the red-hot atmosphere of a struggle no longer existed. The insurrection was already in the past.

All were
drunk<br>
with victory, were planning, how to get comfortable on the new basis, were relaxing, their souls, partly also
their<br>
heads. It required months of new conflicts and struggles in new circumstances, with the consequent<br>
reshuffling, of personnel, in order that the soviets, from being organs for consecrating, the victory, should
become<br>
organs of struggle and preparation, for a new insurrection. we emphasise this aspect of matter because it has<br>
until now been left completely in the shade. However, not only the conditions in which the executive
Committee<br>
and the Soviet arose determined their moderate and compromising character, peeper and more enduring,
causes<br>
were operating, in the same directio over 150,000 soldiers in Petrograd. There were at least four times as
many<br>
working, men and women of all categories. Nevertheless for every two worker-delegates in the Soviet, there
were<br>
five soldiers. The rules of representation were extremely elastic, and they were always stretched to the
advantage<br>
of the soldiers, whereas the workers elected only one delegate for every thousand, the most petty military
unit<br>
would frequently send two. The grey army cloth became the general ground tone of the Soviet. But by no
means<br>
all even of the civilians were selected by workers, NO small number of people got into the Soviet by
individual<br>
invitation, through pull, or simply thanks to theirwn penetrative ability, radical lawyers, physicians, <br>
students, journalists, representing, various problematical groups - or most often representing, their own<br>
ambition. This obviously distorted character of the Soviet was even welcomed by the leaders, who were not a
bit<br>
sorry to dilute the too concentrated essence of factory and barrack wi of cultivated Philistia. Many of these<br>
accidental crashers-in, seekers of adventure., selfappointed Messiahs, and professional bunk shooters, for a
long<br>
time crowded out with their authoritative elbows thesilent workers and irresolute soldiers. And if this was so
in<br>
Petrograd, it is not hard to imagine how it looked in the provinces, where the victory came wholly without<br>
struggle. The whole country was swarming, with soldiers. The garrisons at Kiev, Helsingfors, Tiflis, were as<br>
numerous as that in Petrograd; in .Saratov, Samara, Tambov, Omsk, there were TO,000 to 80,000 soldiers; in<br>
Yaroslavl, Ekaterinoslav, Ekaterinburg 60,000; in a whole series of other cities, 50,000, 40,000 and 80,000.
The<br>
soviet representation was differently organised in different localities, but everywhere it put the troops in a<br>
privileged position. Politically this was caused by the workers themselves, who wanted to go as far as possible
to<br>
meet the soldiers. The soviet leaders were equally eager to go to meet the officers. Besides the ble number of
<br>
lieutenants and ensigns at first elected by the soldiers themselves, a special representation was often given,<br>
particularly in the provinces, to the commanding staff. As a result the military had in many soviets an<br>
absolutely overwhelming, majority. The soldier masses, who had not yet had time to acquire a political<br>
physiognomy, nevertheless determined through their representatives the physiognomy of the soviets. In
every<br>
representative system there is a certain lack of correspondence. It was especially great on the second day of
the<br>
revolution. The deputies of the politically helpless soldiers often turned out in those early days to be people<br>
completely alien to the soldiers and to the revolution - all sorts of intellectuals and semi-intellectuals who
had<br>
been hiding, in the rear barracks and consequently came out as extreme patriots. Thus was created a
divergence<br>
between the mood of the barracks and the mood of the soviet, officer Stankevich, whom the soldiers of his<br>
battalion had received back s rustfully after the revolution, made a successful speech in the soldiers' section
on<br>
the delicate question of discipline. Why, he asked, is the mood of the .Soviet gentler and more agraeable
than<br>
that of the battalions? This naive perplexity testifies once more how hard It Is for the real feelings of the
lower<br>
ranks to find a path to the top. Nevertheless, as early as March 8, meetings of soldiers and workers began to<br>
demand that the Soviet depose forthwith the Provisional government of the liberal bourgeoisie, and take the<br>
power in its own hands. Here again the initiative belonged to the vyborg, district. And could there be, indeed,
a<br>
demand more intelligible and nearer to the hearts of the masses? But this agitation was soon broken off, not<br>
only because the Defensists sharply opposed it; worse than that, the majority leadership had already in the
first<br>
half of March bowed down in real fact to the two-power regime. And anyway, aside from the Bolsheviks,
there<br>
was no one to bring, up squarely the question of pow leaders had to back down. The Petrograd workers,
however,<br>