*According to the philosopher and linguist Nikolay Trubetskoy: *The authors of The Black Book of Communism note:From the moment of its organizational formation in 1903, this party differed from all other currents of both Russian and world social democracy primarily by its voluntarist strategy of overthrowing the existing order and its concept of party organization – a rigidly structured, disciplined one, consisting of selected professional revolutionaries, parties are the antipode of vague mass parties, widely open to sympathizers, to the struggle of opinions and discussions, that is, the way the Russian Mensheviks and almost all European Social Democrats were.*Russian President Vladimir Putin, answering questions in the Federation Council on June 27, 2012, accused the Bolshevik leadership of betraying national interests – "the Bolsheviks committed an act of national betrayal..." as a result of which Russia lost the
See also
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References
Sources
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