Bolsheviks << BOHL shuh vihks or buhl shee VEEKS >> were members of a group that took power in Russia in 1917. The name comes from the Russian word bolshinstvo, which means majority. In the early 1900’s, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split into two main groups. Both groups claimed to follow Marxist principles. V. I. Lenin led one group, which believed that a single, centralized party of professional revolutionaries should lead the revolution in Russia. He thought this party could seize power with the help of the workers and peasants. The other group believed in a broader revolutionary party open to anyone who supported its goals.
At a party meeting in London in 1903, Lenin’s group was clearly in the minority. But it gained a majority vote when seven delegates left the meeting over a disagreement on questions of representation. Leninists then won control of two powerful party organs—the newspaper and the Central Committee. Lenin began calling his followers Bolsheviks and his opponents Mensheviks (people of the minority). Lenin’s group became the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in March 1918.
