October 1916 was one of the first signs of the impending storm that culminated a few months later in the fall of the tsar. Now, as Lenin's train moved sluggishly past and drew to a noisy stop at the Finland Station, all three factories were again shut down. Workers from the Reno, Erikson, and Novyi Lessner plants had been among the first to tak^ to the streets the day before.
As Lenin strode from the train, the scene at the Finland Station was very different from the one which had greeted him in April. Then, returning from exile, he had been met by crowds of workers and soldiers. There had been banners and flowers, a band, and an honor guard of sailors. Even the leadership of the Soviet had made its appearance; Nikolai Chkheidze, chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, had been among those welcoming Lenin in what formerly had been the imperial waiting room. On that occasion Lenin had driven to Bolshevik headquarters perched atop an armored car, accompanied by an imposing procession of party functionaries, workers, and soldiers. Now, as Bonch-Bruevich hastened off in search of a taxi, there were no bands or welcoming speeches. An acrid odor of steam, stale food, and sweat permeated the humid summer air. Porters hustled about their tasks. From a booth draped in bunting, an elderly matron with pince-nez gesticulated wildly as she exhorted passersby: "Support our revolutionary soldiers! Sign your liberty loan pledges here!" On the square outside, throngs of workers and soldiers milled about, preparing to renew their demands for immediate peace and the transfer of power to the soviets.
During the more than two hundred years since its founding by Peter the Great, the Russian imperial capital, like prerevolutionary Paris, had become divided into sharply defined socioeconomic districts. Generally speaking, the central sections of the city, encompassing the southern parts of Vasi- lievsky Island and the "Petersburg side" on the right bank of the Neva, and much of the left bank extending from the river to the Obvodny Canal, were the domain of the upper and middle classes, while most factory workers lived and worked in the outer industrial districts. The central sections boasted the luxurious rococo and neoclassical palaces of the royal family and high aristocracy, the massive edifices that served as headquarters for imperial officialdom, the imposing Isaac and Kazan cathedrals, and the granite river and canal embankments which together made Petrograd one of Europe's most beautiful capitals. Here, too, were centers of Russian culture such as the Royal Mariinsky Theater, home of the opera and the famed imperial ballet; the Royal Alexandrinsky Theater, where the best in European drama and comedy alternated with the classics of Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy; and the Petersburg Conservatory, on whose stage the most accomplished musicians of the time performed. Also located in this central area on the left bank of the Neva were the capital's banks, offices, and
Street scene in Petrograd, 1917.
better residential neighborhoods, which changed in character as one went further from the Admiralty—the hub of the city—from aristocratic palaces through professional apartment houses to the tenements of the lower middle class. Originating at the Admiralty and dominated by its needle spire was Nevsky Prospect, Petrograd's broadest and finest avenue, with the city's most fashionable shops, while across the Neva, to the north, the embankment at the eastern end of Vasilievsky Island was lined by the distinctive buildings of St. Petersburg University, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Fine Arts, three symbols of Russian intellectual and artistic achievement, and by the columned facade of the Stock Exchange.
The major factories of Petrograd were located in the districts surrounding this central area—in the Narva, Moscow, and Alexander Nevsky districts on the left bank of the Neva, and in the more remote areas of Vasilievsky Island and the Okhta and Vyborg districts on its right bank.
On the Petersburg side, surrounded by a formal garden and protected by a high, ornate, wrought-iron fence, was the spacious and elegant Kshesin- skaia mansion, the former residence of Mathilde Kshesinskaia, prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Ballet and reputed to have been the mistress of Tsar Nicholas II. Kshesinskaia had fled the mansion during the February days, after which it had been taken over by soldiers of an armored car division quartered nearby. In early March, the Bolsheviks, then operating out of two cramped rooms in the attic of the Central Labor Exchange, requested and received permission from the soldiers to make the building their headquarters.17 In short order, the Central Committee, the Petersburg
Committee, and the Bolshevik Military Organization were comfortably established in different parts of the mansion.
From the Bolsheviks' point of view, the Kshesinskaia mansion was ideally situated. A stone's throw from the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Cirque Moderne, a cavernous concert and assembly hall now the scene of frequent political rallies, it was also close to many military barracks as well as to the teeming factories in the Vyborg District. The move to the Kshesinskaia mansion coincided with the party's spurt in membership and popularity following the February revolution. The new headquarters, over which flew the red standard of the Central Committee, soon became a magnet for disgruntled workers, soldiers, and sailors. The mansion's spacious basement housed the Military Organization's Club Pravda, while the grounds outside the building became the scene of round-the-clock rallies. Each day from early morning until late at night, Sergei Bagdatiev,18 or Moisei Volodarsky,19 or another of the party's more popular agitators could be seen atop a rostrum overlooking the street haranguing crowds of passersby. Approximately once a week, elected representatives of party committees in the various districts of the capital assembled at the Kshesinskaia mansion for business meetings. It was to a stunned late-night gathering of some three hundred party leaders in the ornate, white-columned drawing room that Lenin had first personally outlined his new program upon his return to Petrograd on the night of April 3. Several weeks later the mansion was the meeting-place for the Bolsheviks' April Conference.
Not everyone was quite as pleased by this arrangement as were the Bolsheviks. By late spring, Kshesinskaia was determined to get her house back, evidently more for the purpose of expelling the Bolsheviks than out of any desire to return to it herself. In late April and May she badgered both the government and the Petrograd Soviet about evicting the Bolsheviks, and ultimately she took the matter to court. Subsequently, a justice of the peace had given the party twenty days to vacate the mansion,20 but the Bolsheviks on various pretexts had delayed the move. It was to this beehive of radicalism that many of the demonstrating soldiers and workers came on the evening of July 3. While thousands of marchers chanting "All Power to the Soviets!" waited impatiently for instructions, party leaders from the Military Organization and the Petersburg Committee, gathered in the mansion's master bedroom, debated what action to take and ultimately agreed to support openly and lead the movement on the streets.