But what an opportunity presents itself for reversing the thinking world’s judgment of the men who are managing Russian affairs; or if not quite reversing it, of modifying it! For the choice of peace on fair terms will prove the Bolshevik commanders superior in international morals to any European Government engaged in the recent war. A government capable of such self-control and a people capable of such self-denial would go down into history as marking a new epoch. There would be a new faith in idealism born to Europe, which would help to undo the cruel wrong to Faith and Hope dealt by the treaties miscalled of Peace. Our experience of Russia fills us with mingled fear and hope. During the last two and a half years of bitter fighting the Russian Government has trained and equipped a magnificent army. Its navy is utterly devoted to it. In a sense the Revolution is the child of the navy, for the sailors brought the thing to birth. It is not possible to estimate the exact number of men in the active forces, but it is very large indeed, and it is a very different army from the ragged, ignorant, ill-equipped forces of the Czar, cheated and abused by corrupt generals and politicians. In Petrograd we witnessed an enormous display of Reserve Troops, numbering not less than fifty thousand, in the Uritzky Platz, which is the new name given to the great square opposite the Winter Palace. Accompanying these troops were machine guns and much of the regular paraphernalia of war. The uniforms were smart and the men were well shod. Two similar displays in Moscow took place, the one chiefly of young officers in training, the other of fully trained officers about to leave for the Polish front. The oath which these men took in public, and in the presence of the British Delegation, is translated as follows: “1. I, son of the working people, citizen of the Soviet Republic, take upon myself the name of a warrior of the Labour and Peasant Army. “2. Before the working classes of Russia and of the whole world I undertake to carry this name with honour, to follow the military calling with conscience and to preserve from damage and robbery the national and military possessions as the hair of my head. “3. I pledge myself to submit strictly to revolutionary discipline and to fulfil without objection every command issued by authority of the Labour and Peasant Government. “4. I undertake to abstain from and to deter any act liable to dishonour the name of citizen of the Soviet Republic; moreover, to direct all my deeds and thoughts to the great aim of liberation of all workers. “5. I pledge myself to the defence of the Soviet Republic in any danger or assault on the part of any of her enemies at the first call of the Labour and Peasant Government, and undertake not to spare myself in the struggle for the Russian Soviet Republic, for the aims of Socialism and the Brotherhood of Nations to the extent of my full strength and of my life.