Mirbach received his daily report from the Chrezvychaika. He was murdered by two men who said they came from that office. Lenin had as little to do with his death as he had with the murders, a week later, of the ex-Tsar and his family. The Red Okhrana and the inner circle of the Tsik were the veritable authors of the crime of Ekaterinburg, and probably of Mirbach’s assassination. Nonentities, figureheads of the Sovnarkom, do not interest us. We are concerned with great, if maleficent, personages in the Red world. Most of them are still unknown outside the ranks of the professional revolutionaries. A goodly proportion of the hundred Jews who came out of Germany with Lenin, and the hundreds who came from Chicago, deserve to be included in this gallery, for they undoubtedly held Russia under their sway. To enumerate and describe them would require a small volume. I need sketch only those who act prominently in the drama of Ekaterinburg. The most important were:--Sverdlov, Safarov, Voikov, and Goloshchekin, and the murderer-in-chief Yurovsky. The names of Safarov and Voikov figure in the list of Lenin’s fellow-passengers. Both are very powerful Bolshevists, holding high places in the executive and police branches. Sverdlov is--I use the present tense because all these persons continue to wield their influence to the present day--the uncrowned Tsar of the Soviets. His authority is really much higher than that of Lenin or even Trotsky. He dominates the Tsik, and his creatures rule the Chrezvychaika. Sverdlov’s name appears in the Bolshevist Government as approved by Germany. The direct connection between Sverdlov and the murders of Ekaterinburg is established beyond doubt. Goloshchekin was the representative of the above-named conclave in the regional soviet of the Urals and kept that rather recalcitrant body under secret subjection to his chiefs. The Uralian Reds were particularly self-willed and jealous of Moscow because the population consisted almost entirely of miners and metal-workers--a very advanced and independent class, having little in common with the peasant-farmer, for whom they professed contempt. Goloshchekin did whatever Sverdlov wished. A stratagem had given him absolute power. The president of the regional soviet was a Russian named Beloborodov. He was arrested by the Chrezvychaika and imprisoned on a charge of appropriating 30,000 roubles. The punishment would be death. Together with Safarov and Voikov, Goloshchekin arranged to release him. Beloborodov resumed the presidency of the regional soviet as if nothing had happened. Dishonesty was so rampant among the Komisars that the transition surprised no one. But after that, Beloborodov gave up all attempts to resist Moscow--if he had ever done so. He was henceforth a mere man of straw, kept in his place to deceive the obstreperous Uralian miners, who did not wish to be ruled from Moscow, much less by Jews.