ABSTRACT
Early on the morning of the March, 1917, Stalin and his companions, among whom was Kamenev, arrived in St. Petersburg. Their journey had been a protracted triumph. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party welcomed them at the terminus. It was represented by the working man Chliapnikov, one day to be First Councillor of the USSR. Stalin and his comrades adopted a prudent attitude. They were still undecided. Chliapnikov welcomed them with a speech: The Revolution has already taken a first step toward the final victory of the working class. In this event the Bolshevik Party would remain within the Soviet, side by side with the Menshevik internationalists and the revolutionary Socialists of the Left, and would not take up its position outside the Soviet, in order to lead the masses who wanted to impose their will on the Provisional Government and on the Soviet, operating from the outside.
