in America” while, at the same time, hailing the birth of democracy in Russia, where conscription is enforced by the Bolsheviki?  How, again, can they at one and the same time condemn American democracy for its imperfections, as in the matter of suffrage, while upholding and defending the very men who, in Russia, deliberately set out to destroy the universal equal suffrage already achieved?  How can they demand freedom of the press and of assemblage, even in war-time, and denounce such restrictions as we have had to endure here in America, and at the same time uphold the men responsible for suppressing the press and public assemblages in Russia in a manner worse than was attempted by the Czar?  Is there no logical sense in the average radical’s mind?  Or can it be that, after all, the people who make up the Bolshevist following, and who are so much given to engaging in protest demonstrations of various kinds, are simply restless, unanchored spirits, for whom the stimulant and excitation of revolt is a necessity?  How many are simply victims of subtle neuroses occasioned by sex derangements, by religious chaos, and similar causes?

II

The Bolshevik rule began as a reign of terror.  We must not make the mistake of supposing that it was imposed upon the rest of Russia as easily as it was imposed upon Petrograd, where conditions were exceptional.  In the latter city, with the assistance of the Preobrajenski and Seminovsky regiments from the garrison, and of detachments of sailors from the Baltic fleet, to all of whom most extravagant promises were made, the coup d’etat was easily managed with little bloodshed.  But in a great many other places the Bolshevist rule was effected in no such peaceful fashion, but by means of a bloody terror.  Here, for example, is the account of the manner in which the counter-revolution of the Bolsheviki was accomplished at Saratov, as given by a competent eye-witness, a well-known Russian Socialist whose long and honorable service in the revolutionary movement entitles her to the honor of every friend of Free Russia—­Inna Rakitnikov:[25]

Here ... is how the Bolshevist coup d’etat took place at Saratov.  I was witness to these facts myself.  Saratov is a big university and intellectual center, possessing a great number of schools, libraries, and divers associations designed to elevate the intellectual standard of the population.  The Zemstvo of Saratov was one of the best in Russia.  The peasant population of this province, among whom the revolutionary Socialist propaganda was carried on for several years, by the Revolutionary Socialist party, is wide awake and well organized.  The Municipality and the Agricultural Committees were composed of Socialists.  The population was actively preparing for the elections to the Constituent Assembly; the people discussed the list of candidates, studied the candidates’ biographies, as well