“Ah, the Land decree!” he said furiously. “Yes, do you know what that Land decree is? It is _our_ decree—it is the Socialist Revolutionary programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after the most careful compilation of the wishes of the peasants themselves. It is an outrage….” “But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the peasants’ wishes, why will they oppose it?” “You don’t understand! Don’t you see that the peasants will immediately realise that it is all a trick—that these usurpers have stolen the Socialist Revolutionary programme?” I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north. He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction. “Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised the counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The Revolution is lost.” “But won’t you defend the Revolution?” “Of course we will defend it—to the last drop of our blood. But we won’t cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way….” “But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the city. Won’t you join with them?” “Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won’t support the Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the Bolsheviki are equally enemies of the Revolution.” “Which do you prefer—Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?” “It is not a question to be discussed!” he burst out impatiently. “I tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are to blame. But listen—why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is coming…. Day after to-morrow we shall pass to the offensive…. Already Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new Government. But we have them now—they are absolutely impotent…. We shall not cooperate….” Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard, finally exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it, wounding a young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into a cab, surrounded by an excited throng, the clamour of whose voices floated up to us. As we looked, suddenly an armoured automobile appeared around the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this way and that. Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd crowds do, falling down and lying still in the street, piled in the gutters, heaped up behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to the steps of the Duma and a man stuck his head out of the turret, demanding the surrender of the _Soldatski Golos._ The boy-scouts jeered and scuttled into the building. After a moment the automobile wheeled undecidedly around and went off up the Nevsky, while some hundreds of men and women picked themselves up and began to dust their clothes…. Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of _Soldatski Golos,_ looking for places to hide them…. A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.