The Bolsheviks are quite honest about their purpose—­the transfer of power and property by murder and robbery from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat.  If a member of the proletariat is so mad that he refuses or hesitates to act his part in this scheme, then those who have been called by the force of events to assume a dictatorship on his behalf are entitled to destroy him as an unconscious enemy to himself and his class.  In the same way no mercy can be shown to the Social Revolutionaries who, while professing allegiance to definite proletarian domination, shrink from definite action now that the time for action has arrived.

The Bolshevik Commissar of Kushva, acting on this principle, succeeded in a short time in raising a formidable opposition amongst the workmen in the surrounding districts.  When the local school-mistress, a girl of seventeen, found a temporary grave in this sort of Black Hole of Calcutta the wells of Kushva and Taighill became a dreadful portent to the simple Russian mujik.

The opposition began at the big Watkin Works, where over six thousand men were employed.  Though possessing no military organisation, the workmen decided to resist by force the entrance of the Bolshevik Terror into their midst.  With the help of several young engineers they managed to regiment themselves into some kind of military order.  They selected with great skill the strategic positions for fortifications, and held the whole district against the repeated attacks of the enemy.  Once the Bolshevik line of the Urals west of Ekaterinburg struck from north to south, from Kunghure to the Caspian, as the crow flies, for three thousand versts, except for one great loop enclosing the Watkin Works.  But in November, 1918, the Bolshevik line swept forward, submerging these valiant workmen warriors.  Admiral Koltchak’s Chief of Staff naturally concluded that the workmen had given up the struggle and had made terms with their hated enemy.

This surge forward of the Bolsheviks had been greatly assisted by the unfortunate defection of the Czech forces, who had left the front at the suggestion of their local National Council.  General Gaida had thrown up his Czech commission, and had been given command of the right wing of the new Russian army.  The admiral proceeded at once to put his new army to the test by an attempt to recover the lost ground and, if possible, save the remnants of the Watkin workmen.  Everybody now knows how, in a temperature of over “60 below,” these recently mobilised Siberian recruits re-established the fighting fame of the Russian soldier by sweeping the Terrorist forces from their positions and entirely destroying them at Perm.  Imagine General Galitzin’s surprise when the advance began to find these Watkin workmen still holding their district and rendering valuable help to their relieving comrades!  The Kushva Soviet Commissar had built better than he knew.

This district is remarkable for the valuable and extensive deposits of iron and sulphur, which seem inexhaustible.  One huge hill has a store of about 800,000,000,000 tons, almost untapped except for uncovering work necessary to estimate its capacity.