Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/38

 the very conditions of life, it was not enough to look at the scenes in the streets; one had to talk with the people, to come into contact with the different groups, to go elsewhere than Petrograd, to visit the Russian armies and the factories.

We had only two months to do all that in. We made the attempt, however, by dividing up our party. Accompanied by Lieutenant de Man, I started for Moscow, where we arrived in the midst of the general strike of the dvorniks (janitors) and of the hotel staffs. M. de Brouckère devoted himself especially to visiting the factories. Together, on the invitation of General Alexeieff, we spent a fortnight with the armies of the South and the South-West, while during the whole of our sojourn we never ceased to carry on an active propaganda for Belgium and to hold meetings with the Soviet.

In the following chapters will be found some of the observations that we made from this triple point of view: industrial, military, and political.