The History of Minimalism

"The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning." Lenin's faction took the name Bolshevik (derived from the Russian word bol'she (больше) meaning "more" or "bigger") despite losing the vote and actually being the numerically smaller faction. It can be explained from the fact that they had won a vote at the congress on the composition of the Iskra editorial board. Though the term Bolshevik originated due to a procedural vote, it acquired an additional connotation as Lenin's faction "wanted more", i.e. were more radical than Mensheviks, who "wanted less". This was the way the terms were generally understood abroad. In English, for instance, the press for a number of years translated "Bolsheviks" as "Maximalists" and "Mensheviks" as "Minimalists".