Members of the radical Marxist faction of the Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party that seized power in the 1917 Russian Revolution and established the Soviet Union.
From Russian 'bolshinstvo' meaning 'majority.' Lenin's faction claimed to represent the majority of workers, though they actually became a revolutionary elite. The term entered English around 1917 during the revolution.
The Bolsheviks were named 'the majority party' by Lenin as a propaganda tactic, even though they were actually a small group of revolutionaries—it's one of history's cleverest political tricks that changed the world!
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