and others in English, German and Finnish. The latter gathering is attended by an agent of the British MI1c intelligence service, and a former member of the Tsarist Okhrana secret police, Casimir Pilenas, there to monitor Trotsky—and if possible prevent his return to Russia.

Amsterdam and Berlin, March 13: Unrest in Germany grows

The Dutch newspaper Telegraaf reports that mutinies among German soldiers near Namur and Huy have resulted in mass arrests so that “prisons in those towns are crowded to four and five times their normal capacity.” In the city of Barmen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, the chief of police is wounded in a food riot by women throwing rocks.

In this and the following week of March 1917, a wave of strikes, usually lasting about a day, spreads in Germany’sindustrial regions and Berlin, over the opposition of the trade union leaders. February had seen strikes of some 40,000 workers at Krupp’s arms plant in Essen and 75,000 miners in North Rhine Westphalia. Repeatedly, the military is deployed against the strikers to force them back to work.

For the working class but also broad layers of the middle class, the winter of 1916-1917 has brought a catastrophic worsening of living conditions, with bad harvests in the fall followed by extreme cold in the winter. Since the end of 1916, staple food is available only with food ration cards. According to official statistics, the average daily calorie intake in March drops to only 1,200 calories per day, as compared to 3,300 calories per day in peace times.

The staggering social inequality