What does "bolshevism" mean?
The strategy used by the Bolsheviks in attempting to gain power in Russia.
Bolshevism
/ˈbɒlʃəˌvɪz(ə)m/ noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: The strategy used by the Bolsheviks in attempting to gain power in Russia.
- Grammar: bolshevism is listed as noun.
- Nearest alternatives: anarchism, bolshevik doctrine, bolshevik governance, bolshevik ideology.
- Useful contrasts: antibolshevism, democracy, gradualism.
- Usage evidence: "Cultural Marxism" was a critique of popular culture by the Frankfurt School of critical theory, a discipline which used knowledge from the social sciences to revise Marxist theory. In modern usage among right-wingers, "Cultural Marxism" has become a substitute term for the Nazi-era conspiracy theory "Cultural Bolshevism."
How to use "bolshevism"
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Source and review context
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Definitions
Noun
- 1 The strategy used by the Bolsheviks in attempting to gain power in Russia. countable, historical, uncountable
"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."
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Bolshevism. alt-of, countable, uncountable
"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 ou into grossest inhumanity and vilest bolshevism."
- 3 Soviet communism wordnet
- 4 The Communist political ideology adopted by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Marxism-Leninism. countable, historical, uncountable
"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."
Synonyms
All synonyms anarchismbolshevik doctrinebolshevik governancebolshevik ideologybolshevik policycentralist doctrine
Antonyms
Example
""Cultural Marxism" was a critique of popular culture by the Frankfurt School of critical theory, a discipline which used knowledge from the social sciences to revise Marxist theory. In modern usage among right-wingers, "Cultural Marxism" has become a substitute term for the Nazi-era conspiracy theory "Cultural Bolshevism.""
Common questions
What is a synonym for "bolshevism"?
Common synonyms include: anarchism, bolshevik doctrine, bolshevik governance, bolshevik ideology, bolshevik policy, centralist doctrine.
How do you use "bolshevism" in a sentence?
"Cultural Marxism" was a critique of popular culture by the Frankfurt School of critical theory, a discipline which used knowledge from the social sciences to revise Marxist theory. In modern usage among right-wingers, "Cultural Marxism" has become a substitute term for the Nazi-era conspiracy theory "Cultural Bolshevism."
How do you pronounce "bolshevism"?
Pronounced /ˈbɒlʃəˌvɪz(ə)m/.
Etymology
Borrowed from Russian большеви́зм (bolʹševízm, “Bolshevism”), from большинство (bolʹšinstvo, “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) + -и́зм (-ízm, “-ism”, suffix forming the names of systems, schools of thought or theories based on the names of their subjects or objects). большинство is derived from большо́й (bolʹšój, “great, large”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bel-) + -ство (-stvo, suffix forming a neuter noun, usually an abstract noun denoting a relation, social status, scientific discipline, quality or state) (from Proto-Slavic *-ьstvo (suffix forming nouns denoting a condition or state)).