Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/132

 CHAPTER XI

Talks with Communists and Others

HE peasants form more than three-quarters of the population of Russia, and one of the greatest friends of the peasants, who was also an intimate of Tolstoy's, kindly invited three of us to his home, and came to the hotel to fetch us. His name is Tcherkoff, and for some years he lived in England as head of a tiny Co-operative Colony near Bournemouth. He is extremely interested in Co-operation which, in his view, is the right line of social development, particularly for a country like Russia. It is said there were eighty-eight million members of the Russian Co-operative Societies before the war.

An amusing little episode occurred as we prepared to leave the hotel. A second car was filling with other Delegates, bound to a great propaganda meeting under the auspices of Madame Balabanov. As this car left ours behind, Madame Balabanov waved her hand and shouted for all to hear, pointing at Tcherkoff:

"We are going to life. They are going to 128