Guard captured were to be shot. In the Buzuluk department of the Samara government, the district of which I am now speaking, the "Red and White" (Czech) Terror preceded the "Red" Terror. Under the "Red" Terror one morning two dozen people were executed after the publication of the orders just mentioned, the victims belonging to families who had pronounced their affection for the old régime, and therefore were not popular in the district.
The effect of these Terrors on the civil population was easy to observe and as easy to estimate. When the Czechs had taken our town there was a "Te Deum" in the principal church, and thanks were offered up to God because the country had been rid of a vile enemy, which enemy, the people said, they had elected to govern them. It is true that there was not perfect freedom under the Bolsheviks, but in the welter of ideas in which we all lived the restraints were not very obvious, and, though there was a censorship of the telegraph and to some extent of the press up to the time of the Czech outbreak, we were conscious more of the influence of public opinion than of political pressure put upon us by any one party.
Under the new régime instituted behind the screen of the Czech forces we were conscious of the pressure of one political party, and we noted the suppression of the influence of public opinion. In the town of Buzuluk we saw the Cossacks driving through the streets with a cartload of headless bodies, the peasants remarking, "Those bodies were our sons; they joined the Red Guard to defend the Revolution." The next day, while the Cossacks were patrolling the town, an "election" was held on a limited franchise, and candidates for office were required to have the signature on their papers of certain persons who had held office under the old régime. A Council was thus elected which bore a close resemblance to that which had existed in 1916, the comment of people on the street being, "This is too reactionary for us."
Within about a week the Bolshevik days seemed but a memory. For the first time for many months the rank of officers was distinguished by their insignia, the social position of the ladies by their silk dresses. Public notices told the people of the reign of "prosperity." The banks were opened and free trading re-established. It was no longer necessary, in a country almost destitute of materials, to show proof that an old suit was
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