Matt Walsh

This might seem like a deep cut, like some esoteric trivia that no one would ever need to know, but it's one of the most important historical facts that you never learn in school.

The Bolsheviks never won more than 30% of the vote in Russia in any election.

They were never close to obtaining the support of a majority of the population.

In fact, they were widely detested.

As it turns out, Russians did not want to empty their bank accounts at gunpoint and transfer all their money to the government.

They didn't want the government to seize private property and arrest the clergy.

They didn't want the government to take the grain from the peasants, causing mass starvation.

But all of that happened anyway.

Why did it happen?

Well, because the Bolsheviks were extremely dedicated to their mission.

They were well-organized.

They were willing to wage war to advance their ideology, while the traditionalists, the supporters of the Tsar and the Empire, were not.

The traditionalists were growing wary of World War I. They were skeptical of the czar who was spending too much time, they thought, with an Epstein-like figure named Rasputin.

They weren't energized or cohesive, so the Bolsheviks won by default.

They abolished the legislature and ruled for more than seven decades.

They murdered tens of millions of people and brought economic ruin to the entire country.

And they did it all with less than 30% support.

Now, none of my teachers ever taught me this, and I'm willing to bet that yours didn't either.

You'll learn a lot about the Nazis from your high school history teacher, but virtually nothing about the Soviets.

And that's a big problem, one that we're going to address actually in the next episode of Real History, which focuses on the Bolsheviks' rise to power and the many atrocities they committed.