In the beginning of the revolution the soldiers of Kronstadt killed the old officer commandant. They began by gouging out his eyes. When he was quite finished they brought in the second officer in command and his young son, a lieutenant in the navy. “Will you join us, embrace the glorious revolution, or shall we kill you?” they demanded. “My duty is to command this garrison,” replied the officer. “If you are going to kill me do it at once.” They shot him, and threw his corpse on a pile of others in a ditch. The son they spared, and a few nights later the young man rescued his father’s body and brought it home to be buried. This story was related under oath by him, but in the face of it and hundreds more like it the death penalty was abolished; nor would Kerensky consent to restore it, except for desertion at the front. At the Moscow congress, held in August, Kerensky said, apologizing for even this small concession: “As minister of justice I did away with the death penalty. As president of the provisional government I have asked for its reinstatement in case of desertion under fire.” There was a burst of applause, and Kerensky exclaimed: “Do not applaud. Don’t you realize that we lose part of our souls when we consent to the death penalty? But if it is necessary to lose our souls to save Russia we must make the sacrifice.” Petrograd and Moscow are literally running over with idle soldiers, many of whom have never done any fighting, and who loudly declare that they never intend to do any. They are supported by the government, wear the army uniform, claim all the privileges of the soldier and live in complete and blissful idleness. The street cars are crowded with soldiers, who of course pay no fares. It is impossible for a woman to get a seat in a car. She is lucky if the soldiers permit her to stand in the aisle or on a platform. “Get off and walk, you boorzhoi,” said a soldier to my interpreter one day when she was hastening to keep an appointment with me. She got off and walked. I heard but one person dispute with a soldier. She was a street car conductor, one of the many women who have taken men’s places since the war. She turned on a car full of these idlers riding free and littering the floor with sunflower seeds, which they eat as Americans eat peanuts, and told them exactly what she thought of them. It must have been extremely unflattering, for the other passengers looked joyful and only one soldier ventured any reply. “Now, comrade,” said he, “you must not be hard on wounded men.”