“We know how to use the terror against tyrants. We have used it in the past, and we will use it again.” I went to three national peasants’ conventions in Petrograd, another in Moscow. They started peacefully enough, but before they were over, the bearded men from the far-away places were shaking their fists in one another’s faces, and generally it ended with the majority going over to the left and the minority starting another convention all its own. Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky was left behind early in the struggle, and the contest for control of the peasants rested with Chernoff and Marie Spiridonova. Soon after the Bolshevist Revolution, the peasants met in national convention, and there were stormy days and nights before the majority finally recognized the government of the People’s Commissaries and elected delegates to the National Council of the All-Russian Soviet. The peasants stated the terms upon which they would enter the Soviet. Trotzky and Lenin at first fought compromise on those terms. The peasants said they would enter the convention if they were given a representation of a hundred and eight members, but would accept nothing less than this, which was a number equal to that of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Councils. The agreement on the peasants’ terms was reached one morning at three o’clock, and the next day a great celebration took place. The Pavlovski regiment was chosen as honorary escort to the incoming delegates, and marched to the headquarters of the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets. They were joined by a great crowd of sailors, Red Guardsmen, and women. They marched with red banners, singing and cheering as they went. At Smolney they crowded into the great auditorium, and packed the halls. They overflowed into the courtyard, and hundreds of them who could not get in held an impromptu meeting outside. They called it the Marriage Day of Revolution, and one patriarchal peasant well over his threescore and ten, with snowy hair and ruddy cheeks, a typical villager whose language was the crudely picturesque dialect of his _gubernia_, said: “I was not walking to Smolney to-day. I was carried through the air on the wings of my enthusiasm.” His name was Stackhoff, and there were still stranger days in store for him; for they were to put him on a train and whisk him away into the land of the Germans to take part in the armistice negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. “We are all used to seeing young men fighting,” said a factory worker, thrilled by the words of the aged peasant; “but when we see such spirit and determination in the old, Russia can not perish.” “Who will dare now to raise a threat against our Revolution, when it is defended by the masters of the land and the masters of the arms?” asked another.