There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of
unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose
from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in
authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke;
then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry "Don't smoke,
comrades!" and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from
the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him. Unshaven and
filthy, he was reeling from three nights' sleepless work on the
Military Revolutionary Committee.
On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_-for the
last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled
from the first days, and which were now risen against them. It was
the end of the first period of the Russian revolution, which these
men had attempted to guide in careful ways.... The three greatest of
them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country
towns all doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had
contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to
sicken with consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also
mortally stricken, who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his
beautiful eloquence for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber,
Bogdanov, Broido, Fillipovsky,-white-faced, hollow-eyed and
indignant. Below them the second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets
boiled and swirled, and over their heads the Military Revolutionary
Committee functioned white-hot, holding in its hands the threads of
insurrection and striking with a long arm.
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