Even prior to that, regiments of the Petrograd garrison had their commissioners, but these had been appointed by the Central Executive Committee. Above, we said that after the June Congress of Soviets, and particularly after the June 18th demonstration which revealed the ever growing power of the Bolsheviks, the fusionist parties had almost entirely deprived the Petrograd Soviet of any practical influence on the course of events in the revolutionary capital. The leadership of the Petrograd garrison was concentrated in the hands of the Central Executive Committee. Now the task everywhere was to put in the Petrograd Soviet's Commissioners. This was achieved with the most energetic cooperation of the soldier masses. Meetings, addressed by speakers of various parties, had the result, invariably, that regiment after regiment declared it would recognize only the Petrograd Soviet's Commissioners and would not budge a step without its decision. An important role in appointing these Commissioners was played by the Bolsheviks' military organization. Before the July days it had developed a widespread agitational activity. On July 5th, a battalion of cyclists, brought by Kerensky to Petrograd, battered down the isolated Kshessinsky mansion where our party's military organization was quartered. The majority of leaders, and many privates among the members were arrested, the publications were stopped, the printing shop was wrecked. Only by degrees did the organization begin to repair its machinery afresh, conspiratively this time. Numerically it comprised in its ranks but a very insignificant part of the Petrograd garrison, a few hundred men all told. But there were among them many soldiers and young officers, chiefly ensigns, resolute, and with heart and soul devoted to the Revolution, who had passed through Kerensky's prisons in July and August. All of them had placed themselves at the Military Revolutionary Committee's disposal and were being assigned to the most responsible fighting posts. However, it would not be superfluous to remark that precisely the members of our party's military organization assumed in October an attitude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the organization and its officially military character involuntarily inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of view we were undoubtedly weak. Our strength lay in the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and their readiness to fight under our banner.