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254 wreaking havoc in the camp of the Counter-Revolutionists.

They could not abide this smile of Melnikov and the laugh of Sukhanov. They were irritated and haunted by them. The bourgeoisie would have liked to strike these young men dead in the streets. But they did not dare do it—yet. The commissars were not killed but jailed.

The Allies for the present are against any wholesale massacre of the workers. They are anxious to make intervention appear in the guise of a crusade for democracy, welcomed by all the people. Not yet has it unmasked itself as stark Czaristic reaction. Vladivostok, in the Allied plan, is to be the foothold for the spring upon Siberia. They do not want that foothold too slippery with blood. In the hinterland, in the back regions of Siberia, peasants' and workers' blood may flow in torrents. But not in this seaport town, exposed before the eyes of the world. A few Red Guards and workers are shot down in their tracks. But there is no general blood-spilling. The suddenness of the onslaught, the overwhelming masses of troops, have smothered the Soviet.

At one point only did the Soviet forces have a chance to rally. That was near the water-front, the rendezvous of the gruzchiki, longshoremen, stevedores, coal-heavers, loaders of ships. They were of peasant origin, huge shaggy fellows, heavy