One of the very ablest of the People’s Commissars is the Acting-Commissar for Ways and Communications, Sverdloff. We travelled in his company from Nijni-Novgorod to Astrakhan. He it was who kindly put at our disposal the train _de luxe_ which carried our sick friend from Saratov to Reval, and whose considerate kindness on the ship enabled us to save his life. He is in appearance slight and pale, of Jewish birth, with dark expressive eyes and rather autocratic manner. He has been many times in prison for his political faith, although his revolutionary record appears to have been less lurid than that of his brother who recently died of the pestilence. He was in exile in America and England for some years, and studied with acute intelligence American business methods, particularly American business discipline. He has brought this knowledge and training to bear upon Russia’s greatest internal problem--the restoration of her lines of communication. He realises that these can be fully and quickly restored only by the hardest work and severest discipline. His colleagues and subordinates he works eighteen hours a day. When they are disobedient or neglectful in the slightest degree the punishment is severe. But the work is done, and the men adore him. An officer of high rank who was five minutes late to the ship was given twenty-four hours in prison, to be worked off in his leisure and not in his labour time. Rebellious workmen, loading a ship with fish in the hot sun at Astrakhan, who struck for a rest were driven back to their work by Communist sailors with loaded rifles. These two things I know to be true, for I saw them. But the importance of his work cannot be exaggerated, and Sverdloff’s impatience with Soviet interference in industry can be well understood. People dying for lack of food and medicines cannot wait for the debates of Committees to decide this or that point in the organisation of train or steamship communication. Managerial responsibility is the only way. Through Sverdloff’s able organisation the whole of the railways and bridges destroyed by the Koltchak bands have been restored. Communication with Siberia has been re-established. Fleets of oil-ships are bringing from Baku millions of poods of oil, so necessary for railway engines and workshop machinery. And when the economic life of Russia is fully restored, no small part of the credit must be given to this extraordinarily able and commanding personality.