Agreed. However, in Russia, the people did have legitimate complaints against the oppression of the tsarist regime. Then they were exploited by the up and coming Bolsheviks to further a socialist agenda. Example - the significant Jewish population, who for generations had suffered under pogroms (often govt provoked to take the focus off their own failed policies - sound familiar?) and other stuff like the May Laws that restricted travel, jobs etc. They worked actively with the Bolsheviks and once they had served their purpose, Lenin sought to quash their religious and national distinction and the Jews became victim to soviet policies just like everybody else, and not only that, the pogroms continued.
Not that there weren't true Marxists among the Jews; there were, but under soviet control, surprise, they couldn't be Jews anymore. And many of those Russian Marxist Jews emigrated to America and helped maintain the American communism way back in the 20s - David Horowitz's grandparents among them - see his book Radical Son, very good. Unfortunately they hadn't thrown the bathwater out with the baby - they seem to have taken Lenin's betrayal as indicative of the man rather than the movement or both.
And yes, revolutionary agitators definitely fueled the fire on both sides - those who wanted to overthrow Nikolai Romanov but retain imperial control and those who wanted to overthrow Nikolai Romanov and install a communist system.
Some eerie similarities actually - people in America have legitimate complaints too; just as in Russia, the left (and often the govt at large) has gotten really good at shifting the blame to mask their own culpability, so much so that the very policies that are keeping people enslaved are being effectively touted as the solution. What happens when all these people who voted for Obama because they thought he represented them realize that he used them to further a socialist agenda? I guess we'll see.
Speaking about “eerie similarities” - do you remember about Lenin’s “The worse is the better”? - meaning that worsening of living conditions of the working class make it easier for Bolsheviks to agitate in favor of the revolution. For this reason Bolsheviks did not participate in all other revolutionary parties efforts to improve lives of the workers.