411 REFERENCE · Wiktionary
Bolshevism
Reference material by Wiktionary contributors. This retains its source identity and is not 411 news reporting.
bolshevism
English
2017 November 6
Etymology
Borrowed from en ru большеви́зм Bolshevism, from ru большинство majority, most (referring to the fact that the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party won on the majority of the important issues at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903) + ru -и́зм -ism suffix forming the names of systems, schools of thought or theories based on the names of their subjects or objects. ru большинство is derived from ru большо́й great, large (ultimately from en ine-pro *bel-) + ru -ство suffix forming a neuter noun, usually an abstract noun denoting a relation, social status, scientific discipline, quality or state (from en sla-pro *-ьstvo suffix forming nouns denoting a condition or state).
Pronunciation
en /ˈbɒlʃəˌvɪz(ə)m/ RP
en /ˈbɑlʃəˌvɪzəm/ /ˈboʊl-/ /ˈbol-/ GA
en en-au-Bolshevism.ogg AU
en Bol shev i sm
Noun
~ en politics historical
The strategy used by the Bolsheviks in attempting to gain power in Russia.
en Tamás Krausz Bálint Bethlenfalvy; Mario Fenyo Organization and Revolution Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography New York, N.Y. Monthly Review Press 2015 127 https://books.google.com/books?id=9G3IBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA127 978-1-58367-450-5 The split between the two trends of Bolshevism issued from questions of a very practical nature. [Alexander] Bogdanov and his group condemned participation in parliamentary, "bourgeois" politics. [Vladimir] Lenin, on the other hand, set the struggle for political power as the main task of the party. He was not occupied with creating and implanting an idea of the future of socialism; he thought of this more as a development to be expected from the period following the revolution. Instead he was preparing the organizational and political-intellectual grounds for a revolution that would be capable of overthrowing tsarism.
The Communist political ideology adopted by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Marxism-Leninism.
en J[oseph] A[lfred] A[rner] Burnquist Inaugural Message of Gov. J. A. A. Burnquist to the Legislature of Minnesota [Minn.] [s.n.] 1919 4 https://books.google.com/books?id=A5nnmhTBnTgC&pg=RA7-PA4 18196670 We of this generation owe it to the countless dead, to the peoples now living, to our children and children's children not to let the present situation go by without attempting in good faith to establish among those nations that will tolerate neither Kaiserism nor Bolshevism such a form of international court and police power as will have for its purpose the ringing out of an age of war and the ringing in of an age of peace.
en Randolph H. McKim The Peril of Bolshevism and the Duty of America: A Sermon Delivered in the Church of the Epiphany, Washington, D.C., on Sunday, April 6, 1919 by the Rector Washington, D.C. Vestry of the Church of the Epiphany 6 April 1919 4 https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=yLhWAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA82 647881249 Let me ask you then, first, to consider what Bolshevism really is. Well, politically it is the usurpation of power over the whole by a small section of the community. The fundamental idea or principle of Bolshevism is that the proletariat, that is to say the lowest stratum of society, the most ignorant, the least educated, should be the basis of the State, should in fact absolutely control the State. Instead of the principle announced in the Declaration of Independence—that all men are created free and equal, Bolshevism proceeds upon the principle that only the proletariat has any rights or should enjoy any freedom; all other classes of the community are anathema.
en Thomas Tully Simeon and Levi—Evil Confederates The Sons of Jacob and Their Tribal Blessings: Character Studies: A Series of Sunday Afternoon Addresses London Hodder and Stoughton [1923] 32 https://books.google.com/books?id=aDsHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA32 774536391 You can never tell to what length of devilry men will go when, setting out to see justice done, they give rein to the spirit of vindictiveness and are bent only on revenge and reprisals. The results may be terrible when the Simeons and Levis of society take law and justice into their own hands. Often it has worked out into grossest inhumanity and vilest bolshevism.
en Georgi Dimitroff (reporter) United Front of the Working Class against Fascism Working Class Unity—Bulwark against Fascism: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Fight for the Unity of the Working Class against Fascism: Seventh World Congress of the Communist International: Report New York, N.Y. Workers Library Publishers September 1935 79–80 https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=u51IAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA80 81071744 The task of educating the workers and all toilers in the spirit of proletarian internationalism is one of the fundamental tasks of every Communist Party. But whoever thinks that this permits him, or even compels him, to sneer at all the national sentiments of the broad toiling masses is far from genuine Bolshevism, and has understood nothing of the teaching of [Vladimir] Lenin and [Joseph] Stalin on the national question.
en A[nthony] James Gregor The Twentieth Century and the Crisis of Classical Marxism The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics Princeton, N.J. w:Princeton University Press 1974 127 https://books.google.com/books?id=FXZ9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA127 978-0-691-07556-3 Important for our purposes is the recognition that the proletariat could be seduced from its historic mission, at least for significant periods of time, by controlled propaganda and capitalist blandishments. The conviction, conjoined with Lenin's elitism, produced a fateful compound: Bolshevism.
en M[ichael] C[harles] Howard; J[ohn] E[dward] King The Political Economy of Stalin A History of Marxian Economics II (1929–1990) Princeton, N.J. w:Princeton University Press 1992 40 https://books.google.com/books?id=1zwABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA40 978-0-691-04303-6 Stalin was never able to monopolise Marxism, and the same deficiencies in theory which facilitate the claim of Stalinism to be a Marxism, allowed alternatives – even other Bolshevisms – to become subversive doctrines in relation to the reality of Stalinist power.
Alternative forms
en bolshevism
Antonyms
en antibolshevism
Derived terms
en anarcho-Bolshevism cultural Bolshevism Jewish Bolshevism Judeo-Bolshevism National Bolshevism
Related terms
en antibolshevist Bolshevik Bolshevist bolshevize,bolshevise bolshie bolshiness
Translations
Communist political ideology
Albanian: sq bolshevizëm m
Arabic: ar بُلْشِفِيَّة f
Armenian: hy բոլշևիզմ
Asturian: ast bolxevismu m
Azerbaijani: az bolşevizm
Belarusian: be бальшаві́зм m
Bulgarian: bg болшеви́зъм m
Catalan: ca bolxevisme m
Chinese:
Mandarin: cmn 布爾什維主義
Czech: cs bolševismus m
Danish: da bolsjevisme c
Dutch: nl bolsjewisme n
Estonian: et bolševism
Finnish: fi bolševismi
Galician: gl bolxevismo m
Georgian: ka ბოლშევიზმი
German: de Bolschewismus m
Greek: el μπολσεβικισμός m
Hebrew: he בּוֹלְשֶׁבִיזְם m bolshevízm
Hindi: hi बोलशेविकवाद m, hi बोल्शेविज़्म m
Hungarian: hu bolsevizmus
Irish: ga Boilséiveachas m
Italian: it bolscevismo m
Japanese: ja ボルシェヴィズム borushevizumu, ja ボルシェビズム borushebizumu, ja ボリシェヴィズム borishevizumu, ja ボリシェビズム borishebizumu
Kazakh: kk большевизм
Korean: ko 볼셰비즘
Kyrgyz: ky большевизм
Latvian: lv boļševisms m
Lithuanian: lt bolševizmas m
Macedonian: mk болшеви́зам m
Marathi: mr बोलशेव्हिकवाद m
Mongolian:
Cyrillic: mn большевизм
Norwegian:
Bokmål: nb bolsjevisme m
Persian:
Iranian Persian: fa-ira بُلْشِویسْم
Polish: pl bolszewizm m
Portuguese: pt bolchevismo m
Romanian: ro bolșevism n
Russian: ru большеви́зм m
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: sh бољшевѝзам m
Latin: sh boljševìzam m
Slovak: sk boľševizmus m
Slovene: sl boljševizem m
Spanish: es bolchevismo m
Swedish: sv bolsjevism c
Tajik: tg болшевизм
Thai: th ลัทธิบอลเชวิค
Turkish: tr Bolşeviklik, tr Bolşevizm
Turkmen: tk bolşewizm
Ukrainian: uk більшови́зм m
Uyghur: ug بولشېۋىزم
Uzbek: uz bolshevizm
Vietnamese: vi chủ nghĩa bôn-sê-vích
Yiddish: yi באָלשעוויזם m
See also
en Menshevik
en Menshevism
Further reading
Bolsheviks
en terms suffixed with -ism
en Communism Russia Russian politics