SECOND RIVER, SIBERIA

JANUARY 27, 1919

Oh I wish I could give you a real description of the things we saw; why it was just a regular picture book. A restaurant when full is a sight and the queues at the station. But I know you could not stand the smell of garlic and foul air. But those pathetic homeless refugees. What stories they could tell. I saw one couple apparently elderly lying on the hard floor, one shawl drawn over both their heads-a most pathetic picture. The other night a Russian officer with his family arrived from no-man's land. They were richly dressed, apparently had money, but were exhausted-dead beat and no place to go in this big town. If even the wealthy suffer hardships, what of the poor.

Well sweetheart I have just three quarters of an hour before breakfast so will close for this time.

Stuart

By the time Stuart's unit of the C.E.F. Siberia reached Vladi Vosto the decision bad been made that it would not go inland, and it did in fact return to Canada within six months. As the letter above indicates, some of the officers and men entertained the idea of volunteering for relief work it, order to see service on a wider front in Russia. Stuart ventured beyond Vladivostok to visit his sister and brother-in-law at the Presbyterian Mission in Honan, China, but at the time of the following letter that trip had not yet reached the planning stage

The following letter shows a presentiment of a theme which Stuart later incorporated into his interpretation of Russian history. The role of national tradition and national character assumed a primacy in his view and the somewhat casual connection of character flaw with the roots of the revolution that he made below in 1919 was argued in fuller and more sophisticated fashion in 1967 in his final scholarly publication , “The Triumph of Bolshevism”.

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