The
Bolsheviks, originally also
Bolshevists ( (singular) , derived from
bol'shinstvo, "majority", which comes from
bol'she, "more", the comparative form of
bol'shoi, "big") were a faction of the
MarxistMarxism is the political philosophy and economic worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and an atheist view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; three primary aspects of...
Russian Social Democratic Labour PartyThe Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP , also known as the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party and the Russian Social-Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
(RSDLP) which split apart from the
MenshevikThe Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
faction at the
Second Party CongressThe 2nd Congress of the RSDLP was held during July 30–August 23 1903, starting in Brussels, Belgium and ending in London, because Belgian police forced the delegates to leave the country...
in 1903. The Bolsheviks were the majority faction in a crucial vote, hence their name. They ultimately became the
Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the ruling and only legal political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the...
. The Bolsheviks came to power in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
during the
October RevolutionTheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
phase of the
Russian Revolution of 1917The Russian Revolution is the collective term for the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. In the first revolution of February 1917 the Czar was deposed and replaced by a Provisional government...
, and founded the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
.
The Bolsheviks, founded by
Vladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union; in the course of his political career, he used the pseudonyms Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Lenin, and N. Lenin...
, were an organization of
professional revolutionariesThe concept of professional revolutionaries, alternatively called cadre, is in origin a Leninist concept used to describe a body of devoted communists who spend the majority of their time organising their party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a workers' revolution...
under a democratic internal
hierarchyA hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another and with only one "neighbor" above and below each level. These classifications are made with regard to rank, importance, seniority, power status or authority...
governed by the principle of
democratic centralismDemocratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
, who considered themselves as the vanguard of the revolutionary
working classThe proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. Originally it was identified as those people who had no wealth other than their sons...
of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as
Bolshevism. Bolshevik revolutionary leader
Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Leyba Davidov Bronstein , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin...
frequently used the terms "Bolshevism" and "Bolshevist" after his exile from the Soviet Union to differentiate between what he saw as true
LeninismLeninism is the theory and practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat, led by a revolutionary vanguard party. Theoretically, Leninism comprises the political and economic communist theories of Vladimir Lenin, developed from Marxism, that were the establishing ideology of Soviet communism — in...
and the regime within the state and the party which arose under
StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
. However, "Bolshevism" today is commonly associated with the Stalinist regime which existed in the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
.
History of the split
In the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, held in
BrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium...
and
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
during August 1903, Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a smaller core of active members, as opposed to "card carriers" who might only be active in party branches from time to time or not at all. Out of this active base would develop the cadre, a core of "
professional revolutionariesThe concept of professional revolutionaries, alternatively called cadre, is in origin a Leninist concept used to describe a body of devoted communists who spend the majority of their time organising their party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a workers' revolution...
", consisting of devoted communists who would spend the majority of their time organising the party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a
workers' revolutionA proletarian revolution is a social and/or political revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists particularly those of the communist variety....
against the Tsarist autocracy. The base of active and experienced members would be the recruitng ground for this professional core. Sympathizers would be left outside and the party would be organised based on the concept of
democratic centralismDemocratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
.
Julius MartovJulius Martov or L. Martov was born in Istanbul in 1873...
, until then a close friend and colleague of Lenin, agreed with him that the core of the party should consist of professional revolutionaries, but argued that party membership should be open to sympathizers, revolutionary workers and other fellow travelers. The two had disagreed on the issue as early as March-May 1903, but it wasn't until the Congress that their differences became irreconcilable and split the party. Although at first the disagreement appeared to be minor and inspired by personal conflicts, e.g. Lenin's insistence on dropping less active editorial board members from
IskraIskra means Spark, was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The first edition was published in Stuttgart on December 1,1900. Other editions were published in Munich, London, and Geneva. Initially it...
or Martov's support for the Organizing Committee of the Congress which Lenin opposed, the differences quickly grew and the split became irreparable.
Origins of the name
The two factions were originally known as "hard" (Lenin's supporters) and "soft" (Martov's supporters). Soon, however, the terminology changed to "Bolsheviks" and "Mensheviks", from the Russian "bolshinstvo" (majority) and "menshinstvo" (minority), based on the fact that Lenin's supporters narrowly defeated Martov's supporters on the question of party membership. Neither Lenin nor Martov had a firm majority throughout the Congress as delegates left or switched sides. At the end, the Congress was evenly split between the two factions.
From 1907 on, English language articles sometimes used the term "Maximalist" for "Bolshevik" and "Minimalist" for "Menshevik", which proved confusing since there was also a "Maximalist" faction within the Russian
Socialist-Revolutionary Partythumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries....
in 1904–1906 (which after 1906 formed a separate Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists) and then again after 1917.
Beginning of the 1905 Revolution (1903–1905)
The two factions were in a state of flux in 1903–1904 with many members changing sides. The founder of Russian Marxism, Georgy Plekhanov, who was at first allied with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, parted ways with them by 1904.
Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Leyba Davidov Bronstein , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin...
at first supported the Mensheviks, but left them in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. He remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat" until August 1917 when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks as their positions converged and he came to believe that Lenin was right on the issue of the party.
The lines between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks hardened in April 1905 when the Bolsheviks held a Bolsheviks-only meeting in London, which they call the Third Party Congress. The Mensheviks organised a rival conference and the split was thus formalised.
The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 Revolution, and were a minority in the
St. Petersburg SovietSt. Petersburg Soviet of Worker's Delegates was a workers' council, or soviet in St. Petersburg in 1905.-Origins:The idea of a Soviet as an organ to coordinate workers' strike activities arose during the January-February 1905 meetings of workers at the apartment of Voline during the abortive...
of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky. The less significant Moscow
SovietA soviet originally was a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia. According to the official historiography of the Soviet Union, the first Soviet was organized during the 1905 Russian Revolution in Ivanovo in May 1905...
, however, was dominated by the Bolsheviks. These soviets became the model for those formed in 1917.
("The minority") (1906–1907)
As the
Russian Revolution of 1905The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political unrest through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included terrorism, worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
progressed, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and smaller non-Russian social democratic parties operating within the Russian Empire attempted to reunify at the Fourth (Unification) Congress of the RSDLP held at Folkets hus,
Norra BantorgetNorra Bantorget is an area in central Stockholm. It is the traditional Social Democratic grounds of the Swedish capital...
in
Stockholm' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
, April 1906. With the Mensheviks ("The minority") striking an alliance with the Jewish Bund, the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority. However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Center, the de-facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP. At the next, Fifth Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other.
Split between Lenin and Bogdanov (1908–1909)
With the defeat of the revolution in mid-1907 and the adoption of a new, highly restrictive election law, the Bolsheviks began debating whether to boycott the new parliament known as the Third Duma. Lenin and his supporters
Grigory ZinovievGrigory Yevseevich Zinoviev was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician.-Before the 1917 Revolution :Gregory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad , Ukraine,...
and
Lev KamenevLev Borisovich Kamenev was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly the nominal head of the Soviet state in 1917 and a founding member and later chairman of the ruling Politburo.-Background:Kamenev was born in Moscow, the son of a Jewish railway worker...
argued for participating in the Duma while Lenin's deputy philosopher
Alexander BogdanovAlexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov was a Russian physician, philosopher, economist, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity whose scientific interests ranged from the universal systems theory to the possibility of human rejuvenation through blood...
, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled. The latter became known as recallists ("otzovists" in Russian). A smaller group within the Bolshevik faction demanded that the RSDLP central committee should give its sometimes unruly Duma faction an ultimatum, demanding complete subordination to all party decisions. This group became known as "ultimatists" and was generally allied with the recallists.
With a majority of Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909 he published a scathing book of criticism entitled
Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909), assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism. In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated at a Bolshevik mini-conference in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
organised by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine
ProletaryProletary was an illegal Russian Bolshevik newspaper edited by Lenin; it was published from September 3, 1906 until December 11, 1909. A total of fifty issues having appeared. Active participants in the editorial work were M. F. Vladimirsky, V. V. Vorovsky, I. F. Dubrovinsky, Anatoly Lunacharsky...
and expelled from the Bolshevik faction.
Final attempt at party unity (1910)
With both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks weakened by splits within their ranks and by
TsarTsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or Tzar in English, is a Slavic term with Bulgarian origins used to designate certain monarchs...
ist repression, they were tempted to try to re-unite the party. In January 1910, Leninists, recallists and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Paris. Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea, but were willing to give it a try under pressure from "conciliator" Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin. Lenin was adamantly opposed to any re-unification, but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership. The meeting reached a tentative agreement and one of its provisions made Trotsky's
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
-based
PravdaPravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
a party-financed 'central organ'. Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law, was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations.
Forming a separate party (1912)
The factions permanently broke off relations in January 1912 after the Bolsheviks organised a Bolsheviks-only
Prague Party ConferenceThe Prague Party Conference was a conference of Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. It was held in Prague in January 1912...
and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party. As a result, they ceased to be a faction in the RSDLP and instead declared themselves an independent party, which they called RSDLP (Bolshevik).
Although the Bolshevik leadership decided to form a separate party, convincing pro-Bolshevik workers within Russia to follow suit proved difficult. When the first meeting of the Fourth Duma was convened in late 1912, only one out of six Bolshevik deputies,
Matvei MuranovMatvei Konstantinovich Muranov was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician.-Revolutionary beginnings:...
, (another one, Roman Malinovsky, was later exposed as a secret police agent) voted to break away from the
MenshevikThe Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
faction within the Duma on 15 December 1912. The Bolshevik leadership eventually prevailed and the Bolsheviks formed their own Duma faction in September 1913.
Political philosophy
The Bolsheviks believed in organising a party in a centralised and disciplined fashion that sought to overthrow the
TsarTsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or Tzar in English, is a Slavic term with Bulgarian origins used to designate certain monarchs...
through a mass workers' revolution. They believed and succeeded in creating a
vanguard partyA vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party was developed by Vladimir Lenin, most prominently in What is to be Done?, a political pamphlet first published in 1902....
, a mass revolutionary party composed of what they called "the most militant and
class-consciousClass consciousness is consciousness of one's social class or economic rank in society. From the perspective of Marxist theory, it refers to the self-awareness, or lack thereof, of a particular class; its capacity to act in its own rational interests; or its awareness of the historical tasks...
" workers capable of leading the masses of Russian workers. Although the Bolsheviks were not monolithic, they were characterised by a rigid adherence to the leadership of the
central committeeThe Central Committee, abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Its full name was Центральный комитет Коммунистической партии Советского Союза = ЦК КПСС; Tsentralnyy Komitet Kommunistitcheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza = TsK KPSS, or...
, based on the principles of
democratic centralismDemocratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
. The Mensheviks favored open party membership and espoused cooperation with the other socialist and some non-socialist groups in Russia. Bolsheviks generally refused to co-operate with
liberalLiberalism is the belief in the importance of individual freedom. This belief is widely accepted today throughout the world, and was recognized as an important value by many philosophers throughout history...
or radical parties, viewing them as "bourgeois" parties, or even eventually other socialist organisations, although Lenin sometimes made tactical alliances.
From Bolshevism to Communism
In 1952 at XIX Party Congress Stalin declared: "There are no more Mensheviks. Why should we call ourselves Bolsheviks? We are not the majority, but the whole party." According to his suggestion, the Bolshevik party was renamed the Communist Party of Soviet Union. Since that time, the term Bolshevik has been regarded as obsolete, and relevant only to the pre-Revolutionary times and the Russian Civil War.
Derogatory usage of "Bolshevik"
During the days of the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, labour union leaders and other leftists were sometimes derisively described as "Bolshie". The usage is roughly equivalent to the term "Commie", "Red" or "
pinkoPinko is a derogatory term for a person regarded as sympathetic to communism, though not necessarily a Communist Party member. The term has its origins in the notion that pink is a lighter shade of red, the color associated with communism; thus pink could be thought of as a "lighter form of...
" in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the same period. Adolf Hitler, Josef Goebbels and other Nazi leaders used it in reference to the worldwide revolutionary movement coordinated by the Soviet Union..
See also
- Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union; in the course of his political career, he used the pseudonyms Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Lenin, and N. Lenin...
- October Revolution
TheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
- Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
- Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik, old Bolshevik Guard of old Party guard is an unofficial designation for members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917, many of whom were either tried and executed by the NKVD during Stalin's purges or died under suspicious circumstances.In 1922 there were...
- Leninism
Leninism is the theory and practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat, led by a revolutionary vanguard party. Theoretically, Leninism comprises the political and economic communist theories of Vladimir Lenin, developed from Marxism, that were the establishing ideology of Soviet communism — in...
Non-Russian/Soviet groups having used the name "Bolshevik"
- Bolshevik Tendency, International Bolshevik Tendency
The International Bolshevik Tendency is an international Trotskyist organisation. It was formed by former members of the international Spartacist tendency in the USA and Canada, but many of its current members are not former Spartacists...
- Bangladesh
, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
: Maoist Bolshevik Reorganisation Movement of the Purba Banglar Sarbahara PartyMaoist Bolshevik Reorganisation Movement of the Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party is an underground communist party in Bangladesh. It was formed in 2001, following a split from the Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party.PBSP has obtained observer status in CCOMPOSA...
- India
India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
: Bolshevik Party of IndiaThe Bolshevik Party of India was a communist political party in the India. Although the party is not defunct and doesn't contest election anymore, it is logged with the Election Commission of India as having contested the very first parliamentary elections in 1951 in India....
- India
India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
/Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
: Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and BurmaBolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma was a revolutionary Trotskyist party which campaigned for independence and socialism in South Asia.-History:...
- India
India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
: Revolutionary Socialist Party (Bolshevik)Revolutionary Socialist Party [RSP] was formed as a splinter-group from Revolutionary Socialist Party in Kerala in 2001. The party leader at the time of its formation was Baby John, formerly an important RSP leader in Kerala....
- Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
: Bolshevik Communist PartyBolshevik Communist Party was a communist group in Mexico during the 1960s. PCB was founded in August 1963 by a group that had been expelled from the Mexican Communist Party in April 1962. The group had been in operation as a faction within the Federal District Committee of the PCM, which had...
- Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south, and it also encircles The Gambia on its three sides,...
: Bolshevik NucleiBolshevik Nuclei was a small clandestine marxist group in Senegal. It published Ferment. At the time of the 1988 elections it promoted abstention.-Source:...
- Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
: Bolshevik Samasamaja PartyThe Bolshevik Samasamaja Party was the Ceylon section Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma after 1945 and of the Fourth International in 1948-1950, after the dissolution of the BLPI....
External links
- Bolshevism, the Road to Revolution, by Alan Woods
Alan Woods is a Trotskyist political theorist in the British Labour Party. He is one of the leading members of the International Marxist Tendency and editor of the "In Defence of Marxism" website, Marxist.com...
- Chronology of the Bolshevik Party World History Database
- The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, by Maurice Brinton
Maurice Brinton was the pen name under which Christopher Agamemnon Pallis wrote and translated for the British libertarian socialist group Solidarity from 1960 until the early 1980s....
by Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was an English philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. Although he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the...
, November 1920
- Twenty Years in Underground Russia: Memoirs of a Rank-and-File Bolshevik, by Cecilia Bobrovskaya