that the whole responsibility lay with the Central Commitee. At the same time we received from the Central League of Unions, whose directors were now hiding in Moscow, a telegram ordering us to suspend the public activities of the Revolutionary Government of the Far East but to continue to function as a secret organization, exerting an influence upon the trend of affairs in the Orient.
As I rehearse these events, I remember the last sitting of our Committee as clearly as though it were but yesterday. After having considered all the conditions and having carefully evaluated the political situation in European Russia, we reached the conclusion that both our own body and the Little Committee must be dissolved. The most difficult question was how to secure from the Little Committee the decision for dissolution. Knowing full well that the revenge of the St. Petersburg Government would not fail to reach us, we did not want any greater number of people to suffer than was absolutely necessary and we felt that there were not too serious grounds for charges against the Little Committee on the basis of their activities up to date. But we had been informed that, after the departure of some of the most active members, who had fled to escape judgment, the anarchistic and criminal elements reigned supreme and would introduce such policies, after our Committee should dissolve, that blood would submerge the whole country and that a terrible revenge by the St. Petersburg Government would inevitably follow.
It was already two o'clock in the morning, and the five of us were still deliberating as to the best method for bringing the life of the Little Committee to a close. Suddenly an idea struck me and I made a decision, not entirely clear and detailed but full of determination. I told
