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284 formed into shock battalions. They were rushed into gaps to stiffen the wavering lines. Captured they were always killed. In the three years' war half the young Communists of Russia were slaughtered.

A mere recital of casualties means nothing, for statistics are only unemotional symbols. Let the reader recall the young men he has met in the pages of this book. They were at once dreamers and hard workers, idealists and stern realists—the flower of the Revolution, the incarnation of its dynamic spirit. It seems incredible for the Revolution to go on without them. But it does go on. For they are dead. Nearly everyone in this book is now in his grave. Here is the way some of them died:

Volodarsky—assassinated in the general plot to kill all Soviet leaders.

Neibut—executed on the Kolchak Front.

Yanishev—bayonetted by a White Guard on the Wrangel Front.

Woskov—died of typhus on the Denikin Front.

Tunganogi—shot at his desk by White Guards.

Utkin—dragged from motor car and shot.

Sukhanov—led into the woods in the early morning and clubbed to death with rifle butts.

Melnikov—taken out of prison, shot and bludgeoned.

"They were tortured, they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were set wandering in deserts