Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/163

 great tyranny was exercised. It was declared that the object of the Extraordinary Commission was to protect perfect liberty of speech outside of those who were fomenting armed opposition to the Republic.

The independent translator who was with us on this occasion said before leaving the room, her eyes swimming with tears: "It is hard for me to hear these replies and be able to say nothing."

I left the room cold with horror and dislike, for I knew without the implication of the interpreter's words that much of what had been said to us was absolutely untrue.

There had been held a few days before this a meeting of Mensheviki, or moderate Socialists, the members of the old Social Democratic party. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Printers' Union, a body numbering seventy thousand members in Russia. This meeting was attended by some thousands of persons, including (as I was informed) about three hundred Communists, a noisy little group in the heart of the gathering.

I was not myself present, but I give the story as I had it from one of the members of the British Delegation, not himself in sympathy with the Mensheviki.

The Communists had telegraphed to England that the British Delegates had attended a public meeting at which they heard in perfect freedom