Jim:

I've already answered your post on that other thread. Time travel? I specifically went into one of the reasons I pegged you as not being fond of a certain religious minority. And I don't require you to hold your breath. Maybe a light lunch with a Russian official? NO! Just Kidding!

As for witnesses of the time, how about people who were not foreigners visiting for a few days but real Russians who lived the experience. I kind of like "Dr. Zhivago" by Pasternak not intended as a history but in itself a historical artifact of Revolutionary times. And I am not holding out the wonderful movie as anything other than an an artifact of how yummie Julie Christie looked in the 60s.

Bulgakov wrote short stories with snatches of real life being lived in the years just after the Revolution. He had to survive Soviet censors and wrote one of the great Christian novels of all time: "The Master and Margarita" which most Russians today are aware of. When one of your characters is a talking three foot tall feline named Beelzebub people tend to remember the book. He was allowed to live and not sent to a Gulag for one reason. Stalin liked him.

Or I could mention that real actual Russians I've met over the years. One lovely fellow who survived the Siege of Leningrad because he was quite overweight when it started.

Mensheviks and Bolsheviks: I went to one site to come up with this :
"Both groups were enthusiasts for the destruction of capitalism and the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, but the Mensheviks, led by Martov, favoured a large, loosely organised democratic party whose members could agree to differ on many points. They were prepared to work with the liberals in Russia and they had scruples about the use of violence. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, were hardline revolutionaries who would not have known a scruple if it bought them a drink."

As for Bolshe and Menshe meaning 'more' or 'less', I took Russian in school. Wonderful wonderful language.

Sounds like one of your lot (UK) wrote that last bit, eh?
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