Nesniodinsk was not on my list, but a special request having been presented for me to address the workmen there, we made the necessary arrangements and visited this place on Sunday, March 8.  It was perhaps the largest meeting held up to that point.  The official heads had caused a special platform to be erected in a huge engine-repairing shop, and themselves took the greatest interest in the whole proceeding.  It was a very harassing business, but if as an outcome the seed of orderly progress was sown, the effort was entirely worth while.

Our carriage was fastened to the rear of a slow-moving train going west, and we did not arrive at Kansk till the evening of the 10th.

Kansk is the most easterly point of the area of revolt and a fairly large depot for the railway.  Some interesting facts about the revolt were picked up from the railway officials.  The revolt began suddenly on December 26, at the same time that it broke out in Omsk and Kolumsino, and at first was aimed at the possession of the railway.  The military guard at Kansk consisted of one officer and fifty men.  The officer posted his sentries at different points some distance away, and the soldiers who acted as his personal guard awoke to find their sleeping-place and arms in the possession of half a dozen armed men.  The marauders shouted “Your officer is dead,” and ordered the men to lie still while they removed the rifles.  This done, they proceeded to the quarters of the officer, who, finding his men already disarmed, bolted without firing a shot.  The total strength of the Bolsheviks was fifteen men, and these fifteen held the station and a town of over five thousand inhabitants up to ransom for twenty-six hours!  At the end of that time a squadron of Cossacks approached, and the Bolsheviks left, taking with them about 80,000 roubles belonging to the railway and post office.  During their short stay they committed all sorts of barbarities.  They murdered the railway school-mistress and tortured her husband by stripping him and pouring cold water over his naked body, finally driving him out into the snow, where he quickly froze to death.  The charge against their two victims in this case was that they, by their calling, were teaching the youth of Russia to become young bourgeoisie, instead of leaving all men and women equal as nature intended.

This garden of autocracy grows some strange plants.  These banditti, known in England as Bolsheviks, are entrenched not more than 60 versts distant, protected from Koltchak’s vengeance by the deep snows of the Siberian winter, which make it impossible to operate away from the railway.

We held a splendid meeting of the workmen in the enormous workshop, remarkable for the quiet enthusiasm and the evident hope of better times.  It was quite clear to me that the Russian workmen were tired of the Revolution.  They were promised an Eldorado and realised Hell instead.  They merely wanted to be shown a way out of the social nightmare.  They passed a vote of thanks to me and the English workmen for whom I spoke.