committee elected, in spite of the mixed character of the assembly, proved pretty good. The committee went to work immediately upon the conclusion of the assembly. The main part of its work consisted in attempts to intervene in the activities of the gangs of soldiers. Two serious efforts were made on that day. A telephone message came from Dicker's drugstore that a detachment of soldiers had come there with an order from the staff to carry out a search, whereby during the search a rifle and a revolver were found in an apartment adjoining the drugstore. The soldiers were for arresting all the people in the drugstore. Immediately the committee despatched the vice-commander of militia and Uspensky, a member of the committee, who succeeded in explaining to the soldiers that the rifle and revolver had been left in the apartment by the vice-commander of the cantonal militia, who lived in the apartment, and who had gone out into the country. The soldiers departed, but after some time came back again and took away to the station all who were in the drugstore, both attendants and wounded. When we in the committee heard of this, I with Uspensky, member of the committee, went to the station, and there in our presence all those who had been taken were called from the prison car and released. At the same time Uvarov explained that the arrest had taken place on the ground of a soldier's report that in Dicker's drugstore was concealed an armed detachment of Jews with supplies of weapons, cartridges, and machine guns, waiting for a chance to attack the Grigorievists. Here at the station we were informed that 36 prisoners had been freed at the staff headquarters up to the 20th. Here we also saw whole groups of Jews coming to the station, worn out with ceaseless and anxious hiding in cellars and dugouts; and here after a brief questioning permits were issued giving them the right to live freely in the city. The second serious case was on Krasnaya street and elsewhere, in connection with the searches instituted because of the killing of a soldier by some Jews on the evening before. Around this region and in the neighboring streets ever-increasing bands of soldiers began to wander. After unsuccessful attempts to stop the murders and searches by talking with the soldiers, we communicated to headquarters about it and asked that the bands be dispersed. The staff sent a detachment with an officer at its head into the city, and with some difficulty the detachment succeeded in dispersing the bands. But many of those who were seized in this district and taken to the station were killed upon the hasty retreat of the Grigorievists next day. The rest of the work of the committee consisted in hunt-
CHERKASSY:
ing up carts for the department of health to remove the corpses, co-operation with the hospitals in getting wood and flour, and attempts to re-establish the public institutions, which attempts did not succeed, owing to frequent bombardments.
I know that besides the delegations from the population a delegation from the railroad workers also went to the Grigorievist general staff to protest against the murders and shootings. When I was at the station I saw, among the military, workmen, students, and gymnasium boys. I heard from third parties that when they were about to shoot a Jewish gymnasium student, named Bahr, at the station, several gymnasium students among the Grigorievists ran to the officer who had charge of the shooting and tried to persuade him to let their comrade off. But the officer proposed then that one of them should take Bahr's place. No one cared to do this, and Bahr was shot. I know that there was a series of cases in the city in which the intervention of Christians, especially from the common people, stopped or prevented murders. There were quite a good many Christians who hid Jews in their houses, cellars and barns, but there were also cases of refusal to hide and protect them. In trying to explain to myself the attitude of the workmen during these terrible days, I received the impression from their representatives, from exchanges of opinion on the subject in the Soviet of trade unions, that the masses of workmen were indifferent in feeling, and that the worst elements among them took part in the pillaging and even in the murders. Those who had been connected with the party activities of the communists withdrew with them, or hid. But there were among the workmen some who, blinded by Grigoriev's manifesto ("Universal"), at the same time genuinely did not want to see the return of the Soviet regime, which, because of its ranks of guards, the procrastination of the Extraordinary Committee, the inaccessibility of the commissars, and owing to its distrust of the masses of workers, was always too remote from them and in no way dependent on them.
Ex-President of the Municipal Council of Cherkassy,
V. PETROV.