bitter enemy.

But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the
workers, soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate
programme. And so, while the _oborontsi_ Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries involved themselves in compromise with the
bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviki rapidly captured the Russian masses. In
July they were hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan
workmen, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had been
won almost entirely to their cause. The September municipal elections
in the large cities (See App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18
per cent of the returns were Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary,
against more than 70 per cent in June....

There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact
that the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central
Army and Fleet Committees, [*] and the Central Committees of some of
[*See Notes and Explanations.]
the Unions-notably, the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway
Workers-opposed the Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These
Central Committees had all been elected in the middle of the summer,
or even before, when the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries had
an enormous following; and they delayed or prevented any new
elections. Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets of
Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the All-Russian Congress _should
have been called in September;_ but the _Tsay-ee-kah_ [*] would not
[*See Notes and Explanations.]
call the meeting, on the ground that the Constituent Assembly was
only two months away, at which time, they hinted, the Soviets would
abdicate. Meanwhile, one by one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the