"Peasants and workers of the Near East! If you organize yourselves, if you form your own Workers' and Peasants' Government, if you arm yourselves, if you unite with the Red Russian Workers' and Peasants' Army, then you will be able to defy the English, French, and American capitalists, then you will settle accounts with your own native exploiters, then you will find it possible, in a free alliance with the workers' republics of the world, to look after your own interests; then you will know how to exploit the resources of your country in your own interest and in the interest of the working people of the whole world, that will honestly exchange the products of their labour and mutually help each other. "We want to talk over all these questions with you at the Congress in Baku. Spare no effort to appear in Baku on September 1 in as large numbers as possible. You march, year in and year out, through the deserts to the holy places where you show your respect for your past and for your God--now march through deserts, over mountains, and across rivers in order to come together to discuss how you can escape from the bonds of slavery, how you can unite as brothers so as to live as men, free and equal." From this summons the nature of the Baku congress can be imagined. It was, in fact, a social revolutionist far more than a nationalist assembly. Of its 1900 delegates, nearly 1300 were professed communists. Turkey, Persia, Armenia, and the Caucasus countries sent the largest delegations, though there were also delegations from Arabia, India, and even the Far East. The Russian Soviet Government was of course in control and kept a tight hand on the proceedings. The character of these proceedings were well summarized by the address of the noted Bolshevik leader Zinoviev, president of the Executive Committee of the Third (Moscow) International, who presided. Zinoviev said: "We believe this Congress to be one of the greatest events in history, for it proves not only that the progressive workers and working peasants of Europe and America are awakened, but that we have at last seen the day of the awakening, not of a few, but of tens of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, of millions of the labouring class of the peoples of the East. These peoples form the majority of the world's whole population, and they alone, therefore, are able to bring the war between capital and labour to a conclusive decision....