Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/162

 in all probability, the arrest of certain persons for imagined or trivial offences was due to the exaggerated zeal of ignorant minor officials working under the Commission. The reply was that this could not be so, since the agents who behaved like this would be punished very severely. I did not consider the answer conclusive, nor an explanation of the terror.

"Why," I asked, "have many people expressed a fear of coming to see us? And when they come, why are they afraid to speak with perfect confidence?"

"Because," said this clever person, sarcastic and evasive, "English people have been here before and have tempted our people into counter-revolutionary activities which have got them into very serious difficulties. They do not want to be caught again."

I ventured to ask one more question. "Does the Extraordinary Commission maintain spies and agents-provacateurs for its work?"

To this an absolute denial was given. "But," he continued, "every good citizen considers himself under an obligation to report to the Commission everything he sees which he considers to be of a counter-revolutionary nature."

It was denied that any conscientious objector had been shot. It was denied that anybody had been shot without trial. It was denied that any