the printing works being all in the hands of the State. In the third
place, he cannot address any meetings, because the halls all belong to
the State. The whole of the press is, of course, official; no
independent daily is permitted. In spite of all these obstacles, the
Mensheviks have succeeded in winning about 40 seats out of 1,500 on
the Moscow Soviet, by being known in certain large factories where the
electoral campaign could be conducted by word of mouth. They won, in
fact, every seat that they contested.

But although the Moscow Soviet is nominally sovereign in Moscow, it is
really only a body of electors who choose the executive committee of
forty, out of which, in turn, is chosen the Presidium, consisting of
nine men who have all the power. The Moscow Soviet, as a whole, meets
rarely; the Executive Committee is supposed to meet once a week, but
did not meet while we were in Moscow. The Presidium, on the contrary,
meets daily. Of course, it is easy for the Government to exercise
pressure over the election of the executive committee, and again over
the election of the Presidium. It must be remembered that effective
protest is impossible, owing to the absolutely complete suppression of
free speech and free Press. The result is that the Presidium of the
Moscow Soviet consists only of orthodox Communists.

Kamenev, the President of the Moscow Soviet, informed us that the
recall is very frequently employed; he said that in Moscow there are,
on an average, thirty recalls a month. I asked him what were the
principal reasons for the recall, and he mentioned four: drinking,
going to the front (and being, therefore, incapable of performing the
duties), change of politics on the part of the electors, and failure
to make a report to the electors once a fortnight, which all members
of the Soviet are expected to do. It is evident that the recall