The feeling of dismay in the workers’ quarters soon passed, and gave way to a new wave of revolutionary enthusiasm, not only among the proletariat, but even among the Petrograd garrison. The coalitionists were losing all influence, and the wave of Bolshevism commenced to spread throughout the country and penetrated, in spite of all obstacles, even into the army.
The new Coalition ministry, with Kerensky at its head, now openly entered on the path of repressions. The ministry re-established the death penalty for soldiers, our papers were put down and our propagandists were arrested. But all this only increased our influence. In spite of all hindrances placed in the way of re-elections to the Petrograd Soviet, the relative strength of the parties had altered to such an extent that on many important questions we were already in a majority. Exactly the same happened in the Moscow Soviet. At that time, in company with many other comrades, I was already in prison at Kresty, having been arrested for taking part in the agitation and organisation of the armed rising of 16th-18th July in agreement with the German government and with the object of aiding the military plans of the Hohenzollerns. The well-known examining magistrate of the Tsarist regime, Alexandrov, who had conducted several prosecutions against revolutionaries, now received the mission to protect the republic against the counter-revolutionary Bolsheviks. Under the old regime, prisoners used to be divided into political and criminal; now a new terminology was introduced: criminals and Bolsheviks. Amongst the arrested soldiers, bitter perplexity reigned. Young men from the villages who had never before taken part in politics, but who had thought that the Revolution had made them free once and for all, now stared with amazement at the bolted doors and the grated windows. During our walks in the courtyard they anxiously asked me each time what it all meant and how it would all end. I comforted them by saying that we should come out victorious in the end.