Are Bolsheviks and American Fusionist Conservatism the same thing?

Measured across six independent axes they are 32.1 apart out of a possible 49.0, which is opposite ends of the recorded space. They agree on no axis within three points. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, AU, SC, ID, CH.

Atlas / Comparisons / Bolsheviks vs American Fusionist Conservatism

Bolsheviks and American Fusionist Conservatism

Measured distance across six axes

32.1 / 49.0 possible

Opposite ends of the recorded space. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, AU, SC, ID, CH.

Axis by axis

Axis	RSDLP(b)	Buckley, Meyer	Gap		Reading
EC · Economic organisation	−09	+08	17	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CU · Social and cultural order	−05	+06	11	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
AU · Organisation of power	+08	−04	12	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
SC · Scale of decision	+07	−04	11	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
ID · Rule of membership	−07	+03	10	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CH · Method and tempo	+10	−06	16	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.

Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →

The evidence behind the widest gaps

A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.

RSDLP(b) · EC −09

Banks, land and large industry were taken into state ownership within a year of the seizure of power.

Documented act or statuteThe Decree on Land abolished private landownership in November 1917.
Documented act or statuteBanks were nationalised in December 1917 and large-scale industry in June 1918.

1 more artefact on the full entry →

Buckley, Meyer · EC +08

Coded +8: free markets treated as morally rather than merely technically superior.

Programme textFrank Meyer's In Defense of Freedom argues liberty is the political precondition of virtue.

RSDLP(b) · CU −05

Culturally radical in the first phase: the most permissive family and gender law then in existence anywhere.

Documented act or statuteDivorce on demand, civil marriage and the legalisation of abortion were introduced between 1917 and 1920.
Documented act or statuteThe criminalisation of homosexuality was removed with the tsarist code in 1922.

Buckley, Meyer · CU +06

Coded +6: traditional morality as the end that liberty serves.

Programme textNational Review's founding statement in 1955 declared it stood athwart history yelling stop.

What this comparison does not establish

Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.

Bolsheviks

1903–1924 · Russia

A disciplined vanguard party seizes power in the name of the working class and imposes socialism from above.

American Fusionist Conservatism

1955–2000 · United States

Free markets, traditional morality and anti-communism fused into one movement; liberty as the political means to a virtuous end.

Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.

Open in the atlas