Sentence:  In 1906 and 1907 defeat was not yet total, society was still on the boil, spinning around the rim of the maelstrom. Lenin had sat in Kuokkala, waiting in vain for the second wave. But from 1908, when the reactionary rabble had tightened its grip on the whole of Russia, the underground had shriveled to nothing, the workers had swarmed like ants out of their holes and into legal bodies—trade unions and insurance associations—and the decline of the underground had sapped the vitality of the emigration too, reduced it to a <WSD>hothouse</WSD> existence. "Back there" was the Duma, a legal press—and every émigré was eager to publish "there". 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  An environment in which growth or development is encouraged naturally or artificially; a hotbed.