ABSTRACT
Bolshevism, like so many other things, can best be understood by studying it at the point of origin. It was born in Lenin’s attack upon a school of compromising Marxists who called themselves “Economists.” Their idea was that the Marxian intellectuals in Russia ought not to alienate the workers by stressing the political aspect of the revolution, the necessity of overthrowing the czar’s government, but ought simply to enter into the economic struggle with the bosses, leaving these political changes to follow in the natural course of events. The concept of professional revolutionist belongs, then, not only to the origin, but to the essence of Bolshevism. Lenin founded his Bolshevik organization upon recognition of the indispensable historic function of a group of people who were not defined according to the economic class to which they belonged, but were defined according to their purposive activity and their state of mind.
