cers of the old army are occupying
important executive posts in the administration of the new army, but
are under control of convinced communist supervisors. Nearly all the
lower grade officers of the army are workmen who have displayed
courage in the ranks and have been trained in special officer schools.
Discipline has been restored and on the whole the spirit of the army
appears to be very high, particularly since its recent successes. The
soldiers no longer have the beaten dog-like look which distinguished
them under the Czar but carry themselves like freemen and curiously
like Americans. They are popular with the people.

I witnessed a review of 15,000 troops in Petrograd. The men marched
well and their equipment of shoes, uniforms, rifles, and machine guns
and light artillery was excellent. On the other hand they have no big
guns, no aeroplanes, no gas shells, no liquid fire, nor indeed, any of
the more refined instruments of destruction.

The testimony was universal that recruiting for the army is easiest in
the districts which having once lived under the soviet were over run
by anti-soviet forces and then reoccupied by the Red Army.

Trotski is enormously proud of the army he has created, but it is
noteworthy that even he is ready to disband the army at once if peace
can be obtained in order that all the brains and energy it contains
may be turned to restoring the normal life of the country.

LENIN'S PRESTIGE

The hold which Lenin has gained on the imagination of the Russian
people makes his position almost that of a dictator. There is already
a Lenin legend. He is regarded as almost a prophet. His picture,
usually accompanied by that of Karl Marx, hangs everywhere. In Russia
one never hears Lenin and Trotski spoken of in the same breath as is
usual in the western world. Lenin is regarded as in a class by
himself. Trotski is but one of the lower order of mortals.

When I called on Lenin at the Kremlin I had to wait a few minutes
until a delegation of peasants left his room. They had heard in their
village that Comrade Lenin was hungry. And they had come hundreds of
miles carrying 800 poods of bread as the gift of the village to Lenin.
Just before them was another delegation of peasants to whom the report
had come that Comrade Lenin was working in an unheated room. They came
bearing a stove and enough firewood to heat it for three months. Lenin
is the only leader who receives such gifts. And he turns