The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both
observations were correct. The property-owning classes were becoming
more conservative, the masses of the people more radical.

There was a feeling among business men and the _intelligentzia_
generally that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted
too long; that things should settle down. This sentiment was shared
by the dominant "moderate" Socialist groups, the _oborontsi_ (See
App. I, Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who
supported the Provisional Government of Kerensky.

On October 14th the official organ of the "moderate" Socialists said:

The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old
régime and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long
enough. Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as
rapidly as possible. As a great revolutionist put it, "Let us hasten,
friends, to terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long
will not gather the fruits...."

Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
stubborn feeling that the "first act" was not yet played out. On the
front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the
rear the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed
for trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land;
and the workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political
exiles were being excluded from the country as "undesirable"