Only by
degrees did the organization begin to repair its machinery afresh,
conspiratively this time. Numerically it comprised in its ranks but a
very insignificant part of the Petrograd garrison, a few hundred men all
told. But there were among them many soldiers and young officers,
chiefly ensigns, resolute, and with heart and soul devoted to the
Revolution, who had passed through Kerensky's prisons in July and
August. All of them had placed themselves at the Military Revolutionary
Committee's disposal and were being assigned to the most responsible
fighting posts.
However, it would not be superfluous to remark that precisely the
members of our party's military organization assumed in October an
attitude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the
idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the
organization and its officially military character involuntarily
inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and
organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of view we
were undoubtedly weak. Our strength lay in the revolutionary enthusiasm
of the masses and their readiness to fight under our banner.
Parallel with the organizing activity a stormy agitation was being
carried on. This was the period of incessant meetings at works, in the
"Modern" and "Chinizelli" circuses, at clubs, in barracks. The
atmosphere at all the meetings was charged with electricity.
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