Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/224

178 all the people. But what have we here? A handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotzky."

True, the membership of the Bolshevik Party was a "handful" among the great populations of Russia—not more than one or two per cent. If that was all, the new government might well be stigmatized as "the tyranny of an infinitesimal fraction over the great majority." But one fact must be borne in mind, viz.: Bolshevik sentiment is not to be gauged. by the Bolshevik Party. For every Bolshevik in the official Bolshevik Party there were 30 to 50 Bolsheviks in the general population.

The high standard of admission, the hard duties and drastic discipline of the Bolshevik Party, made the masses unwilling to join it. But they voted for it.

In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Northern and Central Russia, Bolsheviks got 55 per cent, of the vote—not 1 or 2 per cent. In Petrograd the Bolsheviks and their allies, the Left Socialist-Revolutionists, received 576,000 votes—more than the 17 other parties combined.