Zinovieff, who is head of the Petrograd Soviet and also Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Third International, is probably the most influential man in Russia, outside Lenin and Trotsky. I should think he was broader and more tolerant than some of his colleagues ; also he appears to me to be the youngest of them all. On one thing he is very definite and that is the Third International. Talking to him, there seems little chance of compromise, but I did not gather from him or from any of the others, that a person like myself, who is opposed to the use of violence, would be excluded from membership.
The organisation of social life in Petrograd appears to me to be better done than in Moscow. Certainly the trams were running and the organisation of food supplies seemed to be better. This is not surprising, Petrograd is a more modern town and has a more modern and industrial population. I simply do not believe any of the stories of wholesale destruction of art treasures and machinery ; no doubt there was some destruction and vandalism when the revolution broke out, but to nothing like the extent the enemies of Socialism would have us believe.
Kameneff, Chairman of the Moscow Soviet, I met one Saturday afternoon by invitation at a meeting of what I should call the Moscow
