Writing about the 1916 Rising, just one year ahead of his own seizure of power, Lenin criticised the views of socialist colleagues who had dismissed the Irish rebellion because it was not a "pure" working-class revolution. Those who desired a pure revolution would never live to see one, he cautioned. There would always be middle-class elements, chancers, eccentrics and malcontents with their own agendas, and events would never quite follow the textbook sequence outlined in the Marxist classics.
There may be few Marxists in Northern Ireland these days, but the essential point made by the Russian revolutionary leader can still be applied to the latest twist in the peace process. Things never quite work out according to plan.
Mr Gerry Adams has a point when he says David Trimble stepped outside the Mitchell review and the Belfast Agreement by unilaterally introducing a new deadline on the decommissioning issue. "The introduction of a probationary period was never mentioned during the 11 weeks of the Mitchell review," said the Sinn Fein leader, who was so concerned by developments he telephoned Radio Ulster from his sick-bed where he was recovering from 'flu.
Unionists can argue, with some plausibility, that the crucial vote would have been lost and the agreement disappeared into the ether if some device had not been found to reassure the doubting middle ground in the Ulster Unionist Council.
No birth is without pain and nobody should be surprised there are contradictions, pitfalls and areas of continuing uncertainty over the process of implementing the Good Friday pact.
Suspicion and anger on the Sinn Fein side were inevitable over any attempt to introduce what they saw as fresh preconditions. Mr Adams allowed that the UUP leader was "the best judge of how to manage his own party" but setting up new hurdles was "not the way to do business". Mr Trimble should have been "strategic and holistic". But there is no sign of Sinn Fein walking away: Bairbre de Brun and Martin McGuinness will be presenting themselves for nomination to the new executive today.
Mr Trimble certainly wasn't holistic on Saturday: he just wanted to win the vote. It was clear from the expression of relief on his wife Daphne's face and, indeed, from Mr Trimble's own demeanour - he always puts on a brave face but it must have been a struggle this time - that it had been the closest shave so far. One returns to the comment he made at the UUP conference last month where he recalled how his wife had predicted two years ago "that I would probably obtain just enough support at each stage to go on, but that it would be a constant uphill struggle".
The bitterness and division in unionist ranks run deep. As John Taylor walked swiftly away from the Waterfront Hall without speaking to the press, elderly loyalist women heckled him from behind a barrier and one opposition delegate commented: "He's got his knighthood now." Another predicted the DUP's Iris Robinson would have no difficulty taking the Westminster seat for Strangford next time.
A leading No campaigner observed Trimble had been obliged to make significant concessions to "squeak" through. But there was a grudging admiration for the leader's "bareknuckle" closing speech. "It was the first time he has really seemed to me to be impassioned," he said, "but what troubles will it store up for him at the end of January?"
The Trimble deadline and the reports of post-dated resignation letters from UUP ministers have strengthened the suspicion which still lingers in some republican minds that the peace process is not - to borrow a phrase from the South African context - a "negotiated revolution" but the working-out of a counter-insurgency strategy using decommissioning as a device to divide, demoralise and destroy the republican movement.
At times like this, when a halting step forward is being attempted and fears and suspicions abound on all sides, hardened "peace processors" - officials and middleground politicians - tend to say: "Let's get through today and we'll deal with tomorrow when it comes." There are indeed long-term strategic considerations, but there are also immediate hurdles to be surmounted and the trick in overcoming these is not to be too specific in your promises to either side. Preserve a little ledge of vagueness so you don't end up falling into the abyss.
Today, the issue of Mr Seamus Mallon's resignation will have to be dealt with in the Assembly. An Alliance Party motion essentially seeks to airbrush it from history: it was never formally accepted, therefore it was not valid. Anti-agreement members will provide abundant material for the sketchwriters along the lines of Mr Nigel Dodds's quip that it reminded him of the demise of Bobby Ewing in Dallas - he was in the shower all the time.
There is also a DUP motion for the exclusion of Sinn Fein which may get the 30 votes required for a debate. If so, time will have to be made available, but ironically it will have the effect of delaying the nomination of Mr Dodds and Mr Peter Robinson as ministers-designate to the new executive. Every DUP quip about the Mallon resignation will be met with a counter-barb on the ambiguities of their own position: they will be accused of accepting Lottery prizes without buying a ticket.
On Thursday, the big day so many hardly dared dream about will come to pass. Unionists, nationalists and republicans will all be part of the same power-sharing administration - for two months anyway. We are entering uncharted waters but the climate could yet prove curiously agreeable. What Peter Robinson has called "the misty dream of decommissioning" may lose some of its powers of enchantment over unionists, and a pragmatic and creative way could be found over the obstacle.
There will be much interest in the suggestion made by the writer and former republican spokesman Danny Morrison in yesterday's Observer that, with the full implementation of the agreement including the adoption of the Patten Report on policing, the IRA will, in its own way, put the weapons "beyond use, beyond government".
Morrison is not the first to use the phrase "beyond use": it originally surfaced at Hillsborough last April, but in the context of establishing a shadow executive rather than the real thing. Like the word decommissioning, as well as much else in the peace process, its meaning is open to a variety of interpretations. The choice of making the final, official and legally binding interpretation rests with Gen de Chastelain. Perhaps he can supply the umbrella of ambiguity to shelter everyone from the storm.