be there, but Radek had arranged with Rostopchin that I

should come in with himself, and be allowed to sit in the
wings at the side of the stage. On the stage were
Rostopchin, Radek, Larin and various members of the
Communist Party Committee in the district. Everything
was ready, but the orchestra went on with its jig music on
the other side of the curtain. A message was sent to them.
The music stopped with a jerk. The curtain rose, disclosing
a crowded auditorium. Everbody stood up, both on the
stage and in the theater, and sang, accompanied by the
orchestra, first the "Internationale" and then the song for
those who had died for the revolution. Then except for two
or three politically minded musicians , the orchestra vanished
away and the Conference began.


Unlike many of the meetings and conferences at which I
have been present in Russia, this Jaroslavl Conference
seemed to me to include practically none but men and
women who either were or had been actual manual workers.
I looked over row after row of faces in the theatre, and
could only find two faces which I thought might be Jewish,
and none that obviously belonged to the "intelligentsia." I
found on inquiry that only three of the Communists present,
excluding Radek and Larin, were old exiled and imprisoned
revolutionaries of the educated class. Of these, two were on
the platform. All the rest were from the working class.
The great majority of them, of course, had joined the
Communists in 1917, but a dozen or so had been in the