Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. left-wing, spec. communist.

1919		Hull Dly Mail 15 Aug. 5/3: Tired of Bolshy Prattle [...] Reports from Kieff [sic] show that a remarkable revoulsion against the ‘Bolshies’ is becoming apparent.
1923		Hull Dly Mail 24 Aug. 3/3: [picture caption] The Soviet Flag Flies gaily at Hull; What ‘Bolshy’ Sailors Really Look Like.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 257: He declared that he was a Russian and an ally of ours, Russia not having gone ‘Bolshy’ at that time.
1930		H.G. Wells Autocracy Mr Parham 296: I tell you, it’s not only street-corner boys and Bolshie agitators who are going against the wall .
1932		D.L. Sayers Have His Carcase 193: I suppose you believe his Bolshie story.
1941		F. Sargeson ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 153: The both of them talked politics and the cook sounded a good deal more bolshy than Mr Clegg was.
1945		(con. 1937) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 214: He got the disease – that’s what it is, you know, Palmer – went Bolshie. [Ibid.] 220: Waggling herself all over town with a pack of bolshie idiots.
1968		(con. 1930s) J. Healy Death of an Irish Town 23: Many young men joined up and the first were the sons of ‘Bolshie families’.
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class I iv: Destroying property ... all men equal ... My God, Claire, he’s not only mad, he’s Bolshie.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 110: Mafia, which seems to have taken the place of yellow perils, bolshie scares and nameless orgies.
1999		Indep. Rev. 3 Aug. 1: The bolshy residents of North London.
2001		I. Welsh Glue 18: He’d played right into that Bolshie cunt Ewart’s hands.

2. uncooperative, obstructive, subversive.

1912		D.H. Lawrence letter ? 15 Nov. in Coll. Letters (1962) I 565: The railway people, when one travels, seem rather independent and Bolshy.
1931		Aberdeen jrnl 30 May 9/4: He suggested [...] labour-saving devices [...] for the benfit of the housewife. If you have contented wives you will see no ‘Bolshy’ husbands.
1944		A. Morrison letter in Morrison Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002) 196: Those doctors in Brum are exploiting you [...] Have it out with them right away. It’s not being bolshy.
1952		C. Harris Death of a Barrow Boy 85: If he threw the term ‘bolshie’ about the Mess as if it had meaning – he was comic relief.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 159: They think we’re being a bit bolshie.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 281: The bolshy pinched faces of underpaid nurses and teachers.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 6 June 3: His bolshy missus.
1999		Observer Rev. 24 Oct. 12: I was probably a bolshie little kid.
2000		Guardian 10 Feb. 5: She denied claims [...] that the group had been ‘bolshie’ in their public appearances.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 55: Two big, bolshy blokes.
2010		Eve. Standard 20 Dec. 15/1: Bolshie. A ball-breaker. Cold and calculating. These are the insults frequently flung at ambitious females.
2015		Guardian G2 3 July 6/3: They recall elements of Wu-Tang Clan [...] flashy, bolshy bravado.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 278: The Red Rattler [is] the sort of bolshie collective Prue MacSween would accuse me of belonging to Theatre .