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173 Half an hour after my arrival I was in consultation with the leaders of the revolutionary parties. My advice and my requests that they forgo this demonstration proved entirely vain in the face of the finality of their dictum that there was no other effective way in which to fight the Government of the Tsar save by the armed struggle behind street barricades or through the death of unarmed revolutionaries in the streets of the Tsar's own towns, where the blood of the victims could so cry out to, and make an impression upon, other nations, that they would declare their opposition to the criminal reign of Nicholas II and demand that it cease. I understood with poignant personal appreciation that these elements of society were obsessed by an immutable resolution of dumb despair, dictated and congealed by the thought of the approaching revenge of the Tsar.

After my futile meeting with these leaders I went at once to the Commander of the Fortress, General Kazbek, who was the virtual ruler of the whole town. He was a Georgian, a man of no great intelligence, ambitious and very desirous of making a career for himself. It was my purpose to try to persuade him to remain neutral, as the demonstration was to be of an entirely peaceful character and its leaders were determined not to allow the crowd to make any trouble or disturbance. Kazbek listened to me, smiling rather mysteriously as I spoke. Noticing this, I said to him:

"The fate of Vladivostok depends upon your honesty' and wisdom, General!"

These words came almost involuntarily from me and seemed, after I had uttered them, somewhat grandiloquent; but the future proved that I was quite right.

At eleven o'clock the procession came in grave silence down the Svetlanskaya, the principal street of the town,