Status Updates From The Russian Revolution 1899...

[2] Afterwards no one could any longer believe that Lenin's men could be talked into abandoning power. Since there was no effective armed opposition by socialist intelligentsia to them in the central regions of Russia, common sense dictated that the Bolsheviks could use brutality with impunity. The machine gun became for them the principal instrument of political persuasion. From the knowledge gained on January 5.

The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on 5.1.18 met with surprising indifference in Petrograd. There was none of the fury which in 1789 had greeted rumors that Louis XVI intended to dissolve the Parliament, precipitating the assault on the Bastille. After a year of anarchy, the Russians were exhausted. They yearned for peace & order no matter how purchased. The Bolsheviks had gambled on that mood and won.

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The Bolsheviks had made their initial concessions to legality only because they could not be certain what the future held in store; they had to allow for the possibility of Kereksky arriving momentarily in Petrograd with troops, in which case they would need the support of the entire Soviet.