adek had arranged with Rostopchin that I should come in with
himself, and be allowed to sit in the wings at the side of the stage.
On the stage were Rostopchin, Radek, Larin and various members of the
Communist Party Committee in the district. Everything was ready, but the
orchestra went on with its jig music on the other side of the curtain.
A message was sent to them. The music stopped with a jerk. The curtain
rose, disclosing a crowded auditorium. Everybody stood up, both on the
stage and in the theater, and sang, accompanied by the orchestra, first
the "Internationale" and then the song for those who had died for the
revolution. Then except for two or three politically minded musicians,
the orchestra vanished away and the Conference began.

Unlike many of the meetings and conferences at which I have been present
in Russia, this Jaroslavl Conference seemed to me to include practically
none but men and women who either were or had been actual manual
workers. I looked over row after row of faces in the theatre, and could
only find two faces which I thought might be Jewish, and none that
obviously belonged to the "intelligentsia." I found on inquiry that only
three of the Communists present, excluding Radek and Larin, were old
exiled and imprisoned revolutionaries of the educated class. Of these,
two were on the platform. All the rest were from the working class. The
great majority of them, of course, had joined the Communists in 1917,
but a dozen or so had been in the party as long as the first Russian
revolution of 1905.

Radek, who was tremendously cheered (his long imprisonment in Germany,
during which time few in Russia thought that they would see him
alive again, has made him something of a popular hero) made a long,
interesting and pugnacious speech setting out the grounds on which the
Central Committee base their ideas about Industrial Conscription.
These ideas are embodied in the series of theses issued by the Central
Committee in January (see p. 134). Larin, who was very tired after the
journey and patently conscious that Radek was a formidable opponent,
made a speech setting out his reasons for differing with the Central
Committee, and proposed an ingenious resolution, which, while expressing
approval of the general position of the Committee, included four
supplementary modifications which, as a matter of fact, nullified that
position altogether. It was then about ten at night, and the Conference
adjourn