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Bolsheviki

[bohl-shuh-vik, bol-; Russ. buhl-shi-vyeek]

Origin

noun, plural -viks, -vik·i

[-vik-ee, -vee-kee; Russ. -vyi-kyee] .

(in Russia)

a member of the more radical majority of the Social Democratic party, 1903–17, advocating immediate and forceful seizure of power by the proletariat.

(after 1918) a member of the Russian Communist party.

(loosely) a member of any Communist party.

Disparaging. an extreme political radical; revolutionary or anarchist.

Also, bol·she·vik.

Origin:
1915–20; < Russian bolʾshevík, equivalent to bólʾsh(iĭ) larger, greater (comparative of bolʾshóĭ large; compare bolʾshinstvó majority) + -evik, variant of -ovik noun suffix; compare Menshevik

Related forms

an·ti-Bol·she·vik, noun, adjective

non-Bol·she·vik, noun

pro-Bol·she·vik, adjective, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

Bolshevik

1917, from Rus. bol'shiy "greater," comp. of adj. bol'shoy "big, great" (cf. Bolshoi Ballet), from O.C.S. boljiji "larger," from PIE base *bel- "strong" (cf. Skt. balam "strength, force," Gk. beltion "better," Phrygian balaios "big, fast," O.Ir. odbal "strong," Welsh balch "proud;" M.Du., Low Ger., Fris.

EXPAND

pal "strong, firm"). It was the faction of the Russian Social Democratic Worker's Party after a split in 1903 that was either larger or more extreme (or both) than the Mensheviks (from Rus. men'shij "less"); after they seized power in 1917, applied generally to Rus. communists. Bolshevism is recorded from 1917.

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"And what was the theory at the bottom of all these astounding proceedings? So far as it can be reduced to comprehensible terms it was much less a theory than a fear—a shivering, idiotic, discreditable fear of a mere banshee—an overpowering, paralyzing dread that some extra-eloquent Red, permitted to emit his balderdash unwhipped, might eventually convert a couple of courageous men, and that the courageous men, filled with indignation against the plutocracy, might take to the highroad, burn down a nail-factory or two, and slit the throat of some virtuous profiteer. In order to lay his fear, in order to ease the jangled nerves of the American successors to the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, all the constitutional guarantees of the citizen were suspended, the statute-books were burdened with laws that surpass anything heard of in the Austria of Maria Theresa, the country was handed over to a frenzied mob of detectives, informers and agents provocateursand the Reds departed laughing loudly, and were hailed by the Bolsheviki as innocents escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane."

-H.L. Mencken

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