Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/120

 Needless to say, a visit to the front in such conditions would give us an opportunity of making more interesting observations than are generally possible on an official mission, or to journalists on specially conducted tours. We were to have a unique opportunity of contact and free discussion with the representatives of the different conflicting opinions in existence in the Russian armies. Moreover, experience had already taught us that the Russian organizers of our trip would not try to hide from us any of the weaknesses of the situation. On the contrary, they carried frankness to such a pitch that one day they went so far as to ask us to address the mutinous troops of an army corps which had refused to return to the trenches and were encamped near Buczacz and threatening to march on Tarnopol. Though in the end that visit did not take place, it was only because in the meantime the Russian Government had put an end to all negotiations with the rebels and announced that they would be made to obey, by force if need be.

Moreover, we found in every one of