Bolshevik Party

The Bolshevik Party was the communist party that destroyed the Russian Empire and built the Soviet Union. It is known for Lenin, Stalin and the Russian Revolution.

In the Russian Empire

RSDLP

The Bolshevik Party comes from the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. This was a communist party, but had to use the term social-democrat because of tsarist censorship.

In 1912, the RSDLP split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. (The split is discussed under Mensheviks.) Thus, Lenin founded the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks).

Leninism

Main article: Marxism-Leninism

Lenin was already laying down a new set of theory with the vanguardism that caused his split with the Mensheviks. He also advocated strict democratic centralism in his pamphlet What Is To Be Done? (1902).

He also introduced support for national self-determination. See Marxism and the National Question.

Lenin wrote Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916, analyzing the contemporary stage of capitalism.

Russian Revolution

The Bolshevik Party advocated "all power to the soviets" - workers' councils that arose spontaneously to resist the tsar and Alexander Kerensky.

The Bolsheviks and Left SRs were the only parties to fight for the soviets in the Russian Revolution. However, the Left SRs turned on the Bolsheviks, trying to assassinate Lenin. Therefore, they were banned.

In 1921, after the Kronstadt Rebellion, where local workers in a key strategic area almost seceded from the USSR and became a military base of Western capital, the Bolsheviks banned independent candidates from the soviets, creating a one-party state.

Soviet Union

See Soviet Union.

In this time, the Bolshevik Party was renamed to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik), and then Communist Party of the Soviet Union.