ABSTRACT
After his arrival in Petersburg, Lenin's ardour for the armed uprising temporarily cooled. Avoiding public appearances, he attended two or three sessions of the soviet as a spectatorOn December 15th, the soviet, then dominated by Parvus, called for the financial boycott of the government. This threat hastened the government into action: the entire Petersburg soviet was arrested on December 16th. Lenin preoccupied himself with strategy in regard to the Duma. He decided that the Social Democrats should boycott the elections, a proposal on which there was much debate. The Congress, under Lenin's presidency, debated the finances of the entire party. After attending the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, Germany (August 18–24, 1907), where he represented the left wing of the movement, Lenin settled down in Styrsudd, another Finnish hideout, where he largely devoted himself to literary work. In the first half of January 1908, after an absence of about twenty-six months, Lenin was back in Geneva.
