The plan finally adopted was to teach all of the ministers of autocracy a grand lesson by blowing up as many of the ministers as could be caught together in an accessible place. At that time the ministers were frequenting the Duma. It was not unusual for five and six ministers and assistant ministers to gather in the ministerial box of an afternoon to listen to the people’s chosen representatives proclaiming diatribes against the wicked administration. The Maximalists procured plans of the Duma, found a means of access through forged tickets carefully copied from an original ticket of admission, and the men who were to take part in the plot were all chosen. There were to be six men with bombs besides a “covering group.” Three of the six were to throw their bombs simultaneously, while the other three were to loiter in the background to watch the effect of the first fire. If any of the first three failed to explode, or if the damage done seemed insufficient, the others were to throw their packets of death and destruction. When this plan was about to be executed, the question arose among some of the members of the Maximalist group: is it wise to have this thing in the Duma? Will it not react unfavorably upon the Duma itself? Opinion was divided. In spite of these questionings, however, the plot would undoubtedly have been carried out as planned, in the Duma, had not a very curious chance intervened. The men who were to throw the bombs were one afternoon scrutinizing the plans when some one pointed out that the ministerial box was separated from the foreign correspondents’ box only by a narrow aisle. Some, if not all, of the correspondents would thus inevitably be made victims of the explosions. The carefully arranged plot was there and then abandoned on grounds that correspondents were, theoretically at least, non-combatants, and as such must not be exposed to death in this way. The determination to do away with the ministers, however, was not abandoned at this time, and the question next to be settled was: where else are the ministers sometimes gathered together? Why, in the upper house, or Council of Empire. Therefore plans of that building were obtained, and as there was no press-box in juxtaposition to the ministerial box, it seemed as if the plot would be carried out here. But about that time the dissolution of the Duma--early in July--caused a suspension of the sittings of the Council of Empire, and thereby was this plan of the Maximalists frustrated. The sanguinary mutinies at Sveaborg and Kronstadt, which followed the dissolution of the Duma, were encouraged by Maximalists and among the “agitators” captured at both places were members of this fighting group. Wherever there is a fighting line, there are sure to be Maximalists. The bomb incident in the home of M. Stolypin early in the autumn, which cost a score of lives and wounded twoscore others, was the work of Maximalists.