... socialist nature of society, the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries had as equal an opportunity as the Bolsheviks, but they either failed to recognize power was in their grasp, or they couldn't bring themselves to brake with the liberal coalition. Lenin showed prudence to ensure that events would unfold to his benefit, but that the Bolsheviks held just mediocre support across the country showed how badly the other proponents to Tsarism had handled events since the Tsar's overthrow. The three main traditional interpretations of the revolution all set the events of October in a specific context, often directly against each other. The orthodox Soviet view, especially during the Stalinist era were distorted and heavily biased but Trotsky's 'History of the Russian Revolution' and Medevevdev's 'The October Revolution', are examples of accounts which offer an accurate version of events, if not with some ideological bias inherent. Liberal interpretations are scornful of ...

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