oing to Smolny to the Bolshevist Congress, those who,
by order of the Bolsheviki, kill the peasants' representatives and dissolve
their Congress.

In the midst of these speeches Kornilov declared the Congress dissolved; to
this Comrade Ovtchinnikov, president of the Conference, replied that the
Congress would not be dissolved except by force, and, besides, that the
document read by Kornilov did not authorize him to pronounce its
dissolution. Members of the Congress having entered into arguments with the
sailors and the Red Guards, concerning the violence inflicted on the
peasant delegates, the sound of the rattling of guns was heard and the
leader of the pretorians declared that if the Congress would not submit to
his orders he would stop at nothing. All the members of the Congress were
forthwith searched and thrown out of doors in groups of five, with the idea
that, having come from the provinces, and not knowing Petrograd, they would
find themselves dispersed in such a way as not to be able to assemble again
anywhere, and would be obliged either to betake themselves to the railway
and return home or to direct their steps toward Smolny, the address of
which was given to each one at the exit. At the same time, without reason,
the following were arrested: Minor, a deputy to the Constituent Assembly;
Rakitnikov, Ovtchinnikov, Roussine, Sorokine, and Tchernobaiev, members of
the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasant Delegates; and Chmelev, a
soldier. The premises of the Committee, on which were various documents and
papers which were to be sent into the country, were occupied by Red Guards,
and machine-guns were placed at the entrance. The search ended about nine
o'clock in the evening. Some late delegates alone were authorized to spend
the night on the premises under the supervision of Red Guards.

An inquiry held among the comrades, who had come for this Third National
Peasants' Congress, established that, at the time when the premises of the
Executive Committee were seized, January 10, 1918, there were, among the
sailors and Red Guards of the detachment that did the work, _German and
Austrian prisoners dressed in Russian uniforms_; it also established the
fact that many objects had disappeared in the course of the search. The
Congress decided: first, to consider as a law the socialization of the soil
voted by the Constituent Assembly and to apply the same in the country;
second, to consider that the Constituent As