Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/156

144. However, we had yet heard and known nothing of Bolshevism, but we understood the whole danger of anarchy, to which the Little Committee of the unenlightened workers was being heedlessly driven by the promptings of the political police and of the Union of the Russian Nation.

In addition to these two foes we had ever before us the possibility of a third being developed, if our powers of accomplishment relaxed or if circumstances should go badly against us. This was the army. If the evacuation, which we were now superintending, were for any reason to be held up, the army would throw itself upon us, and then, in a flood of blood, the Central Committee, the workers and the town population would be drowned, while even the army itself would be largely destroyed by the want of food, after anarchy had cut off its regular supplies and its possibilities of transport to the more settled parts of western Siberia.

Events thus compelled us to become the defenders of law and order throughout the whole East, this order which the Tsar's authorities and the High Command of the army could not now maintain. We had consequently to fight on three fronts to fulfill our task, which exacted from us unbounded energy, fearless decision and well-elaborated plans.

We began our active struggle in fighting General Rennenkampf, whose trail through Siberia to the eastern borders of Transbaikalia was piteously marked by the bodies of the revolutionaries, upon whom he had visited his cruelties. In telegrams broadcasted throughout the East he threatened the Central Committee with dire punishment, describing it as a "revolutionary government" that could expect no leniency. At this, indignation and panic spread through the Far East. Not only the Little