r
country mattered not at all. They were eager for peace on any terms. The
only war in which they were interested was a class war; they recognized
no political boundaries. The leader of this group was Vladimir Iljetch
Uljanov, who, under his pen name of Lenine, was already widely known and
who had now obtained the opportunity which he had long desired.

The third group were the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki believed in the
importance of the working classes, but they did not ignore other
classes. They were willing to use existing forms of government to carry
out the reforms they desired. They saw that the Allied cause was their
own cause, the cause of the workman as well as the intellectual.

The Soviet contained representatives of these three groups. It did not
represent Russia, but it was in Petrograd and could exert its influence
directly upon the government.

The attitude of the provisional government toward the Imperial family
was at first not unkindly. The Czar and the Czarina were escorted to the
Alexandrovsky Palace in Tsarskoe-Selo. The Czar for a time lived quietly
as plain Nicholas Romanov. The Czarina and her children were very ill
with measles, the case of the little Prince being complicated by the
breaking out of an old wound in his foot. The Grand Duchess Tatiana was
in a serious condition and oxygen had been administered. As his family
improved in health the Czar amused himself by strolls in the palace
yard, and even by shoveling snow. Later on Nicholas was transferred to
Tobolsk, Siberia, and then, in May, 1918, to Yekaterinberg. His wife and
his daughter Marie accompanied him to the latter place, while Alexis and
his other three daughters remained in Tobolsk. On July 20th a Russian
government dispatch announced his assassination. It read as follows:

At the first session of the Central Executive Committee, elected by the
Fifth Congress of the Councils, a message was made public that had been
received by direct wire from the Ural Regional Council, concerning the
shooting of the ex-Czar, Nicholas Romanov. Recently Yekaterinberg, the
Capital of the Red Urals, was seriously threatened by the approach of
Czecho-Slovak bands, and a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was
discovered, which had as its object the wresting of the ex-Czar from the
hands of the Council's authority. In view of this fact the President of
the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot the ex-Czar, and the decision
was carried out on July 1