Reddit mentions of The Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia, With a New Preface by the Author

I don't have time to read carefully and reply in full at present but right away I see the history you present is flawed. You say:

>Second, the Duma (the Parliament which had no elected officials and included no Socialists) formed themselves, seized the palace, and declared that they would rule as a Provisional Government

This is simply incorrect history. The Duma had been a semi-parliamentary system (weak, power limited by the Tsar) for decades. There were 2 or 3 major socialist parties in the Duma in the years leading up 1917 over several congresses - the first through the 4th Dumas - it is 3 if you count Mensheviks and Bolsheviks as in separate parties, which they should be by 1917.
At least 2 of these 3 socialist groups were represented in the Duma during most of its congresses. The large Socialist Revolutionary party, or SR, made up mostly of peasants and also soldiers, which was basically agrarian-socialist and not Marxist particpitated either alone or in a coalition like the Labour Group. And the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks participated but only one at a time, when the other would boycott, they sometimes refused to participate - both Bol. and Men. boycotted, taking turns, because the Duma system, they argued (correctly) meant they were bullied by the Tsar, and there was a highly slanted voting system which benefited the propertied classes. Hence they were disadvantaged and therefore vastly underrepresented in the Duma relative to the trend of opinion among the people. This may have been true. But, it is not true that the Duma had no socialists in 1917:

Seats held in Imperial Dumas

• Party First Duma Second Duma Third Duma Fourth Duma
  
• Russian Social Democratic Party 18 (Mensheviks) 47 (Mensheviks) 19 (Bolsheviks) 15 (Bolsheviks)
  
• Socialist-Revolutionary Party – 37 – –
  
• Labour group 136 104 13 10
  
• Progressist Party 27 28 28 41
  
• Constitutional Democratic party 179 92 52 57
  
• Non-Russian National Groups 121 – 26 21
  
• Centre Party – – – 33
  
• Octobrist Party 17 42 154 95
  
• Nationalists 60 93 26 22
  
• Rightists 8 10 147 154
  
• TOTAL 566 453 465 448
  
  In 1917, the large SR party and the Bolsheviks had seats in the Duma.
  
  See also, for example, pages 250-255 in Adam Ulam's The Bolsheviks where Lenin's boycotting of the Duma is explained at length.