Old Bolshevik (russian: ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik''), also called Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for a member of the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
before the
Russian Revolution of 1917. Many Old Bolsheviks became leading
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...
s and
bureaucrats in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and the ruling
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
. Most died over the years from
natural causes
In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic. Within the United States and the United Kingdom, a distin ...
, but a number were removed from power or executed in the late 1930s, as a result of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...
by
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
.
Overview
Definition
Initially, the term "Old Bolshevik" (ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik'') referred to
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
who joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
before 1905. On February 13, 1922, under the chairmanship of the Old Bolshevik historian
Mikhail Olminsky
Mikhail Stepanovich Olminsky ( rus, Михаил Степанович Ольминский) (15 October, 1863 – May 8, 1933) (real surname: Aleksandrov) was a prominent Russian Bolshevik particularly involved with Party history and also an acti ...
, the Society of Old Bolsheviks (Общество старых большевиков) at the
Istpart
The Commission on the History of the October Revolution and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), also known as Ispart (Russian: Истпарт), was a research institute that collected, processed, archived and published history of the Communi ...
(Commission on the Study of the History of the October Revolution and RCP(b)) was established. The first Statute required membership before January 1, 1905, with admission in some cases of other
Social Democrats with the same career time who later joined the Bolsheviks.
Initially there were 64 members. Later it was renamed the All-Union Society. The 1931 Statute had a requirement of a continuous party membership of at least 18 years, with exceptions to be granted by the Society Presidium (approved by the Society Council). By 1934, there were over 2,000 members. The All-Union Society was self-dissolved in 1935, announcing that "it has completed its tasks".
Vadim Rogovin
Vadim Zakharovich Rogovin (russian: Вади́м Заха́рович Рого́вин; 10 May 1937 – 18 September 1998) was a Russian Marxist (Trotskyist) historian and sociologist, Ph.D. in philosophy, Leading Researcher at the Institut ...
cites the statistics published by the
13th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) that, in 1924, of 600,000 Party members, 0.6% joined before 1905, 2% joined in 1906–1916 and <9% joined in 1917.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
wrote about the "enormous, undivided authority of that thinnest layer, which can be called the old party guard". Old Bolsheviks that were part of Lenin's inner-circle or directly worked with him formed a sub-designation known as the Lenin Guard (Ленинская гвардия, ''leninskaya gvardiya'').
Over time the definition of "Old Bolsheviks" became more lax. For example, according to a 1972 Soviet book by D. A. Chygayev, in 1922 there were as many as 44,148 Old Bolsheviks.
Presence in the Soviet Union
By the end of the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
in 1923, Old Bolsheviks filled many of the powerful positions in the state apparatus of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, its
constituent republics
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
, and the ruling
All-Union Communist Party. By the mid-1930s, General Secretary
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
and the upper ranks of the party were predicting that major social upheaval would occur in the aftermath of the
forced collectivization process since 1928 and the subsequent
Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
Stalin, himself an Old Bolshevik, became paranoid of challenges to his rule from within the party, fearing that Old Bolsheviks were potential
usurper
A usurper is an illegitimate or controversial claimant to power, often but not always in a monarchy. In other words, one who takes the power of a country, city, or established region for oneself, without any formal or legal right to claim it as ...
s who could exploit the upheaval and use their prestige to depose him. Stalin used the assassination of
Sergei Kirov in 1934 as a pretext to
purge the party, and removed a great part of the surviving Old Bolsheviks from positions of power during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...
from 1936 to 1938.
Purged Old Bolsheviks were condemned in a series of
show trials known as the
Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against " Trotskyists" and members of " Right Opposition" of the Communist Party o ...
, and then
executed for
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
or sent as prisoners to the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
system of
labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...
s. By 1938, the number of Old Bolsheviks who remained in power (other than Stalin himself) was small, and the vacant positions were filled by a younger generation of party members who were considered to be more loyal to Stalin himself.
Various things in the Soviet Union had the name ''Old Bolshevik'', such as a
publishing house, several
steamship
A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamship ...
s,
motorboats, ''
kolkhozes'' and populated places.
Fate of some of the Old Bolsheviks
Note that CC stands for
Central Committee of the Communist Party
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...
.
Died before the Purge
Some of those executed in the Purge
Survived
See also
*
Alter Kämpfer
''Alter Kämpfer'' (German for "Old Fighter"; plural: ''Alte Kämpfer'') is a term referring to the earliest members of the Nazi Party, i.e. those who joined it before the ''Reichstag'' 1930 German federal election, with many belonging to the par ...
*
Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War
This is a select bibliography of post World War II English language books (including translations) and journal articles about the Revolutionary and Civil War era of Russian (Soviet) history. The sections "General Surveys" and "Biographies" contai ...
*
Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
References
{{reflist, refs=
Factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Soviet phraseology