true soldier—that is he looks on killing, not
as a profession but as a horrible necessity.
When I asked him about atrocities he just
poured scorn on the whole thing ; made no
sort of exception or apology, because for him
atrocities do not exist as far as the Government
and the officials controlled by the
Government are concerned.
During my stay he left Moscow for the Polish front, and I expect is now down there helping either to make peace or carry on the war on behalf of Russia. He is but one of the many, many thousands who have gone to Russia, called there by the spirit of the revolution, to take part in the struggle on behalf of internationalism.
I have only space to deal quite briefly with two or three other men that I met. I want to say a word about one whom I just missed— Michael Ivanovitch Kalinin, the President of the Central Executive Committee of the All Russian Soviet Congress. He was born in 1875 and comes of a peasant family and is a pure Russian. From his very earliest days his life was one of hard work. He had to help his father from his very earliest childhood, but like so many other boys in Russia, he taught himself to read. A neighbouring landowner, when the boy was thirteen, paid the cost of sending him to school. He then went to work on the estate, but very soon migrated to Petro-
