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146 it by the political police and with officers from the Rennenkampf detachment. Besides, under the mask of socialism, some of the members of the fighting detachments of the Union of the Russian Nation coming from the west began to join the organization, which confirmed the information coming to us that the Little Committee had started to organize a fighting detachment to fall upon the intelligentsia and bourgeoisie, who were maintaining the State and social order in the Russian Far East.

It was very difficult for us to know how to reach these members and adherents of the Little Committee, who were maddened by their ideas of revolt against the social order. A way out was found by the versatile Nowakowski, an austere, white-haired man, who commanded the respect of all with whom he came in contact. Among the workers on the railway there were many Polish labourers, who had originally been brought to the East by the Polish engineers who constructed the Chinese Eastern Railway. In addition to these the railway employees counted a large number of non-Russian labourers, chiefly Letts, Germans, Italians and Chinese. All of the European element in this body of workers, as a result of their cultural training, were the natural opponents of anarchy and refused to give their support to this feature in the working programme of the Little Committee. The wise Nowakowski, profiting by this condition of affairs, called together the non-Russian Europeans among the labourers and through them set up a strong opposition in the ranks of the Little Committee's partisans. At the same time we sought to influence the Chinese labourers and the smaller groups of western Europeans through the medium of the Chinese officials and of the representatives of the other states. In this effort we succeeded sufficiently to see the board of the Little Committee, which