Commissar Chief Bureau of Prisons 6th of November, 1917. No. 213 Petrograd, Smolny Institute, room No. 56— PASS To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED, to visit all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and Cronstadt, for the purpose of generally investigating the condition of the prisoners, and for thorough social information for the purpose of stopping the flood of newspaper lies against demorcracy. Chief Commissar Secretary On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that living grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their lives or their reason in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional Government had in turn shut up the Ministers of the Tsar, and now the Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of the Provisional Government. A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a little house near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and soldiers were sitting around a hot room full of smoke, in which a samovar steamed cheerfully. They welcomed us with great cordiality, offering tea. The commandant was not in; he was escorting a commission of _“sabotazhniki”_ (sabotageurs) from the City Duma, who insisted that the _yunkers_ were all being murdered. This seemed to amuse them very much. At one side of the room sat a bald-headed, dissipated-looking little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat, biting his moustache and staring around him like a cornered rat. He had just been arrested. Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him, that he was a Minister or something…. The little man didn’t seem to hear it; he was evidently terrified, although the occupants of the room showed no animosity whatever toward him. I went across and spoke to him in French. “Count Tolstoy,” he answered, bowing stiffly. “I do not understand why I was arrested. I was crossing the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these—of these—persons held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional Government attached to the General Staff, but in no sense a member of the Government…” “Let him go,” said a sailor. “He’s harmless….” “No,” responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. “We must ask the commandant.” “Oh, the commandant!” sneered the sailor. “What did you make a revolution for? To go on obeying officers?”