fierce _gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen
militia patrolled the streets-still, there were many quaint
anachronisms.

For example, Peter the Great's _Tabel o Rangov-_Table of Ranks-which
he rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with
the insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about
five o'clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old
gentlemen in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the
huge, barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating
perhaps how great a mortality among their superiors would advance
them to the coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy
Councillor, with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension,
and possibly the Cross of St. Anne....

There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution
came to a meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was
not admitted because he did not wear the prescribed livery of the
Tsar's service!

It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and
disintegration that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses
unrolled....

Chapter II

The Coming Storm

IN September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself