However, my conclusions are based on
conversations with not only communists, but also many
opponents of the communist government, members of the
aristocracy, business men, and foreigners, and I am
persuaded that a large majority of the population of
Petrograd if given a choice between the present government
and the two alternatives, revolution or foreign
intervention, would without hesitation take the present
government. Foreign intervention would unite the population
in opposition and would tend to greatly emphasize the
present nationalist spirit. Revolution would result in
chaos. (There is nowhere a group of Russians in whom the
people I have talked with have confidence. Kolchak, Denikin,
Yudenvitch, Trepov, the despicable hordes of Russian
emigrees who haunt the Grand Hotel, Stockholm; the Socithans
House, Helsingfors; the offices of the peace commission in
Paris, and squabble among themselves as to how the Russian
situation shall be solved; all equally fail to find many
supporters in Petrograd.) Those with whom I have talked
recognize that revolution, did it succeed in developing a
strong government, would result in a white terror comparable
with that of Finland. In Finland our consul has a record of
12,500 executions in some 50 districts, out of something
like 500 districts, by the White Guard. In Petrograd I have
been repeatedly assured that the total Red executions in
Petrograd and Moscow and other cities was at a maximum
3,200.

It may seem somewhat inconsistent for the Russian
bourgeoisie to oppose allied intervention and at the same
time fail to give whole-hearted support to the present
government. They justify this attitude on the grounds that
when the two great problems of food and peace are solved the
whole population can turn itself to assisting the present
regime in developing a stable efficient government. They
point to the numerous changes which have already been
introduced by the present communist government, to the
acknowledgment that mistakes have been made to the ease of
securing introduction of constructive ideas under the
present regime. All these facts have persuaded many of the
thinking people with whom I have talked to look to the
present government in possibly a somewhat modified form as