From October to Brest-Litovsk by Leon Trotsky, History, Revolutionary, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Communism & Socialism

Had the revolution developed more normally -- that is, under peaceful circumstances, as it had in 1912 -- the proletariat would always have held a dominant position, while the peasant masses would gradually have been taken in tow by the proletariat and drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution. But the war produced an altogether different succession of events. . . .