“The Military Revolutionary Tribunal, in the name of the revolutionary nation, having examined the case with regard to the removal by Citizeness Panina of a sum of about 93,000 rubles from the funds of the Ministry of Popular Education, decides (1) that Citizeness Panina shall remain under arrest until she returns to the Commissary of Popular Education the national money taken by her and (2) the Revolutionary Tribunal regards Citizeness Panina as guilty of acting in opposition to the national authority, but, in view of the accused’s past, confines itself to holding Citizeness Panina up to the reprehension of society.” The reprehension of society! The scorn of the people! It was a typical Russian revolutionary decision, probable in no other land under the sun. The crowd breathed a sigh of relief. No one quite knew how to take it. The Countess Panina’s status remained practically the same. Here and there some one started to clap. Others quickly hissed them into silence. Again the threatened “terror” had passed. It was a far cry from this exhibition of revolutionary justice to the guillotine--almost as far as it was from that system of organized injustice of the Tsars that kept the endless procession of men and women marching toward exile and death. A few days after the trial, friends of Countess Panina paid the money to the Department of Education, and the prisoner was allowed to go free. She held no grudge against the Bolsheviki; for, though she differed from them, she understood their philosophy and the sincerity of their belief. She had felt, from the first, the difficulty of reconciling war and revolution, but believed, whatever the price Russia must pay, she must never go back again to the old order. The intricacies of law played no part in subsequent sittings of the Military Revolutionary Tribunal. There were no convenient technicalities either for the innocent or the guilty. Every case was judged simply on its merits as workmen, soldiers, and peasants interpreted right and wrong. There were thirty-six members of the full tribune, divided into groups of six, each group sitting for a week at a time. Commercial and political offenders were tried by separate groups, and the cases ranged from that of a boy who had stolen a bundle of papers, to that of Puriskavitch, who was taken with a machine-gun and other counter-revolutionary paraphernalia in his possession. Both were handled with equal seriousness. The boy’s peculations amounted to something like a ruble and sixty kopecs, and his victim was an old woman who sold papers on the street. He insisted that he didn’t have anything, and that all people who sold papers were really property-owners, and when their papers were gone they could always get more papers. At this, the old woman became very indignant, denied that she had anything to do with the bourgeoisie, and insisted that she was just a poor workingwoman.