rs jumped at this order and at once
began to collect their scattered forces together. Within three weeks
they raised their Bolshevik flag on their own headquarters, under the
protection of the flag of the United States. From this neutral American
zone the Bolsheviks organised their forces for attacking the Japanese on
the Amur, for destroying British and other supply trains on the Ussurie
Railway, and finally exchanged shots with the Russian sentries near
Vladivostok itself, always bolting back to the American zone when
attacked by the forces of the Supreme Governor.

The other Allies and the Russians having got the measure of this neutral
zone business, naturally took steps to protect their men and property,
and for a time the operations of this very energetic Lenin officer were
confined to robbing and destroying a few isolated villages in the
maritime provinces; but the utter absurdity of American policy was at
last brought home to the Americans themselves. The Red Guard commandant,
chafing under the restrictions imposed upon him by the Russian and
Japanese forces (in which the British also joined when Captain Edwards
could get near with his good ship _Kent_), decided to attack the
unsuspecting Americans themselves. The Red Guard were very clever in
their operations. The American troops were guarding the
Vladivostok-Suchan Railway; the neutral zone was situated at the extreme
end of the line. If the Red Guard had attacked the end near the zone
their tactics would have been discovered at once. They therefore usually
marched out from the American zone, made a detour through villages and
forest, and struck the railway at a point as far distant as possible.
Destroying a bit of line--perhaps, if they had good luck, burning a
bridge--they usually exchanged a few shots with the American troops, and
if pressed, marched back to the zone under the protection of a section
of the very forces they had been raiding. The American command naturally
became more vigilant on the distant sections of the line, and this
forced the Bolsheviks to operate nearer and nearer the protected zone;
but in the meantime they managed to kill several Russian soldiers, wound
a few Americans, and destroy five different sections of the railway.
Then they operated too near the zone, and the American troops pressed
them straight into their own zone, where, to add insult to injury, they
claimed that in accordance with the American proclamation they could not