In plain language, they were "Reds." Less than fifty persons in Graustark were affiliated with this particular community of anarchists.

For more than a year they had been preparing themselves against the all-important hour for public declaration.

Their ranks had been augmented by occasional recruits from other lands; their literature was circulated stealthily; their operations were as secret as the grave, so far as the outside world was concerned.

And so the poison sprung up and thrived unhindered in the room below the street, growing in virulence and power under the very noses of the vaunted police of Edelweiss, slowly developing into a power that would some day assert itself with diabolical fury.
There were men and women from Axphain and Dawsbergen in this seed circle that made Edelweiss its spreading ground.

They were Reds of the most dangerous type--silent, voiceless, crafty men and women who built well without noise, and who gave out nothing to the world from which they expected to take so much.
The nominal leader was William Spantz, he who had a son in the Prince's household, Julius Spantz, the Master-of-arms.