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Notes -
That was certainly an important factor in the popularity of the Bolshevik regime from 1914 to 1918, and perhaps as you suggest a more important factor -- but the question being addressed here (as indicated by the first sentence of the paragraph you quoted) is not why the 1917 Revolution was successful, but why the murderous despotism of the emerging Communist regime was not more widely foreseen from within Russia (or, for that matter, from within the United States and Western Europe), even before Russian involvement World War I.
I guess not even the intelligentsia is immune from getting too emotionally caught up in the desire for peace, a promise of a new beginning etc. and thus focusing on that one goal while ignoring all the red flags (heh).
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