the Bolsheviks were not likely to
return. These workmen looked upon the Bolshevik rule as on some horrible
nightmare. They cared for little else so long as you could assure them
on this point. So ghastly was the dream from which they had awakened
compared with the flowery promises held out to them that I readily
believe "Ivan the Terrible" would have been received at that moment as a
saviour. This was a dangerous feeling which I tried my best to combat,
for the excesses of the Bolshevik regime have prepared the way--and were
deliberately intended so to do--for a return to absolutism.

We arrived at Ekaterinburg at the same time as General Knox arrived from
Chilliyabinsk. His first words were congratulations on my C.B., news of
which had just arrived. I visited Consul Preston, and read the evidence
he and his French colleague had collected relative to Bolshevik outrages
on the workmen of the district. It was too sad to think about. This was
the place where the Tsar and his family were imprisoned and murdered. Of
them it could be fairly alleged that they were responsible for the
crimes of the old regime; but what crimes have the poor workmen and
peasants committed that the most fiendish cruelty should be reserved for
them? I give it up! Perhaps there is some reason or justification; all I
can say is I have not heard it, neither can I imagine what it can be.

I held a meeting of railway workmen and officials, and was surprised at
the attention and earnestness of the audience. They hungrily devoured
every scrap of information as to our English trade union organisation
and work, and requested that a further meeting should be held next day
in a great carriage works in the centre of the town. This proved to be
one of the most remarkable gatherings I have ever attended. A fine
platform had been erected at one end of the main workshop. A sea of
faces under huge multi-coloured _papahas_ spread over the floor, while
every carriage was covered with human ants; even the beams of the
building carried its human freight. Clearly it seemed to me that the
resurrection of Russia had begun; the destruction of Russia began from
the head, its re-birth is from the ground.

CHAPTER XIX

IN EUROPEAN RUSSIA

Nevanisk is situated just over the European boundary of the Urals.
Before the Bolshevik came it was a great iron centre, one firm alone
employing three thousand workmen. When I arrived there the various works
were practically de