“You say you have been along the Western Front,” he continued. “You admit that you have been allowed to mingle with the soldiers of Soviet Russia, that you have been unhampered in making your investigation. You have had a very good opportunity to understand the temper of the rank and file. You have seen thousands of men living from day to day on black bread and tea. You have probably seen more suffering in Soviet Russia than you had ever thought possible, and all this because of the unjust war being made upon us, including the economic blockade, in all of which your own country is playing a large part. Now I ask you what is your opinion about this being a dictatorship of the minority?” I could only answer that from what I had seen and experienced I could not believe that these people, who had found their strength and overthrown a despotic Czar, would ever submit to such privations and sufferings except in defence of a government in which, however imperfect, they had ultimate faith, and which they were prepared to defend against all odds. “What have you to say at this time about peace and foreign concessions?” I asked. He answered, “I am often asked whether those American opponents of the war against Russia—as in the first place bourgeois—are right who expect from us, after peace is concluded, not only resumption of trade relations but also the possibility of securing concessions in Russia. I repeat once more that they are right. A durable peace would be such a relief to the toiling masses of Russia that these masses would undoubtedly agree to certain concessions being granted. The granting of concessions under reasonable terms is also desirable to us, as one of the means of attracting into Russia the technical help of the countries which are more advanced in this respect, during the co-existence side by side of Socialist and capitalist states.” In reply to my next question about Soviet power he replied: "As for the Soviet power, it has become familiar to the minds and hearts of the laboring masses of the whole world which clearly grasped its meaning. Everywhere the laboring masses, in spite of the influence of the old leaders with their chauvinism and opportunism which permeates them through and through, became aware of the rottenness of the bourgeois parliaments and of the necessity of the Soviet power, the power of the toiling masses, the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the sake of the emancipation of humanity from the yoke of capital. And the Soviet power will win in the whole world, however furiously, however frantically the bourgeoisie of all countries may rage and storm.