cils, who for a
consideration visit the workers in their homes and wherever they
congregate, and compile their complaints and grievances. But these
professionals always point out that the rectification of small points
like rates of wages and working hours are a waste of time and energy;
that the real work is to leave the conditions so bad that, in sheer
despair, the worker will rise and destroy capitalism in a night, and
have a perfect millennium made ready for the next morning.

The poor, ignorant, uneducated, neglected Russian workman is perfect and
well-prepared soil for such propaganda. He found himself bound hand and
foot in the meshes of this professional element, who did not belong to
his class and, except in theory, knew nothing of his difficulties. When
this professional element had misled, bamboozled and deserted him, in a
frenzy of despair he determined to destroy this thing called education,
and made the ability to read and write one of the proofs of enmity to
his class on the same principle that our uneducated workmen of the first
half of the nineteenth century destroyed machinery and other progressive
innovations, whose purpose they did not understand. There would be less
chatter about revolution if our people could only understand what it
means to go through the horrors that have destroyed Russia and her
people more effectively than the most ruthless invasion.

We stopped at a station near a mining village largely peopled with
emigrant Chinese workmen. We removed the Bolshevik flag from the
flag-post, and insisted upon the Russian flag being run up in its stead.
A Russian woman told us to go back, and when we asked her why, she said,
"Well, it does not matter; our men will soon find enough earth to bury
you." But another Russian woman thanked us for coming, and hoped we were
not too late to save a country that was sick unto death.

That night we ran into Zema station, where we came to a sudden stop. I
sent my liaison officer to find the cause, and he informed me that a
body of men were beside the engine and threatening to shoot the driver
if he moved another foot. I ordered the "Alarm" to be sounded, and
instantly 400 British soldiers tumbled out of the trucks. Taking their
prearranged positions, they fixed bayonets and awaited orders. My
carriage was the last vehicle of the train. I walked forward to find the
cause of our enforced stoppage, and was just in time to see in the
darkness a squad of armed m