o the country.

3. _At the same time the ground was hurriedly prepared for the law
concerning the socialization of the soil._ The abandonment of his post by
Tchernov, Minister of Agriculture, did not stop this work. The principal
agricultural committee and the Minister of Agriculture, directed by
Rakitnikov and Vikhiliaev, hastened to finish this work before the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The Revolutionary Socialist party
decided to keep for itself the post of Minister of Agriculture; for the
position they named S. Maslov, who had to exact from the government an
immediate vote on the law concerning the socialization of the soil. _The
study of this law in the Council of Ministers was finished. Nothing more
remained to be done but to adopt and promulgate it. Because of the
excitement of the people in the country, it was decided to do this at once,
without waiting for the Constituent Assembly_. Finally, to better realize
the conditions of the time, it must be added that the whole country awaited
anxiously the elections to the Constituent Assembly. All believed that this
was going to settle the life of Russia.

VI

_The Bolshevist Insurrection_

It was under these conditions that the Bolshevist _coup d'etat_ happened.
In the capitals as well as in the provinces, it was accomplished by armed
force; at Petrograd, with the help of the sailors of the Baltic fleet, of
the soldiers of the Preobrajenski, Semenovski, and other regiments, in
other towns with the aid of the local garrisons. Here, for example, is how
the Bolshevist _coup d'etat_ took place at Saratov. I was a 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 as the programs of
the different parties.

On the night of October 28th, by reason of an order that had come from
Petrograd, th