Trotzky was elected a member of the Petrograd Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, being a pacifist and never having done any manual work. Last summer when I was in Russia I used to read almost daily in the accounts of the National Council of Soviets, or councils, burning speeches of Trotzky’s in which he urged a separate peace with Germany, or what would amount to exactly the same thing, Russia’s immediate cessation of fighting. Trotzky ridiculed the idea that abandonment of the allies would in any way injure Russia in a material way or soil the national honor. His ideas of economics and finance were simply and frequently reiterated. Arrest all capitalists and force them to disclose the secret of how they got rich, and hang all the bankers--presumably as the first step toward seizing the contents of the banks. With this man as chairman of the central executive committee of the Petrograd Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council, and with the October revolt of the German naval men on five ships for him to point to as evidence that the social revolution is at hand in Germany, the life of the last coalition government was not likely to be peaceful. But the end of the Bolsheviki is in sight in spite of Lenine, Trotzky and the entire majority in the Council of Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Delegates. It has been coming on stealthy feet for many months, and now the messengers’ hands are on the latch. The messengers’ names are Hunger and Cold. When I went down to my first dinner in Petrograd last May, I was amazed to see the price on the menu card placed at five rubles fifty kopecks, about $1.80. In a previous visit to Petrograd I had eaten an excellent dinner in this same hotel and had paid for it one ruble seventy-five kopecks, or about seventy-five cents, as the ruble was then valued. The one offered for more than twice this amount consisted of a watery soup, a small piece of not very fresh fish, a thin slice of veal with peas and a water ice flavored with cherry juice. One piece of black bread without butter was served. If I wanted water to drink with the meal I had to pay two rubles for bottled water, for one drink of plain water in Petrograd is an attempt at suicide by the typhoid route. If I wanted coffee I had to pay one ruble sixty-five kopecks more, and after I added the customary 10 per cent. for the tip my check was ten rubles and six kopecks. Three dollars and thirty-five cents. This was bad enough, but before I left Russia the price of that meager meal had advanced to thirteen rubles and the quality of the dinner had sensibly declined. Also the tip had advanced, for after a strike of waiters a system was adopted all over Russia, as far as I traveled, whereby tips were abolished and 15 per cent. was added to the bill by the hotel and restaurant proprietors.