Lenin has long put great trust in Peters. When he was in hiding during the first two months of 1917, Peters was in charge of that seclusion. Lenin’s famous “Letters to the Comrades,” which were sent out and printed broadcast, and caused so much havoc with the Provisional Government, were entrusted to Peters and his subordinates. Peters was very proud of this trust. Once he said to me when I was living on a little street just off Nevsky Prospect, “Lenin is not far from this house.” Little did I comprehend what an important confidence that was! Peters speaks English fluently. In 1917 he translated a life of Kerensky for me and over tea cups he told me many things about the revolution which I did not understand. I should never have believed, in those days, that this mild-mannered and almost inspired youth would soon have such sinister work to do. The last time I met Peters he was living in Tashkent which is the capital of the Province of Turkestan. He had even more sweeping powers than an ordinary governor, since he was the most important revolutionary official in a community not yet settled down to normal life. I also met the new Madame Peters. The English wife divorced him at the time of the terror. The second Madame Peters was a very pretty, redheaded Russian who had been a teacher and who still worked at her profession. They lived in a single room, shared a dining room with twenty others and were poorly dressed. When we discussed this point, Peters bitterly denounced several Soviet officials who, he said, were “living soft.” “A revolutionist cannot expect to force privations on other people if he is not willing to be an example of self-sacrifice,” he declared. He had become known almost as a conservative among the Left-Communists because he had refused to close the Mohammedan bazaars, saying these people were not ready for Communism. His public trials were attended by large crowds and proved of great educational value in a very unenlightened community. I found him much older. He seemed to have lived thirty years in three. He never mentioned the terror, nor did his wife, and I could not bring myself to. Only once did he indirectly refer to it. The three of us were starting to a local Soviet meeting. He picked up a revolver from his table and, for a moment, stood regarding it. Then he turned to me and said, “Have you ever used one of these?” I said, “Of course, I know how, but I’ve never had to.” And then he exclaimed, “I wish to God I never had!” After all, what a story can be condensed into a single sentence!