The Bolshevists carried out their program of winning over the people with great subtlety--a subtlety which suggests that the Magician was inspired of the Devil. The method of procedure was as follows: As the Bolshevist propagandists traveled by trains eastward from Vladivostok, and westward from Petrograd, they took with them chests and sacks of purposely rumpled, soiled and worn currency. Whenever they rolled into a station, they would call, say, upon a _moujik_ for some trifling service--perhaps the filling of a tea-kettle with hot water; and when the _moujik_ returned with the kettle, a Bolshevist would hand him five hundred one-ruble bills! To a _moujik_, five hundred rubles represents years of hard work--it is a fortune. He stands and stares at his fistful of money. “This poor traveler is surely mad,” he concludes; “or he has made a terrible mistake.” But neither of these is the truth. It is astounding enough--yet for the _moujik_ not difficult to believe. For like all his fellows, this peasant has lived his whole life in the expectation that some such wonderful thing would happen when the Czar was pulled from his throne. And now the passenger tells the _moujik_ that the money is all his. The miracle has come to pass! “I am a Bolshevist,” says the traveler. “Therefore I am your friend. If a capitalist asks you to fill his tea-kettle, what would he give you? Five kopecks. I give you five hundred rubles. Comrade, your country is behind this money. Look! There are the fields and factories on the notes. The capitalists have worked you hard and given you little: I work you little and give you much. That is because I am a Bolshevist. If you will be a Bolshevist you will never want again. My brother, freedom has come to Russia! Uphold the revolution!” The secret of the success of this plan lay in the fact that the miraculous conferring of wealth was general. The waiters in the station restaurant received a thousand rubles each for a bowl of cabbage soup. Clerks in nearby shops were paid exorbitant sums for various trifles. Drosky-drivers had their belts filled with money. Bath-attendants packed their tips away wrapped up in towels. In fact the whole population of the town, even the beggars on the street-corners, found that their pockets were bulging when that train pulled out. And since practically every one had the currency, there was no one to say it was bad. Therefore, it was considered good--unanimously. Just as simple as that! They hated capital, yet were glad to have it! Having it, they were Bolshevists.