<P> The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists or Bolsheviki (Russian: большевики, большевик (singular), IPA: (bəljʂɨˈvjik); derived from bol'shinstvo (большинство), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority"), were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903 . The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk in Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party . </P> <P> In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues, hence their name . They ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The Bolsheviks, or Reds, came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). With the Reds defeating the Whites and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917--1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union (USSR) in December 1922 . </P> <P> The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a major organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia . Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism . </P>

Are the bolsheviks the same as the soviets