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136 EVIL OMENS IN PETROGRAD [chap. xxii.
Riksdag with a satisfaction bej’ond our expectations.
In a few days’ time the tone even of the Press had
changed and by the ist June all was serene again. But
M. Wallenberg owned to me that this hostile attitude
of the Activists—which he trusted would be the last—
had been the strongest that had occurred since the
beginning of the war and that at one moment he himself
had been somewhat frightened about it.
It was during this crisis that I had an opportunity
of improving my acquaintance with M. Branting, the
recognised head of the Swedish Socialist party.
Knowing that he was frankly opposed to the intrigues of the
Activists, I went to see him once or twice. I had some
heart to heart talks with him, and I amended a few of
his judgments on Russia and gained some information
for myself relative to the programme and aspirations of
the Swedish Socialist party.
I found in Hjalmar Branting a distinguished and
eminently honest mind; many convictions but few
preconceived opinions. He was the true head of a school,
not the head of a sect. I have often said to myself since,
that if the Socialist party throughout the world had
more leaders like Branting and possessed everywhere
social ground as relatively wholesome as that of the
Swedish working-classes, the doctrine of Socialism,
instead of rousing well-founded fears and irreconcilable
opposition on the part of those who hold to the old
and tried principles of world-wide civilisation, would
find useful and powerful adherents amongst the very
people who desire, not the downfall, but the
reformation of this civilisation and the victory of mind and
moral principles over the power of money and brute
force.
Soon after the visit from the members of the Duma,
we began to receive disquieting news from Petrograd.
M. Sturmer was revealing himself more and more
as the agent of an absurd, confused and suspicious
policy, and was surrounded by a deplorable set of
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