Bolshevik

Bolshevik (Russian); literally, "a member of the majority." Actually, a Russian revolutionary communist. The term acquired this meaning in 1903 when the Russian Social Democratic Party split into the "Bolshevik" and "Menshevik" factions. In the Russian Revolution of November 1917, the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), overturned the Provisional Government established earlier that year and founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.