This article, signed V. M-in, challenges "the oscillating little paper in Chicago Svobodnaya Rossiya on its about face from a Menshevik to a Bolshevist paper.

The writer begins by wondering who directs the destinies of Russia in leading her over sloping planes. These troubled reflections originate in a letter from Russia (from an American correspondent) about the man Shatov, who is in the limelight in the USSR, who is making statements on behalf of the proletariat, that the proletariat will fight to a finish, etc.

The writer remembers Willie Shatov, who was quite often tipsy and in this condition depended on the support of the Chicago lamp posts.

And now this American correspondent demonstrates the paradise for working men and peasants in Russia through Shatov, the indigent drunkard who is at the top now.

The writer finds solace in the assumption that the correspondent really did not intend this stuff for the Russians here, who know better, who know that the factories in Russia are at a standstill, and half of the soil untilled.

But what he is after is to find out by what means did ambassador Martens so completely bewitch Svobodnaya Rossiya, whose editor, an erstwhile Menshevik, "turned around and was changed" into a Bolshevik.

The writer finishes his reflections with a rather unequivocal insinuation that "times are hard." "Everything is high, and one encounters all sorts of difficulties."

It would, therefore, seem that he is now quite satisfied to have solved the riddle: the editor was bought.