At night, the wind and snow that had been raging and howling for days finally stopped. The faint moonlight loomed in the black clouds, casting a tiny spot of light on the city. However, after entering the night, St. Petersburg, which was already lacking in life, was even more bleak as a ghost; The street lamps on both sides of the street are not surprisingly lit due to the lack of electricity, and there is rarely a bright light source in the buildings and houses.

"Comrade Ulyanov, you are finally back!" A man with black-rimmed glasses appeared in front of the door and said in a trembling voice full of surprise and excitement. Seeing this familiar face, the middle-aged man who had been in exile overseas for many years was also overflowing with joy and emotion, and couldn't help but take two steps forward and shake hands with his comrades. And for the touching reunion of these two friends after several years, Kuzov next to him was not the slightest interest: all his attention was focused on the face of the person who came. The other party is about thirty years old, with a goat's beard that ordinary people are accustomed to, and his thin and simple literati temperament is very much in line with the image of a rural teacher. Then a man who entered the room was a little younger and more muscular, and Kuzov's gaze was far away from him, and he felt a sharp edge and sharpness in his face.

"Come, I'll introduce you to you." The middle-aged man patted the glasses scribe on the shoulder, stood sideways to the side, smiled at Kuzov and said, "This is my close comrade-in-arms Lev?" Trotsky, whom we met in 1902 when he was chief editor of the newspaper in London, was now presiding over the activities of the Bolshevik Party in St. Petersburg. This one is Mikhail? Frunze, a genius military strategist in our party. He was the sharpest sword of the Bolsheviks! The man who returned to the capital with me was Mr. Kuzov, a German commissioner from the Falcon Organization, for the sake of convenience. You'll all call him by this Russian name. ”

Kuzov nodded slightly, shaking hands with the two new Russians in the room. Since it was not the first time that the forces they represented had dealt with each other, even though there was a huge gap between the two sides in terms of ideology, after a short period of contact, they still quickly completed the transformation from meeting for the first time to having a happy conversation, as if they had been friends for a long time. After a short time, Kuzov asked the Russians for a knife. Then, in the expectant eyes of the three of them, they took out a folded piece of paper from the gap of the disassembled coat and slowly pushed it to the wooden table in the living room.

"This is the latest list of goods we have brought in the last three months. Includes 650 Mosinagan rifles, 50,000 rounds of ammunition, 200 throwing grenades, 40 kg of explosives and 1 M1905 heavy machine gun. The ordnance was scattered among the Kovob shop, the Blue Whale Fruit Shop, and the Redus Hotel. The code of the connector has been written on it. If you need it, you can always pick it up. Kuzov's flat voice echoed in the well-soundproofed meeting room, clear in the silence, "Now that the port of Alhanks has long been frozen, this most important source of weapons no longer exists, so we are very fortunate to be able to get these things from the tsarist army, which is in desperate need of weapons." ”

In the dim kerosene light, the three people, led by the middle-aged man, looked at the list and code words listed on the page. There was a hint of surprise in his eyes.

"Thank you for your constant support to our Party, which will always be remembered by every Bolshevik. Although our faith positions are not one. But in any case, Germany would have been a benefactor and friend of the Bolsheviks. We have received all these precious arms and materials. The scribe with glasses, who was called Trotsky, spoke softly, courteously, and his words of gratitude and sincerity were not pretentious in the slightest. Kuzov gave Trotsky a deep look and added: "In addition, I have come this time with a mission, which is to be responsible for ascertaining the current strength of your party and to assess the possibility of the success of the revolution. Like you, we want the war between Germany and Russia to end quickly, and the key to achieving this is the overthrow of the Romanov regime, kidnapped by the French capitalists and carried away by vengeful hatred. ”

Trotsky smiled and said, "Please rest assured, Mr. Kuzov. The brave and fearless Bolsheviks were not to be crushed by any hostile forces, and they were always accumulating their strength in order to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy at the most opportune time. At present, we have more than 400 trade unions in St. Petersburg and have won the support of more than 150,000 workers. The oppression of the working people at the bottom by the ruling class is so strong that it is highly likely that a garrison company will join us after the outbreak of the revolution. And the increasingly unrestrained banditry of the secret police after the outbreak of war also pushed a large number of originally neutral citizens to our side, which made the soil of our revolution more vibrant. ”

Trotsky paused and added: "During our period of development of the revolutionary ranks, financial assistance from your country played a decisive role; Whether it is the printing and distribution of leaflets and pamphlets, or the help given to the workers and citizens, this has won us the gratitude and recognition of a large number of working people. We are now planning a new round of large-scale strikes in the capital, and in order to test the stability of the tsarist regime more than half a year after the outbreak of the war, and if we can take advantage of the situation to further develop the workers' strike into an armed revolution. And judging by all the information we have, the time has come for an armed seizure of power. ”

Kuzov's expression was solemn, and his eyes were staring straight at the pupil behind Trotsky's lenses; Trotsky, on the other hand, met the gaze of the other party without evading it, and his thin face was full of calmness and peace. After a while, Kuzov spoke again: "Mr. Trotsky, it's not that I can't trust you, but that this matter is really important, and I must be absolutely credible in the situation. If you don't mind, I would like to ask you to provide more detailed information later, including the living conditions of the workers and citizens of your country, and the branches of your party that have developed among them. While this will take some time, I think it's necessary to behave. ”

The middle-aged man nodded slightly and said, "This is natural." Your country has given us untold amounts of generosity, and it is time for us to reciprocate something insignificant. Trust that the situation will not let you down. ”

"As for the military, has your party fully infiltrated its own forces?" After receiving an affirmative reply from the middle-aged man, Kuzov again asked, "Compared with the workers and citizens who go on strike and demonstrate in the streets, this force is even more important than the promoters of the revolutionary wave in a certain sense; If the army had stood firmly on the Tsar's side and had suppressed or even opened fire on the crowd, the courage of the crowd to resist would most likely be quickly replaced by the fear of losing their lives. In those years, the Kingdom of Prussia relied on the army of absolute loyalty to the royal family to suppress the rebellion of the liberals and social democrats; And the last revolution of 1905 in your country was also suppressed because of the loyalty of the army. When it comes to the European Revolution of 1848, Kuzov's words do not fluctuate in the slightest, and the three Russians in front of him are equally unchanged, as if the mass of revolutionaries who had been exiled and executed had nothing to do with them.

The combination of interests as the core is indeed a existence that is several times firmer than any feelings and beliefs.

Hearing these words, Trotsky glanced at the young Frunze, who had not spoken until now. The latter understood, and said in a slightly hoarse voice: "Indeed, the attitude of the army directly determines whether our revolution can be victorious. A single machine gun mounted on a corner tower can streak the corpses of thousands of demonstrators in the streets; At present, although we have accumulated some guns and ammunition with your assistance, this can only be used in some specific situations, and it is not enough to confront the Tsar's million-strong army head-on. However, thanks to your country's assistance on the battlefield, our propaganda infiltration in the army has been smooth from the very beginning. ”

"Since the day our army suffered the defeat of Tannenberg in East Prussia, good fortune has not befallen the heads of the Russian army. And several successive battles in Poland and Romania exhausted all the regular troops that Russia had trained with great difficulty before the war. At present, the main force of the Tsar's army is almost no longer the original team before the war, but the farmers who were hastily recruited from the fields after the outbreak of the war. These people had been oppressed and bullied by the tsarist government, and they were also enslaved by cannon fodder in the army; Therefore, they all have a great yearning for our slogans such as confiscation of landlords' land, rent reduction, and opposition to war. ”

In contrast to Trotsky's well-replied words, Frunze's words were slightly more complex. For an aspiring young man, it is undoubtedly unacceptable for his homeland's army to suffer repeated setbacks, even if it is in an opposing position. He calmed down the strange feelings in his heart, and continued: "In addition, the failure of the front-line battlefield like an avalanche of retreat has also made the anti-war sentiment in the hearts of the soldiers unprecedentedly high; The hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have been withdrawn from the front line all the way full of loss and frustration are the best candidates to receive our ideological re-education on peace and anti-war. ”

"Comrade Frunze, is the situation on the frontline really bad enough to be like this?" Hearing this, the middle-aged man next to him couldn't hold back the doubts in his heart and asked. (To be continued......)

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