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Chernov, with 810 votes, led the poll; Breshkovskaya came next with 809; Kerensky came third with 804; Avksentiev had 799; Bunakov 790; Vera Finger 776, and so on. Nineteenth on the list of thirty elected came the venerable Nicholas Tchaykovsky, well known in America.
Among the first speakers to address the Congress was the venerable "Grandmother" of the Russian Revolution, Catherine Breshkovskaya, who spoke with the freedom accorded to her and to her alone.
"Grandmother Ekaterina Constantinovna Breshkovskaya has no sort of authority, either from the assembly of members of the all Russian constituent assembly or from the party of social revolutionaries.
How shall we justify men calling themselves Socialists and proletarian revolutionists, who ally themselves with such men as these, but imprison, harry, and abuse such men and women as Bourtzev, Kropotkin, Plechanov, Breshkovskaya, Tchaykovsky, Spiridonova, Agounov, Larokine, Avksentiev, and many other Socialists like them?
The peasants' congress did likewise and also showed itself strongly Socialistic in its election of officers. Lenine, however, who was one of the candidates, received only 11 votes, as against 810 polled by Tchernov, a Social Revolutionist, and 809 by Catherine Breshkovskaya, the "grandmother of the revolution."
To this day the few surviving Nihilists of the early days, notably Katherine Breshkovskaya, "the grandmother of the Russian Revolution," are venerated by the people as the last representatives of the heroic age. It was not until the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth century, after the succession of Nicholas II to the throne in 1894, that revolutionary organization was revived in Russia.
The progress of Catherine Breshkovskaya, the "grandmother of the Russian revolution," from Siberia to Petrograd was almost like the progress of a conquering general. She had been one of the original Nihilists in the seventies and since then had spent most of her life in Siberia.
"Now it is not the Cadets who are dangerous to us," said they, "but the Socialist-Revolutionists these traitors, these enemies of the people." The most sacred names of the Revolution were publicly trampled under foot by them. Their cynicism went so far as to accuse Breshkovskaya, "the Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," of having sold out to the Americans.
Kerensky, Tseretelli, Tchcheidze, Boublikov, Plechanov, Kropotkin, Breshkovskaya, and others, spoke for the workers; General Kornilov and General Kaledine spoke for the military command; Miliukov, Nekrasov, Guchkov, Maklakov, and others spoke for the bourgeoisie.
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