ABSTRACT
On the 24 February Stalin was in St. Petersburg. He had to find suitable quarters. One of his friends gave him the address of a certain Viatcheslav Skriabin, a student in the Polytechnic. In 1913 the Russians were hardly aware of the existence of the Bolsheviks. Nobody took very seriously 'the elucubrations of a few half-insane criminals who were preaching sheer absurdities'. By a strange paradox, it was this attitude toward 'the Bolshevik virus' that was one of the principal factors that later favoured the Bolsheviks' seizure of power. For the majority of Russian citizens, the next step would be to realize the aspirations of a comprehensive liberalism. A delirium of liberty had seized upon the people. Interminable speeches were delivered; endless processions marched behind the Red Flag; the troops took part in all these demonstrations, and in the rural districts the peasants began to burn down the houses of the great landowners and take possession of the soil.
