ganization of the Social Democratic Party, which fact would have connected us directly with the Council of Workers and Soldiers in St. Petersburg, whose leaders all belonged to this party. During the trial we learned, to our amazement and surprise, that one of our members, the lawyer, Kozlowski, belonged to this party. This disclosure had a markedly detrimental influence upon the court, inasmuch as the sentences, it developed afterwards, would have been much more lenient, if this dénouement had not occurred.
On March 23rd the final phase of the trial was enacted. In summing up, the Prosecutor insisted that we be given the maximum sentence, eight years of hard labour in prison. Answering on our behalf, our counsel exposed the inadequacy of the evidence of the prosecution, whereupon the Prosecutor, speaking in rebuttal, repeated his demand for a maximum sentence, seeking to bulwark it with the statement that the Central Committee was a destroying, anarchistic power, which had caused the State great moral and material losses.
"Your Honours," he continued, "do not allow yourselves to be misled by these individuals, obscure and mostly of non-Russian extraction. We have heard their counsel telling the Court that the Central Committee took into its hands the helm of the State life in the Far East and that the order introduced by it saved to the Government twenty-one million roubles. As it was confirmed by witnesses and the Chief Comptroller of the railroad, I do not take issue with this statement and am ready to accept it. But, gentlemen, remember that the Central Committee is all the more dangerous, in that it has taught the revolutionaries how to act outside the authority of the Central Government and how to manage the ship of State. The acts of this Central Committee
