scription. It is perhaps worth while to remark in passing that the new Communist programme, while insisting, as before, on the definite separation of church and state, and church and school, now in- cludes the particular statement that "care should be taken in no way to hurt the feelings of the re- ligious." Churches and chapels are open, church processions take place as before, and Moscow, as in the old days, is still a city of church bells. A long line of sledges with welcome bags of flour was passing through the square. Soldiers of the Red Army were coming off parade, laughing and talking, and very noticeably smarter than the men of six months ago. There was a bright clear sky behind the fantastic Cathedral of St. Basil, and the rough graves under the Kremlin wall, where those are buried who died in the fighting at the time of the November Revolution, have been tidied up. There was scaffolding round the gate of the Kremlin which was damaged at that time and is being carefully repaired. The Committee of State Constructions was founded last spring to co-ordinate the manage- ment of the various engineering and other con- -96- |