Valerian is typical of the student class, all ideal and aspiration. He has gathered the heat of the epoch, and has concentrated it upon his philosophy. He is saturated with the French Revolution. Does he mention Danton, for example, it is with intentness of loyalty for the great Mountain speaker, which makes one almost think that the year is 1792, and that the place is sans-culottic France; “debout contre les tyrans!” He sings fiercely with his comrades, to the tune of the _Marseillaise_, the Russian revolutionary anthem, ending it with a swirl. “For the palace is foe to our homes!” America he considers one of the free nations, but he has reserves. Though he is not at one with our political system, yet he thinks that all learned about it is a great gain. “Your land is free politically,” he specifies, “but it is not yet emancipated from capital,--it is not free socially. You have an industrial feudalism and a proletariat. So will it not be when we have won our revolution.” Many are his anecdotes of the uprising of 1905, whose tragic drama will never be fully pictured and whose history is to be gleaned only from the mouths of cautious witnesses. [Illustration: THE ORGANIZERS OF THE CHITA REPUBLIC] “We rose at Irkutsk, many of us, students and workmen, but General Müller had a strong garrison of troops here. We tried them, but they would not come over. They shot down our men and dispersed all the meetings, and now he is Governor in the Baltic Provinces. They say that when he was drunk, he would shoot accused men in his own railway carriage; “the butcher!” we of the Cause call him. At Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk the city was held for weeks by our party. The railway men would not run troop-trains and the Government was paralyzed. Chita was held by a Revolutionary Committee of Safety. We manned the entrances with artillery. We took turns watching, and ran the whole city, not touching the money in the Treasury. But we were few, and word came that the insurrection was everywhere broken. Müller was marching from Irkutsk, and Rennenkamp came back with the troops from Manchuria. He promised moderate terms to all but the leaders. The townspeople were afraid, and rose against our men. Many were taken. Many fled away and got to Japan and America. Some were shot and some were sent to the Yakutsk. So it was crushed, and our great chance was gone.” “Will it come again?” “_Ni snaia!_ The workmen are ready. The intellectuals are ready. The peasants back in Russia cry for land. Perhaps they too will be ripe next time, and the soldiers will be with us. In any case Siberia has seen the red flag float over the Chita Republic.”