What were the political parties involved during the Russian Revolution. What did each desire and why?

The two parties involved in the Russian Revolution were the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, and their division (both were initially part of the Russian Social Democratic Party) dated back to about ten years before the outbreak of World War I. Bolsheviks were radical Marxian revolutionaries who wished to establish a communist society through violent uprising. They saw themselves as the leaders of this movement, which would revolve around local workers' councils known as "soviets." They had no use for compromise, which they viewed as antithetical to the cause of class revolution. Their leader, Vladimir Lenin, advocated the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russia from World War I, which had precipitated the Russian Revolution in the first place. Mensheviks, on the other hand, were more willing to accept gradual reform. They were in the main democratic socialists, and even hoped to make alliances with liberal nobles. Their views and goals, which were for a democratic socialist society, were reflected in the provisional government established after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas. This government was in turn overthrown by the Bolsheviks, and many Mensheviks, in coalition with royalists and others, fought against the Bolshevik "Reds" in the Russian Civil War.