Atlas / Comparisons / Bolsheviks vs US Republican Party
Bolsheviks and US Republican Party
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, ID, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | RSDLP(b) | GOP | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −09 | +06 | 15 | 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 | +03 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +07 | 00 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −07 | +04 | 11 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +10 | −03 | 13 | 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.
GOP · EC +06
Market-oriented on taxation and regulation, with a substantial tariff turn since 2017 that pulls it back toward the centre.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent.
- Documented act or statuteBroad tariffs from 2018 onward are a protectionist instrument and are coded as pulling the score left of where the 1990s party sat.
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.
GOP · CU +06
Coded +6 on traditionalist positions in law rather than rhetoric.
- Documented act or statuteParty-appointed justices formed the majority overturning the federal abortion right in 2022.
- Documented act or statuteState-level legislation on gender-affirming care, school curricula and library content since 2021.
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.
US Republican Party
1854– · United States
Limited federal government, lower taxes, strong defence, religious and family traditionalism, gun rights.
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.
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