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Organization

Bolsheviks

Lenin's party, a faction from 1903; in March 1918 it renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

7 links, 4 backed by primary records

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Dates
1903 – 8 Mar 1918
Place
Moscow
Also known as
Bolshevik Party
Over time
  1. Active 1903 – 8 Mar 1918
  2. members Nadezhda Krupskaya (helped found it; organiser) 1903 – 8 Mar 1918
How each side tells it

According to Antony C. Sutton

  • funded by William Boyce Thompson 1917 DisputedA US embassy cable of December 1917 relays a Bolshevik newspaper's account that American Red Cross money went to anti-Bolshevik publications.

According to Russian Provisional Government

The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. In March 1918 they renamed themselves the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which ruled until 1991. In this graph they are also a perspective: claims marked “according to the Bolsheviks” follow their own published statements.

The Imperial German government’s own records show German money reaching them in 1917; the scale is debated.

Connections 7

members

led by

funded by

  • Imperial German government 1917 money for propaganda and the party press Primary record 3

    Recorded in the German Foreign Ministry's own files. How much money reached the Bolsheviks, and how much it mattered, is debated by historians.

  • William Boyce Thompson 1917 $1M According to Antony C. Sutton Disputed Scholarship & press 4

    Disputed: A US embassy cable of December 1917 relays a Bolshevik newspaper's account that American Red Cross money went to anti-Bolshevik publications.

    Sutton bases this on Thompson's own statement as reported in 1918.

  • Imperial German government Jul 1917 According to Russian Provisional Government Scholarship & press 5

    The Provisional Government's charge of July 1917. Semion Lyandres (1995) re-examines the evidence it relied on.

involved in

became

Timeline 6 dates
  1. 1903 – 8 Mar 1918 Bolsheviks
  2. 1903 – 8 Mar 1918 Nadezhda Krupskaya member of Bolsheviks
  3. 1917 Imperial German government funded Bolsheviks
  4. 1917 William Boyce Thompson funded Bolsheviks According to Antony C. Sutton Disputed
  5. Jul 1917 Imperial German government funded Bolsheviks According to Russian Provisional Government
  6. 8 Mar 1918 Bolsheviks became Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Proof 7 sources
  1. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 20 Jul 1998. Scholarship & press Archived copy
    She supported him in his factional feuds within the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, helped found the Bolsheviks, and assumed a large degree of responsibility for organizing its members inside Russia.
  2. Revelations from the Russian Archives: Internal Workings of the Soviet Union, Library of Congress. Primary record
    Having come to power in October 1917 by means of a coup d'état, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks spent the next few years struggling to maintain their rule against widespread popular opposition.
  3. Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915-1918: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, Oxford University Press, 1958. Primary record
    It was not until the Bolsheviks had received from us a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were in a position to be able to build up their main organ, Pravda
  4. Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Arlington House, 1974. Scholarship & press
    that he (Thompson) contributed $1 million to the Bolshevik Revolution for propaganda purposes.
  5. The Bolsheviks' 'German Gold' Revisited: An Inquiry into the 1917 Accusations, The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1995. Scholarship & press
    The report published the next day alleged that Lenin had been sent to Russia by the German government to rally support for a separate peace with Germany
  6. To the Citizens of Russia!, Marxists Internet Archive (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 26, Progress Publishers), 7 Nov 1917. Primary record
    The Provisional Government has been deposed. State power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies--the Revolutionary Military Committee, which heads the Petrograd proletariat and the garrison.
  7. Resolution on Changing the Name of the Party and the Party Programme (Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)), Marxists Internet Archive (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 27), 8 Mar 1918. Primary record
    The Congress resolves that our Party (the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party of Bolsheviks) be named hence forth the Russian Communist Party, with the word “Bolsheviks” added in brackets.
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