the Bolshevik Party had arguably won the urban soviets. Soviets that in several cases were being violently dispersed for such a reason.
For a few months that was indeed true. Then the results of the local soviet elections begun to tell a very different tale.
As soon as in March 1918, after the Bolshevik coup, the Menshevik-SR Assembly of Petrograd Factory Delegates led by SR Likhach and other notable Socialists had 200 delegates representing 100 000 workers - that's two-thirds of employed workers of the city at the time. In the central industrial region, in places like Kaluga, Orekhovo Zuevo, Kostroma, Tver, Tula and Yaroslavl the Bolsheviks lost the elections to Mensheviks, and in Volga, Urals, and North in towns and cities like Volodga, Archangel, Saratov, Nyzhnyi-Novgorod, Samara, Izvhevsk, Syzran and Ufa the Menshevik-SR coalitions defeated them. Troughout Russia the very social classes - Baltic Fleet Sailors and Petrograd urban workers - that had supported Bolsheviks in October 1917 were turning against them in May 1918. Moscow was the only area where they retained their positions.
Yet Mensheviks, SRs and Left SRs were not engaging the Bolsheviks in armed struggle, but by succesfully challenging them through a democratic struggle in the Soviets they aimed to recall the disbanded Constituent Assembly in order create a socialist coalition government aimed to continue the war against German Empire.
What did Lenin do when facing this threat - not a threat to a Russian revolution, but a threat to the dictatorial power of his party? In May 1918 he proposed the resumption of economic relations with Germany, a large loan from the German banks to the Bolshevik regime and significant concessions to German companies in the areas of former Russian Empire. Once he had struck this deal, he promtly went ahead with his goal of "defeating the bourgeoisie at home" - attacking against the democratically elected SR majority in the Constituent Assembly by forcibly expelling the Mensheviks and SRs from the soviets and by dissolving the Assembly of Factory Delegates, followed by a complete break with the Left SRs and the start of the "class war", the deliberate terror against Russian agrarian population.
As it stood then, the Bolshevik Party was the only party willing to actually realize the slogan raised during the July Days protests.
The wing led by Kamenev indeed was - and quess who used all of his energy to steer them away from this course in favour of a Green-Red Civil War in Russia?
Furthermore, they were winning or had already won enough soviets to where if elections to the Petrograd Soviet were to have been held then, they would soon enough lead it. The Bolsheviks, the one party wanting revolutionary change, would more or less lead the Soviet government opposite the Provisional Government: who ruled the soviets could rule Russia.
"The one party wanting revolutionary change" would be the SRs, being truly committed to the land reform which aside from the war was the most burning social issue of the majority of the population at the moment.
When the soviets were useful to the Bolsheviks they were tolerated - later on they were dismantled and brought to line along the ideas of the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
Lenin would write in his April Thesis that:
Letter to the central Committee, August 30th "we must speak about [taking power] as little as possible in agitation (remembering very well that even tomorrow events may put is in power and then we will not let it go.)"
The Bolsheviks actually called for multiparty rule during the Second Soviet Congress, but this was ruined by the parties whom in July had refused to A) hand all power over to the soviets and B) hold the second Soviet Congress and instead delay it for fear of what was already happening before their very eyes on 25 October : the formation of a Bolshevik-led government.
After February Revolution Lenin was frantic to start his grant experiment of building true Marxian socialism and ushering world revolution that would spread out from ruins of Russia like a wildfire. To this end he felt justified to do anything he felt necessary. When the original right-wing coalition started to lose power and control of the situation, Lenin felt it was essential to to prevent the transfer of power to a democratic socialist coalition, no matter how large the Bolshevik representation within it might be.
Why? Because such a government would focuss on addressing the issues of peace, land and worker participation in industry instead of focusing all of its efforts to the agenda of world socialism. Lenin wanted to seize power before such a government could be formed, so that Bolsheviks could then create a propaganda story where they stole the power from the right-liberal Third Coalition Government and not from other socialists. He strongly felt that it would be a disaster for the Second Congress of the Soviets, planned for mid-October, to meet and endorse the idea of a democratic socialist coalition government.
The Bolshevik party was not ethusiastic about Lenin's obsessive objections of coalition tactics in favour of violence and civil war against other socialist parties. Bolshevik Democratic Conference voted 77 to 50 to participate to the upcoming Second Congress. Two days later the Central Committee was discussing the idea of forming a "ministry of similar parties", a socialist coalition.
Lenin attacked against these attempts of compromise with utmost determination. On 29th of September he threatened to resign, and even with this attic he only managed to steer the Central Committee away from participating to the Preparliament. The Central Committee was thus split into pro- and anti-cooperation factions, supporters of Lenin and his hard line and Kamenev and his cooperative stance. Thus the Bolsheviks stumbled onto their coup and insurrection instead of marching there with closed ranks and an unified goal. As the Second Congress was starting to gather, Lenin urged the Central Committee to start action with MRC, and on 25th of October the Committee finally adopted his course.
The right-wing Third Coalition was already on the way out, and Lenin staged his coup not to push them out, but to prevent the most popular competing socialist parties, the SRs and Mensheviks, from gaining power democratically trough the ballot box in the soviet elections.
A story where the brave Bolsheviks are the sole defenders of the oppressed toiling masses of Russia and champions of democracy and progress in the glorious October Revolution is a product of postwar Bolshevik propaganda, nothing less. Much of the above is mostly direct quotes from Geoffrey Swain and his "The origin of the Russian Civil War" - a book I consider much more plausible source than John Reed.