From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The “moderate”
Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
“moderate” Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.

And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
on the side of the propertied classes…. In almost every country in the
world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.

Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar….

It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an “adventure.” Adventure it
was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
were there to put into operation workers’ control of industry. In every
village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, prepared to assume the task
of local administration.