Thompson assisted Breshkovsky in this endeavor by reaching out to President Wilson himself but ultimately neither message had any effect and were unsuccessful in securing further funding for the Committee. Despite desperate attempts by Thompson and his cohorts to support Kerensky in the face of both reactionary and radical opposition, the Provisional government was overthrown in the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks came to power, but this did not prove to be an immediate set-back in Thompson's plans for Russia. Thompson and his compatriot Raymond Robins attempted to deal with the new Bolshevik government despite the protests of indignant American diplomats and businessmen that the Bolsheviki were merely paid agents of the German Kaiser and not true representatives of Russian democracy. Based on his own observations of Russia's political climate, Thompson was of the opinion that the new Bolshevik government was certain to remain in power and that official Allied recognition & support of the Bolsheviks would allow Russia to be kept in the bounds of commercial custom and therefore become less radical as a result. According to him, "if [we] leave Russian radicalism to itself to grow like a cancer, it is going to be a menace to the world." Thompson spoke favorably of the Bolsheviks but with some reservations, stressing that he believed the Bolsheviks would "soon learn that capital and labor must go hand in hand" and continue the war against Germany. Nevertheless, Thompson's predictions did not come true. The Bolsheviks withdrew from the war, ceasing hostilities with the German Empire and the other Central Powers through the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918. While the Soviet Union allowed foreign investments, free trade, and concessions for a time during the era of the New Economic Policy, this retreat towards capitalism and the accommodation to foreign capitalists that it permitted was promptly ended by Joseph Stalin and the beginning of the first Five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union. There is a persistent theory, most prominently outlined in "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" by Antony Sutton that W.B. Thompson gave considerable sums of money to the Bolsheviks. This is a misconception that can be traced back to Thompson's own time, originally appearing in newspapers asserting his support for the Bolsheviks. As pointed out by W.B. Thompson biographer Hermann Hagedorn, when the press uncovered Thompson's financial support for Kerensky and the Committee of