Member of the majority of the Russian Social Democratic Party who split from the
Mensheviks in 1903. The Bolsheviks, under
Lenin, advocated the destruction of capitalist political and economic institutions, and the setting up of a socialist state with power in the hands of the workers. The Bolsheviks set the
Russian Revolution of 1917 in motion. They changed their name to the Russian Communist Party in 1918.
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