What is the difference between the bolsheviks and the mensheviks?

Answer 1

bolsheviks
organised, revolutionary Marxist group led by Lenin, for whom violence was a legitimate instrument of power. In November 1917, they took control of a chaotic Russia, becoming the de facto rulers after the subsequent civil war. They then renamed themselves the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

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mensheviks
Those members of the Russian socialist party (the RSDRP) who opposed Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Generally, the Mensheviks believed in a less centralized and more broad-based party. They had capable leaders and were often more effective and generally more numerous than the Bolsheviks.

Answer 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks (Russian: Большеви́к IPA [bəlʲʂɨˈvʲik], derived from bolshinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction[1] at the Second Party Congress in 1903 and ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[2] The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and founded the Soviet Union.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensheviks

The Mensheviks (Russian: Меньшевики IPA: [mʲɪnʲʂɨˈvʲikʲɪ]) were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP in August of 1903, Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed, believing it was better to have a large party of activists with broad representation. A majority of delegates agreed with Martov and formed the Mensheviks, while Lenin's faction became known as the Bolsheviks. Lenin, through a series of political maneuvers, lock-outs and the eventual storming out of the Congress by the Jewish Bund managed to secure an artificial majority within the Congress in favor of his position. The majority of the Central Committee and other central Party organs elected at the Congress supported Lenin's position, and hence Menshevik is derived from the Russian word меньшинство (menshinstvo, "minority") while Bolshevik is derived from большинство (bolshinstvo, "majority