The Bolsheviks were a section of the Russian Social Democrat party, headed by Vladimir Lenin. It was formed in 1903, when the Social Democrat party split into the Bolsheviks and Menshevik parties. The Bolsheviks turned down any chance of allying with the Liberal faction in Russia, while the Mensheviks embraced it. However, Bolsheviks were willing to reunite with the Mensheviks, excepting Lenin himself, while the Mensheviks were completely opposed to the idea. The split was best personified in their meeting places in 1905 when voting what actions to take in the future; the Bolsheviks met in London, while the Mensheviks met in Geneva, with no member of either group setting foot in the other’s city. They were tempted more and more to reunite as time passed, with the threat of Tsarist pressure on both of their groups, but no actual reunification ever happened. They …show more content…
As a wrench to all of this, the Russian police consistently infiltrated both parties and kept up tensions between them. Eventually, the plan failed in August 1910. The Bolshevik editorial board had added Lev Kamenev, the brother-in-law of Leon Trotsky, but he resigned in August, ending the work towards reunification. The split was made permanent in 1912 when Lenin called for a Bolshevik-only conference in Prague, explicitly forbidding Mensheviks from attending.
The next step in Bolshevism happened in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. Though it is called “Revolution,” it was in fact a series of revolutions. The Bolshevik stage was the October Revolution in which they dissolved the Provisional Government set up in the first revolution in February and took over themselves. However, this did not spell the end to troubles the Bolsheviks would have to face. Anarchists, Social-Revolutionists, and even other leftist groups would infiltrate the leadership and cause trouble, forcing the Bolsheviks to limit membership in