Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The strategy developed by the Bolsheviks between 1903 and 1917 with a view to seizing state power and establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat.
  • noun Soviet Communism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun a form of communism based on the writings of Marx and Lenin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The strategy used by the Bolsheviks in attempting to gain power in Russia
  • noun Marxism-Leninism

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun Soviet communism

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Bolshev(ik) + –ism.]

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Examples

  • Not that he regarded Lily's shift toward what he termed Bolshevism very seriously; all youth had a slant toward socialism, and outgrew it.

    A Poor Wise Man Mary Roberts Rinehart 1917

  • Most of what was wrong with Bolshevism is summed up right there.

    Matthew Yglesias » Wieseltier vs Sullivan 2010

  • The realization that those that believe in Bolshevism will use Bolshevik methods to bring about a Bolshevik state helps to clarify a lot of the seemingly dense and inept coverage of our print media.

    The murderers of Paul Croutch 2008

  • Whatever the word Bolshevism may have meant originally it has come to mean fiendish treatment of women, the savage murder and mutilation of men and the wanton destruction of the accumulated labors of generations.

    The Red Conspiracy Joseph J. Mereto

  • I don't feel, personally, that Bolshevism is absolutely scotched; I do not feel that we have really beaten the Germans.

    The Situation in Russia 1921

  • But the Bolshevists have brains and very unscrupulous methods, and they persuade the working man that Bolshevism is going to be all right, that it is going to lead to a sort of paradise; but from what I have seen in Russia I think it is much more likely to lead him to hell.

    The Situation in Russia 1921

  • Bolshevism is simply Prussianism turned upside down.

    Democracy or Bolshevism 1919

  • Bolshevism is a state of mind; it was born in the bowels of Prussianism; it is the illegitimate child of Prussianism laid on the doorstep of the world.

    Democracy or Bolshevism 1919

  • In answer to the query of whether or not he thought Bolshevism would cross the frontier into Germany, he said ironically: "If Bolshevism is a danger to us, why is it not a danger for France or for England?"

    Six Red Months in Russia: An Observer's Account of Russia Before and During the Proletarian Dictatorship 1918

  • In days of what some call Bolshevism, it may be said that most states are houses in which the kitchen has declared war on the drawing-room.

    The New Jerusalem 1905

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