Yeah that's true it was a stretch to say the Russians got a choice, being that it was really more of the result of the Russian revolution, civil war, or whatever you want to call it. I have gotten the idea from some readings (Bezmenov for example) that Russian heritage was at least afforded slightly better opportunity, but to the Party, that was probably no more than being the slightly better smelling shit in the pile of shit.

Another mind game they played was their very name--Bolshevik being based off the Russian for "majority" and Menshivik being "minority". I don't think they even were the majority when they adopted, but it's like the Anti-facists being the actual facists. They just said to hell with that and picked a name that worked for them.