August 7, 1920.---Slowly our train creeps through the country, evidence of devastation on every hand reminding us of the long years of war, revolution, and civil strife. The towns and cities on our route look poverty-stricken, the stores are closed, the streets deserted. By degrees Soviet conditions are being established, the process progressing more rapidly in some places than in others. In Poltava we find neither Soviet nor Ispolkom, the usual form of Bolshevik government. Instead, the city is ruled by the more primitive Revkom, the self-appointed revolutionary committee, active underground during White régimes, and taking charge whenever the Red Army occupies a district. Krementchug and Znamenka present the familiar picture of the small southern town, with the little market place, still suffered by the Bolsheviki, the center of its commercial and social life. In uneven rows the peasant women sprawl on sacks of potatoes, or squat on their hau...