Full
name
The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks)
1903–1918
The Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
1918–1925
Abbreviations
RSDLP(b)
RCP(b)
Short
name
The Bolsheviks
The Communists
Years
of activity
1917–1991
(1903–1917 – RSDLP faction)
1917–1918 – RSDLP(b)
1918–1925 – RCP(b)
1925–1952 – VKP(b)
1952–1991 – CPSU
1917–1991
Leaders
Vladimir Lenin
Leon Trotsky
Yakov Sverdlov
Joseph Stalin
Grigory Zinoviev
Lev Kamenev
Nikolay Bukharin
Aleksey Rykov
Felix Dzerzhinsky
The Bolshevik Party emerged from the radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), which had existed since 1898. The name “Bolsheviks” derived from the Russian word meaning “majority” (as opposed to “Mensheviks”) and reflected the results of the elections of the party’s governing bodies at the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP in 1903. Then the supporters of Vladimir Lenin were in the majority, while the ones of Julius Martov were in the minority.
The Bolsheviks actively participated in the events of the Revolution of 1905–1907, advocating an armed uprising and the establishment of the revolutionary power of the union of the proletariat and the peasantry under the hegemony of the former. The Bolsheviks boycotted the work of the First State Duma but participated in the following convocations. In 1912, they turned into an independent party, declaring the Prague Conference of the faction the 6th All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP, whose decisions were binding on all party members. World War I was condemned as unjust and aggressive. Bolsheviks called for the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil one.
After the February Revolution and the return of Lenin from emigration in April 1917, the Bolsheviks completely refused to support the Provisional Government, using radical slogans about transferring all power to the Soviets, the rapid end to the war, the nationalization of all lands, the development of the revolution into a socialist one. On April 24–29, the first legal (“April”) conference of the RSDLP(b) in Russia completed the organizational separation of the party.
Banner of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP(b), 1917.
Replicas. Leningrad. 1964.
SMPHR. F.I-2218
It was made in the spring of 1917 upon the instructions of Nikolay Podvoysky by the gold seamstress Maria Aleksandrova. The banner was destroyed in early July 1917 after the mansion of Matilda Kshesinskaya was occupied by the soldiers of the Provisional Government. It was recreated by order of the museum.
“Vote for No. 4”. Leaflet. The appeal of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP(b) to vote for the Bolshevik list in the elections to the Constituent Assembly.
Petrograd. November 1917.
SMPHR. F.II-19169
Leaders of the Bolshevik Party and Soviet Russia: Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Mikhail Kalinin (sitting from left to right in the second row) with the delegates of the 8th Congress of the RCP(b). Bulla’s photo studio. Moscow. March 1919.
SMPHR. F.III-38505/1
The program of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Publication of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Red Army Deputies. Petrograd. 1919.
SMPHR. F.II-59220
“The Bolshevik Communist Party fights for the workers’ and peasants’ cause. It is shameful for a worker and a peasant not to be a communist!” Leaflet. 1919.
SMPHR. F.II-5915
