In the days of the terrorists, women claimed the right to throw bombs as well as men. It was granted them. With equal generosity, the government rewarded them with hard labor, exile in Siberia, and even hanging. They spent their strength and their blood as lavishly, as recklessly, as courageously, as any of their brother Nihilists. When freedom came to Russia, no one questioned the right of women to share it. Instead of becoming feminists, they became Cadets, Social Revolutionists, Mensheviki, Maximalists, Bolsheviki, Internationalists, or attached themselves to one or another of the parties and shadows of parties. Here, as elsewhere, governmental honors were largely to the male; but the mundane business of making the world of meat and drink was largely left to women. Women in Russia do what women of the Western world do. At the big democratic convention in the Alexandrinski Theater, I counted the number of seats occupied by women. There were sixteen hundred delegates, and twenty-three of them were women. Many other women were in evidence, but they were behind the samovars, serving tea and caviar and sausage sandwiches. Some wore red armbands, ushered the men to their seats, took stenographic reports of proceedings, and counted ballots. It was so natural that it almost made me homesick. Revolution did not lessen the burden that war had placed upon the back of the mass of Russian women. Increased disorganization of the country necessitated increased effort on the part of women to keep their families from starvation. They tilled the fields and tended the cattle; they swept the streets and mended the railway tracks, and stood for endless hours in front of the food-shops to get bread and milk for their babies. Their hopes were invested in the success of the Revolution just as firmly as those of their men, but they had less time for talking. They poured out of the factories to march, and once they were prepared even to fight. They were the silent heroines of revolution, as they had been of war; and, though they had much cause, they had little time for weeping. Only five women climbed out of the mass to high seats of honor. They were Katherine Breshkovskaya, Marie Spiridonova, Countess Panina, Alexandria Kolontai, and Madame Bitsenko. The age has produced no finer spirit in any land than that of the wonderful old Babushka (Grandmother) of the Revolution. The heights of joy and the depths of disappointment have been hers during the year; but she has remained, in spite of everything, the big, strong, steady soul who survived half a century and more of persecution that Russia might be free. Her long revolutionary life has been filled with every conceivable kind of suffering, but she never for a moment lost faith in the ultimate success of the cause to which she dedicated herself.