one in authority on this frontier had received
instructions as to our coming. We were told,
however, that we could go across and enquiries
would be made as to our future
movements.
At 4.50 we marched down again, and in a few minutes I was almost shouting for joy that at last I was in Russia. If I had been less self-conscious I should have sung The Red Flag, for just a few hundred yards ahead I saw the flag of “ International Socialism ” flying over a Government building, which turned out to be the residential headquarters of the Commissar Commandant of the district. This man and his wife live here in the very simplest manner possible. They have no children, so she accompanies her husband to the war zone and shares his dangers. Other women similarly situated are doing likewise.
Comrade Kokko, for that is his name, was formerly manager of a big works in Helsingfors. When the revolution broke out, like everyone else he was obliged to choose on which side he would take his stand : he joined the “ Reds.” When Mannerheim and the Germans smashed the revolution, he and thousands of other Finns fled to Russia, and are now enrolled as a Finnish “ Red ” army, assisting to protect Russia against the attacks of the “ White ” Finns.
