Why had the Bolsheviks achieved so little by 1914?

Your first theme is best. The leaders were in exile leaving them with a lack of leadership. You could devlop this into a nice answer discussing the lack of leadership, inconsistency of the Duma, and the poor living conditions of the Russian people due to the lack of leadership and damages of world war.

During this time, Lenin left so many of the russian people to starve, they had lost faith in any leadership, let alone "new" leadership or politcal parties. This is wh communism was so easy to institute. When people are repressed in this way, they feel they have no where to go but up and they will be willing to allow themselves to be controlled by a force that promises to care for them.

This did take some time however because the Bolsheviks were a small group fighting for control against a greater force. With a lack of leadership, the group could not grow to potential quickly. It also doens't help that war had left the country torn apart to begin with.

Many Russians felt jaded by the ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.