' That seventy of
their best propagandist and most capable agents and officers had passed
between his columns and were now distributed somewhere in our midst."
All we could do was to wait, and see where this treacherous movement
would show itself first.
The fact that Koltchak had declared for the calling of a National
Assembly, elected by universal suffrage, to decide the future government
of Russia, so soon as order was restored, had shattered completely the
vision of the old army officers of a quick return to absolutism. His
declaration against extremists on either side had driven Bolshevik and
Tsarist into practically one camp. He was well known as a student of
English customs and institutions and a pre-revolution advocate of
constitutionalism. The Tsarist section hoped that his assumption of
supreme authority was proof that he had discarded his democratic
principles, but gradually his official declarations to the
representative of the British Government leaked out and spread
consternation in the ranks of both sections of the Absolutists. The
Bolshevik leaders have never made any bones about their fear and dread
of democracy as understood in England, and have declared they would
prefer a return to the old regime rather than have a Constitution like
that of England or America forced upon them. Hence there is no real
difference of principle between the Bolshevik and the supporters of the
old regime, only a difference as to who should wield the power.
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