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the various phases, without omitting any of them: many of them will seem to-day of a simplicity which is devoid of all interest but, as I have stated, they are all so closely linked together in my mind that I am unable to leave any out. Further, their continuity will explain how and why, in spite of essentially bourgeois prejudices, of the circle in which I have lived, I had, nevertheless, one day necessarily to end by understanding bolshevism,—not through socialist education, but spontaneously and instinctivelly, firstly from the national Russian point of view and, secondly, from the point of view of the revolutionaly proletariat, the Marxian and international point of view.
A series of facts were destined gradually to shake my first convictions as to the need of an allied anti-bolshevik intervention, and my credulity in the absurd legend of the Bolsheviks being German agents. It was, first of all, the insurrection of Yaroslavl which, I have already mentioned, impressed me very vividly and very painfully.
As I have stated already, I knew that it had been set on foot by our ambassador personally, and this painful circumstance was added to the disillusionment I had already experienced in regard to the continual deferment of our intervention (at a time when the Russian people so violently exhausted by German Imperialism had so urgent a need of our most generous and efficacious aid). For the first time, I began to doubt seriously the sincerity of the solemn promises in which up to then I had placed my trust. This intervention, constantly delayed and which, from the
