“I wonder how many Bolsheviki you know?” We looked from one to another, and had to admit that our acquaintance in that quarter was rather limited. “You know, it makes such a difference when we know people,” he said. “There is Peters, now;” and he told the story of Peters, and of half a dozen others whom he had met. “I think it would be ridiculous to suppose there is no German money in the Bolshevist movement,” he said, “because there is German money everywhere. But the movement itself is far more fundamental. Remember, Trotzky and Lenin are preaching to-day the doctrine they were preaching fifteen years ago. It seems to me short-sighted and dangerous to dismiss the Bolsheviki without more knowledge of him and his ideas.” Mr. Williams’s story of Peters had interested me especially. I said I would like to meet him, and Mr. Williams promised to bring him to dinner the next night. They came. It was the first of many times, and they opened many windows on the Revolution to me that would otherwise have been closed. Jacob Peters was thirty-two years old, and looked even younger. He was a Lett--an intense, quick, nervous little chap with a shock of curly black hair brushed back from his forehead, an upturned nose that gave to his face the suggestion of a question-mark, and a pair of blue eyes full of human tenderness. He spoke English with a London accent, and referred to his English wife as the “missis,” and to his little girl in the language of all adoring fathers. “Why are you a Bolshevik?” I asked him. “Well,” said he seriously, “I’ve lived in London, and I’ve seen them on the West Side living in luxury, in silks and satins, with gold plate and extravagant food; I’ve seen them on the East Side, sleeping out under the bridges at night. I don’t know much about your America, but I know that you too have an East Side and a West Side. We in Russia have fought too long and sacrificed too much to be content with that. We must find a better way, or our freedom will not be worth while.” “What is your way?” I asked him. “The Bolshevik believes in the shortest cut to socialism,” he answered. “We believe that the people who till the land and the workers who run the industries should control them; and that the masses of the people should rise up and put a stop to capitalistic and imperialistic exploitation, which is responsible for war.” Not then, but on other occasions, I learned something of Peters’ life. His story is the story of most revolutionists of the Baltic provinces, where, in spite of German control,--or perhaps because of German oppression,--the revolutionists were more radical and more intense than in any other part of Russia. The richer landowners are known as “black barons,” the lesser landowners as “gray barons.” Peters was the son of a “gray baron.” He began to question life as a very small boy.