published an interesting and on the whole truthful account of the
chaotic confusion, misery, and discontent prevailing in Russia and of
the brutal violence and foxy wiles of Lenin. The dreary picture included
the cost of living; the disorganization of transports; the terrible
mortality caused by the after-effects of the war; the crowding of
prisons, theaters, cinemas, and dancing-saloons; the eagerness of
employers to keep their war prisoners employed while thousands of
demobilized soldiers were roaming about the cities and villages vainly
looking for work; the absence of personal liberty; the numerous arrests,
and the relative popularity withal of the Dictator. This popularity, it
was explained, the press contributed to keep alive, especially since the
abortive attempt made on his life, when the journals declared that he
was indispensable for the time being to his country.

He himself was described as a hard despot, ruthless as a tiger who
strikes his fellow-workers numb and dumb with fear. "But he is under no
illusions as to the real sentiments of the members of the Soviet who
back him, nor does he deign to conceal those which he entertains toward
them.... Whenever Lenin himself is concerned justice is expeditious.
Some men will be delivered from prison after many years of preventive
confinement without having been brought to trial, others who fired on
Kerensky will be kept untried for an indefinite period, whereas the
brave Russian patriot who aimed his revolver at Lenin, and whom the
French press so justly applauded, had only three weeks to wait for his
condemnation to death."

This article appearing in a Syndicalist organ seemed an event. Some
journals summarized and commented it approvingly, until it was
discovered to be a skit on the transient conditions in France, whereupon
the "admirable _exposé_ based upon convincing evidence" and the