organised party than a rebellion against authority. The workman had at last realised that he had got the future for him, provided he did not allow his natural impatience to carry him too far, and that he could resist the temptation to proceed too quickly with the plans which he had formed. He had also realised another thing, and that was that neither the liberals nor the octobrists, nor the party called that of the cadets, nor even the revolutionary socialists, were strong enough to constitute a government, and that all the plans they were continually talking about, would only end in speeches more or less empty and devoid of practical common sense. The workman applied himself to avoid mistakes, which perhaps he had noticed before he had quite grasped their importance. He understood on the other hand perfectly well the fact that the immense industrial movement, which had developed itself during the years that had followed immediately upon the war with Japan, was bound to increase still further in importance, and that the future belonged to those who would be able to profit by it, to guide it, and to direct it in the sense of a great and general reform of the different abuses which had corrupted all the higher classes of the nation. The number of factories which suddenly arose everywhere, the speculation that followed upon the rise in the value of all kinds of industrial securities, and the knowledge that the workman very quickly acquired as to the different means thanks to which the fortunes of so many people come, no one knew from whence, had been edified, gave him a strength which became the more formidable that he was compelled to remain silent in presence of so many spectacles that revolted his sense of integrity. In regard to this particular point, the impossibility to hold public meetings proved a blessing in disguise for the development of the activity of the labour party, because it allowed it to proceed in secret to a propaganda that became the more dangerous for the security of the government in that there existed no one able to point out to those among whom it flourished its perilous, and even to a certain extent, its disastrous sides. Under the very eyes of the police, the mass of the workmen employed in the different factories scattered all over Petrograd, prepared itself for the mission which it felt but too well was bound sooner or later to devolve upon it; so that whenever it allowed its voice to be heard, it was always with prudence, and even with a certain amount of cautious wisdom that prevented the general public and the authorities noticing how strong and powerful it was getting, and what a wonderful instrument it would prove later on, in the hands of those who in the meanwhile were leading it in secret, until the day when, thanks to their help, it would be able in its turn to lead others.