The arrest of the Duma deputies caused new problems for the Party. The local branches managed to get a few underground protest leaflets out. But no general movement was possible except small strikes. The Duma trial was preceded by a wave of arrests. There was a massive police presence on the streets of the main cities in order to ‘soften the working class up’ for it. In February, political protest strikes involved 4,630 – not a bad result given the extremely difficult conditions, but really a very small number, reflecting a generally depressed mood in a majority of workers.

The deputies’ performance at the trial was uneven. MK Muralov confined himself to admitting to being a member of the RSDLP and a deputy, elected by the workers. But GI Petrovsky’s speech, in Lenin’s words, ‘did him honour’. However, Lenin was critical of some aspects of the defence. For example, the defendants denied all personal participation in the illegal party. Kamenev, who as a Central Committee member was arrested at about the same time as the Duma deputies and put on trial with them, made a declaration which did not display the courage one might have expected from someone in his position. Lenin was dismayed by Kamenev’s conduct. Referring to the trial of the Duma deputies, Trotsky writes:

At the trial, which took place on the 10th of February, the defendants maintained the same line. Kamenev’s declaration that the documents with which he was confronted “decidedly contradict his own views on the current war” was not dictated only by concern for his own safety; essentially, it expressed the negative attitude of the entire Party upper layer toward defeatism. To Lenin’s great indignation, the purely defencist tactics of the defendants extremely weakened the agitational effectiveness of the trial. The legal defence could have proceeded hand in hand with a political offensive. But Kamenev, who was a clever and well-educated politician, was not born to meet extraordinary situations. The attorneys, for their part, did whatever they could. Repudiating the charge of treason, one of them, Pereverzev, prophesied at the trial that the loyalty of the labour deputies to their class will be forever preserved in the memory of future generations; whereas their weaknesses – lack of preparation, dependence on their intellectual advisers, and the like – “all of that will fall away, like an empty shell, together with the libellous charge of treason”. (L. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 169.)

Lenin had expected something more. At a moment when all the leaders of the Second International were reneging, he saw the trial as an opportunity for the Bolsheviks to stand out, to give a clear public display of firmness and courage. The trial should have been a rallying point to raise the fighting spirits of the workers in Russia and internationally. But the opportunity was thrown away. Nor did their diplomatic defence tactics help to give them lighter sentences. The accused were sentenced to perpetual exile in Siberia. Despite Lenin’s misgivings, the fate of the Bolshevik deputies helped to raise the authority of the Bolsheviks in the eyes of the masses, who could not understand the finer points of the defence, but saw that their parliamentary leaders were prepared to go to prison for their principles. After the trial, Lenin asserted that the Bolsheviks had four-fifths of the conscious workers in Russia behind them. This was certainly true in 1914, as we have seen. About 40,000 workers used to buy Pravda before the war. Many more would have read it. Despite arrests, imprisonment, and exile, this tradition – a Bolshevik tradition – remained in existence. Even if the organisation had been reduced to a minimum expression, it still survived in the hearts and minds of the workers. This was the soil upon which the revolutionary tendency would eventually flourish once again.

But for the present, the situation of the party was grim. The party membership slumped with the outbreak of war. In the underground, the basic Bolshevik unit was the factory cell. The number of workers active in the cells at the time was very small. Because of arrests and mobilisation, a relatively high proportion of party members were new, inexperienced people. The Bolshevik Central Committee included Lenin, Zinoviev, Shlyapnikov, who was responsible for work in Russia, and the indispensable Krupskaya as secretary. That was about all! Only in the autumn of 1915 was a Russian Bureau of the CC established. By the autumn of the following year the Bureau was reorganised. The leadership fell to PA Zalutsky, V.M. Molotov and Shlyapnikov and remained so until February 1917. Gradually, painfully, the Party was being reorganised in the interior. The most important group was, of course, in Petrograd. It is claimed (in the Istoriya KPSS) that ten District Committees (rayonnye komitety) functioned here, though ‘not uninterruptedly’ (i.e., their existence was tenuous).

But by 1915 the mood was changing, the masses were slowly beginning to lose their fear. By the second half of 1915 there were already sporadic strikes in Moscow against the high cost of food. This changing mood was reflected in a gradual recovery of the party’s fortunes. Membership began to pick up slowly. In November 1914, the Petrograd Party organisation had only between 100 and 120 members. But by the spring of 1915, this went up to 500 and to 1,200 by the autumn. By mid-1916 and early 1917, there were 2,000 members in the capital. Also in the outlying areas the Party organisations were beginning to fill out. Apart from workers, there were groups of students, and even soldiers and sailors of the Baltic Fleet. It was the same elsewhere. In Kharkov in the spring of 1915 there were only 15 members. By the autumn, it had risen to 85, and one year later to 120. In Yekaterinoslav, at the end of 1915 there were 200, by November 1916, 300, and by the beginning of 1917, 400. The maintenance of underground party meetings, even when they were reduced to a few people, was the key to future success.

Slowly, the work was beginning to revive. Work was conducted in legal organisations, such as insurance and friendly societies. Even so, these were difficult and dangerous conditions of work. The Istoriya claims that the Party had groups in 29 towns and cities and names them as: Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav, Kiev, Makeyevka, Samara, Saratov, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Odessa, Yekaterinodar, Baku, Tiflis, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Tula, Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Tver, Gomel, Vyazma, Revel, Narva, Yuryeva, Irkutsk, Zlatoust, Yekaterinburg, and Orenburg. However, these claims should be treated with caution. Many of these groups will have been mere shells, and their existence problematical. The work was continuously hampered by agents provocateurs and arrests. Many of these organisations were probably not stable or long lasting like the Petrograd committee, which was smashed at least 30 times, although every time it was reconstituted. But, if this estimate is correct, then we must conclude that, at one time or another, party organisation existed in this period in at least 200 different towns and cities in Russia.

Underground work in wartime demanded the strictest centralisation and conspiratorial methods. The election principle was virtually impossible to retain. Elections were the exception, not the rule. Committees were formed by means of co-option: the regional committee (rayonny komitet), formed by members of local factory cells, nominated the members of the local committee (gorodsky’ komitet) which also had the right to co-opt experienced local workers. Some abuses were bound to creep in. But as far as possible the rank and file were kept informed by a combination of meetings and the underground press. The latter, in spite of all the difficulties, played a vital role in keeping the Party’s forces together. Three months after the outbreak of war, a new Bolshevik journal, the Sotsial Demokrat, was launched. In all, between October 1914 to January 1917, 26 issues (numbers 33-58) were produced – an average of one per month – a remarkable achievement in the given conditions.