Are Bolsheviks and Islamic State the same thing?

Q: Are Bolsheviks and Islamic State the same thing?

Measured across six independent axes they are 24.9 apart out of a possible 49.0, which is opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC, CH. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, ID.

Atlas / Comparisons / Bolsheviks vs Islamic State

Bolsheviks and Islamic State

Measured distance across six axes

24.9 / 49.0 possible

Opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC, CH. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, ID.

Axis by axis

Axis	RSDLP(b)	ISIS / Daesh	Gap		Reading
EC · Economic organisation	−09	+01	10	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CU · Social and cultural order	−05	+10	15	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
AU · Organisation of power	+08	+10	2	Agrees	Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
SC · Scale of decision	+07	+09	2	Agrees	Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
ID · Rule of membership	−07	+10	17	Diverges	Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CH · Method and tempo	+10	+10	0	Agrees	Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.

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 →

ISIS / Daesh · EC +01

Coded +1: extraction and extortion with no productive programme.

ScholarshipRevenue came from oil sales, taxation of captured populations, looting and ransom.

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.

ISIS / Daesh · CU +10

At the ceiling: a totalising religious order enforced by public violence.

Documented act or statuteSlavery was formally reinstituted and regulated by published guidance.

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.

Islamic State

2013– · Iraq, Syria

Restoration of a universal caliphate through mass violence, with obligatory allegiance and death for dissent.

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