Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/225

Rh It is said that there are three grades of lies: "Lies, damned lies and statistics." Revolutionary statistics are particularly unreliable. For in time of revolution public opinion moves like a tidal wave. The people vote one way today. A few weeks hence they will vote quite differently.

When the Constituent Assembly was elected in November, 1917, about one-third were for the Bolsheviks (including their allies, the Left SocialistRevolutionists). When the Constituent Assembly convened in January, 1918, possibly two-thirds were for the Bolsheviks. In the few weeks' interim the Bolshevik ideas swept from the cities into the villages, and out into the provinces. The peasants, finding that the Soviet Land Decree had actually given them the land, rallied behind the Bolshevik banners in millions.

A fair estimate of the growth of Bolshevik adherents in the adult population would go like this:

The Bolsheviks had not merely numbers but all the strategic positions. The big cities were Bolshevik—so were the railwaymen, the miners, the workers in basic industries. And the bayonets were overwhelmingly on their side. The Bolsheviks had