Then, finding that it had a lot of old roubles on hand, the British paid their Russian soldiers and civilian labor in these old roubles that they had proposed to put out of circulation, at the same time making it impossible for the holder to spend this money in availing himself of any of the resources of the Military Intervention. Dozens of times I have seen Russian soldiers tear up this old money with which they had been paid and throw it on the floor in anger, because they could buy nothing with it. Yet the old money stayed in circulation. When eighty was reached no attempt was made to press the process of depreciation any further. Old "Nicolai" paper had gone out of circulation, and in the early days of August the peasants generally were preferring old roubles at eighty to new ones at forty. And there was a very general feeling among the Russian people that the Military Intervention had taken all that value out of their old roubles and in some mysterious way put it into its own pocket. *XVIII* *PROPAGANDA* The Bolsheviki are adepts at propaganda. They try to understand the point of view, the prejudices, the situations, of those to whom they appeal, and their propaganda is essentially sympathetic, tries to find a common ground, attempts to enter openings. They believe in propaganda. I have thought sometimes that they believe much more firmly in propaganda than in guns. They bombarded us constantly with leaflets in Russian and leaflets in English. We found them tacked up on trees in front of our lines every morning, and no one who went out to get them was ever shot at. We were forbidden to read this literature. All copies were to be taken unread to the "Information" office. As it came floating down the river on little rafts marked humorously "H.M.S. Thunderer," "H.M.S. Terrible," etc., we were warned that these were likely to be mine-traps. But they never were. We got them all. We read all the propaganda. It was interesting even when unconvincing. Having learned the names of some of our officers they sent personal messages across the lines. These made a great hit with our soldiers. Throughout the campaign we often got better news information from the Bolshevik propaganda than from the British propaganda, which came daily by wireless but which published almost nothing of political value. The Bolsheviki watched the Peace Congress very closely, and while their reports lacked fairness as much as those of the British lacked frankness, we were very glad to get them for the facts they gave us. [Illustration: Canadian soldiers with two captives, having changed caps. Bringing Bolsheviki prisoners into Malobereznik.]