Faction (political) in the context of "Bolshevik"

⭐ In the context of the Bolsheviks, what fundamental difference in organizational structure initially separated them from the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party?

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⭐ Core Definition: Faction (political)

A political faction is a group of people with a common political purpose, especially a subgroup of a political party that has interests or opinions different from the rest of the political party. Intragroup conflict between factions can lead to schism of the political party into two political parties. The ley de lemas electoral system allows the voters to indicate on the ballot their preference for political factions within a political party. Political factions can represent voting blocs. Political factions require a weaker party discipline. Research indicates that factions can play an important role in moving their host party along the ideological spectrum.

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👉 Faction (political) in the context of Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism.

The origin of the RSDLP split was Lenin's support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries, as opposed to the Menshevik desire for a broad party membership. The influence of the factions fluctuated in the years up to 1912, when the RSDLP formally split in two. The political philosophy of the Bolsheviks was based on the Leninist principles of vanguardism and democratic centralism. Lenin was also more willing to use illegal means such as robbery to fund the party's activities. By 1917, influenced by the experiences of World War I, he reached the conclusion that the chain of world capitalism could "break at its weakest link" in Russia before it assumed the level of the advanced countries, opposing theorists such as Georgi Plekhanov. Lenin had also come to view poorer peasants as potential allies of the relatively small Russian proletariat.

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