hich the peoples of Europe
had been called to shed their blood during the fourth year of the war.

No official replies were made to this note. On December 7th, Generals
Kaledines and Kornilov raised the standard of revolt, but reports
indicated that the Bolsheviki were extending their control over all
Russia. A meeting of the Constituent Assembly took place on December
11th. Less than 50 of the 600 delegates attended. Meanwhile the
negotiations for an armistice continued. On December 16th an agreement
was reached and an armistice signed, to continue from December 17th to
January 14th, 1918.

[Illustration: Map: All of Europe and Asia, showing the Trans-Siberian
Railway and other railroads.]
RUSSIA'S GREAT RAILWAY LINK BETWEEN VLADIVOSTOK AND THE ARCTIC OCEAN
The Czecho-Slovaks took possession of long stretches of the
Trans-Siberian Railroad. Japan lent her aid in the east, and American
and Allied troops swept down from the Murman coast in the northwest.

Within the first month in which the Bolsheviki conducted the government
numerous edicts of a revolutionary character were issued. Class titles,
distinctions and privileges were abolished; the corporate property of
nobles, merchants and burgesses was to be handed over to the state, as
was all church property, lands, money and precious stones; and religious
instruction was to cease in the schools. Strikes were in progress
everywhere, and disorder was rampant.

Kornilov, Terestchenko and other associates of Kerensky, were imprisoned
in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul; the Cadet Party was outlawed by
decree and the houses of its leaders raided. On January 8, 1918, it was
announced that the Bolsheviki had determined that all loans and Treasury
bonds held by foreign subjects, abroad or in Russia, were repudiated.

During this period the Bolsheviki's Foreign Secretary astonished the
world by making public the secret treaties between Russia and foreign
governments in the early years of the war. These treaties dealt with the
proposed annexation by Russia of the Dardanelles, Constantinople and
certain areas in Asia Minor; with the French claim on Alsace-Lorraine
and the left bank of the Rhine; with offers to Greece, for the purpose
of inducing her to assist Serbia; with plans to alter her Western
boundaries, with the British and Russian control of Persia; and with
Italy's desire to annex certain Austrian territories. These treaties had
been seized upon the Bol