The temporary triumph of the Communists was admittedly due to the exceptional position in which the country found itself. They had in Sima Marković an enthusiastic leader who has abandoned the teaching of mathematics in order to expound the gospel of Moscow, and in the Skupština the shrill, voice of this kindly, bald-headed little man had to be raised to its uttermost capacity, for most of his fellow-members were unwilling to be taught. It so happens that he is Pašić's godson, and on one occasion when the little Communist was talking with great vehemence the old gentleman, who was turning over the pages of some document, was heard by an appreciative House to murmur: "Oh, be still, my child, be still!" But the most unfortunate episode in Marković's oratory was when he expressed the hope that Communism would rage through the country like an epidemic, forgetting for the moment that those municipalities which had gone over to Communism had won general praise for their improvements in the sanitary sphere. Largely on account of this infelicitous simile he was replaced in the leadership by another, a less vigorous and less entertaining person. And this party stood in particular need of attractive champions. The Croat Peasants' party, or the Radić party, as it came to be called, gave to its beloved chief more than half the seats in Croatia, forty-nine out of ninety-three; and the whole party refused to go to Belgrade. "Would it not have been better," I asked him, "if you had gone? The Constitution will be settled without you." (_b_) RADIĆ, THE MUCH-DISCUSSED "We had various reasons," said he, "for not going. One of them was that the Assembly which laid down the Constitution was not sovereign. For example, it was not permitted to discuss whether Yugoslavia should be a monarchy or a republic. I admit that three-quarters of the members would very likely have voted for a monarchy, and in that case we should have accepted the situation very much as do the royalist deputies in the French Parliament." "What are your own views on this subject?" "Well," said he, "for this period of transition I believe--mark you, this only applies to myself--that a monarchy is not merely acceptable but preferable. On the other hand the Croat peasant was so badly treated by the Habsburgs that he will now hear of nothing but a republic." I ventured to say that this sudden conversion to republican ideas in one who for centuries had lived in a monarchy was peculiar, and Radić acknowledged that when the first republican cries were raised at a meeting of the Peasants' party on July 25, 1918 they came to him as a revelation, one which he accepted. "You don't accept everything that your peasants shout for?"