Savva Dangulov

EED

Savva Dangulov

Lenin talks to America

Progress Publishers

Moscow

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN DESIGNED BY L. SHKANOV

Contents

Caeea

JIEHHH PA3FOBAPHBAET C AMEPHKOH

(HO

TO MY READERS. Translated by Keith Hammond

THE MANDATE. Translated by Keith Hammond

THROUGH THE FLAMES. Translated by Keith Hammond

AN AUDIENCE. Translated by Keith Hammond

EYES. Translated by Keith Hammond

THE HEART. Translated by Keith Hammond

THE LETTER. Translated by Keith Hammond

THE FLAG. Translated by Keith Hammond

NIGHT. Translated by Keith Hammond

TWO MEN. Translated by Keith Hammond

THE BOY. Translated by Rose Prokofieva

THE PATH. Translated by Darya Yefremova

FRIEND. Translated by Keith Hammond

A DAY. Translated by Keith Hammond

FAITH. Translated by Keith Hammond

CHOICE. Translated by Keith Hammond

A BUSINESSMAN. Translated by Keith Hammond

COMING HOME. Translated by Keith Hammond

A FATHER. Translated by Keith Hammond

THE ROAD. Translated by Keith Hammond

REQUEST TO READERS

Progress Publishers would be glad to have your opinion of this book, its translation and design and any suggestions you may have for future publications.

Please send all your comments to 21, Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, USSR.

First printing 1978

© Translation into English. Progress Publishers 1978, illustrated with photographs

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

10302-458

A--------------91-78

014(01)-78

NOTES

To My Readers

Lenin is a whole world in himself, a fine and enormous new world.

I have chosen for myself a modest goal: to light up on the map of this huge world one point---Lenin in conversation with America. The beginnings of the project lay in a story about Lenin and Raymond Robins, which originally formed part of a book I was writing on Soviet diplomats. As I re-read the manuscript I stopped at the section dealing with Lenin and Robins, reflecting that this story of an American who came to us an enemy and left a friend was an impressive example of how Lenin fought for the hearts and minds of men, winning over the best of those who came from outside our country. If one is to talk of America, then not only Robins, but also John Reed, Lincoln Steffens and Robert Minor come to mind. And only them? Why not write a book showing how Lenin sought and found friends in America? After all, America, which has been cast in the role of a direct opponent of our country, would serve as an excellent example.

The idea of such a book greatly excited me. I saw Lenin in company with his many notable interlocutors, Lenin standing with John Reed before a map of Russia and sketching out its future, helping Rhys Williams to speak Russian to the soldiers from the rostrum of the Mikhailovsky riding

school, sternly arguing with Lincoln Steffens about the revolution's right to punish its enemies. In these conversations Lenin is at once kindly and unbending with that absolute firmness that characterised him, never afraid to say ``no'' to a friend.

So Lenin Talks to America; but what sort of book should this be, what structure should it have, what approach should I adopt? In deciding these questions I was guided to a great extent by a chapter which had already been written. At the centre of each story must stand the life, with all its conflicts and upheavals, of some one of the Americans who spoke with Lenin; and the book must be in the first person. This was most important: the story must be told by a soldier, a businessman or, perhaps, a diplomat. A diplomat might even be the best choice, for Lenin's interest in America would be closest to such a man. This would be greatly advantageous in resolving the principal problem, which was to reveal the image of Lenin as others saw him. Looking at Lenin through the eyes of the diplomat Rybakov I discovered my own point of view, the words I needed and, in a way, my own voice; all these were suggested to me by the simplicity and sincerity inherent in the atmosphere surrounding Lenin.

The names of the Americans with whom Lenin talked are well known; I, however,

wanted to tell the reader something new. I wrote to fifteen writers, journalists, public and church figures in America, many of them known to me personally. All replied, recalling the whole galaxy of people who .were later to appear in my book.

But one needs more than letters, for all their indisputable virtues. Conversations with contemporary eye-witnesses proved extremely useful. I went to Leningrad and began an "on the spot" examination of diplomatic Petrograd: this was indispensable in recreating the atmosphere in which my characters had lived. I succeeded in compiling my own guidebook to Petrograd as the diplomat knew it, visiting the former British embassy by Troitsky Bridge, the quays where the former French and Japanese embassies stand, the former American embassy on Furshtadt Street and the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs at 6, Palace Square, among other places. As well, I wanted to find some of the ministry's former functionaries. From a handbook on Petrograd I worked out a list of the ministry's personnel and began hunting for them. In a modest little house on Kirochnaya I spoke with a man who, despite his more than eighty years, has retained the sharpness of his perceptions, the freshness of his memory and his capacity for work.

There were some failures. Despite help

from my American friends I was unable to unearth the text of an article by Bessie Beatty dealing with a conversation with Lenin. Had I been successful in this I believe I could have included in the story ``Faith'' material which it sorely lacks.

Working on this book was, in one way and another, the more instructive for me in that the labour of research was conjoined with that of literary creation. A significant role was played here by the small-scale investigatory expeditions I carried out, which I believe to be inseparable from the work of a writer engaged on an historical theme.

In fact, the writer may know his subject perfectly, but if he does not demonstrate this knowledge by the use of detail the reader will not believe him. It is by such use of detail that the reader is often convinced and therefore, in my view, it is extremely important for the writer to get the ``feel'' of his subject: he must take it in with his own eyes, as it were.

But this, perhaps, is only the first commandment, important but not exclusively so. However eloquent a detail acquired by the writer during one of his expeditions into "the world of the object" may be, a person can always tell him far more. There is no substitute for a conversation with an eyewitness. Accounts which, directly or indirectly led me to my main subject, that of

Lenin in conversation with America, proved invaluable. Among those whose advice and friendly help were exceptionally useful to me I must include Albert Rhys Williams, one of those Americans who, like John Reed, saw the October Revolution and heralded it to the world.

Finally, I must note that documents are no less important to the writer than they are to the historian. However, I do not subscribe to the view that a document can recreate an event with a vividness and intellectual vigour to which a novel can scarcely pretend: on the contrary, a document cannot provide a graphic general picture and no matter how strong it may be, the imaginative capacity of the reader to fill out a picture is powerless to confer this quality upon any document. However, a document, properly interpreted and absorbed, can help us see something new in a person or event. I experienced just such a feeling upon seeing a letter written by John Reed in the Paris apartment of the writers Lee Gold and Tamara Hovey. When I saw the characteristic ``Reed'' at the foot of the handwritten page, I seemed to feel the warmth of Reed's hand. A sheet of paper, written upon by someone dear to us, can forever preserve the vital spark that person has eternally lost.

At risk of appearing tedious, I must state again that for me, as a writer, nothing holds

greater fascination or exercises greater temptation than the work of investigation, especially when the result of that work is to reveal some new aspect of Lenin and the October Revolution.

I believe that the subject of this book---the new Russia and America---itself gives me the opportunity of touching upon the larger theme of Lenin and the October Revolution. In the account of one of those who appear in this work we hear the words Lenin addressed to the foreigners with whom he talked: "There is only one passport in the world which we require everyone coming here to hold: good will." To me it seems that Lenin built his relations with Americans in terms of good will.

Lenin aimed not merely at understanding the interest shown by Americans in revolutionary Russia: he wished, too, to explain the nature and origins of this interest. Naturally, common factors in the characters of our peoples and countries and in our historical fortunes had a role to play. But there were other and more important elements also at work, principal among them being the great and lasting quality those struggling for freedom in America discerned at the very heart of the Russian revolution. Lenin was convinced, on very strong grounds, that the Americans who came to revolutionary Russia represented the real

America, the creative genius of America and its dream of liberty.

The prospect of cooperation with America fascinated Lenin. The idea of coexistence, which has found such convincing expression in the USSR's current policy, was conceived by Lenin. It arose from conversations conducted with Americans, and first took concrete shape in active contacts with them. Raymond Robins, who returned to the USA in spring 1918, took with him a document setting out a plan for the development of Soviet-American economic ties, the true author of which was the leader of the Russian revolution. Lenin supported the idea of bringing about the participation of American capital in exploiting Soviet natural resources: his conversations with Armand Hammer were directed to this very end. Lenin nurtured the idea of inviting leading American scientists to Russia, in particular Charles Steinmetz, the famous electrical engineer. The breadth of Lenin's horizons in his contacts with Americans strike us even today by their range, depth and purposefulness.

This book first appeared almost fifteen years ago. It has been reissued many times,

both in a number of the languages of the USSR and in translations into foreign languages, and readers' responses to the work have included letters from America. The book has also been read by Albert Rhys Williams, to whom I had at an early stage confided the nature of my project and whose advice proved so essential. A letter from Williams represents one of the most treasured items in my modest archives, not for the kind words Williams has for the book but for something immeasurably greater: the feeling it radiates of the revolution as the most splendidly courageous period in a man's life, springing from the innermost part of his being.

"I have only now finished reading your story of Lenin's meetings and conversations with Americans," Williams wrote. "I felt that once again I was walking along the streets and through the squares of the revolution, crossing the bridges over the Neva, passing the gates of the Kremlin, walking through the gardens of the Kremlin...."

I hope that this feeling will, in some measure, be shared by my readers.

Savva Dangulov

LENIN in the Kremlin grounds. October 1918

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remember the grey shimmering skies of Petrograd, the wind, the | ghostly rapping of autumnal branches on the roof, and the troubled A cry: "Who goes there?''

From the window one could see the huge Narva Gate jostled by a mass of whitish mist. The fog sometimes descended on the gate, hiding it completely. Even so, one saw its hazy outlines, a blurred version of tottering columns and ruins. The one thing that stood out sharply night and day, in fog and wind, was the warning cry:

``Who goes there?''

The entrance of the building bore the emblem of the International Red Cross, the snow-white disk with the ruby cross in the centre. The main stairway led to the second floor, and its narrow carpet, worn at the folds, carried the traces of boots hob-nailed or spiked with wood, of soles of patterned rubber, of some with metal heels, and others crusted with clay, or moss from the marshes along the Vistula and the Seine.

The second floor was sombre and quiet. Twelve tables formed a severe, almost martial square. All were well used; they were occupied by lawyers, retired diplomats---there were a lot of these---pharmacists, army doctors and ordinary docto'rs, career officials and administrators---influential chandlers in flour, bandage, sunflower seed oil, and iodine. We sat in a far-off corner, at the table for special sittings, four Bolsheviks from the Nikolayevsky Railway and the Russo-Baltic plant on the Malaya Nevka River. We

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had come the day before on orders from the Petrograd Soviet. Our corner and desk were called "The Red corner".*

"That's not so bad, really," remarked my friend Paramon Dementyev nicknamed Socrates for his high brow. "The Red corner is the most honourable in anybody's house."

He spoke loudly enough to be heard by all the twelve tables, but they made no comments, keeping an embarrassed silence.

It was not snowing that evening, but it was cold.

The door swung noisily open just then, admitting a man clenching his fists with a happy sigh of relief.

"Good evening, friends!" Dropping his heavy fur hat and shedding his Siberian cloak he stood massaging his cheeks for a long time. "Colonel Robins!" he announced offering a reddened hand to the nearest table. "Robins!" he reiterated at the next---he was evidently going to make the round of them all. "Robins...."

So this was Raymond Robins! His official capacity of American Red Cross representative had been dimmed, it seemed, by something else. By the circumstance that Robins, once said to have been a miner, and later a businessman and millionaire, had come to Petrograd. It was said he had linked his trip to Russia with far-reaching plans.

His big hand still exuded the frost of December.

"Colonel Robins...."

"Is our winter too cold for you, Mr. Robins?" I asked.

"Oh! Familiar accent! I can feel America! Have you ever been there?"

Had I ever been to America? I had, of course. I knew Nome, Sitka, Fairbanks, and even Fort Yukon, but why tell him that all at once? He had passed our desk anyway, and was stooping to open the stove door.

"There's nothing better than a northern winter," he remarked sinking into an armchair giving him a good view of all the twelve tables. "There's nothing better," he repeated absently, for he was thinking of something else now, something different and far more important. "What's the good of charity if its recipient has to sacrifice his freedom," he said unexpectedly and raised his eyes. He extended his white hands to the open door of the stove whose glowing coals already frosted with ash lit his swollen bluish eyelids.

He then expressed the opinion that prosperous America could well help devastated Russia to restore her economy. He was a businessman and felt that such relations could be very beneficial to both Russia and America.

The quiet room grew even quieter as he spoke. Someone shivered as if cold, while another reached for a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Robins rose and looked round, his hands still hovering over the stove. I had the queer impression that the blue of his eyelids had spread.

``Don't you think I could have a talk with Lenin, gentlemen?" he asked looking sharply, as though trying to read all the twelve faces at once. Now I knew why he had taken the armchair commanding a view of all the tables....

* A pun on the Russian word ``krasny'' which means both ``red'' and ``beautiful''. The corner in which the icons were displayed in a Russian house was called "krasny ugol", i.e., red or beautiful corner.---Ed.

It was late when I went home. We lived in a wooden house near the Nikolayevsky Railway Station in those years. The little house stood in the depths of a vast wind-swept yard. One could see its five windows from afar. Four of them were dark but the fifth was usually lit, for my father was in the habit of reading in the evening.

He had developed a passion for books during our travels in America. The small volumes of Chekhov's short stories accompanied us everywhere, reminding us of home.

Beginning a book, he could never put it down, even if it failed to meet with his expectations. Finished with such a book, he would complain for a long time:

"Well, I've read it and ... it's as empty as a drum! What did I bother to read it for?"

But more often than not he would say something like this:

"Tell me, does the name of Pevtsov mean anything to you?... You ought to read his book about Kun-Lun and Jungaria. How it grips you!"

When he left his locomotive five years ago, he took the job of caretaker at the railway school. He was proud to be able to talk to the senior students on equal terms about Pushkin and Tolstoi, and even solve an algebra problem once in a while. That pride, a little childish perhaps, explained why he had spent every farthing he had ever saved in his travels over the world to put me into a technical school. He wanted me to become a locomotive builder and was grieved when I went to work in the depot instead. Like all fathers, he wanted his son to do the things he had been unable to accomplish himself. The degree to which I achieved my aims would in his eyes represent the fulfilment of his cherished plans, of those of his brothers and the whole long dynasty of Rybakovs sprung from the Upper Volga peasants whose bony but powerful frames had hauled the barges and rafts up the great river for centuries.

The news of the Revolution had made him wary, but then inspired and carried him away.

``Doesn't this spell the end of their kingdom?" he once asked me, and then significantly added: "Beware of the stray bullet." He had obviously meant to give those words more meaning than they seemed to have.

My new appointment to the Red Cross displeased him, but as always he expressed his irritation with a jest.

"Do they build any locomotives?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Too bad," he answered with smiling eyes. "I wish the Red Cross built locomotives...."

It was nearly eleven. The fire in the stove had long since gone out. Father's unfinished book lay open, his spectacles marking the page he had got to. The electric light had been switched off an hour before, but an oil lamp was burning. Father listened to me, his head slightly bent.

Time had been harsh to him, after all. The furrows it had left on those features so dear to me were like scars. I suddenly felt that I had never noticed them before, or realised how deep they had become.

"Is that what he said?" reiterated Father. " `Don't you think I could see Lenin?'"

"That's what he said."

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Father was silent. He nudged his memory, probably remembering America, the timber trestle bridge he had helped build across the Yukon in 40° below zero. He had laboured on the bridge day and night, trying to finish it before the ice of the river got moving. The ice moved a day before, and he awoke at night to the tolling of a bell. The scene he saw then was engraved on his memory forever. There was no wind and the flames of the burning bridge seemed to reach to the clouds. The great fire flared to the sky and subsided, for the bridge melted like a candle. He could not come to himself for a long time after that: "What had made people burn that bridge? The savage struggle for gold, or sheer craving for destruction?" He also wondered: "Had the man who set that bridge on fire thought of the people who had built it? Probably he had. Then why had he done it?"

Perhaps, too, he was thinking of an early spring in 1903 when he headed for the Arctic Circle with a few others like himself. Straight across the virgin snow into the depths of the great white desert marched a party of miners. They were looking for a deserted, almost forgotten mine somewhere in the gloom under the pale sun. The snowy plains looked like hardened lead, or perhaps a great white sheet of zinc that glittered as the sunrays crossed it. They advanced in two-hour marches, pausing for respites from the slanting wind scorching their faces. A black dot appeared on the horizon on the third day. It seemed as if a

vast clean sheet of paper had been marked by a tack at that spot. We approached it.... It was a man, just one man. He stood in the middle of the snow-field with arms spread. "You can't go on!" he shouted, barring the way, trying to block the snow-field and the very sky. "I won't let you!" Nor was this at all romantic. His hands were black from frost bites. That memory, too, was one that would last a lifetime. Why had that man spread his arms that way? To protect something he had found, or to defend the very earth where he stood, and the land all around? Could that bridge have been burnt to protect the land from pillage? If so, what was the effort people had put into building it?

``We're in the habit of thinking America stands for range of enterprise and risk." He moved the oil lamp nearer, feeling it was not burning brightly enough. "Wide range of enterprise, hmm. But only if it pays.... As for the risk? Well yes, but only if there is no other way out." He lifted the glass from the lamp, turned up the wick and pinched the charred end from it with firm hard fingers unafraid of fire. "What I say is that things can't be so bad with us if America has come to Petrograd at such a time." He fitted the glass back on to the lamp, moving it away. The room grew brighter. "At such a time, mind

you

t"

That was all he said, but those few words kept me awake all night.

RAYMOND ROBINS

Revolutionary sailors check personal documents during the early days of the October Revolution

*•

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Moving slowly down the long vaulted corridors of Smolny, Robins' powerful figure ahead of me almost blended with the twilight.

We would soon open one of the doors and see Lenin.

But when we reached his door we found it ajar, and the room inside apparently empty. We could see his desk, a massive affair on carved legs. The autumn day outside was dreary, but the lamp on the desk was not lit. Still, I had the impression he had just risen from that desk, for the ink was damp on the sheets of paper covered with his racy handwriting. He was evidently used to working by daylight even on such a dark day as this.

"Why hullo, hullo," said Lenin entering from a side door. "Please come in!" His voice was cheerful. "This way.... You'll be comfortable here...." He indicated the big and roomy armchairs in white dust covers. He switched on the ceiling lights, driving the twilight from the room. "That's better." (Luchshe was the Russian word he used.)

"Luchshe... Luchshd" repeated Robins smiling; he thought he had understood that last word. Turning to me, he added with a worried air: "Would you kindly tell Mr. Lenin.... Yesterday evening I walked along Mokhovaya Street...."

Walking along that street the evening before, he had seen the following. A boy had been trying to sell books written by a supporter of Kerensky. A patrol, two soldiers with red armbands (Robins laid his hand on his arm, above the elbow), came along and took the books away. "That's counterrevolution," they said. (Robins tried to pronounce the word in Russian---"Kontr-revolyutsia!") The boy began to howl and a crowd gathered, all of them shouting at the soldiers, about thirty people. The books were immediately forgotten, of course. Everyone was shouting: "Impostors! Usurpers!" Those soldiers had seemed awfully solitary that evening, all alone, and Robins had wondered who those two could have represented, if there were thirty against them. Perhaps'they really were impostors?

Robins regarded Lenin sternly, unsmilingly.

Lenin's brows shifted. He was either considering the essence of what this man had said, or merely sensing the dislike in his tone. The room was quiet. The electric lighting was rather harsh, for there were no shades on the ceiling lamps. The silver pattern of the wall-paper came alive. I felt the talk was going to end before it began.

"You say it happened in Mokhovaya Street?" asked Lenin without raising his eyes.

"Yes," answered Robins.

"Well," said Lenin---and I could see that his argument had already taken shape, that he had only to put it into words---"well, imagine that this incident involving the patrol had happened, say, at Vasilyevsky, or along the river known as Chernaya Rechka at five o'clock in the evening. There, too, you would have found two versus thirty, but the thirty would have been on the side

of__" Lenin touched his arm above the elbow as if indicating the arm band of

the patrols guarding revolutionary Petrograd.

"But Mokhovaya is in Russia too!" objected Robins.

"Yes, in Russia," said Lenin, "but if you're talking of Russia, you'll not find it in Mokhovaya Street, where the aristocracy used to live, but out there...." His eyes went to the window shimmering in the twilight. The Russia he was

speaking of lay out there, and he could see it as perhaps no one else had ever seen it before. "Those patrols in Mokhovaya Street," he went on, "were speaking on behalf of Russia."

It was evening when Robins left Lenin's office.

As was previously arranged, I saw him to his car, and returned to Lenin.

"Those bourgeois who have risen from the bottom at least know life," remarked Lenin. I had the impression that some side of Robins' character had pleased him. "But that's purely American phenomenon, I think," he mused. "Am I right?"

"Yes," said I.

"Did you really live in America?" he asked. I told him that my family had joined the emigrants moving to America from all parts of the world in 1902.

"Do all of you speak English?" he asked.

"Yes, Vladimir Ilyich," I said, "but my father keeps telling me: `Don't boast about your English, Mitya. That's no merit. Move Peter's bronze horse from Senate Square in Petrograd to America, to where you were, and he'll talk English too....'"

Lenin brightened.

"No merit, he says? Does your father speak English too?"

"Yes, but he doesn't like to."

Lenin remembered this talk two months later when he sent me to work for the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.

I walked along the embankment. On the left the outlines of the embankment, the bridge and the buildings on the other side of the river emerged timidly, softened by the thin mist. The Neva River, cut off by the semi-circle of the bridge, gleamed dully. The foul weather had blotted out colours, leaving only a black and white picture.

As I passed Senate Square to my right the equestrian bronze statue of Peter the Great was wrapped in mist as if in the smoke of gunfire. I saw two men walking slowly towards me. I immediately recognised Raymond Robins, wearing, as usual, a heavy fur coat, but who was the second man in a sheepskin coat and sharply pointed cap? Coats and caps of that kind are worn only in the south of our country, on the Dnieper River or even the Dniester River. The man had the appearance of a peasant.

The two men were so absorbed in their conversation that I was able to approach them without being noticed. I could hear the man talking to Robins---he was speaking in English and there was no doubt that this was Arthur Ransome. Yes, this must be him.

What strange paths a man may follow to reach an understanding of revolution! Odd as it may sound, it was to his love of Russian folk tales that Ransome owed the fact that he had come to know Russia during both good times and bad. Ransome was a writer and at one time his name was synonymous in the minds of English readers with books for children. English girls and boys learned the history of their country, its way of life and, above all, its natural history from Ransome's little books: the bays, lakes and rivers of England were the writer's element, for he was a traveller and angler.

Ransome had come to Russia as a collector of folklore. That had been in

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1913 and when the First World War broke out he had gone as a war correspondent to the Eastern Front, to the firing line and into the trenches. Together with the soldiers he had experienced the defeat on the Vistula, had felt with them hope for the victory of the February revolution and the disillusion that had followed. His hopes were shattered in the events of February, he had left Russia. The news of the triumph of the October revolution reached him while he was still on his homeward journey and he had immediately turned round and come back to Russia. There he had established himself in a hotel, half of whose rooms were empty, and sent cable after cable to London: "I want people, after parting the curtain of slander surrounding the Bolsheviks, to see the ideal for which they are struggling....''

When each busy Petrograd day was over and the last cables sent, Arthur Ransome would come out on to the embankment and stand with the wind blowing in his face.

Sometimes Robins would join him.

Late in the evening I went out to the sidings. Three trains stood there: the capital had been transferring from Petrograd to Moscow. They were fully loaded and waiting for the signal to start. But their lights were out---a precautionary measure quite justified in those days.

The evening was foggy, and warm. Some patches of snow still lay along the tracks. Puddles of water dimly reflected the ebbing light. Locomotives whistled somewhere far off; it seemed to us that the sounds were muffled for fear of disturbing the stillness of the night. The sparse light showed only on the faces around us, making them easier to distinguish.

Lenin arrived and walked slowly along the cars, the collar of his autumn coat raised. His gait was slower than usual. Mounting a step at the end of one of the cars, he looked far around. I had the feeling he was saying good-bye to Petrograd, and perhaps thanking the great city for its great exploit.

The train rolled off.

Lettish riflemen and armed workers stood everywhere along the tracks.

I began to walk rapidly towards the station.

``Mitya!" called someone.

I stopped and saw my father. Though in his short sheepskin coat, he seemed cold. He had evidently been standing there for a long time. I saw the snub'nose of his old army rifle protruding behind his right shoulder.

``Wait till the third train leaves; then we'll go," he said.

We got home towards morning, and the weather was still misty with a drizzle of rain. The tracks were shining. Father and I talked of the trains that had just left for Moscow. We also spoke of Moscow, now the capital, and about Lenin.

``This has been figured out right," mused father. "The frontier is more and more becoming the firing line. That being the case, why keep headquarters on that line? Lenin has moved the capital where it should be ... according to all the rules of military science, and not of military science alone.''

Father and I moved to Moscow two days later. He found it harder to part with Petrograd than I, but kept soothing himself with the idea that a Petrograd railwayman was a half Muscovite, and a Moscow railwayman, a half Petrograder. What was a mere five hundred versts, after all? Moreover,

the railway school, almost as big as the one in Petrograd, was near, and father took a job there at once.

Moscow's big hotels, the National and the Metropol, became the government offices.

Lenin lived and worked in the National, while the People's Commissariat ' for Foreign Affairs established itself at the Metropol.

I The Kremlin stood nearby. The Metropol was only a five minutes walk from

i the Nikolsky Gates, and ten minutes from the Troitsky Gates. The Smolny

i schedule was still effective and foreign visitors were received at the oddest

times---at noon and at midnight, at sunset, and sometimes even at dawn.

; Things were made easier by the fact that nearly the entire personnel of the

People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs lived right there, in the hotel.

At the Metropol it was Chicherin now who received Raymond Robins more and more frequently. "Our friend, Colonel Robins," was how he referred to him. The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs knew that Robins had been visiting Lenin more and more often.

Lenin liked to talk to Robins, it seemed to me. The man had a sense of humour, a good knowledge of life, and the breadth of vision that always distinguishes the gifted man of the people even when he has amassed a fortune. There was something in Robins reminiscent of the old Urals industrialists, of the Demidovs and Stroganovs, though he was different from them in one way. The Russian industrialists acknowledged neither God nor the devil, more often than not, while this counterpart of theirs was pious, very pious. What was there in Lenin to attract him? That was the riddle. Robins, some said, had quarrelled with Francis, the American ambassador in Petrograd, but was fulfilling a mission for him, just the same. Others declared it was his piety that made the Bolsheviks attractive to Robins who was obsessed by the idea of reconciling the Communist Manifesto with the Bible. There were some, too, who had another notion: this millionaire who had sprung from the rural proletariat, they said, was fond of hobnobbing with the head of the first workers' government.

I think Lenin knew of all the three views when talking to Robins.

He knew all this, but felt that the man was capable of understanding a great deal in Soviet Russia. Lenin did not intend to convert him, needless to say, but banked on being able to neutralise him, to win his loyalty if possible, or better yet, his friendship. Robins sought to explain all riddles by the existence of invisible and mighty forces whose indestructible laws had been set down in the Bible. Lenin could have ignored such arguments that were anything but convincing to a materialist, but took another path instead. Religion, its origin and philosophy came to be their bone of contention for many hours. Lenin spoke as the revolutionary and discoverer. I can well imagine the scope and vehemence of his discourse. He was precisely the revolutionary and discoverer, though to some extent, perhaps, the diplomat defending the interests of the young Soviet state.

It was a sunny and calm April. The snow was melting and long, steep ``islands'' of white remained only in the Alexandrovsky Garden and in the dark little courtyards, cut off from sky and sun by the tall houses. ! The deputies of the Moscow Soviet had assembled in the Hall of Columns.

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There was reason enough for the meeting, for Moscow was short of wood.

``Could you help me to have a word with Lenin? I think he's in a room behind the stage right now. I only want a word or two, but it's about something very important.''

The voice was that of Robins, who had appeared before me.

Under his jacket he wore a woollen sweater, its high collar encircling his massive neck. Perhaps this severe garb was more in harmony with the harsh times.

``I've just seen Lenin," Robins said and extracted a note-book from his pocket. He wanted to be sure that the note-book was there, for he would have something of great importance to write down.

We went to the room behind the stage where Lenin was. The mirrors on the walls made it clear that during concerts this was used as a dressing-room. On the table coats and greatcoats were piled; there were no chairs---they were all on the stage---and Lenin had ensconced himself on a bench, which he had pushed up to the window-sill. The bench was very small, but Lenin did not appear to be suffering any discomfort; he was hard at work, his legs tucked under him and his arm resting on the broad window-sill. Before him lay an exercise book, filled with his energetic handwriting: evidently, these were the points to be made in his speech.

Lenin was paying no attention to the fact that his trouser turn-up was touching the floor, or that to sit with his legs tucked under him was not very comfortable or that someone might come into the room and see him in this highly unusual pose. None of this was of any importance to him. What mattered was to use every second of the fifteen minutes before the meeting to the full and note down everything that had to be said.

From time to time he would break off and rest his chin on his upturned hands in a somehow melancholy and, as I thought, tired way, sitting motionless as if fearing to break his train of thought by an incautious movement.

Robins and I stood by the door, holding our breath; I was even more apprehensive than the American. I felt that I had neither the strength nor the courage to approach Lenin and begin speaking to him, and Robins appeared to have lost his characteristic boldness. I don't know how long we would have stood by the door, shifting from one foot to the other, had not Lenin suddenly raised his eyes.

And then the storm clouds burst in real earnest.

Lenin's face darkened and he impatiently bunched the hand with which he was holding a pencil.

``No, no, my friends, excuse me.... I'm busy." He did not hide his

LENIN making notes on the steps of the rostrum during the Session of the 3rd Congress of the Comintern. 1921

The Hotel Metrppol which had earlier come under fire. OctoberNovember 1917, Moscow

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displeasure. "If I can, I'll see you in half an hour. In half an hour ... and now you must excuse me."

We decided to wait.

Lenin stood at the rostrum and quietness, broken by the restrained buzzing of voices, enveloped the hall.

He spoke of revolutionary Russia, roused to fierce struggle with the old world and of Russia's determination to defend its liberty.

As he finished applause swelled to a roar, slowly subsiding, as metal at white heat gradually cools.

Once again Robins and I went to the room behind the stage.

Lenin was standing by the window, the sun gilding the hair on his

temples.

"Well, now I can see you," he said, turning to us, his eyes stern. Perhaps he had not forgiven our incursion, or perhaps he was still under the influence of what he had said to the audience. "Please tell me what it is."

Robins had indeed quite lost his former boldness.

He said that he was returning to America and that it was in this connection that he had wanted to see Lenin. Perhaps Lenin's ideas on the broad development of trading ties, which had been expressed on more than one occasion, could now be put into practice? At any rate, Robins would take it upon himself to inform America of these ideas.

Lenin's eyes were fixed on Robins.

"You would inform America?"

"Yes." Robins felt that the idea had captured Lenin's attention. "I shall do everything to let America know."

Lenin moved away from the window and indicated with a glance that we should follow him. We walked across the room in silence.

"Well, then, we shall draw up our plan before you leave. I have already told you that the main thing for us now is new machinery for our industry and agriculture, new machinery! We are ready to order it in America in exchange for raw materials. This is the basic feature of our plan: America may regard it as an official proposal on the part of revolutionary Russia."

"Perhaps it should be officially addressed?"

"You mean?"

"I mean that it should be sent to the president."

"To Wilson?"

The American hesitated for a moment.

"I should like... to try."

Lenin began pacing the room again, Robins and I behind him.

"Well, then, if you think...."

Robins thanked Lenin.

"I think I shall leave in May, in the first half of the month."

"I shall give you our plan myself."

Robins left us and Lenin looked grimly at me (now he will read me a lecture for that unwanted incursion, I thought, there can be no doubt about that). But Lenin suddenly smiled.

"Why on earth did you burst in on me with him before the meeting? Were you afraid to say no? Come now, were you afraid to say no to him?"

"Yes, I was," I admitted.

Lenin laughed.

``You're wrong. In life one must say no when needed." He waved his hand. "Well, what can I say to you? Chicherin tells me that the last time you were in the Bolshoi Theatre you begged a column's pardon for brushing against it. Isn't that so?"

Now we both laughed.

A phone call instructed me to accompany Robins about to visit Lenin in the Kremlin. I reached the spot about fifteen minutes ahead of tune and saw Vladimir Ilyich leaving the narrow Kremlin passage near the Troitsky Gates. He was walking across the wooden pavements of the square towards the building of the Council of People's Commissars. Half-way across he paused for a moment, removed his cap and looked with happy impatience at the sky, filled with sunshine that day.

We entered Lenin's famous Kremlin study known from many photographs.

Lenin invited Robins to take the armchair at his left, the same low, black-leathered affair that later received all his famous guests from Lincoln Steffens to H. G. Wells.

The fact that Lenin spoke to Robins in English showed that he had grown quite used to his visitor in the past five months. Later, too, I noted that Lenin usually began with a simple theme, perhaps even personal, to "warm up" for the conversation, to give it spontaneity. Now, too, they were talking about some letters from Florida where Robins had an estate, and also, if I remember correctly, from London where Robins' sister lived. Lenin was in no hurry to broach serious topics, giving the impression he was interested in these trifles, and nothing more. Perhaps he was waiting for his guest to begin. He knew Robins had come on business.

"I hope to be in Washington this summer," said Robins.

Of course: the American had come to continue and, perhaps, complete that memorable conversation with Lenin at the Hall of Columns.

"As I promised," remarked Lenin unhurriedly opening a drawer of his desk, "here's a document that states our views on trade with America quite fully." He laid an unsealed envelope before Robins and shut the drawer.

Lenin had given Robins a document offering prospects for wide economic ties between our countries, thereby indicating unmistakably that he was to some extent authorising the American to speak on behalf of the Russians.

Robins opened the flap of the envelope and slowly drew out the paper. He held it in both hands.

``I'll do all I can.... So help me God! All I can...."

"Why, of course, of course," said Lenin with a touch of confusion and reached for his pen. "So you're going back through Vladivostok?"

"That's right, Vladivostok."

"That's a long trip, and not altogether safe," remarked Lenin looking for his pad with the seal of "Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars". Striking the word ``Petrograd'' from the form, he quickly inscribed the substitution: "Moscow, Kremlin, May 11, 1918."

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I was able to read the further words when I handed the document to Robins as we left the study. The message bore the clear instruction "to offer Colonel Robins all possible assistance to travel rapidly and freely from Moscow to Vladivostok". This unique mandate carried the familiar signature: "Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov ( Lenin)."

I accompanied Robins to the car.

I returned to the study, for Lenin was waiting for me.

"Well, we've sent our message to America!" he said. In his mind's eye he could see Robins travelling through the sea of hills of the Trans-Urals and Siberia, sailing over another, a real ocean, always eastward towards the flat and rocky shores of Oregon and California. "Now I wonder what Rybakov Senior would say to that?" he asked with a smile. "Is your father in Moscow with you, by the way?"

"Yes, Vladimir Eyich, he is."

"That's fine.... He's an old specialist on America. What does he think? Will we get anywhere with America?"

Late that evening I came out of the Troitsky Gates and strolled past the Alexandrovsky Garden in the direction of the river. The garden was dark and

filled with damp cold; the snow had only recently disappeared and the ground had not yet dried out. Birds were chirruping on the tops of the oaks and lime trees in its depths. They had clearly arrived too early this year---spring was late.

I had already passed the garden and was about to turn towards the bridge when, on my left, I saw two figures coming from the river. In those days friends followed the old Petrograd tradition of going down to the river in the evening. I realised that the two were Robins and Ransome (the latter more difficult to recognise without his sheepskin coat).

"We have just agreed that my modest missive will also be going to America tomorrow," Ransome said, turning to me.

"Your letter?"

"Yes, my letter to the most important address in America---to the president! I want to tell him how affairs here appear to someone who has lived several years in Russia and seen everything with his own eyes. I shall stay up all night to write it."

Robins was preparing himself for a far-ranging conversation with his president. It was most important that everything Robins wanted to say to him be said and in this connection the letter Ransome intended to write that evening to the president was of the utmost significance.

The building of the Council of People's Commissars

Lenin's office in the Kremlin

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They left me and I could clearly imagine Robins' room and the two men.... A suitcase, thrown open and ready on a chair. Travelling clothes laid out. On the table a thick envelope containing Lenin's letter and on top of it the mandate, folded in two. Robins picked up a stack of note-books, their pages filled, and unhurriedly looked through them once again. The note-books were numbered: the entire history of the Russian revolution as Robins had noted it down during the last six months was there.

He put the note-books into a folder and moved it into the centre of the table, where the letter lay.

What else had to be taken?

In the next room Ransome was impatiently pacing up and down, an empty glass on the nearby marble-topped table vibrating at his tread.

Then he sat down and began to write.

"I am writing so quickly that I am afraid my pen will break, but I cannot get it out of my mind that the man who will take my letter is leaving in a few hours' time...."

Ransome wrote of the leaders of the new Russia as men with pure hearts, whose noble ideals would outlive them.

"They added a new, courageous page to the history of mankind.... And when, many years later, people read this page, they will pass sentence on your

country and mine, according to whether we helped or hindered in its writing...-"

Ransome finished his letter as a pale May dawn lit up the clouds over Moscow.

He switched off the light and in the daylight now coming through the window re-read the letter, pondering---Pondering about what? Perhaps about his own fate.

There had been a man, a man enchanted by nature, who had thought that his true calling was to walk through dew-covered woods early in the morning, listening to the dawn chorus, or to sail along placid rivers. A man who had thought that nature fully revealed its secrets only to him and that it was his function diligently to note down everything that it told him---to note it down and impart it to the world. Then had come his journey to Russia and everything had disintegrated and blown away: the woods, the boat on the stream, the dawns. Only the watery gleam of the northern sun had remained and a stern voice crying: "All power to the Soviets!" The revolution had thrust its way into the life of this man and everything had shifted from its accustomed place.

What would be the future shape of this man's life? Would he go to the side of the revolution and make it his calling and the essential core of his life, or would he return to the unperturbed world of nature? What would be the future shape of his life?

The press announced that Robins had safely reached America and wanted to see Wilson. This was followed by the first blow: "President refuses to receive Robins," trumpeted the headlines. Then we learned that Robins was before a senate commission. Finally came reports that the newspapers had begun a campaign against Robins by tacit agreement.

Nothing remained of the project Robins had so enthusiastically conceived in connection with the president: on Wilson's orders America began active intervention against Russia.

Clouds floated over the Kremlin, brilliantly white, fluffy and bathed in sunlight. They floated over Moscow, lakes of sunshine moving over the wooden pavements of the Kremlin. Lenin stood by the window with Ransome and watched the sunbeams move over the ground, like a warm wave striking the white walls. If one moved to a higher floor one could see the smoky wave of sunshine rolling on and covering the dark-red brickwork of the Kremlin walls, the fragile gold of the domes, the trees, the stone staircases and the pavements.

Lenin recalled London and a stormy meeting that had taken place there. George Bernard Shaw had spoken.

"No, Shaw is no clown! No! Perhaps he appears as such in a bourgeois country, but he would not be counted a clown in a revolution. By the way"---Lenin's eyes were now on Ransome---"do you think that you would be permitted to tell the truth about Russia in Britain? Would you?" Lenin paused. "And how about Robins?"

Now Lenin had given Ransome an opening to say what he so much wanted to say about the American. Ransome pondered.

"Do you know what Raymond Robins said about Russia before he returned to America?" The Englishman was glad of this opportunity to recall his friend.

RAYMOND ROBINS

Lenin's note requesting Soviet organisations to help colonel Robins

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"Robins said: 'You must understand, Ransome, that I cannot be hostile towards an infant by whose cradle I sat for six months.'"

Lenin stopped by the far wall and looked at the map. It was as if he had cast his gaze over the infinite distances of the steppe or the ocean and satisfied the hunger of his eye and, perhaps, his heart for tall skies and sun. There is nothing more joyful for a person than the, consciousness that someone in whom he has placed his trust has remained a human being through and through.

"Well, then," said Lenin, his eyes glowing warmly.

"Robins is an honest man and more far-sighted politician than most. That remark about an infant---it's fine!"

Lenin laughed, his laugh revealing both his healthy spirit and buoyant mood. It is happiness indeed to have faith in someone and not to be mistaken in that faith! Then, when his laughter had subsided, Lenin said quietly:

"An infant.... Yes, there were millions of others who kept watch by the cradle of this infant. Millions."

That day Ransome entered in his diary:

"More than ever before Lenin struck me as a happy man. On the way home from the Kremlin I tried in vain to recall another figure of the same stature who lived life with such pleasure as Lenin. I still see this short man, with his slightly wrinkled face, rocking on his chair, laughing infectiously first at one thing, then another, and at the same time always ready to give serious advice to anyone who asked it, and such well-sounded and considered advice that it sounded more convincing to his adherence than any command.

"Every wrinkle in his face was a wrinkle of laughter and not of anxiety. This, I think, is because he is the first great leader who utterly denies the significance of his own personality. He is absolutely devoid of any personal vanity, and, moreover, he believes, as a Marxist, in the movement of the masses, who, with or without him will move steadfastly forward. He believes wholeheartedly in those elemental forces which arouse and lead the masses, and his believe in himself is the same as his believe in his ability to correctly evaluate the direction of those forces. He does not believe that one man has the power to achieve or to prevent a revolution ... and so he experiences such a universal feeling of freedom that no other great man has experienced before."

And what happened to Robins? He remained true to his friendship with our country, true to the end of his life.

In the 1930s Robins revisited Russia. Making straight for the Kremlin, he produced the mandate Lenin had given him.

There is a time-hallowed tradition of planting a tree in memory of a friend, a tree such as an oak or a cedar, which will live for many centuries.

It is as if the person planting the tree wishes to prolong the life of his friend: "Grow, tree, rustle your leaves and give rest to people in your deep shade! Grow, and let the sound of your abundant leaves, now grim and menacing, now mighty and grand, now militant and thundering, remind people of that

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distant country on the other side of a great ocean and its great son, whose wise faith and strength of will, so long as men are enslaved on earth, will call people to struggle for liberty. Grow, tree...."

In Florida a "Lenin tree" grows.

It was planted by Raymond Robins, an American whom Lenin made a friend of Soviet Russia.

LENIN with other members of the presidium at the 1st Congress of the Comintern. (To the right from LENIN is FRITZ FLATTEN.) Moscow, 1919

Through the Flames

The car passed us, its tyres leaving tracks in the wet snow. "There's someone else in the car," Robins said, when the vehicle had already passed the gates of the Smolny, "besides Mr. Lenin and his wife ... wearing a foreign-looking fur hat.''

``A foreign fur hat!" Williams replied with mock amazement, glancing at me as if seeking my agreement with the implication underlying his words: "These American bourgeois! Even here they see sinister overtones!''

My American friends were now, of course, well started on their never-ending dispute, and I could easily guess how it would proceed. Robins would say that journalism meant that one had to be able to use one's eyes and that the journalist was the only intermediary between events and the reader. He was acting as an eye-witness, which meant that he must always have his wits about him. Williams would respond to this by observing that Theodore Roosevelt had once made a similar assertion in an attempt at compromising the freedom of the press. The argument would be conducted in the good-natured way, free from ill humour, which always characterised conversations between these two, although one had never to exaggerate either of those qualities: if there was anything unpleasant Robins and'Williams had to say to one another their humour and good disposition would not stop them from saying it. This had always been so, and when they engaged in amiable but determined dispute, each upholding his principles, I found myself transported in thought to their native country. These were not merely personal arguments: behind each disputant stood America---his America.

THROUGH THE FLAMES

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"If it's a foreign-looking fur hat, then the third person must be Flatten," said Williams.

"Flatten? But in America we say 'New Year dinner is a family occasion'," Robins observed, after a pause.

"We also say in America that 'All people are one family'," Williams smiled. "Besides, Flatten is no stranger to Lenin. It's not everyone who will go with you to meet danger half-way."

Yes, those were Williams' words: "To meet danger half-way." Robins was looking attentively and quietly at him.

"Now just a minute," he said, in a barely audible voice. ``Isn't that the same Flatten, the Swiss, who after the February Revolution?..."

"The same."

We walked silently along the road. Our car was waiting for us somewhere on Leontyevskaya.

"I remember now," Robins said. "Flatten began life in Russia and apparently speaks Russian."

"He speaks it well," I confirmed.

"Do you know Flatten?" Robins asked me.

"Yes, a little."

"What sort of person is he, then?"

We were going towards the Arsenalnaya Embankment, where Lenin was going to celebrate New Year, 1918, at a workers' ball attended by the citizens of the Vyborg district. Throughout our walk I talked about Flatten.

Flatten, Fritz. A man whose countenance had, in a curious way, taken on the severe charm of Switzerland's valleys and snowy ridges. Well-built, good-looking. It was hard to say when Lenin had met him, but in Zimmerwald they had already known one another. I would not have called Flatten one of Lenin's fellow-thinkers in those years, still less a friend: his movement towards the Bolsheviks had been steady, but it had also been quite slow. Lenin's works, as I later learned, contained criticisms of Flatten, sometimes severe in character; they also contained more than one passage in which Lenin encouraged Platten's actions and even defended them. When the February Revolution broke out in Russia and the question of Lenin's return to Petrograd had arisen, there were few among the Swiss who were willing to assume responsibility for the journey. Flatten had not merely agreed, but had

even volunteered for the job__ However, I have run ahead of myself.

Everything that happened at that time I learned directly from Flatten and it deserves a separate story.

I had become acquainted with Flatten soon after his most recent return to Russia. The first secret treaties of the tsarist government had just been

FRITZ FLATTEN

The coat of arms of the Russian empire is taken down from the gates of the Kremlin

THROUGH THE FLAMES

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deciphered and the question of translating them had arisen. I had translated them into English and Flatten had helped me to polish up the German text. Once we had worked on a translation all night and had returned home together.

Nevsky Prospekt had somehow recalled the Neva River, along which we had just passed. Its pavements, like the banks of the Neva, were unwaveringly straight. The wind was whipping up flurries of snow here, but blew them not "from bank to bank" but along the length of the avenue. At that late hour Nevsky Prospekt had been quite deserted.

``I've noticed," Flatten said, "that when events you have been waiting for all your life take place, nature doesn't do much to put on a show. In Switzerland in March, 1917, for example, in Zurich.... It was a bleak day, the lake and the sky were grey. Lenin had already dined and was getting ready to go to the library. Apparently he had picked up an exercise-book and discovered, upon opening it, that he had filled the last page that morning. 'Nadya, give me a new exercise-book.' At that moment he saw that the Pole Bronsky was running across the courtyard towards his door, literally running, his legs catching in the skirts of his greatcoat. Lenin darted to the door and threw it open. Bronsky was already on the threshold, paler than death---he had run all the way across town. 'The tsar has fallen,' Bronsky blurted out, 'revolution has broken out in Russia!' So you see, you can judge for yourself whether nature knows how to put on a show when events a man has been waiting for all his life take place.... 'Nadya, put the new exercise-book away,' Lenin said, hesitating: he needed a moment in order to grasp, somehow, this great occurrence. 'Put the exercise-book away,' he said slowly, 'and we shall go to the lake---there are newspapers there!' We walked---no, ran---to the lake, where the latest Zurich newspapers were posted up under an awning. It was impossible to force one's way through: there had never been so many people here before. Lenin stood on tiptoes, so as to get at least a glimpse of the newspapers: 'Petrograd. Tsar Nicholas has abdicated from the throne....' Walking away from the lake shore, we stopped: beside the water stood another crowd, small and so closely packed that from a distance it looked like an outcrop of rock. But the rock was singing and singing in Russian: 'You fell in the sacred and glorious strife.' Yes, they were Russians, a group of political refugees, people who knew the inside of Schliisselburg and the Peter and Paul Fortress, who had walked, with fetters on their legs, down the Vladimirka, whose breath had warmed the cold flags of the Alexeyevsky dungeons. Lenin darted over to them and began singing joyfully, with a mixture of elevation and anxiety. `You've given your all to break through the black night!' It was not long before a telegram came from the Central Committee in Russia: 'Ulyanov must come immediately.'"

For a moment nothing could be seen, as the other side of the street was swept away in a white haze. Then the snow flurries died down and the dark masses of the buildings emerged. The snow had gone and the street seemed to stand revealed from end to end. Only the sky was still smoky, grey, and troubled.

``I well remember that, at first, hundreds of Russians wanted to go to Russia, but when it became clear that the only route lay through Germany their numbers dropped to a few dozen---the matter wasn't at all simple. I can

remember one conversation with Lenin at that time---not in Zurich, but in Berne. It was March and the young foliage was still delicate and pale green in the sunlight, but the sun already shone warmly and was dazzlingly bright at midday. The windows were wide open in the restaurant and the scents of spring filled the building. Lenin was sitting at the end table on the right. He had long since finished his meal and drunk the traditional cup of coffee---an empty cup stood in the middle of the table. Lenin was bent over a newspaper; he had evidently gone through it from beginning to end already and had read the cables that appeared in all Swiss newspapers under the same heading: 'Revolution in Russia.' Now he was reading the editorial commentaries. For a moment he tore his eyes away from the newspaper and noticed me. Folding up his newspaper, he stuffed it into the side pocket of his jacket and came towards me. `Isn't there somewhere we can be alone, my dear Flatten?' he asked. I invited him to follow me and we passed through the dining hall and along a corridor until we reached a quiet, secluded room. 'It is safe to talk here,' I said. Lenin began speaking, then, after a few words, opened the window. An old conspirator, he expected the street noises to drown our voices; but it was that quiet midday hour at which even a great city becomes still. 'I am asking you to be our agent in negotiations with Romberg, the German ambassador. More than that, I am asking you to speak with him on my behalf. Incidentally, we should be grateful if you would travel through Germany with us. An intermediary will be needed between Russians and Germans under all circumstances: if he were to be a citizen of neutral Switzerland.... Have you decided, Comrade Flatten?' he asked. 'And you, Vladimir Ilyich?' 'I?' he questioned. 'Of course, Comrade Flatten.'"

Flatten stopped, then went on more slowly.

``As the train moved off," he continued, "Lenin suddenly asked me: `Aren't you afraid?' 'What is there to be afraid of?' 'What?' he queried. 'Your brother socialists will pronounce an anathema on you. They will accuse you of having sold yourself to the devil himself.' I smiled. 'And who is the devil?' 'Why, the Germans, of course.' I laughed. 'Well, they will probably accuse you of the same thing, Vladimir Ilyich.' 'To each his own weapons. Let them accuse me---I am ready.' The train was already passing over German soil. 'Switzerland sometimes seems to me an island in a sea of fire,' I said to Lenin. 'And to leave it, one must walk through the flames?' Lenin responded. 'Yes.' 'Then one must walk through the flames,' Lenin said. I think he realised at that time that he was going through the flames. The Provisional Government had just declared that anyone who dared to cross Germany would be accused of treason. Yes, obviously he was passing through the flames.''

I finished my story when our car was already at the Liteiny Bridge.

``Through the flames?" Robins' heavy brows were knitted and he continued thoughtfully: "I believe that it was a risk, and no small risk. Flatten risked not only his name, but his life, too. But if you stake your life like that, you must receive something in return.''

``What in particular?" Williams asked.

Robins became excited.

``You know that as well as I do, Albert. Water lies at a depth of one hundred feet in my home area, in Florida, and before you go down into a well to scrape the bottom clean---you have to do this at Christmas and Easter, otherwise the

THROUGH THE FLAMES

THROUGH THE FLAMES

bottom will become clogged with sand---you want to know what you will get for doing it: because at the bottom there are layers not only of sand but of bad air as well. What you get for doing something---why, that's an American article of faith! But what have the Russians to set against it? It is easy enough to say: "Through the flames!' If you are in your right mind, then, before you throw yourself into the flames, you give yourself some sort of account of what the prospect holds out for you.''

``Is that really the point?" Williams grinned.

``You mean it isn't? Then what is the point? What, then?" Robins insisted. "Lenin was returning to his homeland, he wanted his people to be free. But Flatten ... whom was Flatten setting free?''

Williams did not reply. Apparently he was waiting for the moment to tell Robins everything he wanted to say.

My friends fell silent. Each was trying mentally to digest in his own way what he had heard about Flatten. For both this was the more important in that before the night was out they would have seen Flatten and Lenin.

We passed Nikolayevsky Station and continued our journey along Nevsky Prospekt. Robins suggested that we make a brief stop at Number 28: he had business to attend to in the American consulate-general.

The person Robins wanted to see was evidently not in the consulate, for our friend returned immediately. We saw him running swiftly down the steps of the main entrance, then unhurriedly approaching our car, which had stopped to one side, across the snow-covered pavement.

``Hallo, Robins!" a baritone voice, deep and rumbling, hailed him. "You must agree that there is nothing in the world to compare with a Russian winter!''

``Quite, Mr. Ambassador, nothing in the world," Robins replied confusedly and stopped, not knowing whether to go on or wait for the ambassador, who was now slowly emerging from his car.

``Nothing in the world...." The ambassador walked a few steps and looked round at his car, as if checking that it was still there. "Ah, the Russian New Year, like the Russian snow.... It's so cold!" The ambassador again glanced towards his car, clearly apprehensive that it would suddenly streak away, leaving him at the mercy of fate. "At such a gloomy time, why shouldn't one celebrate one more New Year?" He impatiently shifted from one foot to the other, creating a little island of trodden snow around himself. "The whole diplomatic corps is at Furshtadt Street today---Russian guests, too: it is an evening of friendship with the Russians, so to speak." He shot a glance at Robins. "That Kukorikhin or Kukovikhin will be there with his associates. They're all deputies, absolutely all of them!" he concluded.

``A Constituent Assembly at Furshtadt Street!" Williams cried suddenly, and a silence, that primeval silence absent here since the first builders of the city had driven their crudely hewn piles into the wet earth of the Neva's banks, spread over Petrograd.

The ambassador was taken aback and clearly did not know what answer to make.

``Well, then!" he said, turning briskly as if wishing to show how safe and at home he felt on his little island. "I am going to Kukovikhin! And you?" The ambassador was serious: this play of ambiguities did not come easily to him.

Robins was again embarrassed.

``Where are we going?" The ambassador's question had quite nonplussed him. "My friends say that we are going to see Lenin.''

``Well, I wish you a good journey then," said the ambassador, mastering himself with some difficulty. "I still hope that I shall see you this evening at Furshtadt Street," he added, raising his hand in farewell and seeking by this expressive gesture to show how unshakeable his good humour was.

The two men passed each other and the ambassador disappeared behind the heavy door of the consulate.

Robins walked towards the car, anxiously sunk in thought, his heavy boots dragging through the snow. Behind him stretched a long strip of broken snow: the footsteps of a man who was tired to death.

He got into the car and it was as if he had brought the silence he had dragged along over the broken snow and his tiredness with him.

When we arrived at Arsenalnaya it was already after eleven o'clock, but Lenin had still to appear. A concert had just ended and dancing had begun. The strains of this workers' waltz on the eve of 1918 had an unusual ring in the

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The cruiser AURORA, 1917. The warship of the Baltic Fleet famous for her participation in the Great October Socialist Revolution

foil k^Pnpian Ism,

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The cause for which the people have fought, namely, the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers' control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power---this cause has been secured.

Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers and peasants'.

ilAKTlETM:

THROUGH THE FLAMES

THROUGH THE FLAMES

white hall, its windows looking out to east and west, a hall which had seen the flash of uniforms and heard the ceremonial clink of spurs. I glanced at Robins. His eyes were fixed on the parquet floor: felt boots, high boots of thick leather, suspiciously noisy light shoes, evidently wooden clogs which had come into fashion at the end of 1917, low boots capped by puttees, dull-green soldiers' ``koty''---high boots with cut-off tops (the tops had gone to make a second pair)---and more felt boots, clogs and boots. No, the white hall of the Mikhailovsky junkers' college, with its twelve windows to the west and its twelve windows to the east, had never seen such a waltz.

But the music had hardly begun when the orchestra stopped in mid-note and the hall was immediately filled with the sound of applause, at first uncertain and confused, then, suddenly, warm and unanimous. Lenin was standing at the left corner of the stage. He was wearing a greatcoat and his collar was bedewed with drops of melted snow: evidently wishing to enter the hall without interrupting the celebrations, he had looked for a side entrance and found himself on the stage.

"Did you come here from Arsenalnaya?" cries greeted him from the hall.

"Why come from Arsenalnaya Street when Simbirskaya is next door!" Lenin replied and laughed. He could not resist the temptation to utter once again the name Simbirskaya Street reminding him of his own home-town Simbirsk.

Either the hall had grasped the meaning of these words or was delighted simply by the opportunity of hearing Lenin's voice, for it exploded with applause.

Lenin took off his greatcoat and approached the footlights.

"Comrades---my dear Vyborg comrades!" He pronounced ``Vyborg'' with a characteristically rolled ``r''. "I wish you all a happy New Year!"

He began talking to the audience and as he spoke the earth, the Russian earth, huge and so unsettled oh this eve of 1918, seemed to turn before him with all its misfortunes and calamities. Along a deep trench girdling the steppe, like a sabre-cut across a face, soldiers walked almost upright, as they had not walked since the beginning of the war. A factory stood, its windows blackened eyes, enormous and dead---how could it stay on its feet after its heart had stopped? An old man walked across an unharvested field, the crop flattened and black, stopped and looked around him for a long time, his eyes, like huge pools of water, full of sadness. Lenin spoke of the difficulties of the past year and the trials awaiting them in 1918; the workers they should not lose heart, however, but should close ranks more tightly.

"Long live the proletariat of Petrograd!" Lenin cried Concluding his speech. "Long live the people of Vyborg!"

The band thundered out the Internationale.

Lenin's face, genial a moment before, now became solemn.

Dancing began again and a girl in a bright green blouse and a scarf wound round her neck ran up to Lenin and asked him to partner her.

Lenin raised his hands to his chest in an embarrassed gesture.

"I should be delighted, young lady, but in truth, I...." He looked around, as if searching for someone to take his place. ``We'll find you a partner."

He led the girl to the bandleader, his look informing the latter that he was Lenin's only hope.

The bandleader put down his baton---the band continued to play without him---and extended his hand to the girl. Ceremoniously, they swept into the waltz.

Lenin's gaze followed them for a long time, until they disappeared into the crowd of dancers.

The young people were still circling the floor when refreshments were announced.

"But what a spread you have!" Lenin exclaimed, looking round the table.

"It comes from soldiers' rations," a girl standing beside him said.

The treat included a cut-glass tumbler containing a drop of wine, which barely covered the bottom, a round slice of sausage, a ring of onion, a tiny piece of herring, a plate of thinly sliced, transparent cheese and a crust of black bread (which last I knew went down very well with red wine).

"So the food comes from soldiers' rations?" Lenin queried.

``We're off tomorrow, Vladimir Ilyich."

Lenin thought for a moment.

"Tomorrow?"

"We shall be holding a meeting in the evening at the Mikhailovsky riding school. They said you would be there, too."

Lenin rose.

"Yes, I promised Podvoisky. I shall be there."

We moved along the windows, trying not to get in the way of the dancers, and approached the stage. Lenin was standing by the footlights, his back to the dancers, talking with Flatten. The latter, unable to raise his eyes to Lenin's face, was slightly tense, his figure expressive of cordiality, agreement and an attractive clumsiness. To me it seemed amazing that these people should now be standing side by side in front of me, just as once they had stood side by side in a secluded room somewhere in a Berne hotel, when first they had talked about a journey through Germany, and later before the window of a railway carriage travelling across German soil, and later still in the little Finnish border town of Tornio, when the Provisional Government had refused Flatten permission to enter Russia.

"You said 'through the flames'," Robins said, speaking quietly but somehow very distinctly. He was evidently a determined debater, forgetting nothing that had been said about Lenin and Flatten and mentally continuing his dispute with Williams.

``Don't you see, Colonel," said Williams, his eyes remaining fixed on Lenin and Flatten, "that while we were scraping sand from those wells in Florida, these people had conceived of an ideal, whereby an American would gladly sacrifice his life for the good of a Russian and a Spaniard would go to his death to save a Serb's life?"

"All that is too good to be true!" Robins exclaimed. "In life things are simpler and harsher."

"In life, yes, in life..." Williams observed thoughtfully.

It was already after one o'clock when we left the ball. "To Furshtadt Street!" Robins said to the driver, after we had climbed into the car.

THROUGH THE FLAMES

THROUGH THE FLAMES

``Do you want to take up the ambassador's invitation?" Williams asked. The car was still moving slowly and he was able to speak without raising his voice.

``No, why should I? But it will be worth while to drive along Furshtadt Street.''

``Well, all right---if it's to Furshtadt Street, then so be it!''

The night was clear and quiet. On our way to the ball everything had been blurred in the Petersburg murk and the outlines of everything lost---the embankment, the bridges, the angles of the houses along the Neva. But then the snow stopped falling and the picture before us acquired firm configurations, the stonework set off by a white border that returned to it its former lines. The newly fallen snow had brought with it freshness and light to the city.

The car entered Furshtadt Street and we slowed down. Before us was the red shelf of the grim, unlit Elyseyev house and across the way the lighted windows of the ambassadorial residence.

The car stopped and Robins, sighing and grunting, got out and went to the front door.

The broad glass expanse of the windows could not keep in the bursts of sound from a brass band, which seemed to be making the walls of the house bulge outwards. (Ambassador Francis was convinced that band music was synonymous with Russian music.) On the milky-white ornamented ceilings of the residence the shadows of dancers moved: the hall was either lit from below or the main lights had been switched off and it was illuminated only by the quietly flickering wall-brackets, for shadows ran across the ceiling like waves during a flood tide.

Now the green gioom in the windows of the ambassadorial residence faded out and a violet twilight flared up, to be replaced by pale-rink, then blue. The snow in front of the house, too, became green, pink, then blue, the stonework of the Elyseyev house also changing colour.

Sometimes it seemed that the ambassadorial residence was smiling at the house opposite; more, was winking conspiratoriously at it. But the Elyseyev house remained impenetrably grim.

Robins returned and we drove on.

``Who were the guests? Russians?" Williams asked.

``Yes, almost all of them.''

"But who were they? Assembly deputies?" The last two words were said in Russian.

"Yes, deputies to the Constituent Assembly," Robins replied also in Russian.

"But why?"

``January 5 isn't far off," Robins replied, after a pause.

Indeed, January 5, the red-letter day on which the Constituent Assembly would be opened, was close at hand. Since the October Revolution, no date had seemed to hold out more promise than this on Furshtadt and Morskaya streets and French Embankment (there is no need to trace the path between the ambassadorial residences of the allies). If something of moment was fated to happen, it would happen on January 5.

Perhaps this was the reason why there were so many people today at Furshtadt Street and why the Russian New Year, which does not figure in a

single American calendar, was suddenly being celebrated on a grander and more extravagant scale even than July 4.

No one spoke in the car as each of us was carried in thought to the residence on Furshtadt Street.

The steel-grey marble of the staircase is overlaid with a carpet so deep that one's heels sink agreeably into it, as if into springy turf, the bronze gleams sombrely and the card tables, over which the white, prominently-veined hands of old men move, are covered with green baize.

``Cards love a reckoning. This is my game---I suppose you pass?''

The round table in the drawing room seems fringed with beards: six men, six respectable deputies' beards, a white wedge, a rounded ``besom'', a pronged ``plough-share'', a white ``spade'' (of the kind used to scoop up snow and grain), a flat ``scoop'', elongating and squaring the chin, and a ``spoon''---naturally wooden. Six beards and six solid men of affairs.

Francis does not wear a beard; on the contrary, his carefully shaven and liberally powdered cheeks rival the whiteness of his starched collar, which is of an unbending and rock-like inflexibility and seems to have been specially made to support the ambassador's flabby neck and prevent his head from slumping to one side.

The Decree on Peace, adopted by the 2nd AllRussia Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, October 26, 1917

The Decree on Land adopted by the 2nd AllRussia Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, October 26, 1917

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THROUGH THE FLAMES

THROUGH THE FLAMES

after the other!"---"Was Lenin in the car?" "In the back seat, as always."---"But death rode beside him."

The car standing at the entrance had arrived at the Smolny an hour previously. Lenin had been speaking at a meeting in the Mikhailovsky riding school, the very meeting which had been referred to at the workers' ball the previous evening. His car had left the riding school and driven towards a bridge over the Fontanka River: this was the simplest and shortest route. The marksman had evidently been at the meeting and it would not have been difficult for him to reach the bridge before Lenin's car. The vehicle was obliged to slow down as it mounted the bridge, the more so since there was fog at that hour. Four shots at point-blank range, four holes in the body of the car and the windscreen: Lenin had been saved by a miracle. Or was it a miracle?

It was after nine o'clock when I saw Robins on the main staircase of the Smolny.

"I heard about it in the town," he said, indicating what he was referring to by a glance in the direction of the entrance, where Lenin's car stood. "They say that four bullets made it almost impossible to miss."

"Yes, luckily all the shots failed to reach their target."

Robins looked at me in amazement.

"Why talk about luck when it was due to a particular person? They say that he pulled Lenin's head aside and in doing this his hand was grazed by a bullet. But who was he, the person who saved Vladimir Eyich? Who? Lenin drove from the riding school with his sister Maria---was it her?"

"No, although she was in the car with Lenin, too."

"Perhaps Podvoisky, then? He opened the meeting and he's a military man."

"No, it wasn't him. Besides, he wasn't in the car."

"The driver, then? He was in the car?"

"Yes, of course, but there was a fourth person as well."

"Who?"

Robins was annoyed by my deliberateness in answering.

"It was Flatten," I said finally. "That same Flatten, the son of tiny Switzerland, who has already once at the risk of his life...."

"Walked through the flames?"

"Through the flames."

I never saw Robins and Williams together again, so I do not know how their dispute ended; but they met and talked and in the course of their conversation something was said that resolved the dispute. What? Perhaps Williams said that a new belief had come into being and was triumphing in the world, the great belief in communism, for which an American would go to his death for the sake of a Spaniard and a son of tiny Switzerland was prepared to sacrifice his life for the sake of a Russian.

Robins and I mounted to the third floor where, on the right side of the building, was Lenin's office.

"What a day," Robins said in embarrassment, "and we have come on business." He indicated the folder he was holding. "Will it be convenient?"

"If Lenin will not receive us...."

Francis does not wear a beard, but in the shifting gloom of deputies' beards he feels quite in his element.

"And would you not admit of the possibility," Francis says, moving his hand, unwontedly obedient, to the middle of the table, "of the deputies being invited to the Tavrichesky Palace and requested to ratify the decrees of Soviet power---and first of all, the Decree on Land."

The beards seem ruffled by a breeze. They bristle threateningly.

"But that is extremism!"

The ambassador's hands, which had been lying on the table, come to life, the fingers trembling; his hands are on the point of thumping the table.

"But the October incident testifies to the fact that it is dangerous to underrate extremism."

The beards are motionless, frozen in their grief.

"There is obviously one means," rumbles the ``spade''.

"Which is?..." The ``plough-share'' trembles impatiently.

"Extremism...." The dried-out twigs of the ``besom'' rustle.

The beards bristle solemnly and the yellow Petrograd electricity gilds them---as best it can.

The ambassador rises and with a scarcely perceptible movement of his head, respectful and simultaneously impatient and imploring, invites his guests to the dinner table.

The ambassador walks slowly and the six beards honour the inestimable value of his silence, just as they honour the inestimable value of the squeaking of his boots.

The starched tablecloths are so white, so clean that they seem to shimmer with golden haloes. The square table at the far end of the dining room, to which it is the ambassador's custom to invite especially favoured guests, is laid so elegantly and with such profusion that one wants to throw a glass case over it and put it on general exhibition. But no, this is not cardboard, not papier-mache---all this is real, genuine, with a natural smell, a natural buttery texture. This food can be crisply cut up, poured or crumbled: oranges, preserved ham, golden slices of cheese; red caviare, blanched with lemon and gleaming with a golden sheen; tender, pink, rich sausage; sprats liberally covered with oil; sturgeon and most miraculous, most inconceivably amazing of all---bread, white bread, with only the faintest brown outline of crust. Even the notion of such bread seems to have been lost in the last century---had it ever existed, bread such as this?

"You said that there was one means?" the ambassador queries.

"Extremism, Mr. Ambassador," the ``besom'' repeats gratingly.

There is something most unusual in the way the Russian New Year is being celebrated in the American Embassy.

The following evening I saw Lenin's car at the entrance to the Smolny. I did not immediately understand what had happened. A young telegraphist went up to it and ran the sensitive palm of her hand over the windscreen. A man leaving the Smolny carrying a courier's leather bag stretched out the tips of his fingers to the glass of the windscreen, then took his hand away. Soldiers, standing guard on the right side of the Smolny, appeared and their hands slowly moved over the glass, as if wanting to feel its firmness. "Four shots, one

THROUGH THE FLAMES

THROUGH THE FLAMES

I had intended to finish my sentence with the words: "...then you will realise that it has not been an easy day", but Robins interrupted me:

"I understand---I understand perfectly."

We began to walk more slowly, although the time of our appointment was approaching.

"I think I can see Mr. Lenin," Robins said.

I peered into the dim half-light of the corridor: yes, it was Lenin. He was walking slowly, trying to adjust his step to that of his companion who, it seemed, was moving with some difficulty.

Both Robins and I spontaneously slackened pace, not wishing to intrude into the conversation of those in front of us. Lenin and his companion had in any case reached a side corridor leading to Lenin's office, down which they disappeared.

As we ourselves turned into the corridor we almost collided with Lenin and the man accompanying him: the two had evidently stopped as soon as they were round the corner to finish their conversation.

"Ah, Mr. Robins!" Lenin cried warmly (I noticed that his voice contained no trace of what had happened earlier that day). ``You're not acquainted, are you?" He looked up at his companion.

Only then did I see that it was Flatten. He greeted Robins, inclining his head.

"I was saying to Comrade Flatten," Lenin said, turning to Robins as if seeking to enlist his support in resolving a dispute, "that if Poincare had not held businessmen by the arm"---here Lenin energetically grasped his own left wrist---"no power on earth could have kept them from trading with us."

Lenin cast a glance at me. "Comrade Rybakov, please translate 'no power on earth'."

"And what was Mr. Platten's reply?" asked Robins, looking intently at Lenin's companion.

"He supposes..." Lenin began, then stopped abruptly. "But why should I quote you in your presence?" he said, laughing as if he wanted to provoke Flatten a little and, perhaps, to egg him on. "What did you suppose, then?"

Flatten smiled: Lenin's vigorous manner appealed to him.

"We were talking about trade diplomacy," he began with some confusion, then smiled again: the opportunity to put forward his ideas before so unusual an audience had robbed him of all his confidence.

"Just a minute: why do we have to talk about this in primeval gloom, like conspirators? I think it was Gorchakov who said that noble goals did not require secret means. Incidentally," Lenin went on, turning to Flatten, "after you are finished with your business with Podvoisky, drop in. And don't forget that Mr. Robins and I are equally interested in your ideas concerning trade diplomacy. Isn't that so, Mr. Robins?"

"Yes, of course," replied Robins.

Flatten inclined his head with the same courtesy.

We entered Lenin's office. After the semi-darkness of the Smolny corridors the yellow glow of the lamp illuminating the room seemed dazzling.

Lenin invited us to sit down.

"And you sit beside me, Comrade Rybakov---closer!"

He liked me to sit between him and the person with whom he was talking. His conversation always developed rapidly, a series of brief, business-like questions, each expanding upon the point made in the previous answer succeeding one another, and such unremitting and vigilant attention was required that it would have been scarcely possible to follow the discussion had one not been beside him. I took a chair and sat by Lenin. It was only then I noticed that the skin of his face, usually a golden-white hue, looked ashen-grey: the day had been too much for him.

Robins half-rose from his chair:

"There's no prospect of that chart becoming a map of war?"

Lenin looked up---he found it hard to tear himself away from the broad sheet of paper lying on his desk.

"I am a direct man, Colonel Robins," he said and stopped. He had chosen the more official ``colonel'' rather than the genial "my dear Robins".

"So far you, too, have not denied me this quality," the American responded.

"Then the chances of our conversation being a frank one are even better," Lenin said.

"it would have no point otherwise."

"You suppose, then, that those four shots on the Fontanka Bridge mark the beginning of a new stage in the Russian revolution and that the name of this stage is civil war?"

Robins looked keenly at Lenin.

"I would not wish to deny you a quality I have very much valued in our President Lincoln. He knew how to avoid being deceived by his successes."

"And he was the first to foretell the coming of the civil war?"

"He not only foretold it, he also tried to forecast its outcome."

"Well, then, I want to take full advantage of the privilege of a frank conversation. Don't you think, Colonel, that if America did not want it, there would not be a civil war in Russia?"

Robins' face darkened.

"You suppose that those four shots?..."

"I suppose nothing beyond what I have said: that if America does not wish it, there will not be a civil war in Russia."

"Then what follows from this?"

"What follows?" Lenin queried, and moved the map forward. "What I want to say to you now is not easy for me to say, and today less so than ever, but it is that Russia wants good relations with America."

"Is your position that you want to trade with us?"

Lenin returned to his desk.

"Our position? There it is." He looked at the map, in his eyes a forthrightness, an obstinate implacability---and a challenge. "There it is---our position! Do you think I am going to talk about flax, hemp, bristles and unprocessed skins, about all those things that since time immemorial Russia has hauled westward over its sledge routes, along its wild rivers and across the seas? Of course, flax and horse-hair and horses' hooves will still be traded; so will manganese ore, platinum, oil and furs! Certainly! But I can see something bigger than that. I am not thinking of Russia's tomorrow but of today when I talk about the new railways in Siberia and our European north, about new hidroelectric plants on the Volkhov and the Svir, about a short,

THROUGH THE FLAMES

THROUGH THE FLAMES

efficient canal from Sestroretsk to Petrograd, about coal in the Komandorskiye Islands and timber in South Kamchatka---That is our programme for technical competition."

"You believe that the experience of American technology can take part in Russia's second birth?"

"Yes, I think that any participation by America in the industrial advance of Russia would be welcomed by us and on this basis we are ready to give all our orders to America: generators and turbines, pipes and cables, locomotives and machine-tools....Russia, socialist Russia is ready to trade and cooperate with the most powerful capitalist country without prejudice: our only concern is business! The breathing space we have could not be briefer---no more than today. Tomorrow, perhaps, the guns will begin to speak and war will break out; therefore, we must say to one another that there is no need for us to settle our dispute sword in hand."

"You believe the time has come to talk frankly about this?" Robins asked.

"Yes, the time has not only come, it is already slipping away. The tune to talk is today."

For all that, January 1, 1918 was an unusual day, an island amid fire, with roaring flames behind and, perhaps, ahead. Everything that one wanted to say, had to be said then there, before the raging fire reached one's feet.

What was to be said? Robins was standing over the map. "I believe that we can do business." "I believe that, too," said Lenin. "America and Russia can do much that is good."

"Good words cannot survive without a firm business framework to support them," Lenin said.

"How do you think it will work?"

"This is my plan," Lenin replied, looking at the map.

They bent forward over the map---

When Robins left it was almost midnight.

Lenin went out with him, throwing open the door to find Flatten standing by the wall; he had evidently returned long ago but had not been able to make up his mind to come into the office.

Why are you standing here?" Lenin said. "Come in! You, too, Comrade Rybakov. Have you been here long, my Flatten?"

"About an hour and a half, Vladimir Ilyich. Why?"

"And have you been sitting all that time in the outer office?"

"No, I was in the corridor."

Lenin flew rather than walked across the room, his shoes clattering on the floor.

"Why on earth have you been standing in a dark corridor for an hour and a half when ... I needed you here? I needed you, and not just from some personal considerations. Not at all! I needed you from considerations of business!"

Flatten was quite disconcerted.

"But perhaps it is still not too late? You can ask if it is not too late."

Lenin went up to Flatten.

"Well, perhaps it is still not too late." He looked at Platten's bandaged hand. "Does it hurt?"

"Not any more."

Lenin carefully took Platten's wounded hand and placed it in his own.

"We are Marxists and it is not for us to swear by blood." His hand, clasping Platten's, trembled. "It is not for us to make compacts, but the rage that has built up over the ages is not exhausted and our strength is ready to rise as never before."

Lenin gazed sternly at Flatten, as if seeking something he had not seen before. I could see Platten's hand: not a drop of blood had penetrated the absorbent bandage.

Flatten had grown pale and seemed to be re-living everything that had taken place at the Simeonovsky Bridge. He repeated after Lenin:

"Our strength is ready to rise as never before."

LENIN. 1918

An Audience

t began to snow heavily and a white blanket quickly covered the ground. T Through the murk the cupolas of the Smolny Cathedral glimmered, then

disappeared. The river seemed to shrink before vanishing in the whiteness.

"How disturbed nature has become!" Lenin observed, stopping. "They seem to have switched on the lights in the Smolny. Well, that is the end of our walk: it's time to be getting back. The diplomats are coming at four o'clock?"

"At four, Vladimir Ilyich."

"We should be at home," he said, quickening his pace. "So they are coming about the Diamandy incident?"

"Yes."

"This Marshal Averescu runs true to form, eh?" The path was narrow and I fell back, so that Lenin was walking a little ahead of me. "Averescu, Averescu..." he said to himself, his figure almost disappearing in the falling snow.

Perhaps he recalled 1907 and the peasant uprising in the Rumanian steppes bordering the Danube, when a cruel whirlwind of artillery fire had swept from village to village. The name of Averescu had often figured in the European press then, for he was the first person to use quick-firing artillery against peasants. Now this name was again in the headlines, for the marshal had decided to intern Russian troops returning to their homeland. We had responded by extending the same measure to the representatives of Rumania in Petrograd and it was evidently this act which had led to the visit by the

4-801

AN AUDIENCE

AN AUDIENCE

diplomats, their first to the Chairman of the Soviet of People's Commissars.

``And what arguments are the diplomats going to forward in Diamandy's defence?" Lenin asked suddenly, without slackening pace.

"They will obviously say that the right to diplomatic immunity has been violated," I replied.

``Well, that argument is easily refuted: before relying on diplomatic immunity, Diamandy must first possess it.''

Narrowing his eyes, Lenin looked in front of him. The lighted windows of the Smolny were already before us.

``After all, no diplomatic relations subsist between our countries and Diamandy's position in Petrograd is rather dubious.''

He pondered, then observed:

``But we had better not say that to the diplomats.''

``It would be to throw down a challenge to the rest: in the final analysis all of them are in a dubious position.''

``We will keep that argument in reserve," Lenin decided quickly. "In reserve.''

We entered the building and Lenin, turning to me, smiled.

``Just a minute, though, is the whole diplomatic corps to present itself to us? That's unity for you!''

He stopped, his face becoming stern. "But I think that their very nature makes complete unanimity among them impossible.''

He walked forward rapidly, as he usually did only in the open air.

``Think about it: this is a job for a diplomat.''

At four o'clock I met the diplomats at the entrance to the Smqlny. A cavalcade of cars, flying the flags of twenty nations, drove through the main gates and stopped close to the central porch. David Francis, the American ambassador and doyen of the diplomatic corps, was an impatient man and even on ceremonial occasions opened the door of his car himself. Today, however, he did not hurry, but waited until his chauffeur, a portly Texan, left his seat at the wheel, walked around the vehicle (the Texan had his dignity, too) and, without bending his majestic bulk, drew the door open. Even then the ambassador made a leisurely exit. First his boots, topped by velvet gaiters, were extended from the car. Then the ambassador carefully felt the ground with his foot. Finally he stood, looking around him, like a goose waiting for its goslings. The first to approach was Joseph Noulens, ambassador of "la belle France" in Petrograd. His cheeks, pinched and reddened by the frost, gave his face a youthful and imperturbable look. After him came Alcibiades Pecanha, the Brazilian envoy, whose swarthy skin gave clear evidence of his mixed Indian and Spanish origins. Francis' patience finally deserted him and with a wave of his hand he walked forward, but stopped on reaching the main entrance. Directly in front of him stood a soldier dressed in a greatcoat and a tall fur hat. No, this was no doorman in gold-braided livery of the kind guarding the entrance of Number 6, Palace Square; this was a soldier in greatcoat and fur hat. Francis hunched his shoulders and advanced, the others following behind him. By some imperceptible means the sentry on duty at the Smolny had deprived the ambassador of his former confidence. He passed the soldier, becoming a head shorter as he did so.

The diplomats passed through the corridors of the Smolny, observing their own hierarchy: first came the American ambassador, while somewhere in the middle of the cavalcade was the Swedish ambassador, General Brandstrom, dressed, naturally, in civilian clothes but retaining his upright carriage and military gait. Among this company of civilians, unhurriedly ambling along the Smolny corridors, their diplomatic uniforms rustling, General Brandstrom's bearing was just the thing that was needed. Bringing up the rear was a tiny Siamese, Phra Visan Botchanakit, round-eyed and wearing a melancholy smile.

Only the quicksilver Frenchman, Joseph Noulens, was reluctant to submit to a hierarchy of any kind and moved indefatigably between the American and the Siamese, exchanging a word as he did so with the Greek, Belgian and Italian ambassadors.

The diplomats successfully completed their procession around the Smolny and quietly entered first the reception room, then the office of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, giving the American ambassador precedence as they did so.

Lenin came from behind his desk and bowed.

``You are the doyen of the corps?" he asked Francis, smiling amiably; but as he glanced at the diplomats and saw the sombre curiosity with which they were contemplating him, his face changed and became stern.

The Smolny Institute, where the headquarters of the armed uprising was located. Petrograd, October 1917

AN AUDIENCE

AN AUDIENCE

``Yes, yes ... recognition ... recognition," Noulens repeated disjointedly, filling the silence that had fallen. That pause had to be long enough to break the cheerful mood of irony created by Lenin's remark; if the mood were not broken the statement these diplomats had gathered to deliver would quite lose its point.

Francis drew a folded sheet of paper from his side pocket (this had to be done unhurriedly), settled his pince-nez on his nose (very carefully---this, too, had its meaning), importantly cleared his throat (providing two more precious seconds) and began to read:

``We, the undersigned, heads of embassies and diplomatic missions from all countries, represented in Russia....''

Francis read flatly, in the only way a letter beginning in so formal a fashion would permit. The substance of the statement was that the ambassadors and envoys were profoundly indignant at Diamandy's arrest and demanded that he be released. Of course, the diplomatic corps did not omit in this to declare that the fact of arrest was a breach of the very principle of diplomatic immunity, which had been recognised for centuries.

The statement read, the diplomats looked at Lenin.

What would he say, this most mysterious of men? Would he in turn become indignant and wave his hands---or would he make a guarded response, giving nothing away? What thoughts were seething in that large brow, upon which he had now laid a tired hand?

What was Lenin really thinking about?

Perhaps a most strange thought had come into his mind: what if somewhere, in a European capital, an incident had taken place involving an envoy, perhaps even a Rumanian envoy, yet not representative of General Averescu, but---could so very strange an event have occurred?---someone whom General Averescu had shot? How would the diplomats now gathered in Lenin's office have behaved then? Would they have screwed up their courage to such a demarche?

The faces of those standing before Lenin expressed glum curiosity and timid reproach, challenge and thoughtfulness and attention.

Lenin took his hand from his brow and looked straight at Francis.

``How is it possible to speak of a breach of diplomatic practice when we are talking of circumstances not envisaged by any treaty or diplomatic ritual?" (He used the term ``ritual''!)

Lenin, the diplomats perceived, could have said more: that no relations existed between his country and Rumania and Diamandy could not claim a right which he did not possess. But Lenin kept this, his chief argument, in reserve.

What he had said, however, was sufficient to bring a flush to Joseph Noulens' face. The Frenchman stirred impatiently and jumped to his feet. He lifted his chin and everyone was appalled to see that a blue vein had swollen in the ambassador's neck and was beating spasmodically. In a moment, it seemed, the blood vessel would burst.

``It is not our business to inquire into reasons; no, certainly not our business!" the ambassador exclaimed, his hand cautiously masking the twitching, pulsing vein in his neck. "My colleague Diamandy must be freed without any conditions....''

``I'm very glad to meet you.''

``I should like to introduce the members of the diplomatic corps to you," Francis said, his eyes fixed on Lenin. "If I may?''

``By all means," came the answer, Lenin's tone implying neither impatience nor pleasure: he was prepared to accept this convention, too.

Francis inclined his head.

``The Comte de Byisseret Steenbecque de Blarenghien." The doyen of the diplomatic corps pronounced this cumbrous name with genuine grace. "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Belgium.''

The ceremony of presenting the diplomatic corps had begun. Lenin followed the proceedings attentively; what was he thinking of?

In another week's time two months would have elapsed since the October Revolution. Not a single country had recognised the new government; not a single country had, even in the most distant way, given it to be understood that recognition might be forthcoming. Soviet Russia was being compared with increasing frequency to a rock surrounded by a boundless ocean. Yes, it was a rock indeed, a piece of granite, unshakably strong; but as yet it stood alone; all around lay the infinite waters. Now twenty ambassadors and envoys, representing countries from around the world, including all the principal allies, were presenting themselves to the head of the Soviet government. There was, apparently, a more important motive here than the Diamandy incident: this visit to Lenin was being made with an eye to the outside world and was calculated to demonstrate the irreconcilability of the allied powers with the Republic of the Soviets. Irreconcilable.... David Francis and Joseph Noulens---and others, too?---had come to look their enemy in the eye for the first and probably the last time, to look at him and say: "We are united in our resolution.''

The ceremony of presenting the diplomatic corps was now well under way. The small man whose country, by the iron logic of diplomatic protocol, had opened the ceremony, pushed himself forward with some difficulty and shook Lenin's hand.

Francis seemed to be preening himself on the sonorous titles of those he was introducing.

``The Comte de la Vinaza, Ambassador of Spain, the Marquis Carlotti di Riparbella, Ambassador of Italy, the Baron Sweerts de Landas Wyborgh, Envoy of the Netherlands, the Baron Motono Ichiro, Ambassador of Japan.''

Lenin was in a good-natured mood which inclined, however, towards irony. Throughout this ceremony, a far from usual occurrence for him, there was an impish gleam in the corners of his narrowed eyes. Something mischievous, it seemed, would inevitably come from his lips and lay bare the real meaning of this charade. When the Japanese ambassador had completed the ceremony of presentation by extending his small hand to Lenin, he looked around the group with smiling eyes and said:

``What significance should I place on your handshakes, gentlemen? Do they constitute recognition of the Soviet government?''

The joke hit the mark and a ripple of laughter ran round the room. Who could resist a joke. But then someone returned to earth and, closing his eyes, opened them only when the tears of mirth had gone.

AN AUDIENCE

AN AUDIENCE

Lenin heard Noulens out patiently.

``I should like, Mr. Ambassador," he said, his gaze moving to Francis for, apparently, he had no further desire to look at Noulens at that moment, "that the document we have received be read now.''

There was nothing unusual in Lenin's addressing himself to Francis who, after all, was doyen of the diplomatic corps; the significance of the fact that he had directed his stern but pacific rejoinder to Francis, openly ignoring Noulens' intervention, was, however, clear. Lenin had perceived that Francis was, pro tern, taking a neutral stance and wanted to preserve the doyen's position and, if possible, strengthen it.

Lenin glanced at me: he wanted me to read the telegram.

I began to read, occasionally raising my eyes from the telegram to observe Lenin, and only Lenin, and it seemed to me that the indignation which filled the telegram had now communicated itself to him. The telegram, which he had read several times already, evidently struck him with a new force before this strange audience.

...Somewhere in the Rumanian plains, on the open wastes by the Danube now covered with the deep snows of December, Russian regiments were returning home. Day and night, they passed along the roads over the steppe, taking with them long carts, machine-gun carts, field kitchens and artillery pieces. They had to cross the Danube, and as soon as possible, for in that region December brought with it savage snowstorms and biting frosts. The horses were tired and the men at the end of their strength; only those unable to move were put on the carts. But the horses could not drag them: should the artillery pieces be abandoned? Under no circumstances---but then what should be done with the men? The Danube must be crossed before the snow began to fall! Supplies both of forage and food were strictly measured out, for both meant life to the Russian army, stretching many miles across the white plain. Slowly it moved towards the Danube and Russia. Then, suddenly, alarming news travelled the length of the snow-covered steppe: the way ahead was barred, forage had been confiscated, troops forcibly disarmed and the Troitsko-Sergievsky regiment surrounded and interned. The regiments, all of them, stopped. In Petrograd Lenin received a telegram: "If those arrested are not freed, we are ready to exercise force of arms to free them__"

Lenin cast a silent glance over his distinguished guests.

They were visibly embarrassed by this turn of events, their jaws clamped shut, their chins resting motionlessly on starched and soft collars alike, eyes fixed either on the floor or the ceiling; their fingers, each with its freight of rings, were tightly squeezed. The counts, marquises and barons were silent.

Suddenly Joseph Noulens again threw his small palms upward and the diplomats averted their gaze with horror from his swollen vein.

``But arbitrary rule sometimes takes over in Petrograd as well!" the French ambassador exclaimed, his voice containing almost a note of pathos. "Only last night soldiers broke into the home of my colleague"---he looked at the Italian ambassador, who embarrassedly cast his eyes down, unwilling to be singled out---"and raided ... his wine cellar. No, no, you must confirm this, my friend," Noulens demanded, addressing the Italian and now quite unable to stop.

The Marquis Carlotti di Riparbella looked at Noulens in bewilderment, as if wishing to say:

``See how bad things are when one's tongue outstrips one's head.''

But even Noulens had realised that he had gone too far this time.

``Let us leave the question of the soldiers in my Italian colleague's wine cellar---I hope they can find in it their heart's desire!" he exclaimed magnanimously, and even essayed a smile. "I wish to repeat that the person of an ambassador enjoys immunity....''

Lenin rose: Noulens' hysterical way of speaking was quite antipathetic to

him.

``I think," he began, again addressing himself to Francis rather than Noulens and unperturbed by the absence or near absence of any sign that the American ambassador's position differed from that of his French colleague, for Lenin was pursuing his own line in the conversation, "I think that the lives of a thousand soldiers are of greater value than the peace and quiet of one diplomat---to a socialist, at any rate.''

Noulens stretched out his neck. "The lives of a thousand soldiers...." The French ambassador could not understand this way of presenting the question.

``Their lives are of greater value than peace and quiet," Lenin reiterated.

Soldiers returning home from the First World War

AN AUDIENCE

AN AUDIENCE

Noulens was now looking at his Italian colleague, as if seeking support from him against Lenin, but the Italian remained glumly silent: he was still offended with the French ambassador. Of course, every great house possesses a wine cellar, especially the house of an ambassador, where it is as much a part of the fittings as, say, a bed; but why should the matter be gone into now? Suddenly to begin talking about a wine cellar in the middle of so tense a conversation, at a moment when men's lives were being discussed (the Italian ambassador could not but accept the Russian view of the matter), showed a loss of any sense of proportion. Noulens sank into an armchair and stared gloomily at the ceiling; the vein in his neck throbbed more perceptibly than ever.

I looked at Francis: it was obvious that his turn had come to speak. What would he say? Lenin, too, I noted, was looking at him with grim concentration. Like me, he was curious to see what the doyen of the diplomatic corps would say.

"We hope, nevertheless," Francis began, his voice calm and good-natured, "that Diamandy will be freed."

Moreover, he went on, he believed that the freeing of Diamandy would confirm the justly held faith of civilised countries in the workers' and peasants' government. He wished to believe that Diamandy had been arrested in error, but this error could postpone the peace which was so much to be desired---

Lenin, it seemed, had won the battle without using his principal argument. Now it was his response that was awaited, but he was in no hurry to speak. Too high a value should not, of course, be placed on Francis' reply---he would show himself yet! His words had suggested something which deserved reproof---it was nonsense to suggest that Diamandy's arrest would postpone peace!---but perhaps there was no need to mention that: not now, at any rate, Lenin's reply to Francis should obviously reflect the degree of good will in the tatter's statement; it was unquestionable that this good will was only on the surface---but that was another matter.

"The words of the American ambassador I take to express the view of the entire diplomatic corps," Lenin said.

He frowned and seemed even half to close his eyes, as if for a moment wanting to look into the very core of his consciousness. Our position is truly critical, he seemed to say: a desperate position, in which we are without the normal rights of a nation. Our people are suffering a disaster in the Rumanian steppe and we lack the means to help them! Poklevsky, erstwhile Russian envoy to Bucharest, had refused to serve the new Russia and had been removed by an order of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. There was no Soviet ambassador in Bucharest and the simplest and most natural method of intervening in the situation was thus excluded. The Rumanian ambassador in Petrograd, applying the customary logic that his government did not recognise us, was afraid to have any dealings with the Soviet government. We could not appeal to a third party to defend our interests in Bucharest, because no third party recognised us. How, then, was it possible to act under such conditions? Of course, the arrest of a diplomat was not a means of resolving the conflict, but in the given circumstances---extreme ones, perhaps---it was a means of registering a protest.

"For, us this is a means of protest," Lenin said.

Noulens unexpectedly came to life again; he had, it seemed, been recuperating and had now regained his former strength.

"We cannot recognise the right to protest in such a fashion."

Someone timidly supported him:

"Impossible!"

A third voice echoed the second. Then someone said:

"You must understand that, after all---"

It was the Belgian ambassador. As he spoke, he turned towards Francis. But the American ambassador remained silent, not wishing to commit himself. Perhaps he did not agree with the categorical statement of his French colleague---or perhaps he was quietly reserving his position. Long experience told him that as doyen of the diplomatic corps he must not lag behind his fellows; but neither was there any reason for him to take the initiative. In all circumstances he must remain in a position to reject a proposed formula or to accept it; who could tell which? No possible course could be excluded, for in diplomacy, as in chess, the most dangerous route can be over a tried and trodden path.

Lenin's attention was fixed on the battle that had suddenly broken out in his Smolny office. The old adage that no more dangerous delusion exists than the conviction that those opposing one represent an indivisible bloc still held good. Even when one's opponents are acting in the name of unity, an attempt to split them is not without hope: this was true of Noulens and Francis, for example.

The audience was at an end. Francis approached Lenin and courteously inclined his head.

"A means of protest, then?"

Lenin looked at him. No, he was no better than his French colleague--- who could say what surprises were to be expected from him in the future? But today, perhaps, the position he had taken was more favourable to us.

"A means of protest?" Francis repeated. He was evidently laying stress on this formula in order to give himself the opportunity to return to it.

"Precisely," Lenin replied.

Joseph Noulens shook hands without meeting Lenin's eyes.

The Siamese ambassador gave a melancholy smile.

The Swedish ambassador clicked his heels valiantly.

The Marquis Carlotti di Riparbella looked glum: his mood had been irreparably spoiled by Noulens.

The ambassadors and the envoys smiled, their parting words also reflecting an embarrassed and timidly courteous good will.

"Thank you."

"I am most grateful."

"All my respects."

Force of habit led the diplomats to say what they should, perhaps, not have said.

The Siamese ambassador turned to Lenin, still wearing his melancholy smile, then carefully closed the door behind him.

The diplomats were gone.

AN AUDIENCE

AN AUDIENCE

The telephone rang.

``Could you take a message from the American embassy?''

I picked up a sheet of paper unhurriedly: what sort of message could this be from Mr. Francis?

The diplomats' limousines had evidently driven straight from the Smolny to Furshtadt Street (I was sure that it was thence that they had come to the Smolny). There, in the drawing room of the American embassy, they had discussed the situation afresh, perhaps over black coffee.

``Go ahead, please.''

I could hear the rushing, hissing sounds that always accompanied a telephone conversation in Petrograd then, but the noise did not conceal anxious breathing from the other end of the line.

``A message to Mr. Lenin from the ambassador.''

The ambassador declared, in a style almost ceremonial in character, that if Diamandy was freed he, Francis, would register a protest against the action of the Rumanian command and (at this point the voice on the telephone failed completely and there was a pause before it continued) would qualify the arrest of the Rumanian diplomat as a protest on the part of the Russian government against the inadmissible manner in which the Rumanian authorities had behaved.

``Would you be so kind as to repeat that?''

I could hear the person at the other end of the line take a deep breath before saying distinctly:

``As a protest on the part of the Russian government against the inadmissible manner in which the Rumanian authorities had behaved....''

``Thank you.''

I put down the telephone and copied out the message for transmission to Lenin: the council the diplomats had held on Furshtadt Street had certainly been productive.

Lenin was at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, so I gave the message to his secretary.

Late that evening I was informed that it had been decided to free Diamandy. The American ambassador's assurance had, naturally, been taken into account: the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars explicitly stated that its decision had been reached "in the light of Francis' promise". The resolution stipulated categorically that "the Russian soldiers must be freed within a period of three days''.

Lenin requested me to come to his office.

The light had been turned off and he was standing by the window. Through the glass, with its faint tracing of frost, the snow could be seen falling heavily.

Francis' message was lying on the table in the pool of light cast by the table lamp. Lenin had evidently just re-read it before moving to the window.

``What do you think of it, then---the American ambassador's message?''

I was standing by the table and could see every word of it.

``What do you think, then?" Lenin repeated impatiently, continuing to look out the window. I had noticed his love of observing nature at those moments when it displayed both its beauty and its power.

``I think that Francis has recognised ... the correctness of our action and has indirectly showed his disagreement with Noulens.''

``In other words, they were not so unanimous later on as they were here?''

``More than that, Vladimir Ilyich," I replied, unable to hide a smile.

Lenin approached me.

``Do you remember our conversation by the Neva?" He gestured at the window and the whirling snow. "To act in a united way their nature would have to be different. There are many opportunities here for us. Think it over: this is a job for a diplomat.''

His gaze had returned to the window and was fixed on the falling snow.

``The time will come---it may not be so far off---when we shall smash this hoop, this iron hoop which is strangling us." He fell silent, his face becoming grim and sombrely pensive.

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as it ever happened to you, upon turning round in the gloom of a large

1-1 hall, suddenly to see a pair of eyes? Perhaps they are glowing with an

-*• -*- internal light, perhaps reflecting some unseen source of light, but their

burning glance pierces the dimness. One even seems to see the colour of these

eyes, so brightly do they burn---a light grey, almost white, half hidden in

the shadows. What is the fire within these eyes, what spark glows so hotly in

them: the beneficent, generous warmth of kindness or the scorching heat of

hostility?

Much that was said that night reflected nothing more than habit:

"Happy New Year and good luck for the future, gentlemen!"

Luck? For the future?

A tiny clear circle was all that pierced the ice covering the window and it was hard to get warm: the ice was thick. The street was deep in snow and a strong wind blew; a street lamp winked indefatigably, as if fated never to stop. The wind had partly torn a poster from a hoarding and the thick paper beat against it like a sheet of tin; only two of the thunderous words that had run across the poster remained, but the meaning was unimpaired---All Power to the Soviets!

"Happy New Year and best wishes for the morrow!"

The morrow? But what would that morrow bring?

In Petrograd it would begin, somewhere towards eight o'clock in the

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morning, with a pale dawn. What sort of day would it be, this first day of a new year? There would be different sights and smells, different shapes. But what sort of day would it be?

When it came, nature did nothing to distinguish it from any other day. As always at that time of year, the Petrograd sky was lowering and everything was a dull, greyish-lilac colour, the colour of the Neva, not yet ke-bound, the colour of the stone and the sky, of Nevsky Prospekt, of Liteiny Prospekt.

Nevsky Prospekt, incidentally, was unusually deserted on that first day of 1918. I had already reached Liteiny Prospekt when a noisy gang of young people burst on to the Nevsky. A gang? But in fact there were only three of them: two men and a woman.

``Hallo, Comrade Rybakov! Come to the riding school!''

The day was overcast and through the thin, trailing mist I could not distinguish their faces, but the broad-shouldered figure of John Reed, his back characteristically bent, was unmistakeable.

``Yes, come to the riding school! Half Petrograd is there today.''

``Why, what's happening?''

``Lenin! Comrade Lenin!''

Reed redoubled his pace, quickly crossing the tram lines. The'woman, who was walking beside him, could hardly keep up; she was thin, with a thick mass of hair upon which a fur hat rode insecurely, and carried a dark brown muff. Bringing up the rear came a giant: a very tall man, indeed,wearing a cap with earflaps. He was stooped and as he walked, hands buried in his pockets, he swayed in a comical fashion, his head bending to the rhythm of his steps. Something intangible about him---no, not the cut of his coat, nor his scarf, but something genuinely intangible---showed him to be a fellowcountryman of Reed. Could this be Williams?

``Come to the school! Lenin will be there!" Reed cried.

But it proved far from easy to get into the riding school. The approaches were jammed with armed workers, motor vehicles and armoured cars, while the riding school itself was packed beyond capacity. Torches smoked around the walls and black shadows flickered from corner to corner. The hall was a sea of sailors' caps, grey soldiers' fur caps pulled down over the ears (although there was no air the building was as cold and damp as the street outside), workers' peaked caps, the bowler hats of office workers and everywhere, looming over the heads of the crowd like a cloud of smoke, was a forest of bayonets. For, of course, all militant Petrograd was gathered here, the men and women whose will and courage had brought about the October Revolution.

``Lenin!''

' A roar of applause and the riding school seemed to split apart: I could physically feel the crowd of people filling the hall parting and a narrow path appeared amidst them, like a strip of water when the ice breaks, along which Lenin advanced to the rostrum. He walked quickly, his hand raised in

greeting. Upon reaching the armoured car standing in the middle of the hall, from which the speakers were to address the audience, he turned, looked attentively around. No, there was nothing festive in the faces of those who had gathered on this New Year's day, and this could not but disturb him. There was nothing festive at all.

It was only then that I saw Lenin had not entered the hall alone. Beside him stood his sister, Maria Ulyanova, whom I had previously seen with Lenin; and one could easily make out Nikolai Podvoisky, in a leather jacket half open at the neck. However much I tried I was unable to see Reed, who was clearly not present, although the big man in the Russian cap who had crossed the tram lines with him on the way to the riding school was standing immediately beside the armoured car. It is Williams, I thought, Albert Rhys Williams, an American socialist and a friend of Reed. Podvoisky opened the meeting, immediately giving the floor to Lenin.

Lenin climbed on to the wing of the armoured car without apparent effort, mounted the radiator and finally stood on the gun turret of the vehicle.

After an initial roar the hall fell silent and Lenin began to speak. The hall was enormous but his voice reached every corner.

The subject of Lenin's speech was simple but noble: the bright future before the Soviet people and the struggle, still grim and bloody, to attain it, courage and the necessity for the strong to support the weak, reinforce the faith of waverers and close ranks---the last at all costs.

I looked around the badly lit hall. Only the armoured car from which Lenin was speaking and the soldiers standing beside it could be seen; the hundreds and perhaps thousands of people listening to Lenin were swallowed up in the darkness. The smoky flames of the torches could not overcome the gloom in which the hall was wrapped. What thoughts were revealed in the gaze of the people looking towards the armoured car? In the eyes of some there was hope, in those of others faith in a victory, that was not far off, and a determination to follow Lenin and the Bolsheviks. But perhaps these were not the only eyes that were looking through the thick shadows obscuring the hall? Perhaps there were eyes in which prejudice, hostility or even hatred could be seen? The shadows were almost impenetrable and the riding school huge: there was room enough and darkness enough to conceal the evil glint of hatred. Hatred? For Petrograd was still in danger.

``And now an American comrade will speak to you.''

I looked at Reed's companion and moved a little closer to the armoured car.

``Speak in English and I will interpret for you," I heard Lenin say; only a few yards now separated us.

``No, I want to speak in Russian," the American said, smiling, as he clambered on to the armoured car. "Comrades!" he began.

Lenin also smiled, well aware of the degree to which the American was capable of speaking Russian. Certainly he seemed to me at first to have every

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reason for deciding to speak in Russian. He began with a rush, describing himself as a socialist and declaring that the sympathies of the American working people were on the side of the Russian revolution. But already he was clearly getting into difficulties.

"What is the word you are looking for, Comrade Williams?" Lenin asked, looking up at the American with smiling eyes; the latter's cheerful courage in deciding to address the crowd in Russian had appealed to him.

"Enlist," the speaker said diffidently.

Lenin provided the Russian verb, many other people also smiling as he did so.

Presently the speaker again turned to Lenin for help, which was given him as readily as before, Lenin adding:

"Yes, indeed, Comrade Williams."

I had not been mistaken: this was Albert Rhys Williams. His grandfather had been a worker, and his father was a preacher, but it was the former who decisively predominated in Williams' appearance. The grandson had inherited his grandfather's massive strength and with it his fearlessness: during the revolutionary battles in October 1917 Williams, together with Reed, had been among the workers and soldiers who had stormed the Winter Palace.

Williams finished his speech to applause, in which Lenin joined with everyone else in the hall. He stood beside Williams, clearly touched by the American's courage.

"I had not expected such daring from you," he seemed to be saying to Williams, who himself appeared somewhat taken aback. He, too, I perceived, had not anticipated making a speech in Russian and his success had given him great pleasure.

"Well, in any event you have made a start in mastering Russian," Lenin said, suddenly beginning to speak to Williams. He raised his eyes to the much taller American. "But you must work at it seriously," he added, almost touching Williams' chest with his half-closed fist. He turned to Williams' companion, whom I later learned to be the famous Bessie Beatty, correspondent of the San Francisco Chronicle: she was standing beside Williams, obviously bursting to talk to Lenin. "You must also learn Russian." He smiled. "Put an advertisement in the newspaper, offering to exchange lessons. And then simply read, write and speak only in Russian." Lenin was clearly pleased by the rapt attention of his American friends. ``Don't talk to your fellow-countrymen," he laughed, "they won't be of any help in any case." He was about to go when he turned, as if remembering something important, and said: "When we meet again I shall test you."

John Reed in Russia. Winter 1919-20

Nikolai Podvoisky

ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS

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Lenin made his farewells, then hurried to the exit, rapidly followed by all those who had been standing beside him. He walked with the same quick step that he had entered the hall, raising his hands to the crowd. Scarcely had he emerged from the riding school when the throng of people outside parted.

There was now a space between the entrance to the riding school and Lenin's car. Lenin could be seen from all around, both from the wide-open gates opposite and from the windows of a large house standing aside from other buildings. And many eyes followed him, filled with faith and trust. Again I thought: perhaps other eyes are watching him, eyes veiled with a wintry bleakness, clouded by the acrid fumes of hatred? Could it be?

A few days later I again saw Lenin and Williams together. With them was John Reed.

They met during the session of the Constituent Assembly at which the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik majority rejected the revolutionary decrees on land and peace, following which the assembly was dissolved.

Lenin was in the far box on the right, silently observing the proceedings. He sat near the front of the box, his pale hands on the ledge. When his attention was attracted by a disturbance in the hall he would move forward.

the light falling on his face and revealing the reddish lights in his hair and his flashing eyes: they were stern that day.

Then Lenin rose and left the box; when he returned John Reed and Albert Rhys Williams were beside him. Despite their keen interest in what was being said on the stage, the audience involuntarily turned towards the far box on the right where Lenin was talking to the Americans. At one point the conversation kindled Lenin's enthusiasm and his face came to life. He smiled, waved his hand in a gesture that, while not abrupt, expressed strong feeling, and unexpectedly laughed.

Reed was standing with his back to the hall, his face hidden from me, but Williams' face was clearly visible. Lenin seemed to be addressing himself specifically to Williams, for the latter was endeavouring to explain something to him, moving the hands awkwardly and in some embarrassment. What would his future be, I wondered? He was young and many years lay before him: would he still be our friend in ten, twenty, thirty, perhaps even forty years time?

I did not know Rhys Williams then as later I came to know him. His path had only just begun; the years of trial were yet to come. Still before him was the task of forming a revolutionary detachment of foreigners and the service he subsequently saw at the front. His book Through the Russian Revolution,

ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS with O. YU. SCHMIDT, Unwell-known Polar explorer, in the 1930s

ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS ( second from left) with members of the first revolutionary international detachment of the Red Army. Petrograd, February 1918

\v\ r

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which told the grim and joyful truth of the revolution in Russia, had yet to be written then. The capital of Russia was still Petrograd and Williams did not know that he would later meet Lenin in the Kremlin. "You have a fine collection of documents," Lenin told Williams, in persuading him to write a book about the Land of the Soviets. Williams had yet to cross the ocean and experience the agony and shame that would be inflicted upon him by the so-called "Overman committee". "I believe in Soviet power," he declared to the committee. He was still nursing the idea of a great journey around America, through the crumbling plains of the West, the wealthy cities of the Pacific coast and the tobacco and cotton-growing areas of the South. And, of course, as he stood there in front of Lenin, Williams did not know that he would make another journey to Soviet Russia several years after the Revolution, that he would meet Mikhail Kalinin and that he would decide to settle for some years in Russia to study all the processes of its formation: it was an old and tried habit of Williams to see everything and try everything out for himself, grasping life with his own hands. He lived for a long time in a village, first near Gogol's Dikanka,* in the Ukraine, then not far from Moscow,

* Reference to Nikolai Gogol's collection of stories Evenings Near the Village of Dikanka.---Ed.

working as a mechanic, a ploughman and a field-labourer. He could not foresee that just over twenty years later, on a June morning, the oily flames of German rocket-launchers would scorch the ripening grain of Russia and that scarcely would the news have reached America before he, following the honourable and unselfish command of his heart to serve, would consider himself mobilised. Once again he would journey from one end of America to the other, talking about Russia and its just struggle....

On that evening, as Williams stood, bashful and confused, before Lenin, it was hard to see ten, twenty, or---still less---forty years ahead; but one wanted to believe that this man would be our friend, our great friend.

The huge audience gathered in the hall followed Lenin's conversation with their eyes as he talked to these two Americans, whose political radicalism was well known to all Petrograd. What confidences was the leader of the Republic of the Soviets bestowing upon his American fellow-thinkers, what matters were being considered? What was the meaning of Lenin's impatient gesture, his encouraging nod and, finally, his smile, at once ironic and mysterious? Was a conspiracy, threatening the very foundations of America, being hatched in the far box on the right?

A bull-necked man was sitting beside me, his head rising directly out of his

Leaflet of the Socialist Party of the USA announcing a meeting calling for "Hands Off Russia!" New York, 1919

The United Communist Party of America called for support for Soviet Russia in its struggle against the white Poles. New York, 1920

Down with Kolchak!

SATURDAY AFT., JUNE ?lsr

AT 215 P M

110th Street and Fifth Avenue

ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS

EYES

EYES

shoulders, like a piece of marble column. His grey-brown suit with its rich nap revealed him as a foreigner.

I glanced at him and started, for in his face I could see the eyes that had been before me for the past few days. They were turned towards the box in which Lenin was talking with his American friends. I could see hatred in them, such hatred that by its fire alone a man would be turned to ashes. Those are the eyes that looked at Lenin from out of the murk, I thought, those are the eyes I have seen---there can be no mistaking them.

An hour later I met my American friends on the drive leading from the main entrance of the Smolny.

"What did you speak to Lenin about?" I asked Williams.

He smiled.

"Lenin asked me how I was getting along with Russian and whether I could understand all the speeches." He shrugged his shoulders, not without embarrassment. "'There are so many words in the Russian language,' I told Lenin." Williams gave a guilty smile: without wishing to, I had obliged him to relive his recent confusion. "But Lenin was quite resolute: 'Oh no,' he said, 'the fact is that one must study a language systematically!' Then he told me his method in detail. He advised me to begin by learning all the nouns, then all the verbs, then all the participles and adjectives. I should master the grammar, orthography and syntax, and then---'You know what you must do then? Practise on every occasion---yes, practice is what you need.'"

"Even in front of an audience at the Mikhailovsky riding school?" I asked. Williams rubbed his chin.

"Even there," he smiled. "In general, he was continuing the conversation he began in the riding school."

Williams left and I was alone with Reed.

"I was looking into the hall just now," Reed said, his sad eyes gazing into the gloom of the gardens surrounding the Smolny, "and thinking that the revolution has been made, the revolution continues and that many battles still lie ahead---many."

At that moment the man with the marble column upon his shoulders passed us.

I glanced wordlessly at Reed, but he saw the question in my glance.

"Who could that be?" he said, as if repeating my unspoken question. "A fellow-countryman of mine, whom the Revolution has prevented from taking over the Russian oilfield."

We parted and I gazed long into the darkness after the man with the staring eyes, whose burning glance was so heavy with hate.

I saw Rhys Williams again some six weeks later. It was February and a telegram had come from the front: the Germans had renewed their attack. Just as in October 1917 the lights of the Smolny had burned throughout the night.

All Petrograd had taken up arms. Day and night, workers' detachments moved across the snow-covered ice of the Neva, which was already touched by the February thaw. Along Morskaya Street a detachment marched: workers

in wadded jackets, soldiers in grey fur hats, sailors and more sailors and more sailors. Alongside them marched a tall man, slightly stooped, dressed in a light coat and hat: I recognised Williams.

The detachment passed, the ground wind swept away its tracks, but for a long time I could see the tall figure of the American, shoulders a little rounded, walking in the dim half-light of that February day.

LENIN in his office at the Kremlin. Moscow, October 1918

The Heart

_r^ he details of that morning are firmly fixed in my memory. Petrograd,

I autumnally bleak, clouds hanging motionless against a pre-dawn sky,

•*- black windows (there had been no lights in them that night and they

seemed blacker than usual), wet flagstones and empty squares, stillness that,

in those days, was brief and easily broken.

An armoured car burst into the square and fired at the crowd under the arch. There was a shriek: a living clot of pain that could not be hidden. The crowd pressed itself against a wall, black, like the wall, and inseparable from it; but one man broke away, like a stone dropping from a cliff. One man, another.... And then a grenade flew from under the arch. There was an explosion, a powerful explosion---the black windows seemed to shatter and the clouds to move. This time the silence that set in would be hard to break.

And then a man in a railwayman's cap approached the armoured car and thrust a bayonet through the vehicle's narrow slit: "Come out, those of you still alive!" But there was no answer. The man walked to one side and seized the pin of a grenade: "Come out, I say!"

On that morning he seemed to me the very personification of courage: it is not easy to stand alone, face to face with an armoured car.

An insignificant detail, perhaps: but the ambassador had brought the glass for his Petrograd windows from abroad. They possessed a substantial virtue

THE HEART

THE HEART

only at the end of the day, when the stoves in the hotel were lit, but Reed habitually drew his hand over their polished surface. Although he had been born in the American North-West and was accustomed to cold, he really felt the Petrograd winter. Towards evening he would pick up his typewriter and move closer to the stove; as he pondered he would press himself against it and the tiles would pleasantly warm his back.

There is a photograph of Reed sitting behind his typewriter, wearing a jacket with rounded lapels and a white shirt, which throws into relief the closely trimmed nape of his neck. His hands are white and almost indistinguishable from the cuffs of his starched shirt. Just above his temple a dark lock of hair lies on his forehead. His hands linger over the keys; on the piece of paper in the machine one can see a page number (Reed was punctilious in everything he did and numbered the pages of his rough drafts) and four lines, typed without any corrections. Reed wrote slowly, like a man cutting a path through dense forest or tunnelling through rock. The swing and thud of his pick would mark a step forward, another swing---another half-step. Both his appearance, in starched shirt and smart jacket, and the room in which he is sitting, its elegant table bearing a thick book containing a multitude of bookmarks and an ash-tray, carry us away into the atmosphere of a great city, separated from war by the impenetrable wall of the ocean.

in that they brightened up the city's gloom. Yes, glass was nearly able to transform a grey day with a squally wind off the Baltic into the sunshine of a California afternoon. Of all the rooms in his official residence, the ambassador preferred the recess with its orange-coloured windows. Everything necessary for conversation was there: the illusion of golden sunshine, strong Brazilian coffee, ripe bananas, the scent of which impregnated even the upholstery of the sofa, and a gramophone with a terrifying horn and a pile of records: popular melodies, naturally, ranging from mournful songs about the Missouri to thunderous ballads of the Cordilleras.

"America has already returned from its crusade for freedom...." The mystery of the sacrament, the mystery of the first meeting with a compatriot, always took place in this room. The time of subsequent meetings was also determined there; they had to proceed in a systematic way or they were without point for the ambassador. ``Systematic'' was, indeed, the word to apply to these meetings, although the conversation placed no one under any practical obligation whatsoever: these were unrestricted chats conducted between intelligent people during their leisure hours. The conversation could include the theatre, walks on the islands in the Gulf of Finland, meetings with poets (red-letter days, these), amateur dramatics, new books, public meetings at the Sestroretsky Works (yes, even meetings at the Sestroretsky Works could be talked about). That was the entire range of these conversations: the ambassador was not obliged to go further. The main thing was that the timetable of meetings be strictly observed and that the formula be uttered: "America has already returned from its crusade...."

Let the land beyond the windows burn and the heart of Russia pound with the thunderous broadsides of the Aurora: the orange sun in the ambassador's residence must never set and citizens of the USA must gather in its faded illumination if they wanted to return to their homeland. "No, America is only getting ready for its crusade for freedom." It was John Reed who said this to the ambassador and in doing so he seemed to smash the orange windows of the recess, letting the thunderous sky and the wind that was raging over Petrograd break into the house.

The two men were standing face to face. Then the doors burst open, as if the wind had in reality torn them apart, and Reed's broad back passed through the gap between the doors and disappeared. The ambassador slowly opened the blinds and looked out on to the street. Reed was gone.

The silence seemed to nail the ambassador to the window. Gone, gone__

What force is it that has carried that man away now, the ambassador thought, what force can it be to make him ignore a common origin and class, common and indissoluble traditions, even a common way of life? What force can it be?

...A maple tree was visible from the window of the hotel. I had yet to see it with green leaves. At the beginning of October it was yellow, while at the end of November, with the coming of the first frosts and snow, it assumed a coppery colour. The maple seemed to be reflected on the whitewashed walls of the room, on the ceiling and on the glazed tiles of the stove. They were warm

JOHN REED

THE HEART

My memories of Reed in Petrograd, in his small room with a red maple outside its window, are different. Reed worked in a white shirt, the sleeves rolled above the elbows. The room was filled with posters, pinned to the curtains and the green material of the blinds and covering the floor, bed and window sill. In the quietness of this room, occasionally broken by the rattling of the typewriter, the posters seemed to carry on the battle: "To all honest citizens!", "To all workers and soldiers!", "To everyone!" The words raged, appealing to reason and calling for active commitment.

Reed's small English-Russian dictionary could not encompass this sea of anger and he turned again and again to the Russian texts. His conversation, however remote the questions upon which it touched, was punctuated with increasing frequency by the request: "Would you be so kind as to explain to me the meaning of this word?"

In fact, it was through such a request that I met Reed. I suspect that he had first seen me during an informal chat between the commandant of the Smolny and some foreign correspondents, at which I had acted as interpreter.

In the sea of people that was then the Smolny, Reed had taken sufficient note of me to aim in my direction his request: "Would you be so kind?..."

THE HEART

I was walking along one of the long Smolny corridors. People were hurrying in the opposite direction, almost colliding with me; the corridor was unlit and their faces were in shadow. A hand in a white bandage---that was a soldier, a bright blouse---probably a telegraphist, a crutch scraping in the dark_ness---another soldier, the gleam of a leather coat---a dispatch rider, more crutches---a soldier---And suddenly in the corridor, I heard laboured breathing; then someone sighed and a voice asked me:

"Would you be so kind, Comrade Rybakov...."

A long table stood to one side, covered with an oilcloth; upon it a samovar hissed and scattered sparks. Beside it a soldier, dead tired, was bustling about and beyond him, bending over the table, was Reed. In the darkness only the most characteristic features of his face remained visible and I could see his burning eyes, his nose, which was broad at the bridge, and his large chin. The end of the table at which Reed was sitting was covered with manuscript pages, scattered as if by the wind. He had probably chosen this place in order to take "a couple of moments" rapidly to jot down cables which had to be sent that day.

The previous day I had seen him with Lenin. It had been late in the evening and Lenin had come out briefly into the gardens surrounding the Smolny for a breath of air. Reed was beside him. They went up to an old tree, the crown of

JOHN REED at work

t '

-U^- W~-r

John Reed's note on Lenin in the Delegates' Album of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern

THE HEART

THE HEART

~~«_No, your viewpoint is quite foreign to me," he would say in reply to some correspondent, naming him as he did so.

"Well, that is sensible.... I might also think in that way."

A* time passed he came to know the correspondents better and better, his

knowledge extending far beyond their faces. He knew which questions were

typical of one and which of another, what to expect from one and what

another would scarcely allow himself. «Tell me what sort of person is that dark-haired American? A writer?

The author of several books? Really! And how is it that I have not read

him?" perhaps that was how it had come about.

And now Reed was saying:

``Would you be so kind....''

Of course, I had to explain the meaning of the next document That evening _a revolutionary army, in an encounter near Tsarskoye Selo had scattered tthis was the only word Reed pronounced in Russian) Kerensky's forces. A despatch had been received at the Smolny and the text, copied out by hand, was now in front of Reed.

which spread widely but which was now bare of leaves, and Lenin slowly raised his eyes. In order to see the top of the tree he had to move back, carefully placing his feet as he walked over the thin layer of snow. Reed followed him. They stood looking at the tree, Lenin saying something while raising his hand, and Reed listening thoughtfully, his eyes on Lenin's face.

I did not know what they were talking about but I thought they were conversing in a way possible only to people who were already on friendly terms and could now touch upon those particular matters---the sky, a snow-covered field or, as now, a tree---without which an exchange between two people lacks life.

Perhaps this conversation was allegorical and the tree stood for something much larger?

How, incidentally, had the first meeting between these two men taken place? Some third person, acquainted with Reed, had seemingly spoken about him to Lenin.

But perhaps it had come about quite differently. Lenin talked with foreign correspondents on more than one occasion and many he already knew by sight.

TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

By JOHN REED

John Reed's pass admitting him to the Smolny, signed by Felix Dzerzhinsky

A-c_J^d4

X^*

,- -/^ Dining room in Lenin's apartment in the Kremlin

f \o~v°~^ ^^

•H^X

,\

A poster of the first years of Soviet power commemorating the first anniversary of the Red Army, which was formed in 1918 to defend the achievements of the October Revolution

BON I AND IIVERIGHT

NEW YORK

I « 1 »

The title page of the first American edition of Ten Days That Shook the World. The inscription reads: "To Comrade Martens, representative of my heart's country. John Reed, April 9, 1919."

THE HEART

THE HEART

He poured out tea for both of us and at his request I translated the dispatch; he noted this down, occasionally sipping from his tumbler. "Yes, yes.... 'Take all measures to capture Kerensky...'." I had not finished the last sentence before he had placed a pile of posters on the table: or rather a brick, since the posters were stuck together with paste, which had transformed them into something like a slab of rock. Perhaps that was why they had made so much noise when Reed had put them on the table.

"Look, I ripped them off a hoarding on Nevsky Prospekt," he said, switching decisively to English. "I brought down the Cadets and the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries with a single blow." He was carefully peeling off the first poster. "You know how ancient icons are painted directly on the canvas." He had mastered the knack of peeling off the posters without damaging them. "To get to the actual icon the picture restorer must first wipe off three layers: an emperor's mistress, a shepherd with a horn and a green field with speckled cows. The icon is always at the very bottom."

"But this is only history, after all!" I said, trying to egg him on. "Not everyone likes to look back---and perhaps it has no point for a newspaperman. A newspaper isn't a book." -He looked concerned.

"A book?" Then, thoughtfully: "A book ... a book...."

Some time later we were sitting together in his room, with its white-tiled wall. It was after ten o'clock in the evening.

"So not everyone likes to look back?" He pushed a large, leather-bound suitcase forward and flicked the lock. The suitcase sprang open noisily and leaflets were thrown all over the floor, as if by an unseen hand. "There are my riches!" Reed smiled. "No, a newspaperman must look back."

"So this is where you have your repository of ancient icons!"

One night I walked with Reed beside the Obvodnoi Canal. He wore a short fur jacket---a ``Canadian'' jacket---his hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were a little hunched.

"The world is interested in only one thing: what has happened in Russia. This is no time for fine writing!---what is needed is a record of facts, the evidence of an annalist, noted down from hour to hour and day to day. Every detail is invaluable, if it has documentary significance. The annals of the revolution---that is what is needed."

He left me to keep an appointment with friends and I continued my walk alone. The water was quite still. From time to time a dry leaf fell on its surface and faint ripples ran across the water; then it became calm again, the leaf continuing to float.

Reed was an artist, in love with light and colour. He probably wanted to cover his canvas with colour, using a generous hand, as he had done in his book on Mexico: the gleam of the sand, the white clay, seamed and cracked, the ultramarine sky, the lush green of cactuses. But after Mexico his talent had matured and with this maturity had come, as always, a more rigorous approach. It was not for nothing that he had spoken of the evidence of an

annalist. However, this picture, too, would have its colour. And, most importantly, in Mexico Reed had been only an active witness.

The snow fell heavily and the maple under Reed's window faded and slowly lost its coppery hue. But the light in the window glowed all the more intensely; it was as if the window had stolen from the maple its brilliance and light. Reed was working at his book and his friends respected the quietly shining light in his window, visiting him less frequently than before. Perhaps it was during those very days that the pages describing the journey to Pulkovo and Lenin's speech to the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies were written. How splendidly Reed sets the scene: "It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the entrance of the presidium, with Lenin---great Lenin---among them." How economically Reed describes Lenin as he addressed the delegates: "...wide, generous mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in history have been. A strange popular leader---a leader purely by virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies---but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual audacity.... And before him, a thousand simple faces looking up in intent adoration."

The title of his book probably came into Reed's mind later. His first idea had been to call it "The Birth of the Storm". But subsequently the less lapidary but bolder words, "Ten Days That Shook the World", were placed at the head of the work.

Reed left for America in February, taking with him his greatest treasure: his suitcase of leaflets and posters.

As he drove through the city wet snow was falling.

At the railway station the porter could scarcely raise the suitcase from the ground. Reed smiled. "Paper and iron have the same weight," he thought.

Early on a misty March morning Reed's ship arrived in America. He stood on deck as skyscrapers, stooped, shoulder less and staggering from an intolerable burden, seemed to rise slowly out of the water; supporting the sky was clearly beyond their strength.

He disembarked in New York and was preparing to take his first step when two figures emerged from the fog. They were broad-shouldered and thick-set, like the bags of charcoal that were lying to one side. An official greeting (nothing is done in America without a greeting) and the usual movement, pulling back the lapel to reveal the badge of an agent of the secret police. They indicated the suitcase with a glance: its contents were already known to them. Rumours had once again preceded him. The two men courteously took his suitcase from his hand and walked away, without even suggesting that he follow them.

THE HEART

Reed stood on the concrete landing stage. The wind blew and the back of his neck became cold. Clouds raced across the grey sky. Not clouds, but iron ingots---how could they stay in the sky?! The wind whipped up the water and his face grew damp. The water was salty and sharp, with a bitter taste; Reed, too, was bitter. For him, it was as if something had been taken away without which he could not live: his book, years of his life. In a moment three years had been taken from him, perhaps the most valuable of his life, and with them thoughts which, it seemed to him, once thought would never return.

It was not at all the sort of homecoming he had imagined.

At that moment, too, standing on a concrete landing.stage in New York, Reed became more keenly conscious than ever before of what the years he had spent in Russia had meant to him and what, ultimately, the book could mean to him. For, of course, this could be the story of the revolution, perhaps the first effective narrative of an event which had decisively changed the destiny of man and shown him his future. How fortunate a man must be for it to fall to him to accomplish so difficult and so noble a work! This book could be Reed's confession in face of the ages, in face of himself and, finally, in face of America. No, not that America which had just emerged from the fog of an early New York morning with its bloated banks and counting houses, but the America of the stony fields in the west, of the once fertile plains, ruined by erosion, of the roads.... It could be a confession in which a man would interpret everything he had experienced in those years and resolve how man must live tomorrow. And never mind that the loud, harsh voice of placards and posters had visibly thrust its way into this confession: perhaps today is distinguished from yesterday by the fact that heart speaks to heart as public square speaks to public square---without concealing anything. A confession.... One cannot take away from a man the words that have matured within him. For it is in the nature of man that if these words remain unsaid, his heart will stop.

No, Reed would not give up so easily what he had gained during those years by personal suffering and which had entered into his life.

He darted forward, carrying the storm with him.

Into the square room to which the suitcase had been taken there seemed to burst the sky which covered earth and water from horizon to horizon and the ocean bounding the land, together with Reed.

It is not easy to stand against such forces.

In New York Reed chose a small room with a tiled wall, like his room in Russia, but this time with five sides rather than four. The room had one window, hanging somewhere between earth and sky. The clouds came up to Reed's shoulder; but why talk of clouds, when the sun was on the level of his outstretched hand? But the rumble and screech of the city penetrated even to this room, above the sun and the clouds.

Reed extracted the papers from his suitcase.

It was, in truth, something like a miracle that he had managed to bring his suitcase so far beyond the ocean to this perch above the clouds.

THE HEART

Here the book must be born. But the path from conception to completion was not a short one. The scribes of old had not known such selfless devotion: Reed worked day and night, his typewriter rattling ceaselessly.

He finished the book towards the end of one night and could scarcely wait for morning to come to take it to his publisher. Fog had fallen on the city and the skyscrapers seemed beheaded. The pavements gleamed with the cold dampness of January and the street lights, which were still lit, found a dull reflection in the wet paving stones. Through the city a man hurried, a parcel under his arm, as if the city were in hot pursuit of him, trying to seize his bundle.

The compositor reached out towards the dim cells of the type case and put the first line of type in the composing stick. "This book is a slice of intensified history..." he read.

It was, indeed, not for nothing that Reed had hurried through the city, manuscript in hand. Horace Liveright, the New York publisher, thoughtfully knit his brows: he understood what sort of book it was that lay before him. He understood, too, that he had now thrown down the gauntlet to an implacable enemy. Who was his opponent? The city? No, not the city, but the men of power in the city. Before Horace Liveright sent the book to the compositor he had a number of copies made and deposited them in various places in New York. If the police removed one copy, another would remain.

On their first visit the police were most correct. They came into the print shop: ``We're sorry but we must confiscate this manuscript." The lock of a briefcase clicked and the manuscript was engulfed in its black leather. But the next day the print shop had another copy and the line was once again in the composing stick: "This book is a slice of intensified history." This time the police burst roughly into the printer's: "This book must not be set in print." The leather briefcase seemed bottomless. More raids followed, one after the other, from early autumn through winter to the beginning of spring.

In March, I know, the sand of the Hudson's shores is covered with the silky green and the New York skies, squeezed between the stone buildings, seem infinitely high, as if seen from the bottom of a well.

The book appeared in March; even the precise date is known---March 18.

Reed presented the first copy to Horace Liveright who, he wrote, had been almost ruined in publishing it.

In Moscow people awaited the book. How would it come---and when? Via Vladivostok? But Vladivostok was far away, especially in the spring of 1919. Perhaps through Scandinavia and then Revel and Riga? That was the route followed by letters from America to Russia. At any rate it would come through Scandinavia.

"Is Reed's book already in Moscow?"

"Apparently there is one copy, but it has been sent to the Kremlin. Lenin is reading it."

It is late in the evening and in Lenin's Kremlin apartment the table lamp glows, illuminating an open book and a dictionary, which lies beside it, also

THE HEART

THE HEART

open, face down on the desk. The heating was switched off two weeks previously and it becomes cool in the evenings, for this is only the beginning of May. Lenin sits with a light overcoat thrown over his shoulders, his familiar black coat with its velvet collar. Someone is busy in the kitchen and soft voices, the hissing of the stove and the bubbling of a boiling kettle can be heard. Lenin loves these sounds, the sounds of a ``lived-in'' home, where everything has its well-defined place. Perhaps these sounds reminded him of Simbirsk and his parents' house, in which a large family would sit down to table: father at the head, mother opposite him. But that was long ago and it required considerable effort to remember it all.

Lenin leans further over the book, and as he stretches out his hand finds that his cup is empty.

"Bring me some tea, please, Maria!" he calls out to his sister, his eyes remaining on the book. "Make it a little hotter."

At midnight, when everyone in the house was long asleep, he quietly closes the book, his finger keeping his place, and switches off the light for a moment's thought. The window seemed to move towards him and he could see everything that lay beyond its frame: the sky, spring-like, cold and high, the clouds hurrying across it. A very windy May. Was it blowing like this only on the Kremlin hill, or all over Moscow? A windy, cold night.

He switched on the lamp and bent over the book.

When he extinguishes the light two hours later to plunge into thought he notices that the room has become scarcely darker: morning has already come.

"Have you read Reed yet?" I heard this question with increasing frequency and without myself having seen the book, I felt that a few copies were circulating in Moscow.

And not only in Moscow. Reviews appeared in the Paris newspapers, then in the London and Berlin newspapers. The dam was breached---now let them try to carry off a suitcase of revolutionary leaflets, steal a manuscript, scatter type! Let them try, now that the book was sweeping across the world like a wind which knows no frontiers!

Let them try to fetter the wind.

It was the late autumn of 1919. A bright, snowy evening.

A conference had just ended in the Kremlin of Communists who were going to the Ukraine to mount a decisive battle against counter-revolution. They had been addressed by Lenin.

Their train was leaving at midnight; three hours remained before its departure, but no one was in a hurry. The snow continued to fall but the crowd in front of the Grand Kremlin Palace did not disperse.

"He was really in form tonight!"

"Yes, indeed...."

"Excuse me, but how do you explain ... how would you say this in Russian?"

The speaker stopped short: he had unexpectedly lost the thread of his thought or perhaps he really had been unable to find the appropriate Russian word.

I looked round and saw---Reed.

He was no longer wearing a fur jacket and Russian cap, but was dressed in a short overcoat and hat, without gloves.

"If you come here I'll answer all your questions."

His hand swooped up, then came down resoundingly on to mine, as he greeted me in a typically Russian manner.

"All my questions...."

We walked a long way, to the Tainitsky Garden. The snow was not deep and we could follow paths as yet untrodden that day.

"Lenin? No, I haven't spoken to him yet---I have seen him, but only from a distance. He noticed me and nodded in a very amiable manner. He really is in spirits---it's been a difficult autumn, but on the other hand....I shall see him today. At night? Of course, at ten o'clock, just as in the Smolny."

Reed loved to brush his shoulder against snow-laden branches, from which snow would fall in great flakes.

"What do you think---has he read it already?"

"Oh, beyond question."

"So his smile this evening and his nod---they weren't simply a greeting?" Reed's face clouded. "What do you think?"

LENIN and NADEZHDA KRUPSKAYA in conversation at their Kremlin apartment with Lincoln Eyre, an American correspondent. Moscow, 1920

THE HEART

So it is with writers, I thought. As they work there is always one person before their eyes, just one. Who, then, is this person who, invisibly, becomes an indissoluble part of them? An unwaveringly stern and demanding friend, from whose lips the truth falls? A young female acquaintance, very young, in whose open-hearted gaze you suddenly see the wisdom of the world? Your father or mother, old in experience, who has always, as far as you can remember, been your judge and adviser? Or, as now, your leader and mentor, your true, good genius? As you write his penetrating eyes look into your heart. And there is not a page---why, not a sentence, a word---which you would not measure against his quick and exacting view on life, his conscience, the indestructible truth of his being: how would he react, what would he say, would he reject what you have written impatiently and uncompromisingly or would he nevertheless accept it? That was probably how things had been in Reed's five-sided room in New York: in his mind as he wrote was the constant thought---"How will he receive it, anyway, over there in Russia?" His anxiety had not left him; perhaps it was, on the contrary, more acute now than it had been.

"Vladimir Ilyich's smile and his nod this evening---they meant something more? What do you think?"

We were walking back to the Kremlin, the snow lying white on Reed's shoulders.

He looked at his watch.

"It will soon be ten---my appointment."

He could not conceal his agitation; a meeting with Lenin had never before aroused so much anxiety in him. Indeed, no such meeting had ever been preceded by as much as had today's. I also understood this and perhaps that was why Reed's excitement communicated itself to me.

I met him again after midnight.

During the hour and a half that had passed snow had fallen heavily and the ground was dazzlingly white. Between the buildings of the Kremlin it was as bright as day. Reed stood beside me, silent and solemn.

"Well?"

``O.K.''

He stopped and unbuttoned his overcoat. A piece of paper rustled in his hands, half covered in writing: I recognised Lenin's impetuous hand. I wanted to hold it up to the light, then looked at the sky: such a bright night, yet nevertheless the letters swam indistinguishably together. No, I could not read it.

"Everything's all right, then?" I asked.

"He has given me wings," Reed said. "Wings!"

It was only later, much later, that I understood what had happened: on this night, over which the shadowy light of the winter sky hung, I had held in my hands the piece of paper upon which Lenin had written the words that now too open Reed's book: "Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages__"

Lenin had truly given Reed wings.

THE HEART

How many times have I called to mind Reed's life, remembering everything I know about him and, of course, remembering the history of his book? The work was a feat arising from his whole consciousness, indeed, from his heart, for they are inseparable. My memory goes back to a gloomy dawn in Petrograd, the wet flagstones of Palace Square, an armoured car standing in front of the arch and a man with a grenade in his hand---a brave man, come to battle in single combat with the old world. He had a mind, a bright mind, and a heart in which nothing could inspire fear.

LENIN in the KremHn grounds during his convalescence after being wounded. Moscow, October 1918

««a«Mi«: aiier

The Letter

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ights flashed on and off in the long row of windows of the Maly Palace.

T The commandant of the Kremlin was evidently making his evening

•"•' inspection of the palace. In Lenin's study lights were burning. There

was no better time for work than a Sunday evening: the Maly Palace was

deserted and even the loud ringing of the telephones fell silent.

But Lenin's windows were filled not with the green half-light of a table lamp but with the white gleam of chandeliers: evidently, he was not alone. Perhaps one of those men and women with whom he had long loved to discuss some random topic was sitting with him---for one has time for such discussions on a Sunday evening. Who could say what topic might be absorbing them for the conversation would flow like a great river winding over a plain: Hegel, Marx's Rheinische Zeitung, Korolenko's campaign in defence of national minorities in Russia, allies' August offensive....

I climbed to the third floor. The building was, in fact, quiet and unusually dark; doors were open everywhere and Lenin's voice was clearly audible.

"Yes, yes. De Lubersac actually said to me: 'I am a monarchist and my sole aim is the defeat of Germany,'" Lenin observed warmly. "'If it is a question of the defeat of Germany, then even a monarchist can be our ally,' I said, and---just imagine---shook his hand. How about that?"

I could hear Lenin's companion laugh in a deep, full-throated baritone.

THE LETTER

THE LETTER

``Yes, and by more than one.''

``One of the three will certainly reach its destination," Lenin said, allowing his guests to precede him. "Vatslav Vatslavovich, when are you planning to leave us?" The three men were already in the corridor. (Vorovsky was to visit Germany before returning to Sweden.)

``On Friday, so that I shall be in Munich on Monday," Vorovsky replied. "I have an appointment there with some businessmen.''

``I recognise the old stager," Lenin said. "No matter that today you are in Moscow, with hundreds of miles in front of you: you must be at the other end of the world at a precise moment.''

Vorovsky coughed in some confusion and, I thought, quickened his step.

The conversation of which I had been the involuntary witness seemed to me curious. It had evidently concerned the dispatch of three messengers to America with a letter that Lenin and his two companions considered important, but, no matter how much thought I gave the matter, I could not get to the bottom of the mystery of this letter. Lenin's remark concerning de Lubersac and the right of the Americans to split the united front of their oppressors added nothing to what I then knew.

My curiosity increased considerably when, a week later, at the same late hour, I again saw Lenin, this time with Borodin, slowly pacing up and down in front of the Maly Palace (after four or five hours of intense work Lenin sometimes came outside for a stroll, occasionally with the person with whom he had been talking). Vorovsky was already in Germany, his meeting with the Munich businessmen behind him.

``Just the man we need!" Lenin called out cheerfully. "We are going to set you a problem concerning the history of America: how do you explain the fact that in the 1870s America, or at least its economy, went into reverse?''

I was thrown into something of a panic.

``But that was the result of a partial and, of course, temporary recession?" I said timidly.

``Why, nevertheless, did it take place, this recession, as you put it?" Lenin insisted.

``I am sorry, Vladimir Ilyich, if my reply sounds a little school-boyish, but the despotism of the slave-owners was, in its own way, productive, and so before the new relationships could be consolidated....''

`` ...time had to pass?''

``Precisely, Vladimir Ilyich," I replied.

``Well, then, Comrade Borodin," Lenin said, glancing at his companion, "now that we have this information, which is quite correct, if a little school-boyish, we can seal up our letter and address it---don't you agree?''

I must confess that I looked enviously at Borodin, as one privy to the secrets of the letter. I did not know then that within three days the contents of this famous letter would be revealed to me, and not without the help of Borodin.

``You believe, Vladimir Ilyich, that this, too, has a bearing on American history?" he asked, moving back his chair.

``No, not this particular incident, but it is comparable," Lenin replied quickly, as he always did when the argument he was advancing was clearly worked out in his mind. As he expounded his reasons, he seemed to feel their logical strength afresh, each ground reinforcing the others. "When the Americans were fighting their war of liberation against the English, their oppressors, the Americans were also faced by other oppressors---the Spanish and the French. Do you remember what the Americans did? They split the united front of the enemy and formed a union with the French and the Spanish---a union with the oppressors. A temporary union---first they beat the English, then, partly by buying them off, the French and the Spanish.''

I could hear Lenin's companion pacing about the room with a light and unhurried step.

``You need the example of de Lubersac and of American history to explain the Brest Peace Treaty to the Americans?" he asked, stopping, his voice perceptibly softer: he was evidently now standing at the far end of the room, perhaps by the tiled wall.

``Yes, to explain the Brest Peace Treaty to the Americans," Lenin replied. "The revolution has the right to form a union with some despots against other despots, if this serves the cause of the revolution." Lenin listened for a moment in silence. "Is that you, Comrade Rybakov? Good evening! I have left the texts on the table---we are just going. Yes," he added, turning to his companion, "if this serves the interests of the revolution, then certainly, Vatslav Vatslavovich.''

I stopped involuntarily: this, then, was Vorovsky, our ambassador in Stockholm? He had arrived in Moscow at the beginning of June and his turbulent nature had led him into the thick of the events that were absorbing Moscow in the summer of 1918: he had fought against the SocialistRevolutionaries at the congress of Soviets and compiled an extensive file of documents for the forthcoming negotiations with the Germans, on the troubled night of July 6 he had prepared the Communists for street battles (the Socialist-Revolutionaries had decided to take Moscow by storm) and more than once---mostly late at night, I thought---he had had long conversations with Lenin. This was not simply a result of the long and genuine friendship between them: just as important was Vorovsky's intellectual capacity, the acuteness of his political vision and his ability to feel the pulse of the age and see clearly into the future. Vorovsky, I thought, was abreast of Lenin's great diplomatic plans. The main lines of the dialogue I had just heard were quite clear: how could our policy on so complex a question as the Brest Peace Treaty with the Germans be explained to the Americans?

I had thought that Lenin's only companion was Vorovsky and was not a little surprised when the latter, dressed in a dark, faultlessly tailored suit and carrying a valise fastened with straps, which gave him the appearance of a man long a professional diplomat, emerged with a third man.

``You consider, Comrade Borodin," said Lenin, turning to him, "that the letter must be sent from Stockholm by special messenger?''

THE LETTER

THE LETTER

Diplomatic bags went at night (perhaps on the same train that Borodin intended to take?) and, as always before their dispatch, the typewriters of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs clattered with unusual loudness.

I found the door to the office half-open: Borodin was waiting for me.

"I shall not keep you for more than a minute," he said, tearing himself away from the papers he had been reading, pen in hand. "As you know, Lenin has a long-held plan, which he has been methodically putting into effect since the earliest days of the Revolution---the plan of making capitalist America, with its technological might and the energy and enterprise of its people, an ally of Soviet Russia! The prospects of such a union would be highly tempting to us! Lenin has been implementing this plan energetically, zealously and, above all, consistently, as only he can, and has achieved a considerable measure of success: until now America had understood us better than that old woman, Europe."

As I listened, it passed through my mind that Borodin was thinking like a strategist, with the penetration and all-embracing breadth necessary to a revolutionary: a feature was too characteristic to pass unnoticed, although I did not know him well at that time. Had I been able to look into the future of this man, the outstanding prominence this feature assumed in his work would have surprised me.

Borodin glanced at a bulky package lying in front of him.

"However, the events of the past three months in Europe have had a hypnotic effect even on America."

"The detour manoeuvre in Belgium and the breach of the Siegfried Line?" I asked.

"Yes, perhaps Belgium and the Siegfried Line, too," said Borodin and impatiently moved the package nearer to himself. "Although it is hard to credit, patriotic fervour has enveloped America as well, and even those who, until now, have understood us, have lost a certain flexibility of mind. The necessity of turning to America---perhaps even to the American working class---and explaining everything in the last detail has arisen. Lenin has written this letter"---Borodin opened the flap of the envelope and quickly extracted a wad of typed pages, neatly pinned together---"and I shall take it tonight to Stockholm and attempt---"

" ...to dispatch it to America?" I asked cautiously.

"Yes, at whatever cost," Borodin agreed. "It is the more necessary in that a danger exists of the text of the letter being distorted: that is all too likely."

"How? After all, you have all the copies of the letter."

"That is the point: we do not have every copy. The day after tomorrow the letter will be printed in Pravda and will become the property of the correspondents, each of whom will translate it as he sees fit."

"Then perhaps it would be sensible for us to translate the letter and provide the correspondents with an English translation together with the Russian text?"

"That was precisely what I wanted to ask you about---and in this, incidentally, I am not alone."

Old employees of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs will recall a working office there for Soviet diplomats between postings. In this office they could read the newspapers and their correspondence and meet their ministry colleagues; frequently they received visitors and wrote reports there. The office had terracotta-coloured wallpaper and was consequently known amone diplomats as the ``terracotta'' room

"Comrade Rybakov, could you see me at about eleven o'clock?"

^{as my evenln8s}

"At eleven o'clock?" "^Yl^S; ^at.^eleve"'" ^{he re}Peated with unusual brusqueness, then added in, I ^a

' ^m°^{re C}°^{nfidential tone:} •* ^{am Ie}-'"g ^ Stockholm on

coih, w^^18^^ ^thej^e``^er'" ^{J thou}8^ht' ^before dismissing the idea: Borodin could have told me about the letter earlier- there had been more than enough

I promised Borodin I would see him at eleven o'clock and at the appointed time I went to the terracotta room.

*pp"'mea

MIKHAIL BORODIN

VATSLAV VOROVSKY

THE LETTER

``Chicherin also?...''

``No, not only Chicherin---Lenin.''

Borodin rose and stole a glance at the large clock in the corner: the hour of departure was drawing close and he lacked the sought-for thirty minutes.

``Yes, Vladimir Ilyich would like the translation to be carried out with the most painstaking care and finished by tomorrow---the Russian original and the English translation must be given to the correspondents on the night of the 22nd. A copy of the letter should be ready for you in half an hour.''

``And what will happen in America? It is not so simple now to get a letter of Lenin's in print there: Debs is in prison, Hay wood has been declared a Red, Reed....''

``Reed, perhaps," said Borodin. We parted.

The letter lay before me.

``In some respect, if we only take into consideration the `destruction' of some branches of industry and of the national economy, America in 1870 was behind 1860. But what a pedant, what an idiot would anyone be to deny on these grounds the immense, world-historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of 1863-65!''

So, when I had unexpectedly met Lenin and Borodin on that late Sunday evening in the little courtyard before the Maly Palace and Lenin had mischievously decided to test how well Soviet diplomats were acquainted with American history, the last ``i'' in the letter had remained to be dotted, the last ``t'' to be crossed.

I left the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs after midnight. The diplomatic post had gone half an hour previously---on the same train to Stockholm as Borodin, of course---and the lights of the great building were extinguished. Only three windows on the fourth floor still showed an unsleeping light: Chicherin's work-filled day was continuing. Tomorrow, at approximately the same time, he would summon the correspondents and give them the letter.

My thoughts had already carried me to the following day: I loved this ceremony, at once solemn, cheerful and nerve-racking. In the evening Chicherin's secretaries would ring the correspondents: "Mr. Archibald King ... yes, the text of Lenin's letter to America." In Chicherin's reception room the white glare of the central light, the sickly sweet smell of foreign tobacco, the noise of the correspondents' nailed boots, clumsy and hardly in accord with the fine wood panelling of the room and the brilliant illumination of its chandelier, Chicherin's voice: "Gentlemen, I have been instructed to inform

you that a letter will be published in Moscow's morning papers tomorrow__"

The lights would shine for a long time in the broad windows of Chicherin's office and the telephones would continue to ring: "Comrade Chicherin, are we to issue this letter without commentaries? All commentaries will appear tomorrow---" The roar of printing machines seemed to be forcing itself into these words as a pile of the first copies of the newspapers grew: "A letter to the American workers---A letter to the American workers__"

THE LETTER

It was night and I was walking across Moscow, the first impressions of Lenin's letter coming back to me again and again. Lenin's clear vision, his profound conviction, his anger at the despotism of capital.... How would the correspondents react to this letter? Would they seize upon it and send it around the world or would they compress their lips and consign it to oblivion? Sometimes, in the desire to be one jump ahead of their fellow-correspondents (the law of capitalist competition was not dead), they would even sacrifice the interests of their own corporation, sometimes---If one stood at the great window of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, looking out on to the square in front of the building, one could see the honoured representatives of the news agencies sprinting to the telegraph office. This was always preceded by the thunder of feet on the stairs. The stairs---not the lift! An avalanche was a bagatelle by comparison with the thunder that shook the Metropole Hotel when a band of strong-legged young people descended from the fourth floor. Standing at the window looking over the square one could watch the news agencies battling with one another: it turned out that in order to beat UPI (United Press International, founded 1907), one needed strong legs, a car with the speed of a racing machine, a well-tuned motor and a spare tank of fuel. A correspondent also needed a heart no less reliable than the machine awaiting him at the entrance. The foreign journalists would dash out on to the square to their cars, the engines of which were already running. The accelerators would be pressed down, a cloud of exhaust fumes would form over the radiator and the machines would buck forward before hurtling off. What had the significance of the facts they gathered to do with the correspondents? After all, ultimately the agencies would work it out. The main thing was not to let AP (Associated Press, founded 1848) overtake you on the bend. But news emanating from Moscow, even sensational news, did not always find a response abroad. The laws of political seismography are unfathomable: it was as if, half-way between Europe and America, a wall had been erected, blotting out communications between the two sides.

Would the same thing happen this time? But Borodin had taken the package containing Lenin's letter to Stockholm.

Days passed; soon a week would have elapsed since Borodin had left Moscow. Where was he now? Telegrams must, of course, be accumulating somewhere: Borodin had passed through Petrograd, he had arrived at Revel, his ship had cast anchor in Stockholm harbour.... Would he personally take the letter further, or would some other person, still unknown, receive the letter from him: some brave man, ready to carry out his revolutionary duty?

Lenin's searching gaze followed Borodin at every step, through Petrograd, Revel, Stockholm.

Since those February days in 1918 when news had been received at the Smolny of the German offensive, it seemed there had been no harder time in the life of the Republic of the Soviets. The lights of the Smolny may have shifted to the Kremlin: Lenin went without sleep. The map on the wall to the right of his desk was scored by his pencil---the red snake of the pencil line extended along the Volga, cut across Siberia, ran as far as the Oka River, taking in its banks, and unexpectedly swelled into a drop of blood in the very centre of Russia, near Tambov, where for three days a kulak uprising had

THE LETTER

been raging. Lenin left his office after midnight and upon returning would find, beside a pile of morning newspapers, a neat stack of yellow appointment cards. His weekly schedule was well-filled: a speech to the First All-Russia Congress on Education, another speech in the Polytechnical Museum, yet another at the Alexeyev People's House, more speeches at the grain exchange and at the Michelson factory---The letter had long been written and sent off, but what he had said in it would not let him rest. Perhaps this was why the subject of America recurred ever more frequently in his speeches.

"Take America, the freest and most civilised country. There you have a democratic republic. But what do we find?... Where is your much-vaunted equality and fraternity if the mills, factories, banks, and all the country's wealth belong to the capitalists, and side by side with the democratic republic you have feudal servitude for millions of workers and unrelieved destitution?"

These remarks come from a speech at the Michelson factory.

The day was overcast, far from the sort of day one expects in August, and under the lofty roof of the munitions shop where the meeting was taking place, a violet gloom persisted. Lenin finished his speech and walked towards the exit, workers swarming after him.

As he walked Lenin was surrounded by a ring of people, strong and unbreakable. The ring made slow progress across the stone floor of the shop and through the wide-open doors and across the dusty grass of the factory courtyard. Someone called out: "Comrades, let Comrade Lenin get to his car!" The crowd encircling Lenin slowly parted and everyone saw him walk forward quickly to his car, alone, his hand still raised in greeting. A shot rang out, then another and another. Someone shouted and ran forward. Lenin, supporting himself on his elbows, tried to raise himself from the ground.

...He lay in his Kremlin apartment, before him only a small table covered with a linen cloth, upon which stood a glass of water, a thermometer, a phial of valerian and a small hillock of cotton wool, and a narrow window, through which he could see the sky, cloudy and already darkening as evening drew in. It was quiet and somehow lonely in the room. The quietness that had settled there seemed to have spread far out into the night, beyond the thick walls of the palace and the impenetrable ramparts and massive stones of the Kremlin. It never have occurred to him that next to his room was one full of people and that the city and indeed the entire country, confused and grief-stricken, had remained wakeful. Could the walls of the room in which he lay withstand this storm of human perturbation which was swirling across the nation?

When he closed his eyes all the turbulent events of the time, which had filled his mind, came to his bedside: the troubled smoke billowing over burning villages near Penza and Ruzayevka, the roar of voices at the meeting in the Polytechnical Museum, the blazing ridges along the Volga and the letter to America.

Where was the letter? Was it still en route to Stockholm, had it already reached Goteborg or indeed Bergen, or was Scandinavia behind it and the letter somewhere between Europe and America? Where was it? His arm, held

THE LETTER

by a splint, seemed to have grown numb; he attempted to sit up and felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He squinted down and saw that his shirt was soaked in blood. "Nadya," he called (his voice, too, had lost its strength) "move my pillow." Where was the letter now: in Sweden or on its way over the sea to America?

He could only ask, not knowing that after four days Borodin had arrived in Stockholm and given the letter to Vorovsky. He did not know that at that very hour a man was returning to Russia on the turbulent autumn seas (wild north winds were blowing on the Atlantic and clouds of light snow were chased over the Norwegian fiords), who was destined to play no small role in the fate of the letter. Nor did he know that this man had lived abroad for eleven hard years, years such as all who are persecuted in the wide world live, working as a ship's carpenter, sailor, road-maker and stevedore. This man had a surname, but his first name, which was Russian, was better known: Pyotr. At that hour of trouble Lenin still did not know the path this man had followed to arrive at a house which bore a sign depicting a hammer and sickle, there to meet with the ambassador. Their conversation was long and, the man thought, strange. The questions the ambassador put to Pyotr appeared at first glance without relevance: how he had lived in America, upon which oceans he had sailed and how he had gained his bread. Lenin did not know and could not know that this

PYOTR TRAVIN

Part of Lenin's Letter to American Workers

THE LETTER

THE LETTER

He raised his hand, as if asking forgiveness for his good mood by this characteristic gesture, and went into the Maly Palace.

It sometimes seemed that Lenin had created his own conception of me and could not part with it. He wanted to see me as old Rybakov, a good fellow, a little slow, perhaps, but obliging, a man to whom "the soft answer that turneth away wrath" always came most easily. In general he believed that it suited me to be employed rather as an interpreter and translator than as a diplomat, in which position I should have to have an opinion of my own. It was as if he said: ``Don't be such a ... a ... well, for heaven's sake! It's enough to make God weep!" He was a little taken aback when, after a meeting with Vanderlip, I responded to the American's request that I arrange another meeting with Lenin in the two days that remained before his departure by telling him that such a request would exceed the norms accepted in Moscow and Washington. Subsequently Lenin often recalled this incident: "Yes, indeed, there was that occasion when you overcame yourself ... with Vanderlip ... but as the proverb says, 'even a rabbit can set a barn alight'." To me it seemed that Lenin retained two Rybakovs in his mind: "old Rybakov", the object of his good-natured jokes, and Comrade Rybakov, a young diplomat as yet but little versed in the lore of his profession but eager to gain an honest understanding of it. "Comrade Rybakov," he approached me, in his eyes that severity that came on him when he reflected on great and difficult matters. "Do you not think that we should set up our own representation on the Pacific coast of the United States, on the same public principles as in New York?" This was a keenly observant man with an unfailing understanding of people, whom nothing escaped.

"They say that some Russian took it..." he said, while, no doubt, thinking: "And who is he, then, this Russian, who took the letter so quickly to America over so great a distance, over an ocean, through German mines and icy storms? Who is he, this Russian?" Lenin may even have sought to imagine the man to whom the letter had linked him. A raznochinets, perhaps, travelling the world in search of truth, indifferent to fame and fortune, or the feeble spring of a once noble line, cut off from his fathers in the name of the revolution or, finally, a working man, loyal and infinitely brave, a footsoldier of the party, one of those who first rallied to it? Who was he, this Russian?

A year passed. The autumn of the following year, 1919, was warm and the leaves remained green on trees and bushes until late October. Then frosts came, once, then again and the foliage seemed to burn as brilliant yellow, orange and deep claret colours appeared in parks and gardens. The first snows covered the fire---one expected them to steam and smoke!

In November, in Moscow blanketed with snow, I met John Reed standing by the bookstalls that huddle under the massive walls of Kitai-gorod. He had been back in Moscow some three weeks and was giving serious thought to the new book he planned on the subject of Russia. He was gathering material for it and his expedition to the walls of Kitai-gorod had been made for this purpose.

conversation had ended in an unexpected way for Pyotr: Vorovsky had proposed to him that he return to America with Lenin's letter. So it is in life that a man, having reached his native shore and scarcely set foot upon it, will turn back to foreign lands. And it would have been difficult for Lenin to picture that return journey, long and far, far harder than the path from America to his motherland had been; difficult for Lenin to picture how the man had hidden from the Danish police, how he had concealed Lenin's letter in an asbestos case which had been placed in a stove pipe, how he had signed on as a sailor on an American ship and, at last, attained the distant shore of America, how, on a dark night, he had wrapped a rope around himself and jumped to the shore, scurrying through the canyons of New York to find refuge and how two days later he had brought the letter to John Reed---On that cruel August night in 1918, as Lenin lay in his apartment, his shoulder shot through three times, he did not know these facts and could not know the progress of his letter to America, but he knew and had faith in the fact that he and his cause had thousands upon thousands of friends and helpers, who would bring the letter to America and make it known to all people. Lenin did not know that the letter had reached John Reed---but what good fortune that it had fallen into his hands: his ardent devotion would accomplish everything.

Lenin recovered. A bulletin, evidently the last, appeared in the newspapers. It was shown to him before publication and Lenin grasping a pencil not without difficulty in his still weak and uncertain fingers, added: "...it is my most fervent personal request that the doctors should not be disturbed by telephone-calls and questions."

Someone told me that Lenin had attended a concert by the Pyatnitsky Russian Choir and had subsequently chatted with Pyatnitsky (at home). This simple piece of news made everything clear: Lenin's health was rapidly mending and he was in good spirits, looking joyfully to the future. And then Lenin came out into one of the Kremlin courtyards. He was without an overcoat, but wore a cap; his tie was not a plain, everyday one but a spotted tie. The broad strip of black cloth that had supported his left arm from elbow to wrist was gone and this, too, seemed a good sign. Lenin walked slowly, his hand thrust into his pocket, slightly hunching his damaged shoulder. It had rained the day before but later the sun had shone with an un-October-like brilliance, drying the stonework and the ground. Only the gutters were still wet. Lenin occasionally looked at the sun, wrinkling up his eyes, and raising his unhurt arm a little seemed to be trying to push away the great glowing ball with it. He met me at the entrance to the Maly Palace, keeping his hand above his head for longer than usual.

"My dear Rybakov, our letter has reached America all the same and been distributed in thousands of copies! They say some Russian took it and gave it into the hands of Comrade John Reed." Of course---Lenin had a soft spot for Reed. "In thousands of copies!" he repeated and laughed. "And you said...."

"But I didn't say anything, Vladimir Hyich." "No, no, you said something ... something just like you."

THE LETTER

THE LETTER

be hanged and saved myself by flight abroad. A Communist from those first years---"

As the man told his story Lenin thought: "Of course, he is a Russian working man, a Petrograder or perhaps from Yaroslavl, one of those whose great truth and faith give life to our revolution." The man continued to speak, but Lenin had already risen and begun to pace about the room. "A Communist from those first years...." He was ready to repeat it again and again: "A Communist from those first years___"

When I encountered him he was holding a book in his hands---naturally an old and quite rare work: Russia and the Papal Throne.

"Straight talking has its advantages, especially with America," I said, leafing through the book. "Chernyshevsky understood that, I think."

"Lenin, too," Reed observed and smiled.

Perhaps the road we were following, which led down the slope of Lubyansky Passage, was an easy one or the subject of our conversation had taken hold of us; at any rate our pace quickened.

"How did you manage to get the American newspapers..."

"...to swallow so bitter a pill as Lenin's letter?" Reed interrupted me.

"Yes, perhaps you could say that: the bitterest pill of all. How did you do it?"

Reed stopped, although this was not easy to do on the steep slope.

"You remember what Lenin said about de Lubersac? He said it several times in public. Well, that's my answer to you: sometimes one must split the enemy by directing the fire of one against another."

"And that was the method you resorted to in order to get the letter printed?"

Reed walked on slowly.

``I'll tell you how it came about and you can judge for yourself." He flicked some light snowflakes off the book. "I decided to take Lenin's letter to ... to whom do you think? To Senator Johnson."

Yes, Reed had gone to Senator Johnson and shown him Lenin's letter. Reed had believed that in the struggle with his political opponents the senator would not refrain from making use even of a letter written by Lenin. Reed knew America well and his'' calculations were correct: through the senator's efforts the letter became known to America.

Reed glanced at me and his eyes, which were so young, filled with glee.

"I don't know precisely what the senator gained from this," he said in an exultant voice, "but friends of the new Russia certainly gained something."

That is all I have to tell concerning the letter that was sent to America. But what of Lenin's messenger, the Russian who, after eleven year's separation from his native land, had barely set foot on it again before he was obliged to return abroad? Who was he, this messenger?

He delivered the letter, returned home and was received by Lenin. I can imagine the state of intense curiosity he found him in, for until then Lenin had been able only to speculate on what sort of man this was among the many thousands of friends of his great cause; now the man stood beside him. I can see Lenin direct his penetrating gaze on the man: "Tell me about yourself, Comrade, in detail."

"I am a Russian," he was told. "My name is Pyotr Ivanovich Travin, a working man, who heard the call of the revolution in 1905.1 was sentenced to

LENIN standing by book shelves in his Kremlin office. Moscow, October, 1918

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As I waited for Lenin to see me I used the time to observe those in the room who had arrived before me.

There were two of them. A man in a cotton jacket was sitting by the window, and from the little he had just said to the secretary I knew that he had come from Petrograd the previous day on business concerning the Academy of Sciences. Further away from me, by the entrance, was a soldier, his coal-black brows making an odd combination with his shock of grey hair.

On the rare occasions that he raised his eyes he looked towards the door of the office, clearly vexed with the person Lenin was talking to at that moment: thirty minutes was quite long enough for anyone at so late an hour of the evening.

The soldier had no desire to conceal his agitation and the ash-tray resting on his knees was full.

At last, the door of the office opened wide and a peasant appeared, wearing a linen shirt embroidered with a crude and already long-faded pattern. He put on his sheepskin, took his fur cap with its ear-flaps, sighed and moved towards the door, touching his chest with his hand.

``Did you see how he touched his chest and looked in front of him?" said the soldier. "That is the gesture of a man far from home.''

``He's probably crossed mountains and forded rivers to reach here," I said.

The soldier rose, brushed the ash from his knees with a single, rapid movement and walked to the stove.

``Crossing mountains was difficult enough, but crossing the front-line, as

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that American did, was an even more terrifying experience." He looked at me from under his jet-black brows with a pair of eyes no less intensely black and gleaming. "You know, when shells burst against stony ground, it is as if you have been struck in the chest, and the air is so thick with smoke that you want to burrow into the ground---If you were not taken by the scruff of the neck, you wouldn't go into such a hell.''

``By the scruff of the neck?" I inquired. The soldier's story of the American who had crossed the front-line had aroused a growing interest in me. "Then why did he go?''

``Why?" The soldier stubbed out his cigarette. "He was going to Lenin." He fell silent: there was nothing more to be said.

``When did this happen---recently?''

``Yes, five days ago, on the frontier one hundred versts from Riga.''

``And our forces let him through?''

``Of course, he was carrying a white flag," the soldier said and added: "He should be here now. Such a young-looking man---McBride, I think his name is.''

``I don't think he has arrived yet.''

``Then wait." The soldier smiled. "It will be worth it.''

Through the front-line carrying a white flag! This American must be quite out of the ordinary. Suddenly I imagined a grey morning: rain had fallen not long before and the puddles reflected clouds of black smoke sweeping over the land. Desolate mounds of earth stretched along the trenches and low posts, the height of a man, ran across the ground, strung with barbed wire; across the barren waste a man walked, carrying a white flag.

I failed to see McBride then, but did not give up hope of meeting him. Many Americans came to Moscow that autumn and running to ground the subject of my conversation with the soldier was no easy matter. An American publisher lived in a mansion on Sofiiskaya Embankment, refusing to leave Russia without seeing Lenin; a delegation of old believers, representing the Russian community in San Francisco, arrived in Moscow, stating that their journey to Russia would to a great extent fail in its purpose if they did not meet Lenin. And then there were the correspondents.... At midday or at midnight they were to be found in Chicherin's large reception room in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and, as had been the case earlier at the Smolny, it was the Americans set the tone. Chicherin read the correspondents' cables and, whenever he managed to seize a free moment, invited their authors into his room, where, often enough, he would scold them with that good-natured meticulousness which only he was capable of. To watch him at such moments never lost its interest for me. In his waistcoat, his shirt-sleeves rolled back, he would dart about the room, sometimes, in the heat of an argument, coming out into the reception room, where he would be surrounded by correspondents and the almost invisible layer of smoke that covered the room would grow slowly thicker. It sometimes happened that the canopy of smoke covering all those standing under the chandelier would seem to part and Chicherin's voice could be heard:

``Comrade Rybakov, have you met the new correspondent of Le Temps?" That was how I came to meet McBride.

The tobacco haze under the chandelier, where Chicherin was crossing swords with the correspondents, seemed to open and I heard him say:

``Comrade Rybakov, I want to introduce Mr. McBride, the American journalist, to you; I should be grateful if you would act as his guide when he visits the Kremlin.''

Chicherin turned, wrinkling up his eyes: it was far from easy to make people out. McBride, who was standing behind him, bowed and his smile, both shy and stern, seemed to light up his face in the smoky half-light. He was broad-shouldered and, I thought at the time, quite tall. When he was walking over the marches of no man's land the white flag he carried must have been visible from a considerable distance.

``Do you think," he asked me, his eyes, a moment before glowing hotly, now seeming touched by the icy wind, "that I could ask Mr. Lenin the extent to which the Soviet government intends to involve foreign capital in the exploitation of its natural resources?''

``But of course, Mr. McBride.''

``Excellent!" he said, extracting a minute notebook from his jacket pocket together with an equally tiny pencil and making a note. "And one more thing: why is it that in the Land of the Soviets the minority ... rules the majority? That, at any rate, is how our newspapers put the question. Can I ask about that?''

``Of course," I replied.

McBride made another note.

``And an explanation of the essence of Soviet power---its nature, principles and institutions---could I ask for that?" McBride raised his eyes to me.

``I think that you will receive an answer even to a question such as that," I told him.

His response to this was a smile.

``Do you have any more questions?''

``Yes, of course, but it is ... a delicate point.''

``Well, nevertheless, I think you can ask it.''

``No, I don't think I will!" McBride said decisively, and bending towards me continued in a confidential whisper: "Some of our newspapers, you know, write about some things---sometimes even quite fantastic things---and there are questions that one simply cannot put.''

``But why? You must ask.''

``Do you think so?" His face brightened. "No, I probably won't!''

He had still not told me the question agitating him, but perhaps it was not very important.

The thought crossed my mind that he was very candid in uncovering his doubts and anxieties. Taken with the little I already knew about him, this quality was especially appealing to me.

What had impelled him to raise a piece of white cloth on a pole and walk

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across the frontier separating the enemy armies? The American newspapermen with whom I came into contact during those years included many for whom their profession was also a calling. They were searchers for the truth, ready in their quest for that inaccessible goddess, who has suffered so long, to pass through the fire. Do you remember Reed, roving across Mexico, galloping into burning towns with the soldiers of Villa and Zapata? But what dream had brought McBride to Russia? The grey-haired man with black brows had said to me: "He was going to Lenin." To Lenin? But with what object? Of course, first impressions are often deceptive, but from what I could see, McBride bore little resemblance to the kind of newspaperman to whom the mere fact of an interview with a prime-minister, and a Red prime-minister to boot, would represent the fulfilment of all his aspirations. McBride had evidently come to Lenin with something else in mind, something which had a bearing on the American himself and had determined his ideas and anxieties.

I met McBride, as we had agreed, at the Troitsky Gates of the Kremlin at 2.45 p.m.

``You obviously spent last night wondering whether to put this dreadful question or not?" I asked the American, laughing.

He blushed.

``How did you know?''

``You mean that I'm wrong?''

``No, you are right," he said, walking more rapidly.

In quickening his step he seemed to want not so much to walk away from the conversation as to leave behind his own thoughts: clearly, he was still a prey to doubts.

We went into the reception room and as I glanced at McBride I was struck by the colour of his face: it had lost its ruddy darkness and become white. I could understand my companion's state of mind: he was, after all, at the end of a long and difficult path.

I knew that the strict timetable of Lenin's day was, nevertheless, sometimes bro*ken by unscheduled meetings and therefore obtained from the secretary the latest copy of The Times, which I handed to McBride. He was evidently surprised at seeing a fresh copy of the newspaper in Moscow and immediately buried himself in the leading article: there is no better way of dealing with nervousness.

It was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the door of the office half opened almost silently and Lenin appeared.

``I'm very glad to see you," he said. "You must forgive me for having kept you waiting.''

McBride walked forward to greet Lenin; Lenin's smiling face had, it seemed, been enough to put an end to everything that had been tormenting him.

``On the contrary," he responded, spreading his hands, "it is for me to apologise for having disturbed you with my visit. Especially during the middle of the day: it cannot have been easy for you to find time.''

Lenin ushered his guest into the office, looking at me with a smile as he waited for McBride to enter. "Instead of entertaining our guest with conversation you transfer the obligation to The Times of London!" he cried, his eyes resting on the newspaper.

``But it was of interest to him," I said, trying to defend myself.

``More interesting than a conversation with you, is that what you mean? You are not sparing yourself today.''

Turning, he walked briskly into his office and invited McBride to sit down.

``What impressions have you formed of Moscow?" he asked the American, shooting a glance at him. "What have you seen? How long do you plan to stay with us?''

The conversation promised to be a tense one and these opening remarks, friendly, natural and, of course, quite ordinary were, I thought, needed by Lenin in order to concentrate his inner forces.

``I have found Moscow an interesting city---the Bolshoi Theatre, Red Square..." the American replied: he, too, needed a few moments to gather his thoughts. "Incidentally, I have been told that on the very day you moved to Moscow you went round the Kremlin and inspected its monuments. Is the new government looking after old Russia?''

GEORGY CHICHERIN and LEV KARAKHAN at work in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Moscow, 1923

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"I love the Kremlin," Lenin smiled, "the history of Russia can be seen from its hills."

He seemed to gaze at the hills of the Kremlin from a distance, from the high, taut framework of the Moskvoretsky Bridge, where the Kremlin rises up before you inexpressibly young and mighty with its palaces, churches and terem-churches.

"You must admit that the new government's love for the old is almost paradoxical?" McBride asked.

"But why?" Lenin replied. "Respect for their past by the people is not unique to Russia. After all, it is their life."

The American seemed to prick up his ears. Did he intend to use Lenin's response as a means of getting to the heart of the conversation and putting his first question?

McBride sighed and compressed his lips. The sky over the Kremlin had perceptibly darkened and his dark skin merged into the unexpected twilight, leaving only the whites of his eyes visible. They were tense and anxious.

"You mentioned 'the people'," he began: he had obviously been looking for the opportunity to ask this question. "But the western press asserts that in the new Russia 'the people' and 'the government' are not equivalent concepts; indeed, that in Russia there is a dictatorship of the minority."

Lenin was clearly finding difficulty in remaining seated. He raised his pen, which had been lying on a sheet of paper (before we arrived he had been writing), and placed it quietly on the inkstand. "Let those who believe that silly tale come here and mingle with the rank and file and learn the truth," he said. "Workers and peasants alike, the majority of them at least, .are supporters of Soviet power and are ready to defend it at the cost of their lives." Lenin moved closer to McBride. "You say you have been along the Western front. You admit you have been allowed to mingle with the soldiers of Soviet Russia; that you have been unhampered, as a journalist, in making your investigation." Lenin fell silent for a moment; he had no desire to substitute a more blunt word for ``investigation''. "You have had a very good opportunity to understand the temper of the rank and file. Is that not so? You have seen thousands of men living from day to day on black bread and tea. You have probably seen more suffering in Soviet Russia than you had ever deemed possible.... In all this your own country is playing a large part," Lenin observed slowly, as if wishing to give the American an opportunity to take this in. "And now tell me," he continued, "if the people are ready to take up arms under such intolerable conditions to defend Russia---the new Russia, note---then no doubt the new Russia and its order can be said to some extent to suit the people? Now I ask what is your opinion about this being a

The Troitsky Gates of the Moscow Kremlin. 1918

The first coat of arms of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Constitution of the RSFSR. The cover of a booklet published in 1918

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dictatorship of the minority? No, no, it is your turn to answer," Lenin concluded, waving his hand and laughing. ``I'm waiting: come on.''

McBride was silent, impatiently brushing his hand over his temples, as if trying with the sensitive tips of his fingers to locate the thread of his ideas, which were so vital to him at that moment.

``Without a certain trust in one another, life on the same planet is impossible," McBride said, his voice still stern. "Everything that you are saying about your country is, for the Western world, no more than propaganda. We Americans are business-like people, prepared to place our faith in words, but only to the extent...''

``...that they correspond to the business in hand?" Lenin quickly finished the sentence.

``Yes, if you like." McBride slowly pulled the sleeves of his jacket over his snow-white cuffs. "In short, does Russia intend to do business with the Americans, does it wish, to some extent, to open up to them the treasure-house of its natural resources? There are Americans, incidentally, who say that Russia will embark on wide-scale trade with America and will grant concessions to her. Are they right?''

``Yes, they are right," Lenin replied warmly. "I am often asked whether those American opponents of the war against Russia---as in the first place bourgeois---are right, who expect from us, after peace is concluded, not only resumption of trade relations but also the possibility of securing concessions in Russia. I repeat once more that they are right. A durable peace would be such a relief for the toiling masses of Russia---" Lenin was silent for a moment as he glanced at a large map representing different aspects of the Russian economy which hung to the right of his desk; of late he had talked with growing frequency of concessions and such a map had become a necessity. "Russia will grant concessions to the West under reasonable terms and will accept technical help from the West. We cannot but come to terms with the objective historical fact that the new Russia coexists side by side with the world of capital, and any other policy would be mistaken.''

As had happened many times previously when I had interpreted for Lenin, his intimacy with his interlocutor grew as the conversation continued, while the conversation itself became ever more absorbing. This arose not only from the arguments Lenin employed, which were always drawn from life and carried genuine weight, but also from the fervour and unwavering inspiration which seized him whenever his convictions, the sanctum sanctorum of his intellect and his inner world, were touched upon. He could not speak otherwise when the conversation involved what he believed in, what lay at the very heart of his hard-working life. Moreover, all his life he had been communicating his convictions to other people, drawing them away from the world of his opponents and winning over their hearts and minds. I could even imagine the joy he felt each time he succeeded in making a breach in that blank and forbidding wall that man's delusions sometimes became. It was in such a frame of mind that Lenin found himself now, as he saw that McBride's grim hostility and prejudice had been overcome and that although he was continuing doggedly to oppose through force of habit, his mind, the all-powerful mind, was attending to the voice of truth.

``Mr. Lenin, you must understand me properly," McBride said suddenly. "I

was brought up in the West and our institutions, our principal institutions....''

``Parliament?" Lenin interposed.

``Parliament, too, perhaps," the American replied quickly, "these institutions seem to me just, whereas Soviet power, as a form of government.... Do you believe that it is Soviet power that corresponds to the interests of the Russian---not the bourgeois, naturally, but the peasant, the worker; and is it capable of protecting his conscience, the voice of his mind?''

McBride had not finished yet and Lenin was still silent, but inwardly he was already in dispute with the American and his thoughts, unquenchably fierce, burst forth.

How otherwise could Lenin respond when the conversation turned to Soviet power? Nothing was closer to his heart; his blood ran in its veins.

``As for Soviet power, it has become familiar to the minds and hearts of the labouring masses of the whole world," Lenin said, speaking with a quietness that in no way diminished the emphasis of his words; it was costing him much to remain calm. "Everywhere the labouring masses---in spite of the influence of the old leaders with their chauvinism and opportunism, which permeates them through and through---have become aware of the rottenness of the bourgeois parliaments and of the necessity of Soviet power, the power of the toiling masses, the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the sake of the emancipation of humanity from the yoke of capital." The conversation had reached a culminating point and Lenin was determined to say all that he wished to say. Unable to remain seated, he rose and began to pace the room, placing his feet heavily, so that the glass shade of the table lamp trembled and the metal pen on the fluted-iron stand rang. "The bourgeoisie inflicts upon the working masses of Russia unprecedented sufferings, through the blockade, and through their help given to the counter-revolutionaries," Lenin went on. He reached the far corner of the room and stopped, pale and profoundly roused. "Yes, their help to the counter-revolutionaries, but we have already defeated Kolchak and we are carrying on the war against Denikin with the firm assurance of our coming victory.''

As he walked back to his desk I noticed that Lenin's step had lost some of its impetuousness and no longer betrayed the same anxiety (the pen had ceased to ring and was now unwontedly quiet): he was tired or perhaps his inner agitation had calmed after he had given expression to the main thrust of his thought.

``But you did not ask that question, the delicate one you wanted to ask!" I said to McBride as we left the Kremlin together.

Mentally still in Lenin's office, he turned his pale face towards me.

``Heaven preserve you!" he said fervently. "I knew in there that I could not ask him about that, that I could never ask him about it." He gave a relieved sigh; only now had he brought his doubts under control.

``Excuse me, but what was the question?" I asked.

McBride gazed at the even line of embrasures running along the Maly Palace, trying to make out the two windows of Lenin's office.

``I wanted to ask him," he began, indicating the windows with a glance, "whether it was true that your law on nationalisation extended to Soviet

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citizens as well." He tore his gaze away from the windows with some difficulty and quickened his pace. "But when I saw this man with his concern for good...." He stopped and looked closely at me. "But you know, from abroad he sometimes looks different, quite different."

As I parted from McBride at the Troitsky Gates I was not a little sorry that I should not be seeing him again. The conversation we had begun before his meeting with Lenin seemed unfinished and I wanted to continue it, for I found McBride an interesting person; but I knew from what he had said that he might be leaving Moscow that very day and so I said good-bye without the hope of encountering him again.

But events proved me wrong. At midday it had become known that that evening Chicherin would meet with the correspondents. The topic was to be the peace negotiations between the young Soviet state and the Baltic republics. Naturally, I did not connect this news with McBride's departure and was delighted when I saw him that evening in Chicherin's reception room; he had evidently postponed his departure to be there. We exchanged smiles of greeting and he let me know that he would like to see me after the press conference.

It was approaching eleven o'clock as we left the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and walked along Tverskaya Street, which was almost deserted at that late hour, towards McBride's hotel.

"I suppose it cannot be so easy to be a prime-minister and remain an ordinary man," he observed, as we passed Karetny Ryad. "To remain an ordinary man, without posing or play-acting, linked to people by living bonds and accessible to people---no, it cannot be so easy, don't you agree?" He lapsed into thought; his concentration and furiously working mind seemed to find a parallel in his measured tread and compressed lips. "When we went into his office and I saw him, I caught myself thinking in a purely professional way: how to present him to my readers. I was already looking at him through the eyes of those who would read about him and their eyes alone." McBride's footsteps became almost soundless and his voice, too, dropped. "Listen to what I have written about our meeting for my readers: 'Mr. Lenin is a man of middle height, close to 50 years of age. I thought him well-built and it is said that he has always been interested in sport. He is very active physically, in spite of the fact that he carries in his body two bullets fired at him one year ago last August. His head is rather large, massive in outline, and is set close to his shoulders. The forehead is broad and high ... the eyes wide apart, and there appears in them at times a very infectious twinkle, especially when he laughs. His hair, pointed beard, and moustache have a brown tinge.'"

McBride folded up his account and summarised the remainder of it for me:

"When he approached me I could clearly distinguish the lines on his face. Some suppose these are 'laughter lines', but to me it seemed that they were also the result of the enormous problems with which he has to wrestle and, perhaps, the suffering he underwent while in exile. In conversation his eyes never leave those of the person to whom he is speaking. So direct a look could not go hand in hand with a desire to remain on guard: on the contrary, it testified to a sincere interest and seemed to say: 'I believe that you are a friend---at any rate, we shall have an interesting conversation.' When we

were sitting down he moved his chair closer to mine and turned round so that his knees were beside mine. He shook my hand very sincerely and when I left his office I caught myself wondering which public figure I could put beside him. I must confess that I thought of Lincoln, a picture of whom came into my mind at that moment. Afterwards I connected this with the simplicity and modesty of Lenin's clothes: he was wearing the kind of boots that are worn by ordinary workers, shabby trousers, a soft shirt and a black tie. But perhaps the reason lay elsewhere: Lenin, like Lincoln, has a kind and strong face."

It had to be admitted that if Lenin reminded McBride of Lincoln, this represented, from the American's point of view, the highest praise.

"So, crossing the front-line with a white flag was worth while?" I asked him.

He stopped, looking at me sternly but with surprise: we had never exchanged a word about the white flag.

"It was worth while."

LENIN presides at the session of the Council of People's Commissars in the Kremlin during his convalescence after being wounded. Moscow, October 1918

Night

ithin the walls of the Kremlin, evening draws in little by little. The dry leaves of the trees in the Tainitsky Garden rustled and fell silent. A ray from the setting sun fell on a cornice of the Maly Palace before reluctantly moving to the roof and the limestone walls of the churches suddenly became blue, then lilac. The sun had already begun to move across the domes and gleamed on the crosses of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. Then it was extinguished, as if handing on its uncertain light to the evening star, which had become visible in the sky. While its rays had been shifting from cornice to roof and from roof to the gilded domes of the Kremlin churches, the sun had set.

It was 1918, an evening in late October. A table was moved up to the window, from which the roof of the Arsenal could be seen; the windows in the upper storey were all dark.

Before me lay a copy of The Times; my translation of an article on French plans in the Black Sea had to be finished before midnight.

A Russian newspaper was on the secretary's table nearby; across the page the headline ran---"Our troops are pursuing the enemy beyond the Volga. We have already retaken Samara, Syzran, Simbirsk and Kazan...." It was difficult to keep my eyes from returning to the newspaper again and again; those words alone had taken a hold on me.

I could imagine the excitement and pleasure with which Lenin had picked up the newspaper: "Simbirsk is retaken...." A telegram announcing the taking of Simbirsk had recently been received from the soldiers of the First

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Army. Lenin's reply had read: "The taking of Simbirsk---my home town---is the most effective means of binding up my wounds." Then had come Syzran and Kazan. Lenin had moved the tiny red flag on his great military map himself. And yet the newspaper headline had seemed to strike him afresh: "Our troops are pursuing the enemy beyond the Volga. We have already retaken Samara, Syzran, Simbirsk and Kazan---" I saw how he opened the newspaper, bent over it, then recoiled sharply, transfixed with excitement. He wanted to shout out the news---but restrained himself. Slowly he rose, supporting himself with his right hand (his left arm was still giving him pain, for a bullet remained in the shoulder). He moved back his chair and began slowly to pace the room, from the potted palm to the tiled stove and back. From the window his gaze, untrammeled and unbounded, swept over the darkening, thunderous sky ... oh, to be on a sea shore now, amidst the wind and the spaciousness!

The door into the office was open and the back of a chair, the bookcase behind it and the half-open door of the bookcase could be seen. Lenin had left the room an hour previously; it was quiet, only the telephone and the voice of a secretary breaking the silence:

``Who has arrived? A comrade from America? The man bringing the package? Yes, of course we are expecting him.... It's from Tom Mooney.''

My ears had not played me false: the secretary had said "from Tom Mooney". Mooney: it was as if my hand had been taken in a warm grasp. I looked out the window; clouds were gathering somewhere over Moscow, rain clouds now---if one touched them incautiously, the city would be deluged. As I looked, I could see a man's face, with a pale, very high forehead---he had already started to grow bald. The face of a worker, no longer young; perhaps the father of a family. Life had not treated him with kid gloves: although he was far from old, one could see the furrows seaming his cheeks. He was a foundryman, apparently, and had probably spent twenty years standing by a furnace: there is nothing harsher than the white flame of molten metal and it had dried out the skin of his face, leaving only his eyes untouched. They had withstood the fierce glare and still looked out on to the world fearlessly and with hope. This was no tribune, one could see that, no leader of the proletarian host: this was an ordinary worker, who had drunk the cup of affliction to its dregs. And that was no small thing: from it stemmed his spirit of self-sacrifice and, no doubt, his coolness and determination in battle---the determination of a working man who knows friend from enemy. Who knows, above all, who is his enemy, who can talk to the city fathers and who invariably emerges victorious in open battle. But where the city fathers failed in open battle, they achieved their ends by secret means.

The first newspaper reports were extremely brief: "A bomb exploded at a military parade in San Francisco." Then we learned: "The police are exhausted. Tom Mooney, a leader of the local labour unions has been arrested." The reports, naturally, were accompanied by a photograph of Mooney, with his sunken cheeks and his eyes filled with shadows. America looked at the photograph, millions gazing tensely at the face of a man. Still Mooney said not one word in self-justification. His photograph had to say everything; and that, of course, a newspaper photograph could not do. But

there were many in America to whom that photograph said something; they could see only too clearly the maturity and wisdom the years had brought in the face it portrayed. There was sternness in those eyes and wisdom. Mooney had been thrown in prison in the summer of 1916; now it was the autumn of 1918, more than two years later. The court had sat and had passed sentence of death on him; he had appealed, but had received no answer. In prison he awaited execution. Thursday is the day appointed in large American prisons for executions and men wait from one Thursday to the next. When Thursday has passed it seems that a century lies ahead; and yet it is only six more days of life. A man paces his cell; three paces from one corner to the other, two paces from end to end. The sound of his footsteps and, opposite his window, the gleam of the rooftops. The sun's rays fall there but not in the cell, which receives reflected light, and even then only from seven o'clock to half past nine on June mornings. But now it was autumn and the sun would not appear again for another year. From June to June was as if from Thursday to Thursday. And where was next June? In the next century? No, he wouldn't make it. Three steps from one corner to the other, two steps from end to end. The sun was gone and twilight had fallen: it was worse than darkness. If it is eleven o'clock in Moscow, what time is it in San Francisco? And what time was it in Moscow now? A clock struck somewhere in the corridor, its leisurely chimes rolling across the room: eleven, twelve....

The door opened and a man appeared. He was, in fact, carrying a package: not wrapped up in thick white paper but carefully sown into black cloth that might have been satin, of the kind used for lining material. The man stood with his back to me. I could see his large hands, red from the cold outside. He put the package on the secretary's table, just restraining himself from rubbing his hands---the cold outside was intense.

``I'll have to warm up before I can tell you," he said, his voice, like his hands, made sluggish and unresponsive by the temperature. "It was good and bad.''

Yes, that was the words he used: pronounced with the accent peculiar to Ukrainians. The door closed carefully and the man was gone. His footsteps, which betrayed pensiveness and, perhaps, tiredness, could barely be heard. His tiredness had doubtless long been with him, but it was only now, his mission successfully accomplished, that it has gained a hold over him.

I half rose and looked out the window, but it was difficult to make the man out: the night was now as black as the piece of satin on the table. Only the sound of his departing footsteps remained, as measured as before, walking over the flagstones. Then they died away; and the package, too, was gone, for Lenin had now returned and it had been taken to him.

The telephone rang again.

``The enemy is being pressed beyond the Volga.... An offensive is developing....''

``A trainload of grain has arrived in Moscow.''

Then telegrams began arriving from New York:

``Save Tom Mooney.''

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Mooney again!

Lenin had probably torn open the black material already and drawn out the letter it contained.

"Nadya, Nadya! Just look at this letter! Do you remember Copenhagen and our friend Lunin?"

"Lunin?"

``M-O-O-N-E-Y.''

He moved the letter into the pool of light cast by the table lamp; it seemed cut in half and only the signature was visible---"Tom Mooney''.

Lenin recalled Copenhagen and the socialist congress, that very congress at which a noteworthy discussion on cooperatives had taken place. He had gone there from a small village beside the Bay of Biscay where, in a little house right by the sea, he and his family had stayed with a customs house watchman. If one looked out from the shore, which was very high there, the seagulls over the violet sea seemed grey or even chalk-white. Far out, ships sailed past, only their masts and, very faintly, their superstructures, visible. Sailors feared to come too close to the shore, for the Bay of Biscay enjoys an evil reputation among them as the "Biscay pit" or the "Biscay crater". But it was calm by the shore, at least in the summer of 1910.

NIGHT

Lenin loved to sit on the rocks and look at the sea. Sometimes he would chat with his hosts and they would tell him of the local people, sailors, fishermen, stevedores, the men and women of the Bay of Biscay, who made their living with their hands and whose lives were bound up with this turbulent provider. The Russian lodgers had won the hearts of their hosts by their intelligence and sincerity and by the order and modesty of their way of life. From respect to attachment and, perhaps, genuine trust is but a single step; and so, as the sea murmured, now labouring, like the beating of a heart, now measured, as when one is taking a gentle walk, the wife of the watchman had imparted one of her secrets to the Russians. She was a Roman Catholic and had a confessor; he knew her family well, both husband and son, the latter perhaps even better. He knew how the boy behaved at home and in the street, he knew the progress he was making at school. The priest had established that a capable boy, a very capable boy, was growing up in the home of the watchman. "The most able Christians must devote themselves to propagating Christ's faith," the priest had once told the woman, "does not the monastery also possess a school? Your son would receive an education there as good as he would obtain in a secular school---mathematics and literature as well as theology." The wife of the watchmen was not, of course, at liberty to object to her priest, but nothing could prevent her from thinking. Mathematics was fine, she

MARIA ALEXANDROVNA ULYANOVA, Lenin's mother (1911-13)

LENIN. Paris, 1910

ALEXANDER ULYANOV, Lenin's brother, while a student. Petersburg, 1887

NADEZHDA KONSTANTINOVNA SKAYA. 1919

KRUP-

NIGHT

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recognised, but what about freedom? There was nothing on this earth for which a man could exchange his freedom: no, she would not give up her son!

Lenin often recollected this conversation, both on the shores of the Bay of Biscay and in Copenhagen, where he soon went with his wife to the socialist congress; later it came back to him again in Stockholm, where he had gone to meet his mother and say his last farewell to her.

In Copenhagen the Russian delegates often went walking by the sea: the sea can keep a secret. Sometimes they were accompanied by the American delegates: Bill Haywood, powerfully built, with a black patch over one eye, and Tom Mooney, thin, with a pale face. There is nothing more pleasant in that part of the world than the sea in September, when it is calm (the storms come in November) and still warm. Russians and Americans would walk along the shore as the sun set, becoming larger and more brightly crimson as it sank. When it touched the surface it seemed that the sea would begin to bubble and steam; Jupiter, seen through a telescope, appears just as monstrously huge and fiery. But the sea received the lamp of day silently. However, the water piled up and turned white---so, at least, it seemed to those watching. Mooney walked beside Lenin. "How is your name spelled?" Lenin asked him; "M-O-O-N-E-Y?" He glanced at the timid countenance of the moon, which, before emerging, peeped out from the clouds, intent to make sure that the sun had departed. "Luna! (Which in Russian means "the moon".) We shall call you Lunin---after all, there is such a Russian surname. Lunin!" The sun had sunk into the sea and the water was no longer white, but yellow, as it had been after the sun had set on the Bay of Biscay. Lenin recalled the watchman's little house and his conversation with the man's wife. "What could a man exchange his freedom for?" she had said. Lenin and Mooney walked for a long time along the shore and Mooney said: "Freedom! There is nothing finer than freedom!" And Lenin had responded: "Yes, Lunin, my friend, there is nothing finer." Later, in Stockholm, he had again stood by the side of the sea; a Russian ship was preparing to return home and Lenin, on the jetty, was saying good-bye to his mother.

It had not been easy for her to come to Sweden---seventy-five years is no light burden---but a meeting with her son had been too precious to pass up and so she had decided on the journey. In the mornings Lenin, following his long-established custom, had worked in the library, but after lunch he was inseparable from his mother. When they had last been together, in France in 1904, she had wanted to see many things and they had been everywhere together; but here even the opportunity to use her knowledge of German held no fascination for her. Their days together were numbered---a month came and went as if on wings---and their modest little hotel room was more attractive to them than all the charms of the Swedish capital. Both Lenin and his mother seemed to sense that this would be the last time they would see one another. She would sit by the window, holding, as was her custom, some sewing in her hands, and he would look at her from the other end of the room. Outside, the sky flamed as evening drew in, the rays of the sun falling on zinc roofs, the monks' cowls of the chirch domes and the cones hanging from the pine trees in the park beside the hotel. Lenin looked at his mother: it was like a miracle that this figure from his childhood, so many decades ago, should be

there now. She had brought with her all that was most dear to him. Nothing had been forgotten: the house and the garden behind it, his father's study with its comfortable armchair and pile of copies of The Russian News, the sunny radiance of the living room and, last of all, the Volga and the Sviyaga, the broad fields and the sky. She could sit as she was now and even remain-silent for a long time, absorbed in untroubled thought, her small, wrinkled hands folded patiently, without the loss of a single one of these memories. The earthenware jug of cold milk from the cellar; the slice of grey wheaten bread sprinkled with flour, which they used to have for breakfast as children; the wooden chest in which their mother had kept school compositions by Sasha and Anya, Olya and Volodya; the piano she had played in the evenings, the children falling to sleep to its soft music, and her heartfelt soprano voice, which had always made such a success of an aria from the Russian opera Askold's Grave.

Perhaps it was not only the years of childhood that were inseparable from her, but the years of adolescence, too, and the years of harsh maturity, of struggle, the sleepless, anxious nights when her children had been taken away before her eyes, one after the other. The gloomy half-light of the prison guardhouse, the yellow glare of a lamp on wet walls, the cold marble of court-rooms and offices, taut, charged exchanges with gendarmes: "You can be proud of your children---one hanged already and another ripe for the gallows!" And her voice, filled with uncompromising strength: "Yes, I am proud of my children!" Now she was sitting quietly, filled with a wise sadness; the evening sun, touching the zinc roofs opposite, silvered her dress. Her happiness now resided within the twilit walls of this room: she needed only that her son be beside her, that she feel the warmth of his breathing and hear his voice.

Only once had she broken the established pattern of her life in Stockholm, when she had gone into the town with her son to hear him address a workers' meeting. She had never previously seen him speak before an audience and it was not easy for her to conceal her excitement, but she had kept firm control over herself. Only once, when her son angrily raised his voice in denunciation of the butchers in Russia, did she sadly close her eyes. Perhaps the spring of 1887 in Petersburg came back to her and the speech her elder son, Sasha, had made at the trial of members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) movement.

But now the time of parting had come, on a dock-side in Stockholm harbour. Lenin carefully led his mother to the gang-plank: there he had to leave her, there he had to say his last good-bye and speak with her for the last time, for a few yards away, on the deck of the ship, he would become a state criminal. Beyond the polished railings lay the damp gloom of Schliisselburg, the flagstones of the Alexeyevsky dungeon, the rutted snow of the Vladimirka road, Siberia and death. How many times already had the words of that woman on the Bay of Biscay, repeated later by Mooney with such feeling, come into Lenin's mind! He remembered that the American had pronounced them with a dull melancholy, as if he already knew that his enemies were close behind, forging the chains with which they would eternally bind him.

``Lunin my friend---how goes it with you?''

NIGHT

NIGHT

Lenin took the letter and walked into his office. The corridor was dark and filled with silence. Lenin walked unhurriedly. What was he thinking about now? News of the October Revolution had flown round the world, giving men hope. It had given hope and faith to ordinary men and women, to everyone, even to those for whom the sun had already been extinguished. And everything must be done to reinforce the will to fight in man, to encourage him and give him strength.

Lenin went into his office, but the door remained open.

For a moment the telephones ceased ringing and the silence---already the silence of midnight---penetrated into the Kremlin. In the entire city he was the last to fall asleep.

Only his voice broke the silence:

"Connect me with Simbirsk."

He pronounced ``Simbirsk'' as, no doubt, he pronounced it in childhood: energetically, with a characteristically rolled ``r''. Perhaps as he said it his mind went back to the June sun on the sand by the Volga, the scent of daisies in the meadows lining the river, the flowering of the cherry trees in the garden behind his home which his mother tended and the light dress she wore as she bent over a young apple tree, her infinitely dear voice: "Children, help me dig round this tree."

"Get me the Volga on the line," he said, and was silent, as if waiting for the wind beyond the window to die away. "Every town: Kazan, Samara, Syzran...."

As he spoke, I thought: "How strangely he has been brought face to face

with his childhood this evening!"

"Every town is to be a base for an offensive ... an offensive."

There was a link between these words and the letter he had just received

from an American prison: an invisible link.

Again he waited until the wind died down before beginning to speak, this time more loudly than before, with the obvious intention that I, too, should hear him.

"Is Rybakov here? I seem to have seen him. Comrade Rybakov, are you here? Come into my office, please."

He was standing in the middle of the room. A piece of black material was lying on the table: the same material into which the package from America had been sewn. He was holding the flimsy, transparent sheet of paper he had extracted from the package and the excitement the letter had aroused in him was still evident.

"A letter from America!" he exclaimed, raising his hand just above the table and avoiding sharp gestures with it.

"Translate it, please. Everyone must read it, everyone...." I took the letter.

"But it will take an hour, Vladimir Ilyich---perhaps an hour and a half."

"That does not matter: I shall not be leaving for some time today." He glanced at his table, which was covered by a military map, and raised his

hand a little; he could not lower it and it remained dangling for a few moments while he looked at me. His eyes betrayed confusion and some irritation with himself ("I should not raise my hand!") but no pain: he did not want his pain to be seen.

"Yes, indeed, time will not wait!" He was already standing over the map, his thoughts in the far-off steppes of the Volga. "There is always a moment, a purely psychological moment, which gives rise to a well-known military law: if you do not follow up your advantage and pursue the enemy, it will not take him long to recover from the shock you have given him. Somewhere, between the Volga and the Urals, the enemy is already mustering his reserves---he is building up his strength."

I left his office. The doors leading from the office into the room where the Council of People's Commissars met and from there into the secretary's room, where my table stood, were still wide open. Behind me, I could hear Lenin's voice, vibrant with concern:

"Connect me with all fronts---with all fronts. An offensive is continuing!"

The letter now lay before me. Again I saw Mooney's face and heard his voice:

"I sent you my greetings, Comrades, in your quest and in your magnificent struggle!

The Red Army enters Kazan. 1918

NIGHT

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``My greetings, Russian workers, in misfortune, in adversity and in grief.

``I want to say to you that, with all my being, I am with you; in my person, modest in its significance, you find a sincere proponent and a passionate adherent of your great cause.

``The day does not pass when I am not with you in thought. Your mighty efforts, your strenuous search are something in which my spirit is involved---"

Tonight Lenin seemed to convene Defence Council and his voice to be heard over the land.

``Follow up your advantage, follow it up! An offensive!''

Mooney's voice, coming from afar, resounded beside Lenin's that night; one could sense it there:

``I am on your side, I am following in your footsteps, so far as the conditions of my life now permit, but these conditions---such they are---do not permit me to show my hand too clearly.

``I grieve with you in your sadness, suffer when you are visited by failure, rejoice when you achieve victory.

``My personal position is extremely serious, but this is only a question of my own salvation. Far more interesting to me is the saving of what the working class of Russia has achieved by its struggle.

``I wish still more strength, still more power to your incredible revolutionary spirit, which imbues all your honourable intentions and noble efforts.

``The greatest unhappiness of my life is that I cannot take part with you in your glorious work.''

Lenin seemed to have awoken the night, exploding, stirring up the primeval midnight silence. On the line were the headquarters of the First Army, the Second, the Third, the headquarters of the Eastern front.

``An offensive.''

And the voice of Tom Mooney:

``I am sending this letter with a Russian comrade, who is returning to Russia to join the Russian fighters in their great work.

``I am giving it to him with my own hands from the 'San Francisco Bastille' in the hope that you will receive it.

``Sincerely, honestly and fraternally yours in the cause of liberation from capitalist slavery.''

And Lenin's voice was alive that night:

``To the Urals ... to the Urals. An offensive!''

The darkness of the night grew denser, then began to pale.

The telephones fell silent and the last dispatch rider, bearing an urgent parcel, rode out of the Kremlin gates.

``And the letter from Tom Mooney?" Lenin asked.

I went into his office and placed the Russian and English texts on the table.

Lenin picked up the Russian text and buried himself in it. Once more that night he was to experience the pain of reading Mooney's letter.

Something new and, consequently, disturbing seemed to be revealed to him at this second reading.

``Vladimir Ilyich....''

``No, no ... I'll read it through.''

And then Lenin's voice, filled with anxiety as he spoke over the telephone, was heard explaining, insisting and perhaps even demanding:

``The world must be told of this man.... Told of his faith and devotion; everything that is pure and noble in people must be aroused to save him.... He

must be saved at whatever cost__Yes, yes, the energy and will of millions will

save him.''

When I returned to the room some ten minutes later the light had been switched off and Lenin was standing by the window.

His face had not lost its sternness, but the tiredness had gone. His eyes were fixed on the clouds, which were glowing with the dawn rays of the sun, and perhaps further, much further.

The night was over and the sun had risen: the sun of hope.

LENIN. Moscow, March 1919

Two Men

_ _ ave you ever had to meet someone arriving in Moscow from the West 1---I during winter or even at the beginning of spring? One must admit that it is most amusing to watch as the new arrival alights from the train, putting up a fur collar that must weigh several pounds (collars like that are specially sewn on for Russian journeys), to find within ten minutes, somewhat to his amazement and perhaps even acute embarrassment, that the notorious Moscow winter has not frozen him stiff. The winter of 1812, it seems, is imperishably implanted in western minds.

It was March 1919. A mission, headed by William Bullitt, had arrived in Moscow with the declared aim of bringing about the normalisation of relations between the allies and Soviet Russia.

Wheels rumbled under the glass roof over the platform and steam escaping from the locomotive crept over the asphalt. The train shuddered for the last time and stopped. I was prepared to see a succession of heavy fur caps and greatcoats emerge from the carriage and was not a little surprised to see Bullitt dressed in an extremely light overcoat. Perhaps he prided himself on his courage (subsequently he loved to show how brave he was), or on his youth (he was still under thirty), or on the enviable strength of his arms and shoulders (a true diplomat, he knew that success in sporting activities---- gymnastics, riding, even billiards---can have a magical effect on one's career); or perhaps it was all three things at once.

Bullitt shook hands, turned and began walking to the exit. With his distinguished appearance, his bubbling health and his awareness of the value

TWO MEN

TWO MEN

of human pride he seemed to be saying to those who had yet to understand: "William Bullitt has arrived! Just imagine---Bullitt has come to visit you! Congratulations!" He walked ahead, the other members of the mission---- behind. This, it may be noted, corresponded to the physical size of Bullitt's aides, some of whom reached his eyebrows, while others were only up to his chin.

However, Bullitt quickly halted and waited, very patiently, until those behind him caught up. Then, with humbleness and the greatest respect (qualities which one had hitherto not suspected him of possessing), he turned to one of them who, in his beaver cap, came up to Bullitt's shoulder and, in the Americans' ceremonial march, had unfailingly brought up the rear. The small man, with a wedge-shaped beard, white, aristocratic hands and the manners of a seigneur, appeared beside Bullitt---no, he did not feel himself in any way smaller than Bullitt, even physically. They walked side by side to a car and while they did so the small man did not once attempt to raise his eyes to Bullitt; on the contrary, Bullitt bent down further and further, as if emphasising his respect for the other.

Bullitt lingered for a moment by the car, evidently inviting his companion to come with him, then hurriedly entered the machine: the man in the beaver cap had refused. Bullitt drove off and the man with the pointed beard slowly

looked around the square. He saw a girl in a green, out-of-season hat, who lifted the hem of her long, impossibly frilled dress as she quickly ran across the square, and looked with some curiosity at a Red Army man wearing an old greatcoat and a new helmet with a bright red star. Then he looked for a long time at a woman in bast-shoes, standing a little way off with her fingers, bunched together, held to her lips---the Russian sign of grief.

Could this be Lincoln Steffens, whose name I had seen shortly before in a list of Americans arriving in Moscow? For whom was he waiting and didn't he, in any case, need a car? He had seen me among those meeting his party: perhaps he would not consider it tactless if I simply went up to him and offered him the use of my car? I approached and discovered that I had not been wrong---this was indeed Steffens---but my offer of a car did not arouse his enthusiasm. He looked at me fixedly, his face not softening.

"No, thank you. I am expecting some friends---they are late."

So this was the famous Lincoln Steffens, author of The Shame of the Cities and Tweed Days in St. Louis and leading ``muck-raker''. Steffens' court, that of an honest pen, was more terrible to industrialists and financial magnates than the official judges of America, for that court was fearless and incorruptible.

As I drove away from the station Bullitt and Steffens remained in my mind.

1"

After the presentation of credentials by Italian ambassador. First from the left---CHICHERIN

LINCOLN STEFFENS

TWO MEN

TWO MEN

Half an hour later the Americans left Chicherin's office.

Bullitt seemed unusually excited.

``We are planning to have a look at Moscow now, Steffens," he said, deferentially bending his head. "Yes, we'll be going all over," he repeated, with the obvious intention of showing that the excursion would be quite informal. "Do you want to come with us?''

Steffens appeared embarrassed and looked around in a melancholy and confused way.

``Well, are you coming with us?" Bullitt's voice betrayed impatience.

Steffens' cheeks seemed to have become almost imperceptibly paler.

``Yes, I am ready.''

The Americans departed. But these two men continued to dominate my mind, as they had the previous day. Bullitt had certainly wasted no time and was keeping his eye on Steffens. He wanted to show Steffens Moscow himself, before the journalist could make his own plans.

In the evening the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs received an unexpected telephone call: Steffens wanted to see me.

He looked upset and exhausted as he entered and after he had sat down he remained silent for a long time. His face had become yellow and puffy, his eyes were sunken and his beard, hitherto militantly pointed, had lost its shape.

``I want to see Moscow---not this evening, tomorrow. Could you come with me? I want to see everything as it really is and one can be deceived at night.''

``But you were looking at Moscow today.''

``No, that was something different---quite different.''

``Well, then, I shall be pleased to accompany you.''

It was after midnight when I was summoned to the People's Commissar: Chicherin worked almost until dawn. He was still wearing semi-military dress, but a scarf was now wound round his neck.

``I have a chill in my throat," he said, his eyes remaining fixed on a newspaper: he knew that the combination of a coloured scarf with military dress looked more than a little odd. "These March winds don't suit me...." He looked up in surprise from the newspaper, as if seeing me for the first time. ``You're tired, no doubt? No, no, be honest. Are you tired? Would you like some hot, strong tea? What time is it?" he asked, peering short-sightedly at the clock on his desk.

``It will soon be two o'clock.''

``Two.... It's still early. No, no, don't laugh, it really is early." He threw himself back in his chair, somehow immediately losing interest both in the newspaper and the tea. "For some reason I have become tired earlier today than usual. But do you know an infallible cure for tiredness? Music. I sit at the piano and it is as if I have taken a swim in a lake." His eyes became moist. "It's

Why should a highly successful diplomat, in Moscow on an extremely responsible mission, bring a man like Steff ens with him and so unambiguously demonstrate his sympathy for him? What role could Steffens assume and which would he consider appropriate---that of a shield, parrying blows, or of a slashing sword? But perhaps, in Bullitt's mind, Steffens was intended, without himself suspecting it, to confuse Moscow? Indeed, one or two conversations in public between Bullitt and Steffens, emphatic attention on the part of the former to the views of the latter or a seeming sincerity in their relations could favourably dispose the Russians. After all, the old truth still held: tell me who your friend is and I will tell you who you are. But perhaps there was another explanation: perhaps Bullitt had helped Steffens to make this journey so that he, Bullitt, could show him Russia in 1919, a Russia drowning in the darkness of its unheated and unlit cities. "These grumblers must be shown Red Russia at this moment. Shown it and then left alone with their consciences: let them have a good think!" Or perhaps there was a third explanation: Bullitt wanted to take the old liberal's unyielding attitude, his fastidious view of reality and bring them ruthlessly and violently into contact with the truth of Red Russia. That would certainly be an idea---to unleash Lincoln Steffens' passionate pen on the Bolsheviks! Let him burn them to ashes with the heat of his uncompromising conscience.

The following day I saw Bullitt with Chicherin at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.

He was visibly perplexed when he saw that Chicherin was wearing semi-military dress. What should Bullitt think? "The Soviet minister for foreign affairs has evidently chosen to wear military costume today in preference to a dark suit in order to let the distinguished foreigner know, quite unequivocally, that revolutionary Russia wiU not lay down its arms until the last foreign soldier has left its soil.''

It cost Bullitt an effort to smile when the time came for him to introduce the other members of his delegation. He performed this task punctiliously, remaining within the limits set by the official nature of the meeting. Chicherin, conversely, was informal and friendly, accompanying each regulation handshake, as was his habit, by a word or two, often extremely direct in character. But why was he in military dress? (Chicherin, incidentally, was very much attached to his military garb.) Well, why should these foreigners not be reminded by grim military grey, the colour of the angry skies over the front, of the sacrifices Russia was making? By ancient tradition, Russians are generous hosts, but by virtue of this very tradition and the experiences they have undergone they are disinclined to dissemble: the war, after all, had not ended.

``How have our guests been affected by the Russian winter?" Chicherin asked with a laugh, glancing at the window, outside which the March sun light with already a springtime brightness was spreading over the snow. "They haven't been singed by it?''

The guests laughed and only Bullitt looked sombrely and attentively at Chicherin, screwing up his left eye in an attempt to restrain his fluttering eyelid (at moments of excitement it trembled uncontrollably): he was seeking a hidden meaning in these words.

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TWO MEN

``In tears?''

``Yes, and in blood....''

One could see the fires a single day in Moscow had kindled in him!

Somewhere on the Arbat an old man in down-at-heel boots, the tops of which barely reached his ankles, was carrying a claret-coloured, plush sofa through the front door of a mansion. He put it on the pavement, sat down and blissfully contemplated the sky.

Steffens asked the driver to stop.

``What's going on?''

"Ushchemleniye (resettlement)!" the old man replied, and hoisting the sofa on to his back, carried it to an outhouse in the yard, which was painted an arresting blue.

Steffens followed him.

"Ushchemleniye?" he said, pondering aloud. "What is that?''

I translated the word for him, explaining the significance it had acquired.

"Ushchemleniye.... Ushchemleniye..." he repeated.

We followed the old man with the sofa into the large room of the outhouse. He paid no attention to us, but carefully lowered the sofa from his shoulders and sat down on it, just as he had when it was on the pavement.

``Who is moving in here?" Steffens asked. "The owner of the house," the old man answered. "And there?" Steffens gestured towards the mansion. "I am.''

"Why?"

``What do you mean, `why' ?" the old man asked uncomprehendingly.

``There are seven people in my family, and the owner has three....''

``But why?" Steffens insisted.

The foreigner's failure to understand was beyond the old man; at last, light dawned on him.

``The revolution!" he said, raising his index finger.

Steffens was completely taken aback and for a long time could not utter a word.

``And who are you?" he eventually asked the old man.

``Me?" The old man's face brightened. Evidently, the need to think about himself had finally cheered him up. "Who am I, you ask? Well... How can I explain? I'm a working man, a roofer. Take a peek there---do you see the roofs through the window? Yes, the zinc ones and the iron ones, painted and unpainted---that's all my work.''

As we left the yard, the old man called after us: ``Don't you like my trade, then? Maybe you're a bourgeois, eh?" Steffens stopped and looked at me, but I did not translate---I did not especially want him to understand these words.

good to play at night. Ah, music has wisdom, wisdom. In it man has outstripped himself by a millennium. You know, this is the language in which our distant descendants will speak. Their language will be more precise, more refined, perhaps; it will have more intellect. What do you think?''

He rose and walked across the room to the far wall. There, in a heavy frame, was a picture by Aivazovsky of a raging sea with mountainous waves topped by white and black clouds.

``It's good to play at night...." He looked quickly at me. "Well, what did you think of our guests? The precocious, young one? Did you notice how he took a cigarette?---with three fingers. He has the coarse self-assurance of a young bourgeois---a purely American phenomenon. But outwardly he's perfectly proper and well-disposed. Steffens is a good fellow, though. Say what may, you feel an aristocratic core in him. Did you notice how he looked at Bullitt? In the way a sovereign prince would look at a nouveau riche, no doubt---or is that comparison out of date? By the way, Steffens was in Petrograd in the summer of 1917 and appears to have heard Lenin.... He was with you? He asked you to show him Moscow? Do you suppose that he wants to go to the same places with you that he visited yesterday with Bullitt? But what can such a plan mean? Well, anyway, you must show him everything he wants to see,

but explain things, don't leave anything unanswered__Yes, I'm really tired

today....''

I left and was already a long way from Chicherin's office in a darkened corridor when I stopped. No, my ears had not deceived me: I could hear the soft notes of a piano. As if fearing to disturb the peace of the great building, Chicherin was playing quietly.

In the morning Lincoln Steffens and I set out to see Moscow. "Surely, he does not want to follow the same route as yesterday?" I reflected.

Although twenty-four hours had passed he was still strangely excited, as if fresh anxieties and doubts had been added to those of the previous evening.

``What would you like to see in the city?" I asked.

He fixed his sombre eyes on me.

``Why, what you consider necessary to show me, of course." His eyes were still on me and suddenly his expression softened, or so it seemed to me. "Let us just drive at random from one end of the city to the other, in such a way that we see people as well as houses.''

Heavy clouds were building up and snow was falling.

Steffens sat silently beside me, not even looking out of the window.

He impressed me as a man trying to think out something very important, endeavouring to get to the bottom of something, to have an argument out with someone and defend his own truth.

``Revolution is happiness in tears," he said suddenly and looked at me. "And very often it is unhappiness, also in tears.''

TWO MEN

Back in the car Steffens again lapsed into thought, sitting in silence, his head bent and his spectacles glittering.

"Anyway, what did he say, that ... roofer, as we were leaving?" "He appeared to take you for a bourgeois."

Steffens removed his spectacles: his eyes were bright with a restless gaiety.

"Yes, yes, I could hear---he said 'burzhua, burzhusf."

Then he quickly resumed his spectacles, as if hurrying to conceal the movement of his gleaming eyes behind their impenetrable glitter.

"When Lenin returned to Russia, he was already acknowledged as the workers' leader?" Steffens asked suddenly. "That came earlier, then?"

"Yes, much earlier."

"That's important---very important."

At the Bryansk Railway Station we walked across the rails to the young railway workers' hostel which, with their canteen, was a considerable distance away, by the shunting tracks. The beds in the hostel were every colour of the rainbow, as were the blankets covering them; cheesecloth curtains covered the windows and the tables were without tablecloths, although they had been carefully painted. The building smelled of fried onions and millet.

"What's for dinner?" a young fellow in a soldier's shirt asked. "Millet gruel for the first course, millet gruel for the second course and millet gruel for the third course, too," he concluded, laughing.

"Millet gruel?" Steffens had not understood.

"Yes," the young man replied cheerfully. "It's very tasty if you flavour it wpth smoke, especially when straw is scattered in the stove---the way they do itfon the steppe...."

Even Steffens' heart seemed to have been touched by the young man.

"The steppe---that is by the Don?" he asked meditatively.

"Yes, that's right, the Don," the young man answered.

"Do you come from there?"

``Yes, I was mobilised," he said, using the military term; "mobilised by the Party, so to speak.''

We began to walk towards the exit.

"Perhaps you would like to try the gruel, just to keep us company?" the young man asked.

"What did he say?"

I laughed.

"He is inviting you to dine with them."

We had already reached the tracks when he stopped.

"That millet gruel---is it good?"

"It all depends."

"Then why are they all so cheerful?"

We drove along the narrow lanes adjoining Petrovsky Park.

"They say that Lenin comes from the gentry?" Steffens asked: his thoughts

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obviously followed their own course, for the question was quite unrelated to what he had previously been talking about.

"Yes, his father belonged to the gentry."

``And there are members of the gentry among his associates?''

"So far as his associates are concerned, more of them would be workers and intellectuals ... raznochintsi that is."

"But still, there are some members of the gentry?"

"Probably---but is that important?"

"Very important."

The car was moving slowly and the people living in the small wood or stone houses that lined these lanes, hearing the noise, came to their windows.

"Who lives in these houses?"

"Military people, I think---officers."

"The new officers?"

``No, why? The old army officers as well.''

He looked fixedly at the windows. Now I could see, too: faces, many faces were pressed up against them. There was a very pale woman with white, dishevelled hair, and a boy wearing high-school uniform; I could not see his face but the polished buttons on his uniform shirt, caught by the sun which was shining directly on to the front of the houses, glittered irrepressibly.

A small door, set into high wooden gates, was thrown open and an old man with whiskers emerged, carrying a wooden shovel. He was wearing a short, double-breasted jacket, edged with hare's fur and half unfastened, and the high collar of his tunic was visible. The old man had already finished his work in the yard: his face was red and he had unhooked the top of his tunic.

"Stop the car here," Steffens asked.

We climbed out of the machine. The house before us was of brick and by no means affluent in appearance. Paint peeled off the door and the ancient bell, which belonged to the previous century, had a handle that one had to pull.

"Yes, I am the owner...." The old man was hastening to fasten his tunic. "Whom do I have the honour of addressing?" He was still breathing heavily and had difficulty in getting his words out. "How can I help you?"

He opened the front door.

Steffens asked the owner's permission to put a few questions to him. The old man became confused.

"I really don't know whether I can help you." He was running his fingers spasmodically over his broad, bony chest, as if seeking to defend it with his hand; his arm was also large, white and covered with greenish veins. "Well, as you please."

He made a sweeping and, as it seemed to me, somewhat ceremonial gesture towards the door (in the manner of a host inviting his guests into the drawing room) and we entered the house.

Indoor plants threw everything into shadow: mighty palm trees with iron-hard leaves, smoke-coloured cactuses in an unexpectedly ovoid form,

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large ficus-plants with big, polished leaves and oleanders with bright pink flowers. The stifling scent of the latter, somewhat resembling that of almonds, filled the house.

"One needs a guide to pass through my jungle," the owner observed, pointing out the way to the window. "I have filled my home with tropical plants---I always considered it would be good for my lungs. But one of these young doctors came at Epiphany and said that I should chop them all down! Not literally, of course, but I should clear them out of the house. Well, it will have to be done, I suppose. Nowadays one has to know how to part with things---and not just flowers. This way, please."

A writing desk had been moved up against a blank wall. A pile of note paper stood on it, together with an inkstand mounted on a cast-iron base with a model of a cannon; this had evidently been a birthday present.

Old chairs with soft, leather-covered seats stood by the table. The old man invited us to sit down.

"How can I help you?"

Steffens had sunk into the depths of his armchair: only his beard and his spectacles, flecked by the sun, stuck up. Once again, it was impossible to make out his eyes clearly behind the spectacles.

"Is our host an artillery-man?" Steffens indicated the cannon with a thin finger.

"A professor of artillery," the old man replied, looking round the room with smiling eyes. "I... was a professor of artillery, a professor... of the goddess of war."

"You mean that you are no longer a professor?"

The professor smiled: he probably wanted to unleash a flood of words, but managed almost completely to restrain himself.

"I have retired---together with my goddess."

Steffens' hands rose over the armchair in a vague gesture of incomprehension.

"Do you mean that an aeroplane has become the god of war?"

"No, a rifle. In fact, a home-made rifle with a short barrel," the professor replied triumphantly. "You know, a sort of log with a samovar pipe."

Steffens did not catch the irony immediately.

"With a pipe?"

"Yes, a samovar pipe. Surely you understand?"

There was a pause. Steffens was looking around him and noticed a portrait in a dark, fumed-oak frame. The portrait had been darkened by time, but even the accumulated dirt of decades could not obscure the grey moustaches,

i #e, -SB ci-i^-i-5 of E>ut&d st.,te«, cull upoa the congr«83 31 •ttwT'jritM ^Ut<" -s t »e r>cti3n 1-1 the Jirefeont Russian situttU^n srnicn shttli Mrin^ . b~.it t.**e discontinuance ot the blocKace igai»»t the Kuesian soviet Kejmblio, Without otee having declared ffttX against Suasi . this blocltjsle is briflgine de^th bj - t&rvation to J»Hid*eda of thousands ever* msnth.

St. *e urge ti» iiniw4i«s reo-41 of «il «nfiic -a trocpe i« Russia ana tfca afcandoaRient of attests t~ secure cpaci,,! `i''.^^1^^-,® tor z»rvice tb*nr. That ia no service f-r tr." 1 iff « democracy.

3» w» do stoat earnestly gr^test s_le"i coil&noroting of owr gov&ttjwent with •irt} eroupa euafc as tJvseo or Kolobafc. or DeniH monarchical

i:i. t i.,t t % _L `jui'ter-re

*. l»*lioM that tt» jB»ri«ri gcietnitscnt runt Jo n«U!tn(S t;at »1H Mais* ths Russian p»oi>X« troa detarninins thoir own 1-na « gswarnwmt iaMiccowlanM with their o«m sccnmai!; ami political

6, i» a«a, we call upon congress ts exorciae---~~,~-----

tionoj. functions f«t the »urj»»e "f cre;-ttnt, ;, genuinely demwratie foreign palioy, eoneistent with the tr«liUon» of a nutfMi »hiol» cheiishee the honoMlile wmriM of the revolution sy which it was founded arid the civiX war by which it wus peypptu^tea.

A petition to the US Congress presented by the Friends of Soviet Russia League demanding an end to the blockade of the young Soviet Republic, withdrawal of American troops from Russia and the cessation of aid to counter-revolutionary forces. New York, 1919

LINCOLN STEFFENS

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the mutton-chop whiskers and the epaulettes with their luxuriant fringe, each strand combed out with almost as much care as the subject's whiskers.

"The profession of artillery-man runs in your family?"

The professor sighed.

"Yes, my forebears were also artillery-men."

"Your ferebears?"

"And my descendants as well."

Steffens cracked his fingers.

"You have sons?"

The professor reached out and moved the iron cannon, revealing a patch of unfaded oilcloth where it had stood.

"I have two sons...."

"Are they with you?"

The hands with their greenish veins moved the cannon back to its former position.

"The younger is in command of Red artillery on the Volga, the elder ... was taken by the Cheka in autumn and we believe he has been shot."

Steffens' hands fell to his sides.

"Who was he? Was he on the other side?"

The professor continued to look at the cannon.

"He was a Socialist-Revolutionary." His gaze was fixed on the cannon, as if he wished to move it again, this time with his eyes. "My god ... the very word is so un-Russian."

The professor led us back through the green twilight, his emaciated hands raking through the rustling leaves.

"I shall chop down everything, everything."

As we drove across the Moskva River Steffens stopped the car on the bridge. The wind was brushing fine, dry snow over the ice, which was blue and transparent; a narrow line ran obliquely across the ice, dividing it into two sheets.

"The ice has broken---just look!"

Steffens gazed at the sheet of ice, the snow and the river, but his thoughts at that moment were not on the river.

"The ice has broken!"

I noticed that in these two days he had not said a single word that would enable one to understand precisely what his attitude was towards what he had seen in Moscow.

The next meeting between Chicherin and Bullitt took place in the evening. The Americans left the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs after six o'clock, hurrying to arrive on time at the Bolshoi Theatre. Only Steffens remained; he telephoned me and asked if he could come to my room.

"If I could take advantage of your kindness---I shall take up no more than fifteen minutes of your time."

I agreed.

"Well, the talks have begun," he said as he entered, apparently with no object other than filling a pause. His mind seemed occupied with something immeasurably larger than that which had served as his motive for coming to

Russia. "On my way here I recalled Petrograd in July 1917. I remember a house and a balcony with wrought-iron railings---Lenin was speaking and crowds were going past. They would stop, listen to him and then go on and their place would be taken by fresh crowds."

Steffens had evidently said everything he wanted to say and, after clearing his throat, he rose.

"It cannot be easy for a father when his sons suddenly come face to face---as enemies?"

He left; but I could not determine in my mind whether this was what he had wanted to say or whether there had been something else.

I heard footsteps in the corridor and the door opened to reveal Chicherin.

"Ah, good, I've caught you."

He entered the room and went up to a table covered with magazines; picking up a newspaper, he opened it without apparent interest before throwing it back on to the table.

"This Steffens of yours has asked to be received by Lenin. He wants to see him alone---what does that mean?"

"What, indeed?" I thought, after Chicherin had left me. Steffens did not want to be identified with the others: as well as Bullitt's mission, which was one of state, there was Steffens' mission---a mission of humanity.

Two missions, not one; and two men.

Bullitt knew this as well as we did. And Bullitt's correctness, his ``proper'' approach? That was less the essence of the man than the line he was following. I recalled an old saw: "Under all circumstances retain the privilege of appearing well-intentioned."

The overture was at an end and the curtain rose. The audience was bathed in a pink half-light as dawn broke on the stage. Bullitt's round cheeks, his nose, at the end of which was a barely noticeable groove and his eyes, one lid fluttering now as he recalled something disturbing, seemed lightly coated with oil and gleamed more than usual.

Steffens entered the box and took an empty chair in the second row. Bullitt turned to him with a smile of sympathy.

"Good lord, when do you relax?" Clearly Steffens' presence behind him was making Bullitt uneasy. "It seems to me that this theatre is a piece of dry land in a city flooded by the torrents of revolution. Did you see the crowds of people at the entrance? How they pushed their way in! As if it was here and only here they could find their salvation...." He fell silent, his searching gaze on Steffens. "Man used to strive towards the future in his dreams---now he turns towards the past. People come to the theatre to move into a time of peace. Have you noticed what they call earlier times here?---the time of peace. Look at those faces---am I not right?"

And Steffens did in fact look at the faces of the audience. Their gaze went beyond the stage: what did it express? For these people the theatre was a piece of the promised land; here they spoke with the future.

Two days later it became known that Lenin had received Bullitt. Lenin set out the position of the young Soviet Republic to the leader of the American mission. The cessation of military action on all fronts, the

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withdrawal of interventionist forces beyond the borders of Russia and the ending of assistance to anti-Soviet governments were at the heart of this position: nothing else, no matter how important---tsarist debts, trade with the West, the legal position of foreigners, the distribution of food sent as aid from abroad---could be resolved before solution of the main problem.

Steffens telephoned me:

"I have been told that you will be present during my conversation with Lenin...."

We met at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs at ten o'clock and went from there on foot to the Kremlin.

Snow had fallen in the night and the roofs were white. The snow was soft and seemed warm; one wanted to pick it up and squeeze it.

Steffens became hot in his heavy beaver cap and took it off, turning his face towards the sun.

"When we left Paris they were selling mimosa in the streets---and lilac was promised a month later. But spring has come, even to Moscow."

"Lilac will be in bloom here at the end of May," I said, "perhaps even in June."

Steffens became animated.

"Yes, in Petrograd I saw lilac in June. I well remember them in« a little garden somewhere, on Millionnaya Street, I think---behind a cast-iron railing. Is there such a street in Petrograd?"

"There is."

We had just passed the Troitsky Gates when the unmistakable figure of Lenin appeared ahead of us in the distance. He was evidently returning from an engagement somewhere else in the Kremlin, for he was carrying a light folder pressed against his chest. Some ten or fifteen minutes remained before his meeting with Lincoln Steffens and Lenin was clearly in a hurry. ("He still has his winter clothes on," I thought, "but it will not be long before he exchanges his greatcoat with its shawl collar and fur cap for a lighter black coat with a velvet collar and a cap with a broad cloth peak, the top of the cap pushed back.") Lenin's left shoulder was raised a little: ever since he had been wounded he had held this shoulder carefully in a peculiar and somehow awkward way. He was walking beside the path, his feet treading down the shallow snow; it was not often that he could walk directly over it.

"Lenin?" asked Steffens in a startled voice and stopped.

"Yes, Lenin," I said.

As if by prior agreement we watched silently as Lenin approached the entrance to a building. It would, perhaps, be better if he were to enter alone.

We walked more slowly and in my imagination I was already with Lenin. He had ascended to his office and, taking off his coat, he wiped his brow: his physical weakness made him perspire easily after exercise. Calling his secretary, he hurriedly sat down at his desk; papers had to be signed before the meeting and nothing must be put off that could be done then and there.

"Has Lincoln Steffens, the American writer, arrived yet?"

"He is expected at any minute, Vladimir Ilyich."

"Tell me as soon as he comes."

We had not long to wait before we were ushered into Lenin's office and scarcely had we appeared than he was coming forward to greet us. His cheeks were still reddened by the wind and there were drops of moisture on his lashes: he had probably been looking at the sun as he walked over the snow.

"Good day, good day." He indicated two leather armchairs by the desk. "I know that you have visited Russia before---how do you find it now?"

Lenin walked to his desk.

It seemed to me that, long before this meeting, Steffens had carefully thought out the questions he intended putting to Lenin; yet he was, nevertheless, agitated. He took out a notebook and put it on the desk, then drew out a pencil and pushed it gingerly towards the notebook, as if contact between paper and pencil could have its dangers. Lenin looked at him, narrowing his eyes, and a smile---an ironic smile, I thought---came to his lips. "I can wait a little while you make up your mind," the smile seemed to say.

I must admit that I, too, was holding my breath: how would Steffens show himself at this moment which, more than any other of his entire stay in Moscow, could be called its culmination? Now was the time for his veiled eyes and sealed lips to speak; everything that had been only partly said and perhaps not said at all must now find expression. What we knew of this

FELIX DZERZHINSKY (centre) among workers of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission. 1919

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man---much or, on the contrary, only a little---must now be assayed for its true value.

Steffens turned over a page of his notebook and began to speak, endeavouring to formulate a question. Did the revolution intend to continue to repress its enemies?

Lenin rose to his feet.

"Does this disturb you?" he asked, emphasising the word ``you''.

I glanced at Steffens: he had the strength to raise his eyes.

"I am not the only one to be disturbed."

Lenin began to pace the room.

"Who else could be worried by it?"

"Paris..." Steffens said in an altered voice.

``Paris!" exclaimed Lenin, his feet falling heavily as he walked up and down. "Do you wish to say," he went on immediately, "that the same people who have just organised the murder of seventeen million people in a senseless war are now exercised by the deaths of a few thousand people during the revolution? Is that what you wish to say?''

Lenin paced about the room, making the rigid leaves of a potted palm near the desk tremble.

"If we want the revolution to be victorious," he said, stopping by Steffens' chair, his shadow falling on the tiled stove behind him, "if we want this, then we must realise that a revolution is not made with kid gloves."

Lenin returned to his chair, his face a whitish-yellow. He sat down, putting his hands on the table; even his heart, it seemed, was no longer pounding with the same fury, but he was unable to impose a similar calmness on his hands.

Lenin resumed the conversation with some difficulty, his voice at first barely audible. He spoke of the victory of the revolution in Russia, of how it had united the people, of the patience and courage the new government had shown in its endeavours to draw the non-labouring sections of the population to the side of the people and of how these attempts had ended. A humane approach had been taken for weakness and tolerance confused with cowardice.

"The rest you know," Lenin concluded. "The revolution has the right to punish its enemies, so that millions may live."

Steffens' eyes were fixed on Lenin. Strangely, his face bore no sign of dismay, still less of disagreement. On the contrary, he was grateful to Lenin that the conversation, begun so stormily, had not been broken off inconclusively, but promised to continue.

"All right," said Steffens, "let us assume that you are acting in the name of the majority. But Russia is, first and foremost, millions and millions of peasants: have you given the peasants land? How much have you improved the position of the villages?"

Lenin took a sheet of writing paper and a soft pencil.

"This is our policy on the peasant question," he said, drawing a straight line; he loved to use a soft pencil and the line that appeared was a thick one. "You want to know where we are now?" Lenin moved the pencil from the line. "That is where we are. As you see, we have been obliged to go here"---he measured the distance between the first line and the second with the end of the pencil---"but the time will come when we shall return to our policy." Lenin

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looked closely at Steffens. "The main thing is that we know the distance separating us at present from our fundamental policy and consequently we have a precise conception of when and how we shall return to it."

He moved his cane-bottomed chair closer to Steffens' leather armchair---something he always did when he had established contact with the person to whom he was talking---and began speaking earnestly.

"It is important to understand that this is not a departure from principle but a temporary measure, dictated by the war__"

In the evening I saw Lenin again.

His conversation with Steffens seemed to have taken place long ago rather than that same day: he touched on several topics and made many jokes, but did not once allude to the events of the morning. Only when I was on the point of leaving did he let me know that nothing had slipped his memory.

"I know you diplomats," he said, smiling. "One of your colleagues was here with a foreigner, sitting on the edge of his chair, terrified that I might say too much!"

Lenin rose and rubbed his hands gleefully. "He was going hot and cold, filled with anxiety that I would give a straight answer to every question and ruin the business of diplomacy. How he cursed me to himself---Lenin isn't big enough yet for real diplomacy, he was thinking!" He was taking great strides

LINCOLN STEFFENS reports on Soviet Russia

STEFFENS REPORTS ON HIS VISIT TO RUSSIA,

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across the room, stopping when he reached the far wall to say sternly: "It never came into his head that straight talk is often more useful than that ... merry-go-round of yours. Truth is good for the soul...." He looked at me fixedly. "By the way---Steffens. Will he understand us, do you think? Will he understand the new Russia?"

He looked up at me and in his glance I could see the ceaseless activity of his mind.

"Diplomats? Why, yesterday I was saying to Chicherin that we need a new diplomacy. A diplomacy that can do battle with the enemy, that can do so self-sacrificingly, conscious that its cause alone is the right one. Yes, a diplomacy that can fight bravely for our ideals and can gather up forces---gather them up, I say! A diplomacy that can win over everything that is best on the other side, everything that is honest and effective! We shall win them over by the truth, our truth!" He looked closely at me. "For it is we who possess the truth! And what is a man not capable of when the truth is on his side?" He pondered, began suddenly and rapidly to pace the room, then stopped. "And men will come to us in the end for honesty, for rationality, for a good life, for happiness---Man has grown up: he understands that only our truth can make him happy."

The Americans left Moscow at the beginning of April.

A gloomy twilight was slowly enveloping the city and the lamps would be lit at any moment; everything around was lost in deepening shadow and only the railway lines and the patches of discoloured spring snow between them shone.

Bullitt was standing by a carriage window. He looked gloomy, although his mission had ostensibly been a success: the position of both sides had been defined and agreement seemed possible. But still there was something else, perhaps of greater significance than the talks in Moscow, which had soured Bullitt's temper.

As the signal for departure was heard Steffens came to the window; seeing me, he slowly raised his hand.

The train had gone before the lamps on the platform were switched on.

I followed the train in my imagination, seeing the two men standing by the window and looking out at the shadowy fields. The snowy expanses of Russia passed them, patches of thawed earth showing on hillocks, gullies filled with darkness, copses, straggling villages showing no lights.

Bullitt looked at the fields and woods, stretching away to the horizon. No, it was not the talks he had on his mind. He had failed to see something in Moscow that he had wanted to see, while he had seen something very clearly---reality: the reality of the new Russia, resolved to stand firm to the end.

Steffens looked at the same vast expanses as they slowly slipped past.

The two men stood silent in the darkness; amid the icy immensity of the Russian fields, through which their train was now cutting, they said not a word.

And beyond the window was Russia. April 1919.

I thought about Steffens. One thing concerned me: how would he react to his journey to Moscow, would his understanding of our life, so difficult in that spring of 1919, of the Soviet people he had met, who had wanted to be and had

been sincere with him, and, finally, of Lenin be correct? Steffens' conversation with Lenin, intense yet profoundly open, could not but have disturbed the American.

Some time later I received a telegram, telling me that Steffens had reached Paris, and a note, short, but expressing everything that I felt at that time. Steffens had met Bernard Baruch, the economist and financial magnate, in Paris.

"So you've been over into Russia?" Baruch had asked him.

"No," Steffens had replied, "I have been over into the future and it works."

LENIN in Red Square during a demonstration of working people celebrating the first anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Moscow, November 7, 1918

The Boy

___ o this day, each time I pass that building, the memory of those

I distant but never-to-be-forgotten years conies vividly back to me. I

•*• see the old-fashioned Rolls-Royce slide noiselessly on to the square

and stop at the main entrance. I hear the click as the door swings open.

Passers-by, hurrying across the square, slacken their pace.

"Chicherin," someone says. "Chicherin has arrived."

Yes, it is Chicherin. Before entering the building, he pauses a moment for a swift, searching glance over the square. He sees a colleague of his, and his dark, rather prominent eyes light up with pleasure. The crowd of onlookers watch with respectful interest.

"That's our People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs."

There was a dim light in the outer office; it could have been brighter there but for the dark wall panelling.

"Well, what ought I to know?" This was the question he asked each time he returned to the Commissariat. It meant: what telegrams have arrived, any phone calls?

"Lenin telephoned and will call again."

He enters his private office, glancing warily at the telephone out of the corner of his eye. Then he sits down at his desk and after a moment's hesitation ("Shall I wait or call him myself?") he picks up the phone, feeling perhaps as if he were turning the handle of a door behind which sat Lenin. In

to*

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another moment the door would open and Lenin would look up, his face lined with weariness.

The telephone is at his ear. "Yes, Vladimir Ilyich.... This is Chicherin."

The membrane stirs to life; that hum is his voice; as always it sounds a trifle excited.

"Certainly, Vladimir Ilyich," says Chicherin. "Yes, yes---a review. No, not only Europe and America, but the East as well.... The leading newspapers on major issues. Yes, of course."

He hangs up, and sits for a while meditating. "The East...."

And in the meantime, a car flying a pennant has stopped outside the building. Chicherin is receiving today. The conversation lasted for an hour. Through the slightly open door those waiting in the outer office hear Chicherin's parting words to his visitor. The principal matters having been dealt with, all that remains is to wind up the interview with the requisite tact and finesse. A mere formality perhaps, meaningless in itself, yet in the almost palpable hush that falls on the waiting-room the ear strains to catch every word. The visitor's French sounds primitive compared with that of Chicherin. Easily, effortlessly he switches from French to English and back again to French. It occurs to me that this alone might well be disconcerting to the other. In diplomatic jousting, that sort of thing gives the host a definite advantage.

The visitor has gone.

The leading newspapers on major issues. That is what he said to Lenin, wasn't it?

Late that night he outlines his plan to me. "I have promised Lenin to give him a daily summary of foreign press comment on important current problems. On our own problems first, and after that, general problems.... We must be prepared to answer any question, we must memorise names and dates. Incidentally, when did the Versailles Conference open? The date, please! No, that's not a detail. You and I must know dates, that is our profession. Now then, when did it open?"

This is a familiar trick of his. He loves to fire unexpected questions at people like that, half-seriously, half-jokingly.

"Comrade Rybakov, you are a diplomat now. From now on that is your profession, and we must learn to master our profession, like---no, I am not afraid of the comparison---like the boy who is sent to a barrel-maker to learn the trade---until he knows how to make barrel staves he won't earn his bread. No, language is only half the battle! To observe people, to know how to appeal to human nature---that is far more difficult! Dress clothes? To be able to wear a formal evening suit and not to be conscious of it is quite an art. Let it be said of you: 'That man looks as if he was born in an evening suit.'"

Outside the open window lies Moscow, restless even at this late hour.

"I have a little closet here," he says, reaching towards a tiny door cut into the polished wood of the cupboard. "At this hour respectable folk sit down to supper." He opens the little door. "In the old days the master of the house kept his choicest wines and fruit in this closet. Well, let us partake of what the good Lord has sent us, as they say...." He produces a starched white napkin and spreads it over a corner of his desk. "Never was this larder so well-stocked as now!" he laughs as he lays a piece of black bread and a chunk of cheese on the napkin. "I have always preferred black bread to white, that is what gives strength to the working man."

He cuts the bread and cheese into fine slices and makes neat sandwiches.

"Sit down, please," he says, indicating the napkin-covered corner of the desk, and resuming our interrupted talk, he asks: "What sort of a man is The Times correspondent? No, I know that myself. Be more explicit, please. Don't forget that Lenin knows these correspondents far better than we do, and he knows how to get on with them, how to build up relationships which though complicated at times, are deeply sincere, and therefore genuine and enduring. Have you ever thought who John Reed was to Lenin when he first turned up at

GEORGY CHICHERIN

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the Smolny? A foreign correspondent. So was Lincoln Steffens and Robert Minor. Yet how close he brought them to the Revolution! And, mark you, never deviating an iota from his principles! Principles---that is the chief thing!''

As I took leave of him that night I glanced at the desk. A small crust of black bread lay on the white napkin. By some strange association, the events of the whole day flashed before my eyes---the visit of the overseas diplomat, Chicherin's impeccable French, his talk about evening suits and principles.

At noon the windows were thrown wide open revealing a wide expanse of sky, clear and translucent, not at all like a city sky. And everything---the unique pointed roof of the Troitsky Tower, the rectangular building of the Arsenal, and even the clumsy old-fashioned cannons lining the walls---seemed somehow weightless in the autumn air.

I did not see the boy enter and take a seat in the corner, but I remember being aware of the smiles that flitted across the faces of the weary people in the room. He sat before me, holding a large blue envelope, almost as blue as the sky seen through the window. The child's eyes, too, were blue, a grey-blue. If it were not for the ragged footwear (the same sort of footwear Russia had worn all through the war and Revolution), his army tunic, faded by rain and sun and innumerable washings, you would not have given him more than ten. Actually, however, he may have been all of twelve.

``How did you get here?" someone asked him.

For reply the boy indicated the blue envelope that lay on his knees. "I brought this..." he murmured.

``Lenin is busy. He won't be able to see anyone for about three hours. Will you wait?''

The boy pursed his lips. "Yes," he said. "But won't you get hungry?" He sighed. "No....''

Someone hurried out of the room and came back with a glass of tea and a small rusk.

``Dip it in the tea. It's nice with tea.''

The boy did not stir.

Presently a piece of sugar appeared on top of the rusk. A grey lump that had lain who knows how long in someone's pocket or at the bottom of a brief case. The boy glanced at it out of the corner of his eye and smiled. He seemed on the point of weakening. That bit of sugar might make him a child again.

Then he smiled and tore his eyes away from it.

I gazed at the boy with a choking sensation in my throat. There before me, clutching the large blue envelope, sat our Future---stern and inspiring and still so frail. A tiny stream trickling through an open field, the sparkling birth of a great river.

THE BOY

Meanwhile the sun reached the gilded domes of the Kremlin cathedrals and disappeared. Dusk enveloped the ancient walled city.

``Who is waiting to see me?''

It was Lenin. He came into the room briskly yet with a hint of weariness in his step.

``Who's here?''

The boy craned his long neck comically (it looked ready to break!) and half rose:

``Me ... I'm here.''

Lenin stopped and looked at the boy in surprise.

``You? Indeed? Is that envelope for me?''

A worried look crossed the boy's face---was this how his long vigil was to end---Lenin would take the envelope and go?

``The letter ... it's not in our language ... not in Russian..." he faltered.

Lenin smiled.

``We'll make it out somehow," he said. He took the envelope, glanced at it and his eyebrows rose. Then he tore it open and took out several small closely written sheets of paper. "So ... hm." He frowned and suddenly looked tired again. "Have you been waiting long?" he said, glancing at the boy. "Have you eaten today, child? Why have you let your tea get cold? Why haven't you eaten the rusk and the sugar? That will never do. Come along with me. I live next door. Do you know how to light a stove? We'll heat up the dinner all by ourselves and eat!" he said, ruffling the boy's hair.

I heard their steps ringing down the corridor, then I heard a burst of boyish laughter, unexpectedly loud, and then all was quiet again. Silence fell, the silence of a large house where evening meant rest and peace. And perhaps because of that deep hush I seemed to see the two of them walking down the far end of the corridor to the kitchen. I pictured them busy with pots and pans, bustling happily by the stove. Now, perhaps, they were seated at the table and Lenin, his eyes on the boy, had suddenly fallen silent....

This was no ordinary conversation. There, at the other end of the corridor, Lenin was talking to our Future, to that distant cherished time when Russia would cross the threshold on to communism.

Two hours later I saw Lenin again.

``What do you think of that boy?''

He got up, took a turn about the room and stopped beside me.

``Do you know why the children of today are different from children we knew before? Because the burden of suffering they bear is not a child's burden...." He went over to the window and stared out at the square, the Arsenal and the night sky. He had learned something about that boy, something I did not know. He returned to his desk.

THE BOY

THE BOY

``By the way, do you know who that message was from?" Lenin asked. "From Robert Minor! It was he who sent our young friend here. Miner!''

That name echoed in my ears long after I had left Lenin that evening.

Robert Minor was a newspaperman. He was an artist too. I had seen his black-and-white drawings and so had others. The newspaper he edited, The Call (a tiny sheet, printed on coarse grey newsprint and addressed to the interventionist troops in Arkhangelsk), was quite a talented job, done somewhat in the manner of those American newspapers of last century in which the editor was reporter, feature-writer and artist combined.

I must admit that I do not remember much of Minor's articles (evidently because they were rarely signed), but his drawings were most expressive. His pictures done in black Indian ink (not with a pen but a brush) had something of a cartoon and a poster in them. They were exaggerated as a good poster should be. But Minor was not only an editor and artist, he was a correspondent as well. In that capacity he came to see me at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs quite often, bringing with him, as before, a folder of drawings. Coloured drawings had predominated over black-- andwhite ones for some time now, for with peacetime colours had reappeared.

``You know, Minor," I said to him the next time he came to see me, "I happened to meet that messenger you sent to Lenin.''

``Messenger?" he echoed in a worried tone. "Oh, yes....''

We opened the window and Minor went over and looked out over the square. Its stone pavement gleamed under the cool September sun. Pedestrians were hurrying across the square. Somewhere a tramcar clanged.

``My messenger," he repeated. "You reminded me of an incident," he said suddenly. "Would you like to hear the whole story? But not here. Let's go down to the Petrovsky Boulevard. What do you say?''

We liked to take a walk occasionally to that boulevard and sit together under its old trees, from whose cool shadow the blue sky seemed bright and fathomless. And so we made our way down to Neglinnaya and across the Trubnaya Square to the boulevard.

``It happened during my first visit to Russia," he began. "In the summer or early autumn of 1918.... In August I believe. There were as many of my countrymen in Moscow then as there are now, as you well know. And for some reason they all thought it their duty to call on me. To tell the truth, I didn't mind that at all. My folks back home in the States kept open house and people were always dropping in. I daresay I inherited that from them. Well, one day a man by the name of Michael Chamber came to see me. He practically fell on my neck. He was a very picturesque figure, you can believe me, for I have an eye for that sort of thing. The only American touch about his appearance was

his cap and scarf, one of those red-and-grey striped affairs, but for the rest he was dressed like any other Russian, thick-soled topboots, army tunic and trousers. Those wide trousers all your soldiers wear. No, not breeches, I mean the purely Russian variety, a product of our own times. 'Bob,' he said, 'there isn't a livelier city than Chicago in the world. Remember how Chicago rose up when they tried to send Tom Mooney to the chair? And now here I've come straight from Chicago to the Russian forests and swamps! Going to fight Kaledin! BeR ... Dayeshl' He said the last two words in Russian with a perfect pronunciation, and that won me over completely. Think of it, an American worker in command of a Russian partisan unit! Why, that was almost my life-dream fulfilled. In short, we parted the best of friends, agreeing to meet the next day. But he didn't turn up.... Oh dear, what a racket these Russian trams make. Can't hear yourself speak!''

We were crossing Trubnaya Square and the tram coming down the hill from Sretenka was clanging furiously. "Hurry up, then," Minor seemed to say to the tram as if hastening its progress with his eyes.

``A whole week passed and he didn't come. About a fortnight later his wife came to see me. 'Michael has been arrested by the Cheka! His life is in danger. You alone can save him....' That's exactly what she said, I was the only person

ROBERT MINOR

THE BOY

THE BOY

in the world who could help him. To say the truth, I was very distressed by the whole affair. True, I hadn't known the fellow very well, but I had taken a liking to him. Besides, I felt it would be only decent to try and do something for him. The most effective course, I knew, was to write to Lenin. 'Dear Comrade Lenin,' I wrote, 'there has been a fatal misunderstanding.... The

arrested man's wife and I beg you to intervene__You alone__' I decided to

write the letter at once. Poor Michael's wife sat beside me and helped me as best she could. I sent it off. Lenin answered promptly as he always did if a letter was delivered to him personally. He said that everything possible would be done. He promised to let me know in three days. I was almost ready to rejoice in advance. I actually pictured Michael coming to me in his striped scarf and his wide trousers---Three days went by and the letter arrived. I still remember that letter with the even, angular writing: '...The man had deserted.... He had absconded with the regiment's pay.... I cannot intervene on his behalf.'"

Minor sat silent and downcast. The story had revived painful memories. Another tram thundered past and all was quiet again. There was a touch of solemnity about the silence, perhaps because of the pure sky above us, a deep blue touched with gold---a shaft of light from the setting sun, or else a reflection of the golden autumn leaves.

``You can imagine," he went on, "how hard it was for me to face Lenin again, and I used to see him quite frequently in those days. But at last I went. Think of all the just reproaches Lenin had every right to heap on me. But he uttered none. In fact he behaved as if nothing had happened since we had last met. I saw Lenin many times in the next three years and not once did he mention the incident. I even thought he had forgotten it....''

Minor fell silent. The wind stirred the fallen leaves.

``But he hadn't forgotten, had he?" I asked Minor, without looking at him.

He did not reply at once.

``No, he hadn't forgotten. 'Do you know who you sent to me with that letter?' he asked me the other day. He was referring to the boy you saw. I said he was my landlady's son. 'No,' said Lenin, 'he is the son of a Red Army man who was killed in battle near Petrograd.' Ah, I thought, now he is going to say the word I have been expecting these three years. And I was not altogether mistaken. He said: 'Justice must be done, harsh as it may seem.' That was all. In matters of principle he was inflexible.''

That was all Minor told me that time, but these words seemed to carry on a conversation I had had on another occasion.

And to this day each time I pass that house, those distant but never-to-be-forgotten years come vividly back to mind. I see the old-fashioned Rolls-Royce slide noiselessly on to the square and stop at the main entrance. I

hear the click as the door swings open. Passers-by hurrying across the square, slacken their pace.

``Chicherin," someone says.

And Chicherin's deep baritone voice rings in my ears: "Principle, that is the chief thing....''

LENIN. Moscow, April 1920

The Path

he snowstorm was over and the town was lighted by the setting sun. Its oblique rays gave a furry look to the fresh and unsullied surface of the snow. ``I'm like a horse making its way home by instinct," said Reed as we climbed Tverskaya Street. "I always end up here." He indicated a window bright with the sunset glow. "My editor friend is indefatigable." His eye seemed to linger on the window, a little pane of which was open. "Come along with me?"

We climbed to the third floor. Big printing presses were humming downstairs and the whole building seemed to be breathing.

The editor's broad shoulders loomed over a pulpit-like desk; he felt it was better for his health to work standing up.

"Which page-proof are you on, Alexander?" was Reed's cheery greeting---evidently his usual one.

A remarkable transformation took place: the editor's face, which seemed permanently frozen into an expression of stern resolution, lighted up.

"Look, Jack, we've drawn up a questionnaire," he said, turning his eyes, and at the same time his scraggly reddish beard, away from the damp proofs. Pulling off his jacket, he began to roll up his sleeves. "That's it, a questionnaire: 'What are your plans for the future? What is your next step in life to be?' How would you respond to such a barrage?..."

``You're hopeless, Alexander," smiled Reed. ``Don't you ever feel like signing off at the end of the day?"

"I feel like signing on at the end of the day," retorted the editor, pushing his sleeves up higher, "'Your next step?' 'Your plans?'"

THE PATH

"Very well, if you're so determined," said Reed energetically. "Here's your answer: I want to be the steel rail that is struck to sound a fire alarm---or better, to be a bell, only not the sort that is rung at sunset, rising and falling like a whip to call the slaves to prayer; no, not that sort, but a bell that clangs like a million tongues in the middle of the night, rousing people to battle. I want to be a bell."

The editor was a matter-of-fact man, not given to metaphor.

"How would you put that in plain language, Jack?"

"I want to write a book, my second book about Russia, and have it published over there, although...." He paused. "It won't be an easy thing to go back to America this time."

I had learned from the papers that Palmer, Wilson's Attorney-- General, had brought an indictment against Reed and demanded his return to America.

We left the office at midnight.

"You said it wouldn't be an easy thing to go back to America this time," I remarked.

"I meant it would be harder than last time," said Reed.

I remembered the story of how he had made his way to Europe. He came on a freighter working all the time in the stoke-hold. The men on the boat knew him as Jim, Jim Gormley. The freighter reached Bergen safely, where Reed changed to another boat.

"Palmer insists on your coming home and refuses to give you another visa," I said. "There's no sense in what he demands."

"Nor in anything else he does," said Reed.

Three days later I heard that Reed had left.

...A March evening with blue shadows lying on the snow.

A telephone call from the Kremlin.

"Comrade Rybakov, I decided not to wait for you. No, not on such a night! Let's go to Sokolniki---no better woods and snow. We'll take a walk and talk things over. The snow's still firm."

Lenin loved Sokolniki. Last year his wife, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, had taken a house there for the winter and he went out almost every evening. So here we were in Sokolniki, walking in the snow sprinkled with pine needles.

"Remember the explanation of America's progress in the last century?" asked Lenin, turning down the fur collar of his coat, which had become edged with hoarfrost as we walked briskly along. "It was the land to which all the most courageous, ingenious, freedom-loving people of the world streamed---all those who were persecuted and down-trodden...." He had chosen a path running round the edge of the woods, and suddenly from behind a hill we caught sight of a herd of wooden houses. "Time was when the persecuted sought refuge in the New World. Now things are the other way round. And still...." He turned and looked at me. "If people go there now it's only to emancipate their fellow-countrymen."

``You're thinking of Reed?" I asked. Lenin was standing beside me and I could see his face distinctly in the pale light of the snow.

"Yes, Reed," he replied gravely.

"Reed has left Petrograd for America," I said, glancing at Lenin. His face retained its look of sombre concentration. "In the hold of a ship," I added.

THE PATH

"I know. In the hold of a ship. But he was taken off the ship in Abo," Lenin said softly.

"You mean he was arrested?"

"And put in solitary confinement in the municipal jail in Abo," Lenin said in the same soft voice.

"Accused of illegally entering the country?"

"Accused of something much more serious."

He stopped and cast his eye over the woods. They were silent and serene, as was the sky over our heads and the fields beyond the woods. It was as if all the centuries that had passed over these woods and fields had pressed the silence down upon them and turned it into something hard and dense. It was the silence of stone. If the anxiety filling the heart of man were able to pierce that silence, one felt that the sky would shudder and quake.

"Something must be done at once," he said in a scarcely audible voice. "Something must be done."

We went on. I could hear the snow, gripped by the evening chill, crunch under our feet. "Something must be done at once, something must be done."

Spring came late that year, the trees stood half-naked in the cold air, the only one which put out green leaves being an old lime-tree near the Church of

r

JOHN REED, prisoner No. 42 in Abo jail, Finland

THE PATH

THE PATH

Christ the Saviour. It bent down to the water like a pilgrim from a warm clime who, after slaking his thirst, would hasten on his way again.

It was early evening.

"Comrade Rybakov? This is the third time I've called you up. Recognise my voice?" It was not so easy to recognise the voice of the editor with the scraggly beard whom we had seen standing behind the pulpit. "This evening we're receiving a guest from America here in my office. A friend of Liveright."

"Reed's publisher?"

"Yes, Reed's publisher. Sent by Reed's well-wishers to Europe as a kind of chairman of the committee to save Reed, the writer and hero of the fighting in Mexico. He's a very picturesque figure---got twice the beard I have. It's his mission to rouse the press in defence of Reed. His ancestors came from Poltava, he speaks Russian, but we can't very well get along without you. After all, it's America...."

"Has he been to Abo?"

"I think so."

We gathered in the office. Proofs on the pulpit. A glass with the dregs of strong tea. Metal-rimmed glasses lying with rims up and outstretched, like exhausted arms.

The editor spoke over the phone---shouted, pleaded, warned but the hour was so late and he was so tired that all three methods sounded ineffective.

"What do you mean the columns are not elastic? Just you wait, I'll come down there and show you they are elastic. I'll find the place for every damned line." He put down the receiver and glanced at me as if seeking approbation. "They love trite phrases like that: 'The columns are not elastic!'"

An elevator door slammed.

"Must be him?" said the editor, instantly alert.

An elderly man appeared in the doorway. His beard really was twice the size of the editor's. It was coal-black, as was his moustache, but his hair formed a white halo about his head.

"Good evening, good evening." His hand-clasp was youthful and impulsive and he did not immediately release it. "Tea? I've no objections. As the Russians in Frisco say: 'Something nice to set sail with.' And why not something nice to come to harbour with?"

``You've probably had a long trip," put in the editor. "Long and hard. Storms and billows, eh?"

The American looked at the editor. He had sharp eyes.

``You're right. Storms and billows," he remarked evasively.

He sat with his arms on the desk.

"Yes, you're right. Cell number 42. Solitary confinement. Badly heated. Mould on the walls, and he's got pains in his joints. His heart's bothering him for the first time in his life. The old saying's true: rheumatism starts with your hands and feet and ends up in your heart. He's longing for fresh air and open sky. Wrote a letter to Magruder, our consul in Abo. 'You find me guilty? Demand my appearance in court? What are you afraid of? Let me see America, I want to speak to her.' And what was the consul's response? Refused to accept the letter? Returned it? Better if he had refused or returned it. In a word, Reed has been anathematised."

The visitor clenched his fists. The skin went white. The fists trembled.

``He said, `I'm a son of America. My ancestors settled there three hundred years ago. My great-grandfather was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another of my ancestors was a general in Washington's Army. A third was a colonel in the Federal Army during the Civil War. Put me on trial? Go ahead and do it! But no proxies. You may ask me all the questions you like, but you must give me a chance to speak as well."'

``Did he receive a reply?''

``No." He drew over his glass of tea and curled his fingers round it as if feeling the temperature. Evidently he liked his tea to cool off. "The papers say the Americans can't forgive Reed a letter from Lenin they found on his person.''

``A letter from Lenin?''

The old man took a sip of tea.

``Not exactly a letter. A sort of document." He held the glass of tea to his lips and sipped from it to hide his eyes which seemed to be laughing.

``A document given him by Lenin?''

``And what a document!" He slowly drank up his tea before adding: "Lenin's appraisal of his book.''

``That was to serve as a preface to the second edition?" I asked.

``Yes.''

He took out a handkerchief---a bright handkerchief of such enormous proportions that it could hardly be called a handkerchief---and carefully wiped his lips.

``But it's easy enough to prove that the so-called letter from Lenin is nothing but the preface to a book published in New York and already sold in thousands of copies," I protested.

The old man struck the glass with his hand and the glass tinkled; only then did I notice a big ring on his finger set with a large amethyst, usually dark-violet in colour but now deep-red in the electric light.

``When they want to sentence a man, nothing is easy to prove in his defence," he said, his eyes fixed on his empty glass.

"Do you really think Reed is in danger?"

He pushed the glass away as if to inform us he had said all he intended to.

"I am of the opinion that the sentence may be a severe one. Very severe. Anything that you can do through your newspapers...." His hand moved into the circle of light, but the amethyst was dead. ``You've no idea, sir," he said, addressing the editor, "the influence your newspapers exert over there." He waved in the direction of the window and the amethyst suddenly came to life. It was dark outside, morning was still a long way off.

``Perhaps I do have some idea," replied the editor.

It was night, after two o'clock, the only time when peace and quiet reigned in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. A car carrying the last dispatch to the Kremlin drew away from the entrance, indicating that work was over until dawn. The night watchman came down the corridor. I heard the click of electric switches as he turned off lights. The clocks began to tick away the passing of the night with thoughtful precision, as if a mistake would be fatal.

The only light in the corridor came from a far window that gleamed vaguely, like a low pale Polar sun.

11-801

THE PATH

THE PATH

All was quiet. A pile of Russian newspapers which had arrived with the last post from Riga lay on the table. One could not avoid reading the headline: "John Reed, friend of Lenin, executed today in Abo."

I got up and my footsteps echoed loudly in the big empty building. I went outside. The sky overhead was smiling gently, wrapped in a deep blue haze. I fancied that at midnight spring came creeping to the edge of town, spying out the roads and paths along which she would soon enter and take possession. But now everything was quiet and spring's soft footfall was not to be heard.

``Reed ... executed ... friend of Lenin.''

It was something to have earned that name, to be called a friend of Lenin.

I could hear water dripping upon stone. The clouds above Moscow thinned, the sky brightened. I could make out the dark island of the Alexandrovsky Garden and the curve of the Kremlin wall. Behind that wall was the Maly Palace with the windows of Lenin's room in it. Were these windows still glowing with the green light of his desk lamp, or were they dark by now? Perhaps he was not asleep, and perhaps a newspaper was lying in the light of his desk lamp: "Reed ... executed in Abo...." I could see Lenin pacing the floor, pacing it so energetically that the glass in the book-case trembled and the loosely screwed light bulb winked in its socket. Suddenly he halted and clapped his hand to his forehead, as if something had exploded in the depths of

his mind. "Spring of 1920. Who said spring means the whispering of trees, the gleam of the stormy sky? Spring means empty granaries, empty warehouses, bread with more straw than wheat in it, dismal queues, railway stations crowded with people, trains that crawl as if they lacked the strength to turn their wheels, women on the root's of railway carriages, typhoid, and a child's cry heard from one end of the land to the other: 'Bread!'" I could see Lenin pacing the floor, I saw him stop, I heard him sigh: "Everything at once---big griefs and little griefs, and with it all...." Nothing could be more painful than the knowledge of one's helplessness, one's inability to do anything at all.

I walked on. Clouds gathered, the sky darkened, and midnight once more descended upon the city.

A new thought struck me. When Reed spoke of his second book that evening in the editor's office, he meant a book not so much about Russia as about Lenin. There comes a moment to every man when suddenly he sees everything with new eyes and the unspeakable richness of his surroundings is made clear to him. Such a moment came to Reed as a result of his meeting with Lenin. For Reed Lenin was a world of inexhaustible resources; that was why Reed studied Lenin so closely, always discovering something new. I have no doubt but that Reed's red leather memo book was filled with notes on Lenin, and it is highly probable that many of the remarks he made to me were entered in this book:

Part of the manuscript of Lenin's preface to John Reed's book, Ten Days That Shook the World

JOHN REED

THE PATH

THE PATH

``Inside the Kremlin, in the Tainitsky Garden at the foot of a hill runs a little path, during these 'white nights' it almost glows. Our midnight talks usually end up on this path. On this path I have had the world revealed to me in a new light---" And again: "My life is divided into two parts: before knowing Lenin and after knowing him. No one has ever given me as much as he has." And this one, evidently while Reed was still under the impression of a recent interview: "He looked at the sun, and his eyes seemed to be gold, pure gold---radiant eyes, full of mischief and kindness, as well as of solemn wisdom---" And the last: "Sometimes I feel that the book is ready, it has become a part of me, nothing can come between us now, nothing can keep me from writing it, not even iron bars on the window, not even the stone prison walls that may lie in wait for me. I am ready to scratch the whole book on the walls with a nail---yes, with a nail.''

Again the sky was covered with clouds and the dawn seemed to have receded for ever. Would morning ever come?

It did come. A cold morning, unexpectedly clear, dawned. White clouds were sailing over the Kremlin, over the white columns of its churches, its towers, belfries and cathedral domes.

A Rolls-Royce stood at the entrance to the Maly Palace. Lenin was evidently about to set out for the trade-union conference opened the day before.

I met him on the stairway. His face was grave but bore no traces of the sadness. Evidently he had not yet heard the news; the night telegrams would be waiting for him when he returned from the conference. Perhaps I should keep my news until later.

``You seem to have something on your mind, Comrade Rybakov.''

I stopped.

``You want to tell me something, don't you?''

``Yes, Vladimir Ilyich.''

``Then out with it, tell me quickly," he said as we left the house.

A gust of cold wind seemed to strike us.

``They've executed Reed in Abo." Having blurted out my news, I turned to Lenin and could hardly believe my eyes. Lenin was laughing.

``I saw it myself in the Riga papers.''

``Nonsense!" he said. "Nonsense, I tell you. You've been taken in again by that broadcast. Reed's alive and kicking.''

He walked briskly to the car.

``Yes, indeed, Reed's alive, and we're getting him back to Russia by means of an exchange," he said as he walked. ``I've been informed the Finns want back the professors we arrested for counter-revolution." He turned to me, still laughing. "That's hardly patriotic, to pay two Finns, and professors at that, for one foreigner. But let them have the two of them. The fact is I'd willingly give them back a whole faculty for Reed.''

He no longer seemed to be in a hurry and the waiting car seemed out of place, somehow.

``One day on the path in the Tainitsky Garden Reed said to me, `I've seen the birth of a new world.' That's what he said---`I've seen it.'"

Lenin got in the car and rode away. I had observed a certain anxiety growing in him as he spoke. He was worried about Reed.

June passed. Dust settled on the foliage of the Kremlin gardens. The heat of the sun, captured in the stone buildings, in the sky and the slowly cooling water was felt until late at night. The work of the day had long been over and the Kremlin government building was empty, yet all the windows were still wide open. Dusk entered the rooms, weaving little nests for itself in remote corners, forming dim veils on glass, tiles, and polished wood. And along with the dusk came silence.

``Is anybody here?" Lenin's voice rang out loudly in the empty rooms. "Is anybody here?" he asked again, coming out of his office. His jacket was open and a dark tie with oblique stripes (very smart for Lenin, probably donned in honour of the fine weather) looped above his vest. "Comrade Rybakov! Here's news for you! Reed is in Moscow and is on his way here!" He made for the telephone. "Commandant? At the Troitsky Gates---Reed, John Reed, an American Communist...." I heard him clap down the receiver. "Comrade Rybakov, where are you? Surely you can't have gone!''

I was waiting, but not there. I was outside, on a hill beyond the Kremlin churches. Too much had happened since their last meeting for me to intrude upon this one. Below me glimmered the path Reed had spoken about. A branch cracked and fell as if it had been broken off. Two figures came down the path....

John Reed's note to V. I. Lenin (From Reed's note-books. November, 1917)

LENIN and delegates to the 2nd Congress of the Comintern. Petrograd, July 19, 1920

Friend

left the building a few minutes before midnight. The moon had risen

T across the Moskva River and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower traced a

•^ sinister shadow across the Kremlin's flagstones. Silence stole over the

city, accompanied by the chilly breath of greenery and the mists of midnight's

darkness. The quiet seemed to be spreading from the narrow path of the

Moskva River. The moon was burnishing the dim gold of the cupolas. A voice

would have echoed far in this vast silence.

Two figures could be seen on the road where the Kremlin hill descends to the river. The moon had already laid its weightless fingers on their shoulders---they were Lenin and Reed, and the latter was talking. I had previously noticed that he could speak in terms that were at once simple and lofty. The simplicity of his speech stemmed from his maturity and craving to be understood by all. As far as his lofty notes---this probably grew out of his very nature, for he was a poet. Hastening my step, I passed them both. But the closer I came to the Kremlin gate the slower I walked. It seemed as if the animation of those two out there had somehow infected me.

Lenin's choosing to talk to Reed so late at night was not mere chance. It had been the same, I had been told, in Petrograd where the two had met in the room with silver-lilac walls. One half of that room had served as Lenin's study and the other had been partitioned off as his bedroom. Their talk usually began in the study and finished at midnight with a cup of tea on the other side of the partition.

FRIEND

FRIEND

I was about to step from the sidewalk on to the road, when I heard steps behind me. Turning I saw John Reed in the moonlight.

``I've been watching you for about three minutes," he confessed. "Are you in a hurry?''

``No," I said walking slower. "Then let's go on together.''

He was still three steps behind me, making no effort to shorten the distance; and I, too, kept my pace. The moon slid behind the clouds, but I could see Reed quite well. He looked like a worker: his back was broad and slightly bent, and his arms were short and strong. He was dressed plainly too---in a very ordinary grey or dark suit and a white shirt with a turn-down collar unfastened by a button or two. The shirt faintly reflected the dim light of the moon. A gust from the river was touched with the fusty smell of rotting wood. Reed raised his shoulders in a shudder.

"The sky is dark down South now," he said looking up. "And the stars ... each bigger than a fist." He looked at his own fist and laughed.

``Are you talking of Mexico, the country of General Pancho?" I asked.

``No, why Pancho?" he smiled and raised his fist. "Viva Pancho! Viva Villa!" He was a step ahead of me now, and threw me a slanting glance. "He had a kind heart, you know! It's so important to have a kind heart! And character. As for character---that's more important in such a man than even kindness. It must be, I think.''

He was walking beside me now. His slightly protruding eyes and large chin made his face expressive, though a trifle ugly. His eyes, high forehead and lips were pleasant, though his features were out of proportion. These were details one did not care to notice, for he was a handsome man, on the whole.

Reed slackened his pace and suddenly stopped. "Just a minute. Let me catch my breath." His hand went to his chest. "Heart trouble?"

"Yes. My heart's in my throat, as the doctors say." He coughed the cautious cough of a man with heart trouble. "All right! I've caught my breath now." He tried to smile. "Let's go on, but not too fast."

We walked on slowly, very slowly. That dry, crackling cough had broken into our talk unwanted, and could have spoiled it beyond repair. But Reed was silent for only a moment.

"There was something missing even in General Pancho. Something important!" Reed said. His animation showed that he wanted to talk about Pancho, that anything else meant little to him now.

Reed had once felt that there should have been a second man beside the general: a friend and comrade-in-arms. He did not hesitate to use the word' ``commissar''. Reed had indeed thought that the presence of such a man would be dictated by the course of events, by the logic of life, but had been mistaken, for no such figure appeared. It sometimes seemed to him that the fire of the revolution was like the furious flames in the bowels of the earth. If they failed to break through at one spot, they would surely force their way through at another.

Silent he pondered for a moment and said:

"Here's another thing I'd like to say: even before I'd ever heard about Lenin I knew that such a man must come. He simply had to come. I who had seen Pancho realised this very well."

He grew animated again. Pancho and Lenin. The question had been settled as far as he was concerned, but it had been difficult for him to make up his mind. It is hardly likely that the one yielded place to the other in his mind without a struggle. Nothing occurs in life without a struggle. There must have been a time when both had attracted him equally and he had not been able to make up his mind which to prefer.

We emerged on Red Square.

"Great events are maturing over there!" His eyes indicated the sky whose eastern edge lay straight ahead. "Lenin said that the banners of liberation are moving eastward." He kept looking ahead.

There was no trace of dawn as yet. The sky was dark, seemed even dead, and it was incredible that the black ice of night would thaw first in that part of the sky.

"The East," he reiterated pensively. "Lenin said it would be there.... Lenin!"

We said good-bye to each other.

PANCHO VILLA

JOHN REED in Russia. 1917

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"Are you leaving?" I called to him, as he was walking away.

"Yes, tomorrow."

He was silent, then repeated:

"Tomorrow!"

I followed him for a long time with my eyes as he walked away into the night across Red Square. He stopped half-way and looked around, as if he were seeing it for the first time. What did this posture mean? Was he astonished by the unusual aspect of the square---it was especially solemn and beautiful at this late hour---or had he paused to think of where he had got to, and what had brought him here? "The banner of liberation is moving eastward...." Reed stood on the shores of a new sea, ready to face its turbulent elements. "The banner of liberation...."

Reed left Moscow. Nothing was heard of him for a time. Then came a newspaper note or two.... These tidings were scanty, but one tried to fill them in. It was like watching a motor-car moving along a mountain road in the dark. Its lights flash and fade over a ridge hidden by a rocky wall, but then cut through the darkness only to vanish again, and for a long time. But then one sees them once more, not the headlights actually, but their rays lifted to the sky. And finally the whole car appears, a little ship driven towards the open sea by a chance wave.

The days passed as usual. August came to an end and September began. It was still warm in Moscow, but the leaves had changed colour in the parks; the night sky was no longer as bright as in the summer, it seemed deeper, bluer and had more stars, and the winds carried the fragrance of autumn. A telegram arrived from Baku: a congress of the peoples of the East had opened in that city. The whole of the revolutionary East would be sure to be there---some 1,500 delegates. Then came another telegram: Reed had greeted the delegates of the congress (the lights had flashed once more on the ridge).

I could picture Reed ascending the rostrum, replying to the storm of greetings with a wave of his hand. But the hall continued to thunder: "America!" Reed's face grew stricter, the furrow between his eyes deeper and sterner, in contrast to the dimple in his chin. "Comrades..." (now the lights in the mountains had vanished for a long time).

It was evening when I received a phone call from the Kremlin. "Sevres.... Need information on the Sevres agreement...." My car descended Kuznetsky Most and turned into Neglinnaya Street. Dusk was setting in but the street lights had not yet been lit. The lilac tint of the twilight foretold a storm. The air was heavy and the city was steaming hot. Lenin had probably finished his last session. The hour had come when he would switch off the ceiling lights,

The Congress of the Peoples of the East. Baku, 1920 Third from the right (sitting)---JOHN REED

>-

Delegates to the 2nd Congress of the Comintern on the Mars Field (centre---JOHN REED)

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draw his desk lamp closer, and the green gloom of its shade would spread over his papers, his long shiny scissors and his marble desk set. This was the hour he waited for, the hour when he could form a mental picture of the major and minor affairs of the world. "There's Sevres.... What made the allies choose that place for negotiations? Wasn't Sevres once the headquarters of the Kaiser? Is this a demonstration?"

The car rolled into the Kremlin. There was more light here than in the city. Daytime parted with Moscow on the Kremlin hill. But all this light, perhaps, came from the reflections of the white-walled Kremlin buildings. A whitewashed house is always brighter. But evening had already invaded this section, too. It shone in the palace windows mirroring the warm fading twilight. The two large windows of Lenin's study were half dark. The light they shed did not come from the green shade of his desk lamp; it was a quivering, yellow light.

The waiting room was unusually quiet. Though the window was open, the odour of stale tobacco smoke remained from daytime.

"Yes, yes, please come in!"

I had come through that door many a time, and always with the same feeling. My heart always raced as I reached for the knob.

"Ah, the interpreter...."

He could never resist jesting. It was innocuous, but shook the windows with his laughter. Laughter was frequently heard in his study. It could be heard in the corridor outside, and when the study door was open, in the waiting room, too. The visitors waiting to see Lenin always brightened when they heard him laugh. "Ilyich is laughing," they would say, "and that's a good sign." Those who came to this place, however, knew that it should not be overestimated, good omen though it was. Ilyich was always laughing and always exacting.

"Sit down," he said to me now. "A bit nearer." He liked to have people sitting next to him. "Own up: your father is offended with me, isn't he? Eh?"

"But of course not, Vladimir Ilyich!"

"No, I know he is. I see him sitting in his room, pondering over his logarithms and grumbling: 'Ah, this Lenin has distracted my son from the real business?' And you probably think the same, don't you?"

"No, Vladimir Ilyich."

He was silent for a moment.

"Of course, it's fine when a working man dreams of locomotives---that's a dream about our country's strength! But diplomacy, the new diplomacy...." He rose and walked to the middle of the room, looking out the window from a distance without coming close to it, his eyes on the clouds which were being swept away by the wind. "Just think, Comrade Rybakov, in the great dispute between the two worlds, a dispute without precedent in its scale and fierceness, our truth must be upheld by the mind and intellect! And if you were entrusted with upholding that truth---then what sort of fellow would you have to be? Eh, Rybakov? What about Sevres?"

Now I realised where the quivering light came from. The electric lights had been switched off in the Kremlin (this, it appeared, could happen even in the

Kremlin after three years of Revolution). The stearin candles were lit on Lenin's desk, their steady flames shedding an even light.

"Did I say Sevres? I'm interested in Turkey. What else is known about their reaction to that treaty? No, I don't mean the Turkish press alone. Istanbul! What does Istanbul say? Information.... We need extensive information from that country itself. Do you understand?"

He donned his spectacles, an old pair in a thin metal frame, and at once ceased looking like himself. I saw a picture of him in spectacles once, but that was later, much later.

His eyes swept through a sheet of small print at an incredible speed. He had his own method of reading, often beginning from the end, for he thought that would give him the gist of the matter quicker. "That affair in Sevres," he said, "will only hasten developments in the East, you know." He removed his glasses and promptly became the man I had seen in so many photographs. "It will hasten events in the East." He leaned back in his chair, still holding his spectacles. His eyes were fixed on some point in the air. He then rose, his features grave. ``I've just had a medical report." He handed me a grey sheet of paper. "John Reed is ill."

For a minute there was only silence, except for the sputtering of the stearin candles.

"Typhus, Vladimir Ilyich?"

"Yes."

"Has the crisis passed?"

"No. He's in it now."

Noticing my anguish, he added:

"But he's thirty-three, and that's promising in itself, isn't it?"

In the quiet disturbed only by the sizzling of the candles I could almost hear Reed's cautious heart-trouble cough.

"But his heart, Vladimir Ilyich."

"Heart?"

He rose, took the carafe of water from his desk, and went to the potted palm in the room. This was a habitual gesture when he wanted to master his agitation. Picking a pine twig from the tub, he dug up the ground at the trunk, as though trying to help the little tree to drink.

"I had a letter from him only last week," he said, his eyes on the palm tree. "Reed wrote that his wife had just arrived from overseas." He returned to his desk and put the carafe back. "The letter was business-like, of course, except for that detail: from overseas." His voice shook. He was perturbed by Reed's letter, or by something connected with it. "Reed," he said in a firmer tone, "will always be dear to us for having understood the main thing. The main thing! And that was not altogether easy for him. Not easy."

I saw a new side of Lenin's character that evening. Trying to explain his attachment to Reed, someone once suggested: ``Wasn't Reed Lenin's adviser on American affairs, perhaps?" He was not. There was no need for such an adviser. He was, more likely, a friend and companion. What did Lenin find attractive in him? His love of the new Russia and ability to understand the country? Undoubtedly. His loyalty to the principles of the Revolution? Of course. His intellect? This too, of course. But that was not all. A man of active will, Lenin was drawn to a generous heart when he found one in a man, to

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human affection, solicitude, charm, and all the qualities that keep the blood of man warm.

I took leave of Lenin and returned to my car. I was driving through nocturnal Moscow now. The red pile of the History Museum seemed huddled in the dark. Though they were misty and indistinct, I could see the red bricks even in the black of that starless night. The clouds high above had obliterated the last star. But up there and all around I saw the one anxious word: "Crisis!" The car was climbing the uneven cobble-stones of Kuznetsky Most. "Crisis, crisis....''

A man was facing death under that sky somewhere. He was locked in battle. Everything had faded in him, even his consciousness; only his heart was still beating (the heart is the last to go). AH the words he had ever spoken came to his pillow that night: ``I'm going to read Joe Hill, listen: 'If I've got to be a soldier, I'll march beneath a red banner....' Tell me.... How did that Russian song begin?... Just tell me the first words.... I've forgotten.... I've forgotten everything." The words must have crowded in, all of them, but the strength to remember them was ebbing---My car ascended Kuznetsky Most, higher and higher. I looked at the sky: the clouds parted and closed again. There was a glimmer or light, none of which reached the earth.

Three days later I was summoned to the Kremlin again with a new folder of information regarding the Sevres agreement. A session of the Council of People's Commissars was in progress. It was after ten o'clock at night and the waiting room was empty. The last visitor had evidently just been invited into the study. His cigarette still lay smoking in the ash-tray. Then I heard the chairs moving back in the room where the session was being held. The door opened and I had a view of Lenin. He was giving some last instructions to the secretaries, answering an unexpected question or two, and offering a few jesting words of encouragement to a comrade who had just been raked over the coals. That moment at the end of his sessions was always the jolliest and noisiest. But now an unusual silence suddenly enveloped the hall and the talk broke off in mid-sentence. Lenin stood behind his large desk, looking at a strip of paper Tying before him. Someone had handed it to him with a few words just when he was about to leave. He had handed him the message timidly, as though afraid it would hurt him.

``John Reed," said Lenin very distinctly, and perhaps a little louder than usual, "has passed away.''

The silence deepened. Everything I could see in that hall, through the open door, even the hazy outlines of clouds beyond the windows, seemed frozen for an instant.

Lenin received me only at midnight, sitting at his desk, his features ashen.

He was very tired that day.

``That's the sort of storm Sevres has raised in the East!" he said, when he finished reading the papers I had brought. "And it's only the beginning." His eyes roamed the great map of Asia on the wall. "It's time the continents arose!" He stood up and approached the map quickly, as he was accustomed to do when engaged in polemics, when a quickly found word could settle the issue. "The East...." He stopped short. His features grew grim and his hand.... But he did not lift his hand. It still lay on the blue patch of the Caspian Sea. "He was a good man," he said quietly. Some association had returned his mind to Reed. "There are laws that guide the peoples to revolution. And Reed knew those laws.''

Night. I was again walking across Red Square. This was the spot where I had stood with Reed. He had gone to the middle of the square where he had stopped, looking around for a long time. "There are laws that guide the peoples to revolution." Peoples and individuals, I thought. John Reed had travelled through the world. He had crossed the oceans and come exactly to this spot, to rest beside the Kremlin wall forever.

John Reed's grave by the Kremlin wall on Red Square, Moscow

LENIN in his Kremlin office. Moscow, October 1918

A Day

enin was seeing me increasingly in the evening.

T "I read in I'Humanite today," he said, glancing towards a stand •*-"' by the window, upon which files of the foreign newspapers he received lay, "that the Bavarian government is headed by a certain Kahr. What links him to the Reichswehr?''

As I answered his question he sat back a little in his armchair, his eyes half-closed: it was not by chance, I thought, that at such a late hour he preferred listening to any other activity, for this enabled him to relax.

``Just a moment, though, we must think of something more effective here," he said, walking over to the newspaper stand. He selected a file and opened it. "I can't see the picture, you know: I want at least to know what London, Washington and Paris are thinking.''

He had already spread open I'Humanite, looking for the report he needed, which he read through twice.

``But I have interrupted you? Please go on.''

Sometimes, while continuing to listen, he would push a notebook towards himself and rapidly fill it with jottings. He had his own system of abbreviations which, though unexpected, were extremely efficient and thoroughly justified by practice, bringing what he wrote close to shorthand.

``Don't you think that Mr." (here Lenin named an English correspondent who had recently arrived in Moscow) "will never understand or accept the revolution? No, you tell me---yes or no?" He listened attentively, bent low over the table, looking at me with slightly narrowed eyes. "Say what you will,

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he cannot forgive us the oilfields. Subtleties don't enter into it---it all comes down to those oilfields!"

It was already late in the evening when he suddenly got up from his chair.

"Do me a favour, Comrade Rybakov," he said, "tell me again how you brought that distinguished guest here in a car---that influential German" (Lenin named him). "I have never heard anything funnier than that story! Do tell me it again!" He raised his hand and called through the open door: "Who's there? Come in here quickly and listen to this! So, the car turned over and you saw the driver was behind the wheel with his legs in the air; and our guest hi the same position? I was told that you sat like that until morning, afraid of disturbing our illustrious guest. Ah, you and your ... tactfulness!"

To me it seemed that he was looking for humorous situations and was delighted when he found them. In laughter he could relax and build up his inner reserves; some part of his life-loving energy came from this source.

But this time even laughter was unable to gain mastery over his tiredness.

"Just a minute," he said more quietly, "and we'll find out how well you know America. What have you heard about Vanderlip? No, not the

economist---the financial magnate." He was looking at me searchingly, but speaking now to himself rather than me. "Vanderlip...."

Rain fell and the years seemed fall away from the city. A dull evening drew in. A couple hurried past, splashing the puddles, then a car snorted and began trembling on its spindly wheels. Steam wreathed the drenched sides of a draught horse as it dragged a heavy load. In the night the white columns of the Bolshoi Theatre suddenly flashed up.

The curtain had already risen when a man in black entered a box. One could easily see him without straining one's eyes, for he sat close to the edge of the box, a small hand resting on its red plush. The man's interest had yet to be caught by events on the stage and his shifting gaze roved around the theatre as he looked at the audience and, perhaps, showed himself off a little. He wore a black, striped suit, a starched collar and a brocade tie with a pearl tie-pin of the kind worn in the last century. He was, of course, a foreigner, perhaps only recently arrived in Moscow; if he was not a diplomat, this visit to the Bolshoi Theatre would, in a way, be comparable to the presentation of his credentials. Here he would introduce himself, if not to the whole country, then to Moscow. Who could this man be? An influential public functionary from a British dominion? A successful American businessman? (American businessmen, even successful ones, were always just a little old-fashioned.)

The man was now looking at the stage and smiling. The music seemed to affect him like sunshine and he absorbed it through his eyes and the skin of his

The Bolshoi Theatre during the 5th All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Moscow, July 1918

? • < •# • .....

5 iMtfeHMUMOk.tlMttCi 't. S« ti nttflC ?raw ,t i r g,ft«T6 SA/UAt nVUtfdn (WO R M*i»f\ OOEIM AW n iwsri IUAIC. wsitflnck n

A ROSTA (Russian Telegraph Agency) poster dealing with transport dislocations. Text by Vladimir Mayakovsky. 1920

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hands and face. Even if he had only just set foot in the city, he was certainly an American: only an American could feel so much at his ease two days after arriving in a foreign city. The man clapped generously and his smile, too, expressed benevolence. From time to time he turned back into the half-darkness of the box, still smiling, and shared his impressions with someone sitting there; his words were as amiable as his applause.

Three days later I saw the foreigner in the street. He was walking along Kuznetsky Most, wearing a rain-coat and the sort of boots prospectors in Alaska wear. He stopped to look at a horse struggling up the hill and at a shop-window; absolutely nothing struck him as much as that window. Unbuttoning his coat, he took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Who could this man be and what had brought him to Moscow?

The question was not one that particularly exercised me, yet for some reason I sought the answer to it, balancing the various possibilities in my mind. How long this would have continued I cannot say, had I not discovered the next day a newspaper photograph of the man in the rain-coat. There, in black and white, he was described as "Vanderlip, the American industrialist visiting Moscow''.

My thoughts returned again to the aims of the American's mission. He had brought a draft Soviet-American agreement with him, but what sort of agreement? It was evidently concerned with economic matters: concessions, perhaps? But where? In the Far East, doubtless. The press was seeking to comment on the agreement, noting that if the Vanderlip plan were adopted, the prospective benefits for the Americans would be considerable. But there was another view, according to which no one went to Moscow without the knowledge of the State Department and that Vanderlip's mission had been inspired by Warren Harding, a presidential candidate. In the coming struggle with the Democrats the American banker with his initiative would have a role to play. At any rate, Vanderlip had arrived in Moscow.

And then I saw Vanderlip in the reception room of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He had just had an interview with Chicherin and his mind was still full of the impressions he had received. He walked out of Chicherin's office, then stopped, his eyes bright; his cheeks were mantled with the bright flush of an old man and his fluffy, grey hair was standing up. As he stood in the middle of the reception room he tried vainly to fasten an enormous and unwieldy yellow brief case, which was adorned with name-plates and straps. The numerous locks of the case presented a considerable problem to Vanderlip, but he mastered them. Stamping his feet in a comical manner, he moved towards the exit; then, remembering something important, stopped and stood in the middle of the room, looking around like a man who had found himself in the middle of an empty field and was not sure of where to direct his steps. Then his gaze halted on a girl sitting behind a table and after repeating insistently "Mister Chicherin has promised to call me, he has promised..." Vanderlip left.

The door into the corridor remained open and I could hear his brief case squeaking for a long time.

Chicherin came in, the black silk on the back of his waistcoat gleamed dully. Without stopping, he rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his arms from wrist to elbow.

``Call a stenographer!" He loved to work like this, in his waistcoat, with his sleeves rolled up. "Has the American gone?" He listened, his eyes on the open window, through which the sound of a departing car could be heard.

``Excellent! Ring him in an hour's time and tell him that Lenin will receive him tomorrow at eleven o'clock." Chicherin again glanced through the window; the sound of the car had died away. "Comrade Rybakov, you will go with him: there will have to be an interpreter!" He turned and walked rapidly into his office. "Send a stenographer!''

It was the middle of a Moscow morning; Vanderlip had been informed that I would call for him at 10.15. The city was covered with thick, white fog, as if one were on a bridge, under which a locomotive was belching smoke. Passers-by, horses, churches and houses were transformed into silhouettes. My car slowly nosed forward, barely moving as it passed St. Basil's Cathedral, the domes of which were cut off by the fog. The car moved cautiously over the bridge and along the barrier of the Sofiiskaya Embankment. It was 10.15 and our quest would certainly have breakfasted by now. He would have smoked his after-breakfast cigarette by the fire and perhaps was now standing by the window, looking across at the other side of the river. The massive structures on the other bank stood out through the mist:

LENIN talks with the English writer HERBERT WELLS. Moscow. The Kremlin. October 1920

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whether one liked it or not, one had to look up at it. The Kremlin that stood on the other side of the river; Lenin was there.

It was gloomy and airless in the mansion and there was a smell of smouldering birch logs and mild tobacco. An old footman with white sideburns led me inside.

``Everyone has gone," he said as he mounted the stairs to the drawing room, his knees cracking unpleasantly. "Everyone has gone.''

The footman seemed to have been forgotten by his former masters, like the bronze wall lamps and a card-table with curved legs, put out for some reason into the corridor, a glossy, leather armchair and a table lamp on a massive, leaden stand---in historical novels the author disposes of his characters with a stand like that.

``Everyone has gone," said the footman, entering a drawing room, the windows of which looked out on the Kremlin. "There is only..." he glanced towards an open door, leading into a neighbouring room.

At the door stood Vanderlip. He was in the same black suit I had seen him wearing at the Bolshoi Theatre; his brocade tie, fastened by a pin, was also the same.

``They have all gone---even Wells has gone!" he said in English. "I invited him to attend the ballet and to visit the market---the Sukharevsky market. Did I say that correctly? I invited him, but he refused. Eh-eh-eh, he said there was a boat leaving Revel for Stockholm on Wednesday.... Oh-oh-oh.''

He was almost gabbling. In order to follow the rhythms of his speech, one had to accustom oneself to it, to become used to his laconic, somewhat flashy, often aphoristic style. Who was it who said that the structure of the English sentence is something immutable, in which the indispensable elements of subject and predicate must be present? Vanderlip had certainly not been created for the language---the language had been created for Vanderlip. One should treat the language as one treated money: the more freely one behaved towards it, the more fully it would serve one. If this made Vanderlip occasionally incomprehensible to his interlocutors, then so much the worse for them: in the end, it was up to them to get used to him. They should know who it was they were dealing with.

We checked our watches.

``There's still time. Take me by a roundabout route---through Red Square, if you can. There is nothing more beautiful than that square." He climbed into the car. "What is being called the Vanderlip mission is just me. I have neither secretary nor interpreter---there's just me!" he repeated, laughing. "A civilised American journeys into Bolshevik Russia. Before I left America, my friends told me that it was rather like Stanley's travels through the African jungles." He chuckled, his hand, fingers widely spread, clasping his chest over the heart as if he was afraid it might fall out. "Ah-ah-ah.... That is how they see Russia, eh?" Continuing to chuckle, he threw back his head and fixed his gaze on the domes of St. Basil's Cathedral.

The fog thinned and the domes came into view, one displaying a black hole, the result of an artillery shell.

``What caused that?" he asked.

``A shell.''

His face fell.

``The revolution?" He turned his eyes towards me, his smile gone and with it the healthy rubicundity of his complexion. His face had become colourless.

``Yes, the revolution," I said.

He shifted his gaze rapidly from side to side, obviously looking for something to talk about that would take us away from this unpleasant theme. Across a wall right in front of us ran the words: "Religion is the opium of the people.''

``Do you see?" he asked, glancing towards the inscription. "Oh-oh-oh.... The last time I was here with Wells, I said: 'That inscription isn't serving any purpose here, I would wash it off.' But he did not agree. He said that it was a part of history and should be preserved as such, even if we did not like it very much: that inscription had been written by the hand of the Revolution." Vanderlip's shoulders moved convulsively: the word had thrust its way unwelcomed into his conversation. "The Vanderlip mission," he remarked, glancing at his brief case. We were entering the Kremlin. "Nowadays even diplomatic couriers are wary of travelling by themselves, but I like it. Eh-eh-eh....''

It was a strange habit, the interjection of those sounds into his speech, and probably arose from Vanderlip's unfettered way with the language. I had already noticed that the sounds were without a precise meaning: ``eh-eh-eh'' could mean both ``yes'' and ``no'', the difference in intonation being imperceptible even to the practised ear.

I looked at Vanderlip. He was silent and had entirely retreated into himself. What was ripening in the depths of his consciousness? He had locked away his heart and mind in the strongest of safes, in which he kept the sanctum sanctorum of his being. Only such trivial and essentially insignificant signs as a glint in the eye, the hitching of his right shoulder, an old man's pursed lips or a light perspiration on his brow could disclose what he was feeling. But how could all this be translated into the language of elementary ideas; how was a man's state of mind to be explained? Who was it who said that the quality of observation is native to an artist? And to a diplomat? Can one conceive of a diplomat without eyes?

We walked the long Kremlin corridors, Vanderlip remaining silent. In his thoughts he was already in Lenin's office: at this moment he was doing no more than run through his views, but before another minute had passed he would throw himself into battle.

We went into Lenin's office. Not a word had been said as yet, not one, but already abundant, soft light had enveloped us. A Kremlin square, cathedral domes and the limitless sky could be seen through the windows.

``How long it has taken me to reach here....''

It was Vanderlip talking, a smile on his face; he really looked as if he had reached the end of a long ascent.

Lenin asked us to sit down. Vanderlip snapped the locks of his brief case, which sprang open.

``Mr. Prime-Minister, I am depending on a frank talk.''

The room was, indeed, full of light. Everything in it was lit up by the sun and clearly to be seen---even the titles of books and the tiny print of newspapers.

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A DAY

``Yes, a completely frank talk. Our present naval strength should not be underrated, but in two years we shall be even stronger; yes, in 1923 Great Britain will yield supremacy over the seas to us.''

Two sentences had been enough to give Vanderlip back his confidence and eloquence. He had no further need of the papers he had extracted from his brief case: everything he wanted to say to Lenin was tidily pigeon-holed in his mind. In two years America would become mistress of the seas. The Soviet prime-minister was mistaken if he thought that America feared Japan: America had confidence that it would achieve victory in the Pacific Ocean. This, perhaps, was historical optimism. In a word, America would be obliged to fight Japan. But this was impossible without kerosene and petrol: America needed Kamchatka. Vanderlip wanted to say quite frankly: sell us Kamchatka! The deal would not be advantageous to America alone. Lenin should bear in mind that he was concerned to obtain recognition from America. There would shortly be elections and in March a new president would enter the White House: Harding. Yes, Vanderlip could guarantee that there would be a new president in the White House. The power of the Democrats was on the wane; even in the South, where they had been strong since time immemorial, they were suffering defeats. Kamchatka would give America petrol and Red Russia popularity among the American people and, consequently, recognition. Vanderlip was a Republican and that, today, meant a lot. The Democrats were losing ground rapidly. If Lenin had any doubts about selling Kamchatka, he could lease it, but in that case Vanderlip could not guarantee recognition.

I noticed that Vanderlip was talking more carefully to Lenin. It was as if he were challenging him: "Let us speak English, then we shall understand each other better." But Lenin adhered to his rule of never conducting official conversations except through an interpreter.

``Well then, Mr. Prime-Minister? Eh-eh-eh....''

Lenin was looking at his guest. What was passing through Lenin's mind? Perhaps he was wondering how, on such a brilliant day, this man could expose to general view what people had for many ages been ashamed of.

``I am speaking frankly: I have nothing to hide," Vanderlip repeated.

Lenin rose, indicating with a gesture that the American could remain seated: he merely wanted to take a few steps around his room. Lenin liked to walk from one corner of the room to the other during conversations, glancing, perhaps, through the window on to the square and following a car or passer-by with his eyes.

``I am a practical man," Vanderlip said.

Lenin smiled. There had been no meeting of minds during this conversation; now, Vanderlip was turning to the personal.

``Then take a look at the Soviet system and introduce it into your country," said Lenin with a laugh.

Vanderlip leaped to his feet and approached Lenin.

``Perhaps," he said in Russian.

``So you speak Russian?''

The American waved his hand: he was at a loss.

``Well, there isn't a single Siberian region I haven't travelled around on horseback.''

Lenin looked closely at his guest: Vanderlip's interest in the Russian Far East had a background, it seemed.

``I have received your letter," Lenin said.

Vanderlip's eyebrows shot up.

``And your reaction?''

Lenin approached him, coming very close; menacingly close, it seemed to me. Now, I thought, Lenin would give our distinguished guest to understand with a single, perceptibly brusque, word what land it is that blooms beyond the window, what sun it is that shines down on it and who, ultimately, it is with whom he is talking.

``The conclusion of an agreement presupposes the possession of plenary powers by both sides," Lenin observed sternly: it was part of his nature not to fear the introduction of a sharp note into conversation.

``Plenary powers will come at the necessary time," Vanderlip said.

Lenin was still standing beside him.

``Excellent, excellent.''

An imperceptible spark glowed in the American's eyes. He was clearly not up to such pressure: he must turn everything into a joke next time---at all costs.

``Eh-eh.... When I return to America I shall definitely assure them that Mr. Lenin has no horns.''

``What was that?" Lenin asked, walking to his desk.

Vanderlip inclined his head and putting his index fingers to his temples, advanced menacingly.

``I said that Mr. Lenin has no horns! None at all!''

Lenin gave a mighty chuckle as only he could.

``No horns, eh?''

``None at all.''

The laughter died down slowly. The two men stood facing each other, each stern and on his guard. As I looked at them I could not but think that in them two worlds had come face to face.

Vanderlip left and Lenin returned to his desk. He sat for a long time, his hand on his bowed head and his eyes concealed; they seemed to be closed at that moment. Silent and deep in thought, he suddenly removed his hand, curiosity in his unsmiling eyes.

``Brazen, quite brazen. How did you like it?''

In truth, something out of the ordinary had just taken place. A man had stripped himself bare in broad daylight, without embarrassment: on the contrary, he had boasted that while everyone else was clothed he was quite naked.

It was midday in Moscow on a brilliant, sunny day.

LENIN and KALININ in the House of Trade Unions during the First All-Russia Congress of Working Cossacks. Moscow, 1920

Faith

To G. B. Krasnoshchokova

HP wind was blowing from the south-east and the sky over Moscow was

I greyish-white and thick with dust. Sky and earth alike were colourless

•*• and permeated with it; sunsets were high and fiery-red from it. Beyond

the Volga, the sun had scorched the fields: perhaps the wind and the dust were

coming from those fields.

It was already after midday when she rang.

"Mr. Rybakov?" My surname, the pronunciation of which usually presented fearsome difficulties to Americans, came out with comparative ease. "Would you be kind enough to see me? My name is Bessie Beatty."

"Excuse me, but did you say Bessie Beatty? 'The Red Heart of Russia?'"

She laughed and said affirmatively:

"'The Red Heart of Russia.'"

Of course, I remembered, this was the same woman Lenin had talked to on that never-to-be-forgotten New Year's Day at the riding school.

Someone had told me about Bessie Beatty. She came, it appeared, from the American aristocracy and was a by no means impoverished member of it. It could hardly have been conviction that drew her to Russia: rather a search for the unusual. But once in Russia she was at first disturbed and then cast down; then she cheered up and finally left, filled with the desire to accomplish something worthwhile. Her book had not been a faithful reflection of reality in every respect, but it had been a work friendly to us. In 1917 Bessie Beatty had been 30 years old; now she was 33.

FAITH

FAITH

"Excuse me, but could I see you today? We are next door to each other." A woman stood in the door, her smile showing both cordiality and an amiable coquetry.

"It's hot in New York, too. Hot, that is, but not scorching. The humidity has got into the city's pores. Poor men! They haven't time to change their shirts three times a day!"

She looked at me to see if she had succeeded in conveying how hot it was in New York. I remained silent, for I had no real desire to continue the conversation along these lines. Three shirts a day! They are so rich that they have ceased to notice it.

``I'm right up to date," she said, waving, a finger at me. "My Russian friends told me that you are off to the Volga on Tuesday, on a propaganda campaign. Kalinin, too? No, no, I'm not asking, I only wanted to know whether I could count on a favourable reply, if I were...."

As the train travelled through the steppes Kalinin sat by the window, looking out. Nothing was hidden from his peasant's eyes. The grain had been taken away and with it had gone the people, leaving the steppe disquietingly empty. Stacks of straw stood forlornly, two or three to every threshing floor.

"Look at those stacks and you will understand everything," Kalinin said.

Bessie Beatty's eyes never left Kalinin: a professional newspaperwoman, she studied everything before her with a stern, penetrating gaze.

``Is it true that Lenin has nominated him for the post of president?''

``Yes.''

It was hard to tell what the exclamation that greeted my reply meant or the extent to which it was well-intentioned. To me it seemed, at any rate, well-intentioned. What had brought her to our shores? Much, probably, had depended on her character: she liked to appear unusual, and for people in her circle a journey to Russia would be that and more. Bessie Beatty had been in Petrograd on the day the government was overthrown; it was even said that she had been with Reed and Williams during the storming of the Winter Palace and had shown great courage. Perhaps this, too, indicated a thirst for the unusual? At any rate, what she had seen had left its mark; something new had entered her consciousness. The heart is not armour clad and it is hard to shackle the eyes and the mind.

The train moved on across the steppes: strangely, the empty fields did not have the look of an August landscape at all. Then it stopped unexpectedly at a tiny station, either to wait for a train coming in the opposite direction or to take on water.

Kalinin walked on to the platform. He was wearing high boots and a linen shirt with a turned-down collar. He took off his glasses and began unhurriedly to clean them; this done, he replaced them and looked around, narrowing his eyes. An old man in an astrakhan cap noticed Kalinin and approached him. The old man's breeches were stuffed into woollen socks and his blouse was unbelted. He stopped a few steps from Kalinin.

``It can't be.... You're Kalinin, Mikhail Kalinin?''

Kalinin assented and the old man moved a step nearer him. "Now I see.''

But Kalinin had already moved towards him.

The train stood at the small station some forty minutes and during all this time the two men remained together, at a slight distance from us, looking at the steppe; their eyes were strangely clouded, as if the dullness of the steppe itself had entered into them.

It was only then that I saw Bessie Beatty standing beside me. She was holding an open notebook and looking silently at the two men quietly talking on the edge of the steppe; as she looked, her pencil hung motionless over the notebook, like a word trembling on the brink of speech.

She waited until Kalinin returned to the carriage.

``Could I ask you something?" she said, pencil poised. "What were you talking about with that man?''

Kalinin stopped and, removing his glasses, looked fixedly at the correspondent.

``He said: 'I know how famine begins and there will be a more terrible famine than ever. Thousands upon thousands....'! told him that today we lacked sufficient forces to overcome misfortune---today---but that we were approaching a point where Russia would never go hungry. He said that he

MIKHAIL KALININ and the American journalist BESSIE BEATTY on the Sarapulets steam-boat near Tsaritsyn

FAITH

didn't believe me. `I'm over seventy,' he said, 'and as far back as I can remember I have always been hungry. It can't be otherwise! God doesn't have enough sunlight to warm all the earth, or enough rain to moisten it or enough snow to cover it all. Cover one area and you move the blanket from another. God isn't strong enough.' 'God isn't, but we shall be,' I told him. 'God help you,' he said and that was what we talked about.''

Somewhere beyond Tambov an encampment had been set up on the open steppe at a fork in the road. Evening had drawn in and a fire was burning, but the wind was blowing billows of smoke along the ground: the straw was evidently damp. Men, women and a great number of children were sitting around the fire, looking into the flames. The train passed beside them but no one raised his head: nothing was more vital to them than what they were discussing around the fire and they had neither words nor eyes for anything else. What could they be talking about at this crossroads in the steppe? The question was: where should they make for---west, to the Ukraine, once "the land of bread", or south? Another unfamiliar name that now came easily from their lips was that of Tikhoretskaya, "the quiet river" or "quiet rill", where the grain-growing regions began. If one said it over and over the sound alone was enough to conjure up a picture of warm bread and fresh milk in a child's mind. Tikhoretskaya---the quiet river, the quiet rill. But what was it really, this Tikhoretskaya?

Our journey was into its second day and Bessie Beatty had become noticeably more sombre. A thoughtfulness could be seen deep within her eyes. She had dressed for the journey as for an excursion; now, her hat was first to disappear, to be replaced by the most ordinary kind of cream-coloured sateen head-scarf, tied low on her forehead, just above her eyebrows. Then a simple, unpretentious tunic took the place of her blouse, while her checked skirt, its straps passing over her shoulders, gave way to a dark skirt which had formed part of an autumn suit. Only her shoes could not be replaced, but the bows which had adorned them seemed to take wing and disappear without trace.

Certain signs told us that we were drawing near to the Volga region; near, too, to a great grief that had spread unchecked over its fields and water. Disaster was spelt out in everything---in the leaves, already autumnally dry, in the gleam of spiders' webs and in the movements of the dust, that would suddenly rear up over the steppe and cover half the sky in a black, brown or malevolently scarlet mass. What armour could protect men's eyes and hearts from what had now become the very smell of earth and sky on this steppe?

The carriage was unlit; sometimes smoke covered the windows and it became even darker inside.

``I was in Petrograd that night," Bessie Beatty began suddenly; when she wanted to say something it always came out abruptly, without any connection with what had just been said---or so, at any rate, it appeared to those with her. "I went into the Winter Palace after the soldiers. A man in a black suit was being led through the main halls; he pointed to his bald spot and asked that someone be sent for his fur hat. The soldiers probably thought it very funny that a man should think at that moment not of his head but of his fur

FAITH

hat, but they called with great concern: 'Bring his fur hat! It must be brought at once---he might catch cold!' And then, high up in the building, almost under the roof, where the servants' rooms were, a soldier was standing, looking out of the window. I asked him what he was thinking about: I love to ask that question. He stretched out his arm to the night, beyond the Neva: 'Look,' he said, 'that is the Peter and Paul Fortress.' I asked him again what he was thinking about. 'About Russia,' he replied. 'About the new Russia we shall build, even though the Winter Palace and the Peter and Paul Fortress have stood on this land.' I thought then: 'They need nothing more than they have, absolutely nothing."'

No, not everything she said came out quite unexpectedly---her ability to see clearly what was in front of her had a great role to play.

In the evening we sat together on a sandy slope, waiting for a steamer. Kalinin stood by the yellow water of the Volga and looked into the steppes beyond the river.

``I think that today there is no more pressing moral obligation than to be a Bolshevik," she said, glancing towards Kalinin: this sterner note had been growing more perceptible in her voice.

The steamer left at midnight and at dawn stopped at the edge of a large village, which stood on a steep slope. The church bell was ringing, its peals seeming to make the earth itself reverberate and shake. The square was black with people, as if the grey-brown steppes had poured into it.

``Gather our forces and sow the crops.... Our tomorrow ... our children.''

The square was quiet. Nobody moved; only the eyes of the people smouldered, glowing inwardly, and occasionally a tear would run down a dusty cheek, leaving behind a winding trace.

We had just left the village when we came upon a crowd standing round a well, near a hill. A tiny priest in a faded, threadbare surplice was praying. His eyes turned towards the sky, he cried fervently:

``Have pity on us, your slaves, Lord!''

Falling to their knees in the dust of the dry earth, the crowd dully echoed him:

``Have pity, Lord, forgive the sins of your slaves.''

Kalinin got out of the car, then stopped and took off his cap, looking silently at those praying with a mixture of sadness and severity. Without interrupting his prayers, the little priest called the crowd to their feet and began walking towards the village. He stopped them on the road and rapidly walked up to Kalinin, his eyes gleaming with a malicious light.

``Look, look," he cried, jabbing with his cross at the cracked ground. "We have angered the Lord. Nothing will avert his punishment, nothing.''

Kalinin turned pale and removed his glasses, as I had noticed he always did at moments of excitement. His hands trembled. No doubt he wanted to tell the priest quite mercilessly not to play the fool, but he managed to calm himself.

``Go away," he said in a barely audible voice, "I am ashamed of you. Go away.''

FAITH

FAITH

The priest lifted the cross and scuttled off towards the crowd. From time to time he stopped, and grasping the cross with both hands, waved it. It was difficult to understand whether this gesture was intended as a threat to heaven or as a call for help.

Our ship steamed throughout the night. The water seemed black and fresh, like soil ploughed up in spring; behind the propeller, too, the water lay like heavy lumps of earth, sliced by a plough-share.

``But that was courage, after all, true courage," Bessie Beatty said, looking at the black water. "To get up on a platform like that in front of a hungry village and talk about tomorrow. Tomorrow!" She fell silent and looked in front of her.

The banks stretched away into the gloom, but in the dim light coming from the moonless sky we could sometimes see the slope of the hillside or the open fields, quietly descending to the water.

As she spoke the fields grew lighter and lighter. They did not seem so deserted to me now, these Volga steppes! The day would come when drought would retreat forever from these lands. Looking into the darkness, I seemed to see Kalinin's white shirt: he, too, was looking out to the steppes beyond the Volga. And he, too, was probably thinking about the same thing.

It was almost midnight when the steamer stopped briefly at a sandy spit. The wind was coming from beyond the Volga, smelling of dust and smoke: the grass on the steppe was burning. A flame darted from the shore; no, not a* boat, but actually a flame, lonely and flickering, like a feeble moonbeam on the water. The flame came closer and closer and was suddenly under us, floating on the black, thoughtfully murmuring water. Three people came on board: an old man wearing an oilskin coat and a cap with ear-flaps, a young fellow wearing a budyonovka (the peaked cloth cap worn by Budyonny's army), his bare feet thrust into boots, and a young girl, in a soldier's field shirt.

``We are from the Pomgol," the girl said enthusiastically to Kalinin, evidently failing to notice that the words were scarcely cheerful: pomgo/was short for "committee for the aid of the starving" (komitet pomoshchi golodayushchim).

``Wait, Frosya," the old man said and began to explain something in detail to Kalinin.

Only the young man remained silent, hugging his chest with his sunburned arms, his chin hidden: he was frozen and his teeth chattered.

Kalinin stretched out his arm.

``Your village is there?''

``Further to the right---beyond the bluff," the old man corrected him.

Kalinin looked for a long time into the darkness.

He was probably seeing the village, the whole village, over which disaster was poised. He was seeing families, large and small. At this late hour they would be gathered as usual around the table. Their poor supper was over but no one had risen from the table---everyone was overcome by gloomy thoughts. He saw the peasants. Never had concern for home, family and dear ones seemed to them to bear down so heavily as today. Now they had come out

under the stars and were silently standing in the middle of the pen, by the threshing floor at the edge of the vegetable garden. From there it seemed only a stone's throw both to disaster and to fortune. Kalinin probably saw the children, too, overtaken by sleep before supper. The whole village was before Kalinin's eyes.

``So the village is there?''

"Beyond the bluff."

Then Kalinin said:

``Go away? Well, you might, but not towards your deaths. Hunger is blind. Let your people ask the way to the grain fields---such ways are becoming ever fewer. The children would be saved---that's the main worry; and in spring the fields will be sown. Gather all your forces together and sow the land. Ah, there should be a canteen in every village---then the children would get enough to eat.''

``We are from the Pomgol...."

``Stop, Frosya!''

The girl fell silent and looked unblinkingly at Kalinin before saying:

``My people left last month. Everyone has gone but me. I'm wedded to misfortune.''

The young man was still silent. Only his eyes, which were turned towards Kalinin, glowed, showing both a boyish submissiveness and a certain preparedness.... A word from this man and he was ready for anything.

``It's quite impossible for us to lose heart," the old man began: he had something that he must say, something that had been long maturing in his mind and had gained a firm hold on his consciousness. ``I'll tell you something that actually happened." He looked at the water as if only it could remind him of what had happened. "That time when it was bad with us, in spring, my daughter was on the point of death. I came in from the steppe and she was lying there silently---her legs drawn up under her, her eyes wrapped in blue smoke, and I knew what that smoke was. My grandson was running around and worrying her: 'Mummy, mummy.' But she didn't say a word---just looked and said nothing. I'm a peaceable sort of man, but I got really angry then; I stamped my feet, began to wave my arms about and thrust my grandson at her. `Haven't you got a heart, you shameless woman? Who's going to look after him after you have abandoned him? I'd like to die now, too, but I can't! Get up, I tell you!' What do you think? She got together the remains of her strength from somewhere and left her bed. I had cured her with my anger, I'd frightened and shamed her. No, I know that it's impossible for us to lose heart. If we do, we shall perish.''

During the night our steamer stopped at a village which sloped gently down to the edge of the Volga. We walked for a long time along broad, deserted streets before coming out on to a square, where a light shone in a large zinc-roofed house. We knocked.

``Who is there?''

"We have come from Moscow---this is Kalinin."

"Kalinin? Just a minute."

The voice broke off and a light could be seen moving to and fro in the

13-801

FAITH

FAITH

windows. An enormous shadow entered the room and spread over the walls; then the bolt was drawn and a huge man with a swollen face appeared in the door, holding a kerosene lamp. His eyes were almost closed.

"Yes, I am the chairman of the local Pomgol. I h've in this village---no, I'm not an agronomist, I'm a teacher."

"Is there a telephone?"

"Yes."

"Does the line go through Tsaritsyn or Saratov?"

"Through Tsaritsyn."

We sat around the kerosene lamp, waiting for a connection with Moscow.

"I haven't been starving myself, but I've turned into God knows what," our host said, as if trying to excuse himself. He could barely restrain himself from stretching out his swollen hand.

Kalinin looked sombrely at the man.

"How could it be that you swelled like that from hunger? Are you the only one like this in the village?"

"The only one."

"Why then, I wonder?"

The chairman tried to smile, but the effect produced was strangely pathetic, for his swollen face had become quite immobile.

"The ration doesn't go far with my figure, but I haven't the right to anything extra."

"But you are ill!"

"If everyone is dying, I shall die too."

``You'll be the first to die."

"Well, then, I shall be the first. I was a volunteer in the revolution."

"And you are volunteering for the next world, too?"

The chairman set on the edge of a bench and, moving his tobacco pouch towards himself, tried to roll a cigarette; but his fingers were clumsy and trembled refusing to obey him and the shag tobacco was scattered on the floor.

"It's too late for me to change my nature," he said to Kalinin, trying to light a cigarette at the kerosene lamp.

Everyone was silent amid the acrid-smelling tobacco smoke.

The telephone rang in the next room and Kalinin went to answer it; his voice barely penetrated through the thick wall. Moscow was on the line. The chairman put his burning cigarette on the edge of the table, the smoke rose and hung over it: the people filling the room seemed to be holding their breath.

"Rye kept for seed, for seed. A pound from the harvested grain? Each district---each one? Wagons---wagons? Saratov? Field labourers? Syzran? Yes, yes...."

The worried, fragmentary words painted a picture of disaster. Somewhere amid this dark night great forces had been set in motion. Under the winking light of kerosene lanterns thousands of people were taking counsel, one with

another, an unseen but strong hand was sending wagon after wagon, trainload after trainload to the east and everything that had a voice or was by its nature voiceless cried out: "Famine ... famine---"

Now Kalinin was describing the situation, and someone far away, disturbed by the news, was listening attentively to him. One cannot speak intimately with someone without seeing his^yes; but perhaps Kalinin saw the eyes of the man to whom he was talking in defiance of the night, the rivers and forests and the many miles that lay between them.

"Yes, yes, that's true," Kalinin replied in a scarcely audible voice. The door opened almost silently and he entered.

The chairman rose, mountainous, from the bench.

"Was that Lenin?"

"Yes, it was Lenin."

The mountain seemed to quiver.

"You talked about grain?"

"Yes---and about you."

The chairman's face showed his amazement and in the silence only the sound of his breathing could be heard.

"He said: may you always remain a man of honour, always...."

MIKHAIL KALININ at a meeting in a Kuban village. 1920

FAITH

``And?...''

Kalinin was silent.

``He also said that we need volunteers for living, not for dying.''

I saw for the first time that the mountain was in tears.

In the morning the bell rang again over the Volga and people poured slowly into the square. Kalinin mounted some hastily knocked-together wooden steps to a platform and addressed them:

``Russia will be the richest country in the world and we shall never again know hunger. Never!''

The sky over the Volga seemed to have shifted to Moscow. The autumn weather was dry with a whitish sky and yellow leaves and the same salty, bitter dust as on the Volga.

L%nin was to receive Bessie Beatty at eight o'clock.

We walked in silence---the American had retained this silence and sternness from her journey to the Volga. As always, wind was blowing around the red mass of the History Museum and as we walked we had to overcome the wind's force.

Before us was the Kremlin. The paved roadway reflected the light harshly, like frozen ripples on the sea, and the square seemed in consequence even more deserted than usual.

A man was walking briskly across the square, absorbed in thought. He stopped, then moved on again.

``Is that you, Comrade Lenin?''

``Good evening! Yes, I came out into the open air. It's a long way to the Tainitsky Garden and I would not have had time to walk there---though it's dreary here, without a single blade of grass, it's still out in the open." He looked at my companion, wrinkling up his eyes. "Petrograd? The riding school? No, I haven't forgotten. My sister happened to remind me---she was with me." He looked closely at Bessie Beatty. "So, you have seen everything, have you?''

She showed perceptible excitement.

``Everything, thank you.''

We went into the building, Bessie Beatty walking in front of us.

``I think that even a diplomat should get to know his own people better during times of misfortune than in times of happiness," Lenin observed, as if communing with himself.

An hour later we left Lenin on the same square in front of the arsenal. He was still hopeful of walking to the Tainitsky Garden that evening: there was no better way of curing a headache than a half-hour stroll before bed.

``What should you tell America?" Lenin had said in response to a question from Bessie Beatty. "Tell your country this: that we do not envy America, even in the difficult position in which we now find ourselves. America is rich and we are poor, America is strong and we are still very weak, America, perhaps, even has enough to eat and we...." He fell silent, looking sternly at the sky. "But we have something that you lack---faith. And this will give us everything: strength and bread.''

FAITH

We parted, Lenin walking across the square towards the river while we moved towards the Troitsky Gates. As we reached them I looked round. In the distance, under the dim light of the night sky, I could see Lenin. His mind still seemed occupied with his ideas about America and Russia: this I could see from the unusual youthfulness and briskness of his step. As I watched, I saw to my amazement that in his impetuous progress he appeared to draw earth and sky after him---the trees, bent over by the wind, and the clouds, driven across the sky, seemed to race after him.

And all our thoughts were about him and only him, about his faith and ours, the greatness of which is unsurpassed in this world.

LENIN at the laying of the foundation-stone of the monument to Karl Marx. Moscow, May 1. 1920

Choice

eople who often saw John Reed will perhaps remember that in summer he used to wear his jacket thrown over his shoulders and was usually bare-headed; they will remember, too, his dark, crisply curling hair, which receded noticeably at the sides of his large forehead. Sometimes he had a newspaper with him and whenever he was able to seize a moment he would perch himself on a window sill or half-lean over a table and search through its well-thumbed pages for some paragraph that he had not yet had time to read.

He was carrying a newspaper now, brandishing it as he walked. A meeting had just finished in the garden of a factory on Lesnaya Street and Reed had spoken in the middle of an open space surrounded by bright green acacias: the spring of 1920 was a wet one. He had talked about America and its literature, about Whitman and Joe Hill and the new prose-writers and poets to have emerged from amid the workers; of his own book, which had recently appeared, he had said little. Reed had a gift for public speaking.

Even in translation the vividness of his speech had remained and Reed had been listened to.

We passed Kalayevskaya Street and began walking up Dmitrovka.

"America has been put in a flurry again," Reed remarked, unfolding his newspaper as he walked.

``Doesn't she know what to do with BiU Haywood?" I said at random.

"Caramba!" Reed exclaimed animatedly. He loved using this impatient, cheeky Spanish word and it appeared in his book on Mexico as often as it did

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in his speech. "Caramba!" he repeated. "You have already read about him?"

``No.''

"Then where did you learn about him?"

"The same thing happened in 1914, in 1916, in 1918 and is evidently happening in our time as well."

Reed laughed.

"True!" He was glad to open the newspaper once again. "America! The IWW * is still giving her something to worry about!"

"Tell me," I said, my own interest now aroused, "were you at their trial in Chicago?"

"Of course."

"And you heard Hay wood's testimony?"

"Yes."

I was now to hear something about Haywood that I had not previously known. American friends, with whom I had earlier talked about him, had pictured Haywood to me as a person quite out of the ordinary. He came from an old American family: his father, it seemed, was one of the pioneers who had made the prairies bloom, having literally walked to Iowa, bare-footed, across almost half a continent. The background of Haywood's mother was no less unusual. Half Irish, half Scots, she had been born in the land of the Boers, somewhere near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. When her family heard of the fabulous riches of Alaska they had left Africa and set out for America in a sailing ship. The voyage lasted for months and after it the travellers had journeyed on by train before finally transferring to covered wagons. The wagons had rolled over shifting sands as restless and unstable as the ocean waves. Haywood had been born and brought up near the copper mines not far from the Great Salt Lake; as a boy he had worked on a farm, looking after cattle and milking cows, and after that he had become a miner, digging and hauling ore. And then ... then he had emerged at the head of a strike. That, perhaps, was all my friends had told me of Haywood and his relatives. "Yes, that's all," they would observe at this point: "and now work out for yourself how much dynamite the mother and father together put into their child?" "What, are you setting me a test?" "If you like---but how much?" To come to the point, one can say that, in general, no one in America at the beginning of the century had so much influence over the working people as "Big Bill" Haywood. The situation had been dangerously complicated by the fact that Haywood's position had come close to the views of the Communists and the Chicago trial, which John Reed had attended, had obviously come about because of this.

While we had been walking the storm clouds over Moscow had been growing darker. The sky quivered, then split with a crash and a deluge poured down. We ran to the nearest house, seeking shelter in its front entrance, but the space was already full; then to the cover of an old lime-tree, but someone cried from a balcony above us---``Don't stand under a tree, it's dangerous!" Laughing, we dashed across the street to the half-open front door of a house. Inside, it was dark and quiet and smelted to cooking and sour dough. A solid curtain of rain obscured the street and the houses on the other side. Reed

* The Industrial Workers of the World was a Left-wing American trade-union organisation.---Ed.

stood by the door and looked smilingly into the street. Water ran down his hair and in the flashes of lightning which lit up his face one could see water rolling down his cheeks.

He walked further into the passage, to where the noise of the downpour was less intense.

"The Chicago trial," I reminded him. Now, I thought, Reed could tell me about Chicago---we had time, for the downpour would continue on for some time yet.

"I wrote about the Chicago trial once," he began, looking at the river that was running along the street, stretching from pavement to pavement, "and one doesn't repeat what one has written, either aloud or on the page---and, to be frank, I don't want to repeat it. So I had better tell you briefly about Haywood's speech, although he spoke for four days at the trial. Have you ever seen a picture of him? He is no ordinary man, even to look at: tall and strong, like the trunk of a tree. He wears a black hat, like a storm cloud, which shades his face; he lost an eye in childhood, but this only gives his face more expressiveness. His face reflects strong feeling and resolution and---however strange this may seem---mildness. What did he talk about? He talked not about himself, perhaps not even about his friends, but about America, nobly and tenderly, as only a loving son could talk about his mother. He spoke of this

BILL HAYWOOD addresses striking American workers

BILL HAYWOOD together with comrades from the International Workers of the World

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country, which nature has made a treasure-house of riches, yet in which strength and the possession of power take precedence over justice. Haywood is a true son of America and no one knows her life better than he; perhaps it was because of this that everything he spoke of took on colour and shape before one's eyes: one was not a listener, but an eye-witness. You saw what he alone had seen until that moment, what had belonged to his mind, his heart and his experience alone. I can still remember how Haywood spoke of the copper mines in Butte. As he talked he stretched out his hands in front of him, and I could see the heavy cloud of poisonous, grey-black smoke that spread over the town, only sluggishly moving even at the impulse of the wind. The smoke stripped the trees and killed off all the flowers and grass, birds flew away from Butte, dogs avoided the town and even cats, those most tolerant of creatures, fled before all of their nine lives should be exhausted. Only man remained, growing ever more feeble and sickly, but staying. A cemetery, as new as the town, stood outside Butte; in the few years of the town's existence its population had been divided equally between those living in Butte and those who had taken up residence in the cemetery. Haywood named not only Butte, but Folk River and Colorado too. 'But opposite this hell,' he said; and then, uninhibitedly, yet without exaggeration, he told of the bosses living three steps away from hell. Heaven and hell? Yes, perhaps heaven and hell. He saw clearly the difference between rich and poor in America and spoke directly of it in the grim language of truth, as a man does who has grasped the main thing, the most important thing that a worker must know. What were his demands? They were of the most basic kind: Haywood believed that material wealth must be distributed justly and the working man and woman given the opportunity to live. Someone said that he was already a Communist then. Well, if the experience of life of a man like Bill Haywood had led him to the Communists, then that's in the Communists' favour!''

The downpour had almost ceased and we went out into the street. The sun had still to break through the clouds, but the brilliant light that follows a storm was already flooding the city. The wet pavements glittered, the leaves, washed clean by the rain, glimmered softly and a strong smell of wet earth penetrated the asphalt and paving stones.

``What did the hundred people who considered themselves Hay wood's fellow-thinkers and fellow-strugglers think? Yes, apart from Haywood there were exactly one hundred of them. No one could so justly and fully have represented America as they. All came from the great open spaces of our country: people who had broken rocks, loaded ships, worked in the forests---in short, they were all people who did work requiring physical strength. Certainly they have the faces of soldiers and warriors, but they also have the faces of orators and poets. 'Surely this isn't a court? It's more like a meeting!' someone said, and it was true that the impression one gained was that these people had gathered here to consult with one another on how to lead America to a happy life. The questions that arose were prompted by this noble idea: 'Do you think a man has the right to exploit two or three hundred people and live?', 'May one exploit someone else and live at his expense?', 'Does a man have a right to strike?', 'Can the interests of property take precedence over the interests of humanity?' No, I have never seen a more representative council than this. It would have been splendid, this council, had the time come

for the judge who condemned Haywood and his friends to be called to account---ah, what a speech Bill Haywood would have unleashed then!''

The water had gushed off the road-way and was rushing in a narrow stream beside the pavement, carrying branches broken off by the storm. It reflected the rays of the midday sun, for the clouds had now parted and the sky had lightened.

``Were you able to talk with Haywood then?" I asked Reed when we reached the centre of the city.

``Yes, not long before my departure," he answered. "He had read Tea Days and said that he would have given the book another title: Proceedings of the Russian Revolution---that would have been stronger and would have included the word `revolution'! He laughed and then asked me if it was true that the workers controlled industry here. I told him that it was.''

When we were parting, Reed suddenly said: "I remember that the last time I saw him, just as we were saying good-bye, Haywood suddenly said: `You're an artist, Jack. You grasp everything immediately. Now I'll paint a portrait of a man for you and you tell me who he is.' And he began. I remember that Haywood talked of a small man whose scalp was eaten away by ring-worm, like that of a child infested with worms. There were one or two details very true to life in this portrait and they explained everything to me. 'Gompers,' I said to Haywood. 'Yes, Gompers,' he answered, and we parted. He had said no more than Gompers' name, but I knew how much this meant. There is a kind of noble hatred in the working man which is not to be dissolved or blown away, a hatred which a man carries through life, through all its difficulties and misfortunes. It ripens within him together with his consciousness. If one talks of the workers' struggle in America at the beginning of our century---and only then, indeed?---one must, probably, talk of two forces, two classical forces. One spoke in favour of class war---this force became identified with the name of Bill Haywood. The other advocated class peace and its representative was Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labour. But to say this is not to say everything. At the beginning of the century a whirlwind was sweeping across America. Never before had the country been so close to revolution as it had been then. And it was then that fear gave birth to Gompers and ordered that this whirlwind be tamed by lies---lies.''

That was all that John Reed told me.

We parted and I realised that I now knew precisely what I had formerly lacked in order fully to understand Bill Haywood.

A hatred for lies and for Gompers---that was Haywood.

Several months elapsed. The newspapers reported that Haywood had obtained bail, then that lawyers had lodged a plea for clemency with Warren Harding, the new president. Harding declared himself ready to pardon everyone but Haywood and the prospect of life-long penal servitude arose before Haywood. The news that followed was not unexpected: Haywood had disappeared and possibly fled the country.

I must confess that this news deeply stirred me and I recalled my conversation with John Reed about "Big Bill" with unusual clarity. I thought

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of a man whose struggle and whose faith were the right ones, right a thousand times over, but who, nevertheless, was declared a criminal. A man whom thousands upon thousands would follow into battle and death, but who was forced to hide from human eyes, perhaps to change his name, so to efface himself that nothing would remind people he was still alive. But perhaps he had really left America to await his hour and then to return? If he had, he must already be on the road---on a hard road. The sun followed its eternal course across the sky, but he continued walking. The moon rose to its zenith then sank beyond the ocean, but he marched on. The sea rose up and waves ran to the shore and from it in the rhythm of the tides, but he walked on and on, as far as possible from America. As far as possible. Perhaps he had scrambled on to a rocky Canadian shore and, looking back on the rivers and valleys, had sighed: "Still the road has an end!" Or perhaps he had thrown himself on a sun-warmed deck and cried: "The other shore is as far as the sun---an eternity!" Or he had lain in the warm water in the bottom of a boat and thought: with a favourable wind only one night separates me from Mexico!" There are many paths before a man and on each the sun shines---so choose. Or does it really shine on each?

And then, in the spring of 1921, which was unusually hot, it became known that Bill Haywood had arrived in Moscow. Here the sun shone.

I very much wanted to see this man and look him in the face; to see if he really was as I had imagined him.

The invitation was printed on a piece of white cardboard: "Bill Haywood, who has recently arrived in Moscow, will speak...." The room was small, seating only thirty or forty people, as if limiting in advance the number of those who could be present: it was filled with representatives of workers' newspapers from around the world.

Three large windows looked out on to the Moskva River. The sun was setting somewhere behind us, but the windows on the other side of the river flamed with its rays. The room was filled with a mellow, steady light, which fell almost without shadow.

I heard Bill Hay wood's footsteps as he walked along the corridor, firm and growing implacably in volume as he approached. Yet when he entered the room it was as if someone else had been walking along the corridor, someone more powerful than he, more menacing and full of a more frightening power---although it was true that Haywood was remarkably big. Strength combined with gentleness in his face in an original way; this expression came, perhaps, from his smile.

"My dear friends," he began. Before him he could see the workers' press of the world, all those who were his comrades in the struggle. "Two weeks ago I arrived from America---"

In this way he began his story, speaking softly, perhaps much more softly than usual, as if wishing to restrain his voice and adapt it to the dimensions of the room.

"I feel as though I have been here before. Russia is Lenin and I first met Lenin eleven years ago."

He had seen Lenin in Copenhagen in 1910, when socialists from the entire world had gathered there. It could not be described as a congress of like-minded men and women, but Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg had been present. The clock of war had already been wound up and its ticking was all too clear; the weather was close, as it is before a storm.

How could war be averted?

Haywood spoke before meetings of workers in Copenhagen. Sometimes he would be accompanied by friends, and Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai would interpret for him.

Lenin listened to him, listened and did not forget.

"Do you remember, Comrade Haywood?" he said now in the Kremlin. "Do you remember?"

Haywood was speaking in a confidential tone, the tone one adopts when sitting at home, amid those close to one, in the soft light of an old-fashioned lamp.

"Comrade Lenin...."

During his last night on American soil, when he had arrived at the home of some Lettish friends living near the docks and asked them to give him shelter until morning, Haywood had thought about that meeting with Lenin. He had thought about it the following day when, as an overcast dawn broke, he had

ROSA LUXEMBURG

CLARA ZETKIN

ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI

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boarded the ship that would take him across the ocean, at the moment when he had looked at the Statue of Liberty ("Good-bye," he had said, ``you've had your back turned on me too long. I am now going to the land of freedom."), and finally in the brilliant midday sun when he had crossed the Soviet frontier and everyone with him hag sung the Internationale. Everyone with him? Why, the earth had sung, the sky, the clouds above and the river below, the pines in the mountains and the mountains themselves. Everything sang and man said to himself:

"Lenin, Lenin...."

Then came the cloudy skies over Moscow, the tall domes of the Kremlin, the pure rays of the sun on stonework and the sides of buildings, the cold freshness of the wind.

Lenin threw his coat over his shoulders and put on his cap before walking with Haywood from the Maly Palace to the Borovitsky Gates.

``Do the workers control industry in Soviet Russia, Comrade Lenin?''

``Yes, Comrade Haywood. That is the essence of communism.''

As we listened to Haywood the sun set, its rays fading, first on the river, then in the windows on the other side of the river.

``Under what circumstances could you resume your activities in American trade unions?" a correspondent asked Haywood.

Haywood rose and looked silently at the river.

"I should have to turn myself into a Gompers."

Reed was right: hatred for Gompers was in Haywood's blood.

The press conference ended and I went for a thoughtful walk beside the river.

Here was a man, born in America, who could call himself a son of its prairies and rivers, a son of its wind-riven mountains rising into the heavens, a son of its lakes, its snows, its clouds. He had not sought an easy path in life---he had devoted himself to the labour which gave America its strength. America took its wool, copper, oil, tin, zinc and gold from his hands or from the hands of people like him.

Of all the gods in heaven and earth he had chosen one: fidelity. Fidelity to his mother, to his homeland and to his class. Fidelity was an honourable god.

In obeying this god he had experienced outrage where outrage had to be felt, had grown indignant where a working man had to be indignant, had raised his voice: "It must not be that men rob one another, taking from the weak shelter, food, water, even the air itself, which gives man life!"

So spoke Haywood. His conscience and the conscience of those millions like him in America---these are the American people, America itself.

Why, then, was there no place for Haywood under America's broad skies?

For Haywood had not been dreaming of the impossible: he had simply wanted to distribute the country's wealth justly. He had wanted the worker, the creator and producer, to be master of his country.

``Do the workers control industry in Soviet Russia?" he had asked Lenin.

"Yes, Comrade Haywood. That is the essence of communism," had been the reply.

I believe it was as early as the autumn of 1921 that the news spread through Moscow that Haywood had laid unusual project before Lenin: the creation through the efforts of friends of Soviet Russia, drawn from different peoples and countries, of a great industrial combine, a unique industrial republic, somewhere in Siberia.

Haywood wanted the republic to be set up in the Kuznetsk Basin: one felt his miner's spirit in this. It was said that Lenin liked the project. Haywood considered that the combined or, as he called it, the "Autonomous Industrial Colony", could serve as a training ground in technology for Soviet cadres, too, but he was afraid that friends of the Soviet state, fired with enthusiasm by this idea, would underrate the difficulties that could arise.

I confess that the project seemed to me very like our American friend. Haywood, in common with many professional revolutionaries emerging from the ranks of the workers, thirsted for creative work, the more so as it would be furthering the advance of the Land of the Soviets.

VALERIAN KUIBYSHEV. 1920

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I did not know then that the essence of this project would be revealed to me in a conversation between Lenin and Haywood.

Eight minutes remained before the sitting of the Council of People's Commissars. Lenin entered, carrying as usual a pile of new books: he was gifted with the ability of "dividing his attention" and could, while following every detail of a meeting, simultaneously do something else---for example, look through new books. He sat down at his desk and, carefully cutting the first pages of a book (he had brought a paper knife with him), immersed himself in it.

Suddenly he put the book aside and a gleeful look came over his face; his eyes narrowed, as if he were embarrassed by his sudden gaiety.

``You know," he said to me, smiling and indicating by a flicker of his eyes, which were still gleaming, that I should come closer, "I like your willingness to help, your unfailing good temper, if you like. That's not something that has come with time, I think: it's inborn, so to speak---Ah, patience and tact can do much! Do you think that I didn't notice how you spoke to Robins that time? Or how you dealt with that bantem-cock, Vanderlip? No, whatever you say, we will have our diplomats.''

It was at that moment that the powerful figure of Bill Haywood appeared against the white background of the door and beside him the broad and no less

powerful silhouette of Kuibyshev. Lenin caught sight of them as they entered and, placing the paper knife in the book he had been reading, he rose from his desk. Haywood walked forward to meet him.

"I remember! I remember well!" I heard him say.

Lenin turned and stretching out his hand, as if gathering me up, asked me to stay and interpret for him.

"It is very important that these few words be translated accurately," he said, looking at Haywood. "Accuracy is very important here."

I inclined my head to Haywood and Kuibyshev.

"We welcome the initiative of our friends, who want to help us rebuild our industry," Lenin began. "We welcome it and are grateful for it!" He looked into Haywood's eyes. "But we want all who come to us to be warned how difficult it will be for them. They must be warned!" A note familiar to everyone who had heard him speak before a large audience appeared in Lenin's voice. "Those who come to us must be prepared to suffer deprivations of the most severe kind, which are inevitably linked to the reconstruction of industry in a backward country, devastated to an unprecedented degree. Do you follow me?" He again looked at Haywood.

"I follow you, Comrade Lenin."

"Our friends," Lenin continued, with the same enthusiasm and fervour, "must be ready to work with the maximum effort and the maximum productivity. You understand me, Comrade Haywood?"

"Of course."

``Our friends must not forget the extreme weariness of the hungry, exhausted Russian workers and peasants." Lenin's voice fell. "They must not forget this and they must help their Russian brothers in every way to create friendly relations and overcome distrust and envy. Is this understood by your friends?''

"It is, Comrade Lenin."

I had witnessed an unusual conversation, in which revolutionary Russia had talked with working America.

A Russian and an American had probably never previously understood each other so well as Lenin and Haywood did at this meeting. It took place in 1921, but in essence this was a conversation between the America of the future and Russia.

My story might end here, had not another meeting occurred many years later, during a reception for a group of foreign guests at a large Moscow cultural centre. It was an unusually warm May and the young leaves, like a green haze, embraced the trees; although the evenings were still cool, Muscovites had hurried to change into their summer clothes and the women at the reception were in light dresses, which gave the occasion a special charm. Our guests had sung a number of songs with great success---and nothing brings people together so much as song. From time to time one of the guests would rise to his feet and the singing would break off. I remember that a farm hand from the Union of South Africa spoke, a man who had reached Moscow by paths known only to him, and that he was followed by a young stevedore from Australia, whose cheeks glowed a fiery red, and an old worker from the

Bill Haywood's grave by the Kremlin wall on Red Square, Moscow

BILL HAYWOOD. Drawing by M. Verbov

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American state of Utah. There were speeches proposing toasts and speeches "in reply", filled with the lively wit and broad humour which give colour to the conversation of a working man when he feels accepted and at home. Several of those round the table knew English and took it in turns to interpret for our guests: it was my turn when the old man from Utah rose to speak. He was tall and bent: a man born to stride under broad skies, not to sit by a dark coal-face near the Great Salt Lake, his head pressed against the low roof. As I listened, I wondered where his ancestors had come from---Aberdeen or Greenock---for his rapid, slightly blurred speech clearly betrayed him for a Scotsman. I was running through the Scottish towns I knew in my mind when the old man paused significantly---and began speaking in Russian.

The few words he said excited me, their meaning was plain enough: it was, of course, interesting to see Russia for the first time, he said, but it was still more interesting to return and compare the present with what you had seen many years before.

``You have lived in Russia?" I asked him.

``Lived?" He smiled. "I worked here---in the Kuznetsk Basin.''

``The Autonomous Industrial Colony? Bill Haywood?''

Of all the many Russian words the old man knew it seemed I had chosen those that rang most pleasantly in his ear.

``Big Bill!" he said warmly.

We had obviously found something to talk about which even the lateness of the hour could not interrupt.

The reception came to an end, but we could not part and, leaving the cultural centre, we began walking through the dark streets of Moscow. We stopped by the river and listened for a long time to the water splashing against the bank.

``You probably know," he began, speaking in English---it was easier for him to tell me what he wanted to say in that language---"that Big Bill was pure gold, a man of true natural gifts. It is said that in taking on the creation of the colony he bit off more than he could chew. I will go further: there were those among our friends who were inclined to think that if the colony lasted only six years, then the whole project should not have been begun. But I think that it had to be begun!''

He pondered for a moment, looking at the soft gleam on the water, then continued in a softer voice:

``You know, there is a time just before dawn when the darkness grows thicker, no matter how hard you stare. Then, suddenly, a star appears in the sky, brighter than any that has yet appeared during the night. That star is the messenger of the sun---and that was what the new Russia was for us. It came into being when the night was very dark, without a ray of hope. We are poor people, without gold or big bank balances, but we had strong arms, knowledge and experience of life. Those were the riches we brought to Russia then: I believe that this was of benefit for Russia. Haywood had in him both faith and hatred.... He really hated Gompers, hated him all his life, because Bill Haywood loved America.''

We walked on slowly. It was quiet and there was a smell of damp earth.

``In my country," the old man continued meditatively, "we say that 'death has the last word'. Gompers is buried beside Rockefeller, Haywood is buried in the Kremlin wall, beside Lenin. What more can one say?''

We parted and it seemed to me that the old American worker had expressed the very essence of what had determined Bill Haywood's life.

LENIN talks in his Kremlin office with the American economist, CHRISTENSEN

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f all the many photographs of Lenin one stands out. In it Lenin is shown (Iwith a stern, thoughtful, somewhat sad look, as if he has been listening to ^-^ music or had just had a long and heartfelt conversation with someone he had known many years. The photograph dates, in fact, from November 1920, and was taken after a visit to Gorky, with whom Lenin had listened to Beethoven's Appassionata---"astonishing, superhuman music", Lenin had said. Perhaps he liked the photograph---was that not why he presented it to Hammer?

"To comrade Armand Hammer from VI. Oulianoff (Lenin). 10.XI.1921."

I remember that when we left Lenin's office Hammer went up to a window.

"That's strange," he said, examining the photograph and turning to Martens; "'To comrade Hammer'---that sounds almost like 'To comrade capitalist Hammer'." The American smiled. "How should I understand the prime-minister? Is it a joke?"

But Martens did not seem to notice Hammer's smile.

"A joke? No, why should it be? It is simply a sign of good will."

"Of course, a sign of good will," Hammer said animatedly and looked at Martens.

Hammer understood that it is always preferable to conduct negotiations, particularly major ones, with people you know. In the important talks that were to begin the following day Martens would represent the Soviet side.

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It sometimes happens that although you have never seen someone, everything you know and have heard about him accumulates in your memory until this person begins to live within you---you see him, talk to him and he is constantly with you.

That was how it had been for me with Ludwig Martens. I had never seen him, but everyone arriving from America during the past four years had told me something about him. Everyone! Perhaps, against my will, I had formed a mental picture of him. What that picture was is not so important: the main thing was that when I first saw him, in the February of 1921, the picture needed no more than minor alterations.

Martens was the first Soviet ambassador to America: an ambassador extraordinary. He had not presented the President with his credentials in a White House ceremony; he had not introduced his advisers and secretaries to the President in the immutable sequence dictated by diplomatic protocol---councillor, first secretary, second, third, attache. In fact, it must be admitted that Martens had neither advisers nor secretaries: he was at once ambassador, councillor and a whole retinue of secretaries and attaches. It had not been vouchsafed to Martens to exchange views v/ith the secretary of state. During his period as ambassador it seemed most unlikely that one day a Soviet plenipotentiary should drive at the head of a fleet of limousines to the White House, that, as the ambassador of a great socialist power, he should be greeted by the beneficent smile of the President or that the President should even talk of friendship and cooperation. At that time such an event would have seemed more than unlikely.

The first stories in the American newspapers informed their readers that a representative office of Soviet Russia had begun operations in New York, headed by "one Ludwig Martens" as they put it. And indeed, at that time scarcely anyone knew that Ludwig Martens was a Russian intellectual, although of German origin, an old and close associate of Lenin in the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in St. Petersburg, a participant in the London Congress, a mechanic, mathematician and inventor (a light machine-gun and a novel type of flying machine sprang from his fertile mind) and an active Communist.

On one well-known occassion Martens was arrested by the German police while trying to transport explosives (75 poods of dynamite!) from Germany into Russia. But he was not held for long. Had he admitted that the dynamite was intended for the Russian revolutionaries---for this was 1905 and Moscow was criss-crossed with barricades---the affair would have concluded disastrously. But Martens said that the dynamite's destination was elsewhere---America, in fact---and so avoided trouble. It might be noted that the dispatch of the dynamite to Russia was organised by three men---Vatslav Vorovsky, Maxim Litvinov and Ludwig Martens---who, fifteen years later, were to become Soviet Russia's first ambassadors to Sweden, Britain and America respectively.

Martens was not able to present his credentials to the President: he sent them by post. The White House acknowledged their receipt but stated that it continued to regard Hofmeister Georgy Bakhmetev as the Russian ambassador to the United States. In other words, the White House was declaring

that it would not extend the right of diplomatic immunity to the Soviet ambassador. The consequences this brought in its train were not slow to emerge. During the eighteen months in which Martens represented the Soviet state in America he was subjected to attacks scarcely precedented in diplomatic history, which reached a climax with a police raid on the building occupied by the Soviet embassy or, as it was then called, the "Office of the Russian Soviet Government in the USA". Twenty thousand working men and women gathered in Madison Square Garden to protest against the persecution of the Soviet ambassador; the State Department suggested that Martens leave the country.

Thus, I had not met Martens before he arrived in Moscow in February 1921; indeed, there would have been no opportunity to meet him, for Martens, who had left Russia some twenty years previously, became Soviet ambassador to America without setting foot in the Land of the Soviets. I was told that on the day that he arrived in Moscow Martens was invited to see Lenin. It is difficult to say what they talked about in the Kremlin, but the major question of concessions, which was so exercising Lenin at that time, must undoubtedly have been touched upon.

No more than a week had passed after Lenin's meeting with Martens. It was a windy February evening and snow was falling. At about seven o'clock in the

A photograph of LENIN with an inscription to Armand Hammer

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evening Lenin was visited by a group of Vladimir peasants; their heavy sheepskin coats and knapsacks filled with provisions for the journey lay by the door into his office. After two hours of conversation, Lenin summoned a secretary. Not wishing the discussion to be without effect, he gave the secretary necessary instructions on the spot and asked him to ensure that they were carried out. The door soon opened wide again and the Vladimir peasants came out, perceptibly excited and with a faintly solemn air, followed by Lenin. He raised his hand to protect his eyes, as if wishing to ward off the light of the chandelier: the discussion in his office had evidently taken place in the light of his table lamp and the brightness of the reception room dazzled him.

"That will be very difficult for me to do, Comrade Chekunov," said Lenin, shaking the hand of one of the peasants, older than the others, "but I shall do it. A good journey to you." Lenin walked towards the door, accompanying the peasants who, putting on their coats and throwing their knapsacks over their shoulders, were slowly departing.

I expected Lenin to go out with them, especially as this would have been on the way to his apartment: it was his custom in the evenings to dine at home and sleep for an hour or an hour and a half before returning to his office and working until midnight. But instead of going into the corridor he stopped

unexpectedly and glanced at me, again half-raising his hand to protect his eyes from the harsh light of the chandelier.

"Ah, it is fortunate that you are here," he said to me, his hand still over his eyes. "Martens has rung me. He is staying at the Hotel de Luxe, finishing the draft of a letter on business ties with America. The problem is," he went on, taking his hand away from his eyes, "that he wanted to append a number of articles from American newspapers to the letter, but he will scarcely have time to translate them. Well, to cut a long story short, go and help him! We have his telephone number and the number of his room, I think ... but there's no need to ring! The hotel is only two steps away---you will be there in five minutes."

I walked quickly up Tverskaya Street and it was more than the frost pinching my cheeks and the wind buffetting me from behind that drove me on: I was impatient to see Martens. At that time the Hotel de Luxe on Tverskaya Street was a kind of Noah's Ark; who did not stay there during those years! The list included "Big Bill" Haywood with his black eye-patch, John Reed in his invariable ``Canadian'' fur coat and many others.

Russians stayed at the Hotel de Luxe, too, especially Soviet diplomats briefly in Moscow and that was why Martens had been accommodated there.

The corridor was long and windowless, the yellow gloom barely relieved by lamps, and the shabby carpet failed to deaden my footsteps. I stopped in front of a white door with an enamelled number and knocked.

"Come in, please!"

The room was lit by a table lamp and shadows flickered on the walls. A man turned towards me while remaining seated at his desk.

"Do you want me? Come in, please!"

His eyebrows were light-coloured and scarcely visible against his face; his eyes, too, were light. He took his jacket from a chair and rapidly put it on, then reached for his tie, which was hanging on the back of the chair, but changed his mind.

"Excuse me...." He listened with a slight frown creasing his smooth brow, which was handsome and pale. "Lenin?" His eyes lit up and he touched his neatly trimmed moustache with the tips of his fingers before smiling and quickly walking to the desk. "I have been sitting here working and have forgotten about everything. Are you cold? Would you like some tea? I'll join you, I'm rather cold too."

Tea was already steaming on the desk. Martens picked up a glass; it was cool in the room and he enjoyed the warmth of the glass on his chilled fingers as he drank.

``I'll tell you of an encounter I once had and you will understand," he said, sipping his tea. "You are thinking of something that took place in America? No, it happened here in Russia." He raised the glass to his lips, enjoying the aromatic steam: the tea was strong. "Recently I went to Perovo, * and while there I took a stroll along the railway tracks. It is said that no spectacle in

* A suburban district of Moscow.---Ed.

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nature produces such an impression as the corpse of an elephant. I saw something similar at Perovo---a locomotives' graveyard. Everything that men had laboured through thought and passion to bring to life had been brought to nothing. This really was a graveyard, with all the silence of a graveyard. It is terrible when steel that was once filled with fire has lost its vital heat and reverted to lifeless metal. Suddenly I heard a voice: `Don't groan, Feofanych, you'll lose your strength!' I stopped: the voice was beside me. I remained silent. Somewhere beside me people were also keeping quiet. At last someone sighed impatiently and loudly: 'Maybe we could have a smoke?' I looked round and saw a pair of eyes in the darkness. 'All right,' I said. 'My light, your smoke,' the man said and smiled: his voice told me he was smiling. 'Well,' I said, 'give me a light and we'll have some smoke.' He flicked at a lighter. 'Where's the smoke, then?' I could now see all of him: a reddish-brown beard, a soldier's fur hat, lined with grey lambskin, a greatcoat and ragged boots with puttees. He was evidently a working man, a soldier returned from the front. I offered him a packet of cigarettes and when he took one, invited him to take another for Feofanych. 'For Feofanych?' He smiled and removed his hat, carefully putting one cigarette behind a flap, the other remaining between his lips. 'Where is he, then?'

'"Both of us are here together---me and him. It's just that I talk to myself and call myself Feofanych,' my new acquaintance said and laughed. He flicked the lighter again and gave me a light, covering the flame from the wind with his hand. It was only then that I noticed that he was holding a remarkably handsome home-made lighter. I stretched out my hand and he willingly gave it to me. 'Very nice!' He looked at me. 'Nice?' His glance gave him away. 'You didn't make it yourself?' A smile again played around his lips: 'Yes.' I was now able to examine the lighter more closely: it had indeed been skilfully made from the case of a rifle bullet. 'The Civil War will end,' I said. He agreed. 'And there will be peace,' I went on. 'Peace? What sort of peace?' His interest in his cigarette had suddenly vanished and he allowed the ash on the tip to remain there. 'A month ago I would have agreed with you, perhaps, but not now!' What could have happened in a month to turn everything upside down, at least in Feofanych's mind, I wondered. 'You aren't thinking about the concessions, are you?' I asked. 'Yes, I am,' he replied sullenly. `We've driven out our bourgeois, now we're calling foreign ones in.'"

"But you think our proposal concerning concessions will find a response in America?" I asked Martens. "And the first concessionaire...."

"I think we shall soon see this gentleman," said Martens, smiling. "Although Feofanych does not share my optimism."

"Ah, yes, Feofanych," it was all I could find to say.

I did not meet Martens until the autumn of 1921. He had had a busy summer, having several months previously been appointed Manager of the Metal Department. The appointment seemed entirely divorced from the concerns of the high diplomatic post he had only just left, but this was only apparently so. After all, Martens had been an ambassador extraordinary in the United States of America and everything vital to the young Soviet Republic had been an essential part of his activity. He had obtained tractors for Russia

and mechanics to service them, he had established relations with businessmen and industrialists wishing to deal with the young Soviet state (thirty million dollars worth of contracts were not to be sniffed at!), he had visited ship-yards, clothing factories, grain elevators and slaughter-houses: Martens wanted to see everything and get to know everything, to examine and touch everything for himself. The results of this activity were soon felt and Russia began to receive Fordson tractors, surgical instruments, sewing machines and much else that it urgently needed as it planned for the present and, still more, for the future. Martens had been an ambassador and was now a commander of industry, but his duties, whether in New York or Moscow, were substantially the same. It never occurred to the Americans who knew Martens that when he ceased to be an ambassador and became the Manager of the Metal Department Soviet-American relations would not continue to be among his concerns. On the contrary, it was felt that Martens and no one else would continue to be Soviet ambassador to America, even though he had temporarily moved his abode from New York to Moscow.

I was told that it was not easy to catch Martens in Moscow: today he would be in Kursk, tomorrow on the other side of the Urals and when he did return to Moscow he spent the greater part of his time at Kashira, where the first power station to be built since the Revolution had been under construction for

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"Did you continue talking about bolts for Kashira?" I asked him with a smile. It was only then that Martens noticed me.

"Well, no, we talked not so much about Kashira as about Hammer!" He looked at me with that sombre fixity which revealed concentrated thought and agitation, then unexpectedly smiled, evidently recalling something amusing from his conversation with Lenin. "I really do not know what is to be done."

"Lenin obviously wants Hammer to be a concessionaire," I suggested, "while Hammer himself prefers to be a commission-agent, for rings and bracelets from the Urals, for example? Is that the position?"

"Not completely," Martens observed with a laugh: as his mind went back to the conversation just finished his good mood returned. "It would appear that Hammer junior's flirtation with the Bolsheviks has become known on the other side of the ocean and proceedings have been started against his father. On what grounds, do you think? After all, his father is also a doctor."

"A doctor? Perhaps because the patient died after he had performed an operation?"

"No, the patient is alive."

"But there was an operation?"

"Yes, of course, but it was used by the authorities as a pretext."

"And Hammer?"

"Hammer?" Martens laughed. "He said: 'Everything I want to do in Russia I will do.' Apparently that has become something of a saying with him---it's not a bad one, is it?"

"Yes, but it was Hammer senior who said that, wasn't it? It is his son who is in charge of his business."

Martens smiled.

"You know, over in America...." He looked at a small, bluish cloud hanging over the horizon, as if America were somewhere behind the cloud. "Over in America I knew the family a little." He was silent for a moment. "The old man had three sons, just as in a fairy story. But unlike in fairy stories, the second son, Armand, was the brightest. The third son, incidentally, is still quite young and it is hard to say how he will turn out. Armand inherited his father's trust and his profession---he, too, is a doctor. The old man is now over sixty, his son over thirty, although he has the look of a much older man of affairs; the streaks of grey in his hair also come from his responsibilities and a consciousness of his own worth. The old man has chosen to entrust all his business to Armand, but he does not exaggerate his father's confidence. It is said that for the Hammers the day begins with a visit by the son to his father's office, which lasts some two hours."

"But at least they are very rich?"

"Yes, I think so, although their means are determined more by their connections with others on a commission basis than by their own capital."

As Martens reached the bridge he looked round. The sky was cloudy and looked windless, but whether because it was so unusually lofty here or because

the past two years. Kashira was the ``first-born'' and perhaps because of this Lenin's favourite ``child''.

He well knew that he would deprive himself of valuable time needed for major matters if he were to concern himself with the constant flood of minutiae, but he made an exception of Kashira, himself obtaining coke, blank wire and rheostats for the new station.

A conversation at which I was present also concerned Kashira.

Lenin was walking from the Troitsky Gates. Following official business in the city, he had decided to return to the Kremlin on foot, rather than take his car. The morning* was cool but clear.

He had stopped and was looking at a small patch of grass, which was filled with the sunshine that comes only in September. The picture seemed a simple one of grass and sun, but Lenin continued to gaze at it as if he had seen something unusual. And then it occurred to me that there is no picture in nature more miraculous than a meadow flooded with sunlight.

"He's on his way to his office, I think," a voice said beside me. ``Don't you think so?"

I looked around and saw Martens.

His face was tanned by the unblinking sun of the steppes: perhaps he was just back from the south, where he had been roaming the regions around Kursk and Belgorod accompanied by geologists, trying to penetrate into the very fastnesses of the earth. Or perhaps he had returned from his latest visit to Kashira, where he had been inspecting foundation trenches and chambering over scaffolding.

"I rang you yesterday evening." Lenin stopped and looked at Martens. His eyes were narrowed joyfully and his face had none of the sallowness which came over it towards evening: he must certainly have slept well the previous night. "There is a certain ... Hammer in America! He is Russian by origin, evidently?"

Martens pondered.

"Hammer?... Hammer? The New York pharmaceutical company?"

Lenin beamed. He would not have relished suddenly finding out that Martens had not the least idea who Hammer was.

"Precisely! But I mean Armand Hammer, not his father, Julius. They say that he has presented Semashko with surgical instruments for our hospitals. However, that wasn't what I wanted to talk about." He thought for a moment, walking on unhurriedly. "What is more important is that Hammer has responded to our proposal on concessions---although in a very original way." Lenin smiled. "He wants to exchange a million tons of grain for semi-precious stones from the Urals."

Martens touched his moustache with the tips of his fingers in a gesture of gleeful impatience.

"The first concessionaire, Comrade Lenin?"

"Perhaps."

An hour later I met Martens at the Troitsky Gates, his conversation with Lenin over. It would not be true to say that he was despondent, but he wore a perturbed expression.

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of the Kremlin bell towers, which rose precipitately before us, it seemed that the sky had begun to move and become disturbed.

``Don't you think," I asked, "that Lenin had already grasped the position concerning Hammer and has worked out a plan?''

Over the years I had been in contact with Lenin I had learned to recognise this ability: while we were still studying a problem and attempting to adapt ourselves to circumstances and define our posture, Lenin would already have a precise conception of how events would develop and how we should act.

``Yes, of course he already has a plan," said Martens, quickly agreeing with me. "And he has not concealed it from me: 'We must interest Hammer in a major undertaking in the Urals,' he told me." Martens raised his hand to his temple. "Perhaps he is thinking of asbestos....''

``Asbestos?" I said in surprise. I must confess that at that moment I had only the haziest notion of what it was.

``Yes, asbestos, with its tough fibres. No asbestos in the world can compare with what we have in the Urals. The natural yarn is strong, elastic and, above all, resistant to fire. It melts at 1,500°C!''

``And yet he is an engineer," I thought as I listened. "He talks of asbestos with both precision and poetry!''

``Is this agreement profitable to us?''

``Even if all the other advantages were small, the very fact of an agreement with Hammer would be important to us. Lenin has said that 'it is important to show and to publicise in the press that Americans are taking up concessions---politically important'.''

``And how does Hammer feel?''

Martens smiled.

``That is the only thing not yet clear to me, although Hammer senior's saying...''

'"Everything I want to do in Russia...'" "Precisely!''

We descended into the green twilight of the Alexandrovsky Garden and walked towards Okhotny Ryad along a side path running by the Kremlin wall. The cold dampness seeping from the wall was pleasant on that summer day.

``By the way, during our conversation the name of another bourgeois, an Englishman, Leslie Urquhart, came up," Martens observed thoughtfully. "While I was with him Lenin received a telegram from Krasin.''

``Urquhart?" I asked. "The Urquhart who was chairman of the RussianAsiatic United Company? Kyshtym, Tanalyk, Ridder-Ekibastuz---that Urquhart?''

``The very one!" A glitter came into Martens' steel-grey eyes.

``So far as I understand the matter, he would like to get his former mines back as a concession?''

Martens stopped.

``That was precisely what we talked about.''

He said nothing more to me on that occasion and indeed could hardly have

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known anything else. The names of Hammer and Urquhart had only just come under discussion and no one knew what turn events would take. The only thing that was beyond question was that one of these two would be the first concessionaire. It may be noted that Urquhart was not in opposition to Hammer, for while one was seeking asbestos mines, the other was interested in copper mines; one mineral was located in the northern Urals, the other was to be found beneath the southern Urals. That one of them wanted to lease mines he had recently owned could scarcely have decisive significance. So---- Hammer and Urquhart....

August passed and then September. It was still warm in Moscow, but from time to time the city was deluged by sudden and violent storms of icy rain. There was a smell of smoke and of winter. The winter was a hard one, for the fierce sun of 1921 had scorched the grain in the Ukraine and on the Volga. Before we had come to grips with the war, we found ourselves on the brink of famine.

The thought often passed through my mind that since the days when the banner of October was first raised over the country, no passion had fired Lenin more intensely than that of creation. This, I had always thought, was his true calling, the core of his nature and the essence of his genius. Yet scarcely had the Revolution been accomplished than Lenin was forced to put aside the work closest to his heart and, in effect, take up arms; now, the flames of war scarcely dead, the menacing spectre of famine had appeared as the long-awaited labour of reconstruction was beginning. Lenin passionately desired to create. For him the image of communism, so close and tangible, was not vague or ill-defined: he saw hydroelectric stations on the rivers of Siberia, tractors and motorised ploughs in the fields, many of them, and factories powered by the intelligent forces of electricity and steam. Concessions were for him an effective means of reconstruction, although Lenin understood how great the difficulties were. Incidentally---I had just heard that Armand Hammer had arrived in Russia and had gone with Martens to the Urals three days previously. He was expected in Moscow at the end of October---and was definitely interested in Urals asbestos.

Martens telephoned me on his return from the Urals. The following day Lenin would receive Armand Hammer in the Kremlin and Martens asked me to be available at the People's Commissariat from six o'clock in the evening. Although Hammer was of Russian origin and spoke Russian, the necessity of translating texts could arise in the course of the conversation.

The next day, towards evening, a thunderstorm such as one expects in July broke on the city. Marvels of this kind are found in nature---one anticipates winter and suddenly a storm comes! I watched the downpour roaring outside the windows; in the filckering light of the storm, now dazzlingly blue, now chalk white, the walls of Kitai-gorod trembled and seemed about to crumble into ruins. A telephone call from the Kremlin will come now, I thought, and I shall have to face the storm. I was not mistaken: the telephone rang at the appointed moment and I dashed into the misty twilight of the downpour. As I passed the Troitsky Gates my overcoat was soaked through and water had got in over the collar and was rushing down my back.

I ran into a building and tore off my coat: it could not soak up any more water and the rain streamed off it. Holding it away from me, I mounted the

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stairs and cautiously opened the door leading into the secretaries' room a few inches; Lenin's visitors usually waited there before being received. Martens was standing by the window, wearing a dark-grey tunic of coarse woollen cloth, which neither rain, nor sun could spoil; and in the far corner of the room a man was looking out of another window. His appearance was so unpretentious that I should not, perhaps, have noticed him in a crowd. But from the freedom and at the same time the carelessness with which he wore his clothes, from the newspaper protruding prominently from his pocket and from the red pencil in his breast pocket I should have recognised in him an American. Martens glanced silently at a chair beside him, and when I had sat down, gave me a copy of The Times, in which a report of Hammer's trip to the Urals was marked with blue pencil. It was extremely brief and conveyed no more than the fact that Armand Hammer, co-proprietor of such-and-such an American company, had gone to the Urals from Moscow and that the object of his journey was the securing of a concession.

The storm had quietened, but the sky was still disturbed by lightning. Whenever it flashed the white walls of the Arsenal seemed to come up close to the window and the wet barrels of Napoleon's cannon appeared to flame. I glanced at Hammer, who continued to look out the window. It was difficult to say what associations the cannon lying by the wall of the Arsenal evoked in his mind, but Hammer wore a gloomy look.

``What has brought him to Russia?" I asked, raising my eyes to Martens. "The desire to do business, the search for profit or the wish to try a new path, to see what these Reds are like and whether one can deal with them?''

Martens touched his moustache with the tips of his fingers.

``I have been asking myself the same question, both here and in the Urals, when we were going round the flooded mines." His eyes moved slowly towards Hammer, who was still watching the lightning split the darkness. "Of course, calculations of profit are at the forefront of his mind, although he is a man with some imagination and, I think, has confidence in us and does not consider that we will let him down, in contrast to many of his colleagues. He has been trying to give his attitude a theoretical basis, so to speak: it is not our experience in business or our ability to pay that has inspired confidence in him, but rather our intelligence and our honesty. In fact, he said to me: 'You are all men of ideas, but that is the most innocent and, at the same time, the most honest human category---people like that are open to deception, but they themselves never deceive.'"

I looked at Hammer; I could see his eyes clearly and they showed not so much irony as curiosity.

Martens introduced me to him.

"So, you are an old inhabitant of the States?" he asked me in Russian. "Portland and then Vancouver?" He seemed to be scrutinising me. "Your father is still alive? Does he read The Russian Voice? Between ourselves, all my family read the paper, especially my father. Our elders..." his eyes gleamed, "they can't get away from Russia."

We were invited into Lenin's office. I saw Hammer smile confusedly; then, as if putting on a bold front, he bashfully but cheerfully opened the door.

Lenin did not put aside the papers he was reading immediately; he had drawn his hand carefully over his forehead and kept it pressed to his temple in a gesture of weary concentration. He half rose to his feet with some difficulty, leaning on the table.

``Good evening, you're most welcome." He came forward to meet his guest. "How was your trip? And how did you like our Urals? Yes, I have been there---and much further than the places you visited. Beyond the Urals range, near Minusinsk ... Siberia, of course, Siberia...." He indicated a leather armchair: he had no inclination now to recall the past. "Please be seated. So you were at Alapayevsk?''

Lenin cast a searching glance at Hammer, who looked up and caught Lenin's gaze.

``Mr. Lenin," he said courteously, "I am too well aware of whom I have the honour of addressing to abuse your kindness." He extracted an unexpectedly large notebook from a side pocket (heaven knows how he had managed to get it into his jacket pocket), opened it and carefully ran his palm over the required page to smooth it. "I have already had the opportunity to demonstrate to the Soviet side my open-mindedness.''

``We appreciate this," Lenin said, with the cordiality and outgoing amiability that always came into his voice when he wanted to establish more profound contact with the person to whom he was talking.

``I considered it necessary to remind you of this in order to ask...." Hammer paused and looked at his notebook: everything he had to say was jotted down. "Can I and my firm count upon your confidence?''

``Of course," said Lenin and smiled: Hammer had begun to amuse him.

``Before taking the next step and concluding a contract for a concession I want you to understand that I shall sign a contract if it is profitable to me (I have already spoken about this with Mr. Martens). I must emphasise that profitability will be an essential aspect of any deal." Hammer had brought his notebook closer to the light in order to decipher the fine interweaving of his notes.

``I do not deceive myself on that score, Mr. Hammer," Lenin observed with a smile: gentle irony was evidently called for in this conversation. " Perhaps we should ask our friend Martens to set out the contents of the contract?''

Martens spoke softly, which emphasised the importance of his subject. The company would be under an obligation to produce 80,000 poods of asbestos in the first year of the agreement, increasing the quantity to 160,000 poods by the fifth year of concession. The enterprise's production programme would be reviewed every five years in accordance with changes in technical conditions. Soviet labour laws would, naturally, apply to the concession and a minimum of half the employees must be drawn from citizens of the Russian Republic. The concessionaires would deposit fifty thousand dollars with the State Bank as a surety. Ten per cent of the asbestos mined would go to the Soviet state as payment for the concession. The enterprise could be bought out by the Soviet government after giving the concessionaires six month's notice and the price of such a purchase would be equivalent to the value of the concession's gross production for the preceding year.

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Hammer pursed his lips and pondered for a moment.

"No, not exactly doubts...." He looked out of the window. "In my country, business is not a function of state, as you might say: business is done by businessmen."

Lenin spread his hands widely and laughed.

"Yes, quite true---business is done by businessmen. But here, in the Land of the Soviets, business is done by the state." He continued to laugh.

"Thank you, Mr. Prime-Minister, that is most important. I may take it, then, that what you have done to further our affairs has not been simply a favour on your part?"

"Not at all, Mr. Hammer, it is my job!"

We saw our guest out and returned to Lenin's office. This meeting with a capitalist---the first concessionaire!---had left him in a state of considerable agitation.

"I think that this agreement will have considerable significance as the beginning of trade; but it is important, essential indeed, that particular attention be directed towards the practical fulfilment of our obligations." Lenin emphasised practical and our. "Everything must be triple checked ---triple checked! Don't rely on instructions alone!" He turned to Martens. "You must appoint a sensible, enterprising man to take personal responsibility and keep a check on him.... We must look after our concessionaires with especial care!" The words look after were emphasised. "As for those five per cent---no, no, I understand you! In your place I might even have been tougher. We must know how to trade! But in this case, perhaps, it would be inappropriate to risk failure. It is the first concession, after all---the first! And then ... good will is important."

Lenin switched on the central light and walked to the map. He located Alapayevsk, to the north-east of Yekaterinburg, measured its distance from Vladivostok and then Arkhangelsk with a glance, and sighed. He surveyed Siberia, his sharp eyes now darting over the Altai steppes and across the freezing darkness of the waters of Lake Baikal. His gaze rested for a moment on the wide spaces by the Yenisei, a little above Minusinsk, where Shushenskoye would be, before moving far away to the Urals; but now he was looking not to the north-east of the mountain chain but to the southeast.

"Urquhart is giving us five per cent of the gross! Five!" He turned away from the map, his face darkening. "Do you hear---five; and we demanded ten! No, this isn't simply a question of wanting to strike the hardest possible bargain with the Soviet government: this is hatred of Soviet power."

Lenin was furious.

I left the Kremlin and walked through the dark streets of Moscow. Lenin's voice, his face when he turned from the map and began to speak of Urquhart were alive in my mind.

Hammer and Urquhart. Lenin was not, of course, under any illusions concerning the true natures of these two men: for him both Hammer and Urquhart were men of a single class essence. And yet his attitude towards them was not identical---or was that only my impression?

No more than a month was required to dispose of all the necessary formalities involved in concluding the contract for the first concession and in November the agreement was signed. In a novel appendix to the agreement,

Martens finished. Outside, the downpour had quietened and the lightning had ceased; the white wall of the Arsenal opposite the window had receded into the darkness. Martens put the folder containing the agreement to one side and cautiously cleared his throat, as if wishing Lenin to understand that he, Martens, wanted to initiate this part of the discussion. Lenin nodded in agreement and Martens addressed his first question to him.

"You have taken note of the scale of annual payments in kind?"

"Ten per cent," Lenin said in a neutral tone: he clearly did not intend to reveal his attitude towards what had just been said.

"I have told Mr. Hammer that this is an unprecedentedly low percentage," Martens said. "We could talk in terms of fifteen per cent."

Hammer frowned.

"I shall be taking asbestos not from Georgia to Carolina but from one end of the earth to the other," he observed, not raising his eyes. "Our company has not previously had to bear such high transport costs."

"The profits to your company will be great even if it pays fifteen per cent; on that you must agree, Mr. Hammer." Martens wanted to use this fresh opportunity to gain his cherished five per cent. As an engineer and man of affairs he understood that there was still a possibility of continuing negotiations.

"You must understand, Mr. Martens, that I cannot settle this question on my own initiative," Hammer said. "I am no more than a representative of the company. It is the company's view...."

Lenin raised his hand as if wishing to indicate by this gesture that the dispute was at an end.

"Very well, we agree," he said, turning to Martens. His eyes moved towards me. "Do you have the English text? Perhaps it would be appropriate at this point to read the principal articles of the agreement in English?"

I took the text of the agreement from Martens and began to translate it aloud, article by article.

Hammer opened his notebook, and as I read, his finger moved slowly down the page. He checked every figure in the agreement against the corresponding figure in his notes with great thoroughness.

We were already leaving when Hammer, hesitating, said in some confusion:

"I hope, Mr. Prime-Minister, that the five per cent will not prove a stumbling block in our relations?"

"Not at all, Mr. Hammer," Lenin replied, cheerfully screwing up his eyes and looking at Hammer. "We know the laws of the business world!" He was probably tempted to employ a stronger expression---"the capitalist world", for example---but resisted the temptation. "As long as bargaining continues anything can be said, but as soon as it is finished only one word remains: `contract'." He shook Hammer's hand with evident pleasure. "You will see how the Bolsheviks can carry out contracts, Mr. Hammer."

"I believe you, Mr. Prime-Minister," Hammer replied. He was now in a good humour. "By the way, I wanted to ask you...." He stopped looking doubtfully at Lenin. "Our affairs---will they continue to receive your attention in the future?"

"Of course, Mr. Hammer." Lenin smiled. "Excuse me, but have you any doubts?"

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Hammer was obliged to supply one million poods of wheat and as early as November Martens informed me that the first shipload of grain had left New York. Of course, one million poods of grain was not a large quantity to us: the chief importance of its dispatch was that Hammer was letting us understand in this way that he wanted to do business with us in a spirit of good will.

This quality in him appealed to Lenin, who followed the fulfilment of the agreement with the American concessionaire with close attention. Letters went from Lenin to all points: to his deputies in the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Labour and Defence, to Vneshtorg and Metal Department of the Supreme Economic Council. "Please pay attention to the concession of Hammer, the American. It is essential that our obligations on this concession be fulfilled strictly to the letter and that more attention be paid to the matter.... The agreement to supply us with 1,000,000 poods of grain is of exceptional significance.... There is much to indicate that it would be very important for us to publicise this concession and agreement more widely.... Reinshtein will give you a telephonogram about giving paper helping to Hammer's agent. He must be helped. Decide what to write and, if necessary, attach my signature."

Lenin's notes were brief---perhaps three or four lines!---but packed with

stimulating ideas; they fired the energies of their recipients, inspiring them, hastening their efforts and banishing inertia.

On one of those days Martens rang me.

"Comrade Rybakov? Wouldn't you like to fly over to Kashira with me? I really mean fly: my Rolls-Royce is no less fast than Nieuport and Voisin. That cunning bird Lezhava would have given me a propellor-sleigh for it, but I didn't agree---travelling on wheels is like travelling on wings. Forty kilometres an hour---we shall be there and back in five hours. And it's important for a diplomat to get a sniff of real life---if you can't go to the Urals, then at least come to Kashira. What do you say?"

I agreed.

We were beyond the city limits when I knew that that "cunning bird" Lezhava, left with his propellor-sleigh, had not been the loser: the water in the iron belly of the Rolls-Royce bubbled furiously and evaporated before we could cover the distance from one well to the next. Somewhere between Moscow and Kashira, while the driver, bucket in hand, was looking for the next well, Martens and I went for a walk beside a wood. Snow had fallen the previous day and covered the whole area. To one side a village could be seen on a hillock, its lights winking sadly. The first snows, which always seem festive, held no cheer for the spirit today: nothing good was expected from this winter.

"What of Hammer's wheat? Has it arrived yet? And been unloaded?"

Martens was walking beside me, his eyes cast down.

"Yes, it has arrived."

"Does Lenin know?"

"Yes. He said that part of the grain would go to the Urals, part to

Petrograd__" Martens spoke more slowly. "And he also said that Petrogrnd

and Vneshtorg must be informed without fail. Without triple checking not a damned thing would be ready and we would cut a poor figure."

"He actually said that---we would cut a poor figure?"

"That was what he said. Why?"

"He is very keen that this concession be a success."

"Very keen." Martens stopped. "By the way, have you noticed that he has been giving his support to one concession, while the other...." He grinned. "With some people you have something in common, while with others you are quite out of harmony---that's how it is."

"But in fact?"

Martens glanced at the road, looking out for the driver, who had gone to the village for water---however, the road was deserted.

"In fact? Of course, Urquhart's five per cent isn't decisive, although the figure could in itself arouse indignation---"

"What is decisive, then?"

Martens clicked his tongue thoughtfuUy and cleared his throat, evidently intending to give me a detailed answer.

"He has seen something bigger behind that five per cent. He reasons like this: if Urquhart can dare to talk about so trifling a sum, it means that he still

The Krzhizhanovsky Power Station in Kashira, one of the first Soviet regional power stations to be built under the GOELRO plan. The first stage of the station was commissioned in 1922

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regards Ridder-Ekibastuz and Kyshtym and Tanalyk as his own. It's exactly as if he were saying to us from far-off London: 'The revolution? It didn't take place! Power has remained in the same hands! The factories and mines are still controlled by their former owners! What payment can we be talking about, then? A purely symbolic one? Well, five per cent is more than enough for a symbolic payment.' Lenin is indignant---that which he holds highest, the revolution, has been insulted."

"I think Krasin is insisting that an agreement be signed with Urquhart on a concession?" I asked.

"I don't think he knows every side of the problem."

"You mean to say that he doesn't know everything that Lenin knows?"

"Precisely!"

This, as I had noted previously, was Martens' style of conversation. He would lead the person with whom he was talking slowly but surely to the most important point, after which a portentous "precisely!" would follow---and Martens had laid before you everything he wanted to say. So it had been on this occasion.

"Lenin learned of Urquhart's proposals in spring." We had walked through the wood and found ourselves in the middle of an open field. "Perhaps in March or even in April. His response to the proposal was positive, but he warned us that a concessionaire wanting to receive the copper mines must forthwith guarantee the necessary share of the output to the state and---no less important---must help us to equip the other mines in Russia. In short, Lenin placed certain hopes on this concession. He even considered that the resources we received for the concession could be used in carrying out the plan for electrification." Martens stopped. "Lenin, true to his principle of not depending on papers alone but of talking to people who know the position as well, invited Yelisei Domnenko to come and see him. Does that name mean anything to you?"

"No, I must confess that it doesn't."

"Yelisei Domnenko is the manager of the mines at Ridder," Martens observed thoughtfully. "Domnenko told him things that, of course, none of us knew, least of all Krasin, who is abroad. It turns out that when the English left Ridder, they flooded the mines. More, they removed the most important parts of the machinery and took them away. They left their own agents at the mines: from all appearances, they are utterly loyal to their masters. Incidentally, news of a concession was known at the mines before we heard of it in Moscow, from which we may infer that although Urquhart is in London and Ridder in the Urals and despite the fact that there is no British ambassador in Russia and no Soviet ambassador in London, there exists, nevertheless, quite a firm link between London and Ridder. That supposition, by the way, was confirmed in a most surprising way after Domnenko returned to the Urals. Soon after it became known that the mines might become a concession, work was stopped and the workers dismissed---that was Urquhart's agents at work."

"Urquhart's agents?"

"Yes, some of the engineers who worked under him. Domnenko told us,

incidentally, that, to this day, many of them remain in correspondence with Urquhart and receive money and even clothes from him."

"And Lenin knows this now?"

"Yes, I think so."

We spent the whole of the next day at Kashira. I was amazed by what I saw: a power station, which would be fired by coal from the Moscow region, was rising on the banks of the Oka River. I can remember walking along the unsteady scaffolding on the substation building and the engineers, interrupting each other and often speaking at once, telling us of the colossus that the new Kashira would be. The figures with which they were working, not without pride, seemed to me astronomical: twelve thousand kilowatts, fifty thousand, even two hundred thousand kilowatts. The enthusiasm of the engineers appealed to me, but Martens smiled with frank disbelief, as a man of wide experience.

"Of course fifty thousand and even two hundred thousand kilowatts will be generated, but not for a very long time," he said when we were alone. "In the meantime, a thousand kilowatts will be generated and that in a year's time. One thousand kilowatts." He raised his index finger. "But that shouldn't make us lose heart---eventually we will generate two hundred thousand kilowatts."

Subsequently Martens often came into my mind and I would think that, no, this had not been a lack of faith on his part (one could not associate Martens with lack of faith), but simply the voice of a sober and clear-sighted mind.

It was only towards morning that we returned to Moscow. As the car drove along the snowy streets of the city our conversation about the concessions began again.

"Do you think that Lenin has yet to say his final word on Urquhart?" I asked.

"In other circumstances he would already have said it," Martens observed unhurriedly. "And it would have been in the negative." He hesitated, collecting his thoughts. "But under present conditions discussions will, of course, continue."

It so happened that I scarcely saw Martens all that winter. After a gloomy and rather cold March, April burst upon the city with a flood of bright sunshine. The apple-trees bloomed ahead of time---pity if the May frosts killed the blossoms. Would this scorching April heat be good for sowing? After the drought of the previous year, the blazing sun was not a particularly cheering sight.

At around this time I met Martens in the Kremlin. A session of the Council of People's Commissars had just ended and he was hurrying to his office on Novaya Square.

"Comrade Rybakov," he called, "Hammer is in Moscow and the possibility is not excluded that he will shortly be received by Lenin...." His voice broke off, as if he believed he had said enough for me to understand the rest.

"You mean that I would have to act as..." I began, but he interrupted me with great energy:

"Precisely, my dear fellow!"

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Lenin came back into the room.

``I shall repeat that," he said, nodding towards the telephone, "in a letter, which I shall give you now.''

He took a notebook and after pondering for a moment covered a page with his flowing hand, writing with evident ease. He read through what he had written then, suddenly, made several alterations, something which he did not often do. Lenin copied the letter very carefully, folded it and put it in an envelope which he did not, however, seal, as if inviting Hammer to take the opportunity to read it. He walked to the door with Hammer, shooting a glance at him at once penetrating and animated.

``You must agree," said Lenin, his voice revealing curiosity and a sprightly cheerfulness, "that if you had not been sure that it was possible to come to terms with the Bolsheviks, Mr. Hammer, you would not have resolved upon this project?''

Hammer was vainly trying to thrust his notebook into his pocket.

``No, I would not have resolved upon it," he agreed with a laugh, "not at all, Mr. Prime-Minister!''

Martens and I saw Hammer to his car, which was waiting for him to one side of the entrance. The roadway had already dried out after the rain and the voices of the children had moved away into the depths of the Kremlin: they sounded hollow and far-off, as if they were unexpectedly coming from under the sharply-pointed towers.

Hammer stopped suddenly and, taking his notebook from his pocket, extracted the letter.

``I thought that the Prime-Minister wrote 'Comrade Hammer' here." He indicated the letter with a glance, trying to hold it a little way from his eyes. "I don't think I was mistaken---'Comrade Hammer,' isn't that right?''

I took the letter and understood why Lenin had written it so painstakingly, made more corrections than usual and copied it out: the letter was, in fact, in English.

Lenin had written:

``I beg You to help the comrade Armand Hammer; it is extremely important for us that his first concession would be a full success.

``Yours, Lenin."

After this came Lenin's free translation of the letter into Russian.

It was less than two weeks later that Martens and I were summoned to the Kremlin by what was almost an alarm signal.

Although it was after ten o'clock in the evening a yellow half-light flickered in the windows of Lenin's room. I had hoped to find him poring, as usual, over a book or a pile of newspapers, and was not a little surprised to see him wearily pacing his room.

``A letter from Hammer, if you please!" he said, pointing towards the table. "You remember my conversation with Petrograd and my letter? Well,

At the beginning of May I was summoned by Lenin. It was early evening and rainy. The windows were open and small boys running through the puddles on the street below could be clearly heard---one was giggling helplessly, while another, tried to burst into tears, then began laughing and ran over the puddles, the water spattering under his bare feet.

When we entered Lenin was standing by the window, leaning on the window sill and following what was going on below. At first he did not notice us and when he turned his eyes glowed and he had evidently been laughing.

``So we are able to welcome you once again," Lenin said, shaking Hammer's hand. "That means that, despite every adversity, our affairs are moving forward.''

``Yes, Mr. Lenin, despite every adversity. This has not been an easy winter for Russia.''

``After what we had been through already, we thought that nothing could frighten us. But famine, famine...." Lenin fell silent and children's voices again penetrated into the room. They were good voices, full of unquenchable love of life and unfailing joy and, most important of all, the eternal continuity of human nature. "We thank you for the wheat, which we received in time. Is that not so?" Lenin glanced at Martens.

``Precisely.''

``Well, then, now that we know each other a little better, things will proceed more briskly," Lenin said enthusiastically and added, turning to his guest, "How can I help you?''

Hammer drew out his notebook, not without some difficulty: it seemed larger than the one he had had in autumn. Once again, everything he wanted to say to Lenin was precisely noted down. The concession, he informed-him, was already in operation and engineers had arrived in Russia. The ship bringing equipment was expected at any day; on its return voyage it would, perhaps, carry the first cargo of asbestos. The Ural authorities were mindful of the concession, but the port administration in Petrograd and the representative of Vneshtorg.... In general, could Lenin let the Petrograd authorities know how important all this was for the Soviet state?

Lenin rose from his desk.

``The Petrograd authorities, you said?" His face showed concern. "Very well, we shall call up Petrograd now." He moved towards the side door leading to the telephone, leaving the door open behind him: this did not seem to me by chance.

We could hear Lenin turning the handle of the apparatus.

``Petrograd? This is Lenin speaking. Yes, I want to talk about the Hammer concession! Mr. Hammer or his associate Mr. Mishel.... Is that right? Mr. Mishel?" Lenin turned to Hammer---he wanted to make sure that the American was listening to him. The door had not been left open for nothing.

``Yes, my colleague is Mishel.''

``Write that down: Mishel. Mr. Armand Hammer is with me now and I shall

inform him---I must ask you to follow this up personally__Help in every

way....''

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they have done exactly the opposite! I have Petrograd on the line and you shall have the pleasure of listening to me.''

He walked to the telephone, his jacket fluttering as he moved. He was opening and closing his fists and his cheeks had turned ominously white; as he passed the table he brushed against the edge of it, disturbing the green material of the tablecloth, which rucked up, but he did not turn round.

We could hear Lenin turning the handle of the telephone abruptly and firmly.

,

``I was shown a letter from Armand Hammer today, yes, Hammer, the American about whom I wrote to you," he began, his voice unusually quiet. "Yes, the American, the millionaire's son, one of the first to take up a concession with us, one which is extremely beneficial to us!" Lenin paused, evidently trying to maintain his self-control and express what he had to say calmly. "Hammer writes that, contrary to my letter, yes, yes, the letter I sent you in Petrograd, his colleague, Mishel, is complaining of the impoliteness and bureaucratic approach of Begge from Vneshtorg, who saw him in Petrograd." Lenin fell menacingly silent for a moment. "I am registering a complaint about Begge's behaviour with the Central Committee! What the devil are you up to? Despite a letter expressly written by me, you have done exactly the opposite of what I requested! I must ask you to make a special investigation of this matter!''

He came back into the room with the same firm step and, without stopping at his desk, walked to the far end of the office before returning to the desk and pulling at the green cloth. He regarded us grimly.

``I wanted to return to Urquhart once more, calmly," he said. His cheeks nevertheless retained their ominous whiteness. "Urquhart wants to control all of our copper, all of it. In other words, we are to give a monopoly over copper into his hands. There is something of Lord Curzon's strategy in this.... Admit the enemy, even give him weapons. No! The workers, the worker comrades would not forgive us for that. We have driven out our bandits and now we are calling foreign ones in.... No.''

Lenin walked over to the window and listened: the rain had stopped.

That evening Martens and I parted early, he to hurry to Metal Department before leaving that night for Kursk, while I remained in the Kremlin.

``Lenin said 'we have driven out our bandits and now we are calling foreign ones in'," Martens observed, as I accompanied him from the Maly Palace to the Troitsky Gates, "but when he said it I remembered Perovo, the locomotives covered with snow and Feofanych.... No, Lenin was not in Perovo that time, but his tireless concern, that enormous restlessness of his was there." Martens stopped, his eyes sombre. "In a word, I understand Lenin to be saying: 'There is only one passport in the world which we require everyone coming here to hold---good will.'"

It was after midnight when I left the Kremlin. The earth was still damp from the recent rain, but the skies had cleared: tomorrow would be a bright day. I looked at my watch---ten minutes past twelve. The train for Kursk had

already left. Martens was, no doubt, still awake; he would be standing by the window and looking at the sky, just as I was. A black clump of trees swept past, the broad mirror of the Oka River, a field covered by mist, another clump of trees. And Martens, too, was probably recalling the Kremlin and our conversation by the Troitsky Gates before we had parted: "There is one passport: good will, that is all.''

The opening of an exhibition of paintings from the private collection of Armand Hammer at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1972. In the centre---ARMAND HAMMER

LENIN in Gorki. 1922

Coming Home

think it's raining, I really do!" Somewhere above me, on the ••¥ fourth floor or perhaps the fifth, where the stenographers •*- work---no one pays more attention to the sky than stenographers---a window had been thrown open. "Come on, rain!''

I looked out the window. The sky was clouded over and drops of rain were falling as though from a tap that had not been fully turned off.

The previous spring all eyes had been turned in just the same way towards the sky: would it rain? With the beginning of spring the sun had begun to scorch the grain and by the end of May everything that could be burned was burned. Would to god that this spring be different! The rain was coming down more heavily every minute. I tried to poke my head out of the window. A guttering stream of water had broken over the edge of the roof and ran down beside the window, looking like a reed in the wind. I wanted to reach out to it, but could not. The water roared in the gutters and coursed fussily over the dusty earth.

``Come on, rain!''

For a moment the noise of the rain drowned out all other sounds. It was gushing down now, as if poured from a bucket, and I slowly came away from the window. The telephone was ringing---and had evidently been ringing for some time, its reverberations conquering even the thunder of the rain.

``Comrade Rybakov? We thought we would never get through! One minute, please---"

I waited, bent over the receiver.

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"Connecting you now. Comrade Rybakov"---it was the same female voice---"Comrade Lenin is speaking with Rostov."

The windows in Lenin's reception room were probably also wide open: I could hear the torrents of water beating off the roof.

Lenin was speaking with Rostov. Perhaps he was asking whether there was rain there. Naturally, he would want it to be raining in Rostov, just as steadily and abundantly as in Moscow. But abundant rain, it seems, cannot be depended upon to stay; it tumbles into rivers and streams without soaking into the earth. Or is that not true? Look at how the overflowing spring rain gushes down.

"Comrade Rybakov? This is Lenin!"

He was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "A magazine with a long article entitled 'Diplomacy and Electricity' is being brought to you. Could you come to me this evening with a short synopsis of it? No, of course it is not for me! I'll tell you when to come in a moment." Again silence fell, but I could hear him calling to the secretaries: "What did Krzhizhanovsky say? What? And Graftio? Yes, yes!"

"Are you there? I shall expect you at eight o'clock. If I am not in my office, go upstairs. Not to the loft, of course, to the veranda. Yes, the new one. You have already been there, I think? By the way, a dispatch rider is already on his way to you with the magazine."

He put down the receiver.

I looked out of the open window, beyond which rain was pouring down, but saw neither the dark sky, covered with clouds, nor the thundering water. At eight o'clock, then, on the veranda. But why there? Two or three days previously someone had told me that Lenin was suffering from headaches and insomnia; and that a famous German physician, Klemperer, had examined Lenin. What had he found out?

I went over to the window: the messenger from the Kremlin would be here at any moment. The downpour enveloped everything, like a dull yellow fog, and it would be difficult even for a dispatch rider to get through the wall of rain. I imagined him flying out of the Troitsky Gates and dashing over the flagstones and the pavement, flooded with water.

"Comrade Rybakov---a parcel for you."

A dispatch rider was standing in the open door, the folds and creases of his leather jacket still full of water.

The parcel opened, the article lay before me. Diplomacy and electricity, then? Electrification as the basic foundation for the economic might of pan-Americanism? The author's ideas were reasonable: he envisaged the creation of hydroelectric stations on great American rivers like the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Tennessee and the Oregon, giving every river a

GLEB KRZHIZHANOVSKY. 1922

Plan for the Electrification of the RSFSR. The cover of a booklet published in 1920

``HAyMHOTEXHHqECKHfl OTAEA B.C.H.X

Members of the commission responsible for drawing up the GOELRO plan. Second from left---GLEB KRZHIZHANOVSKY

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MOCKBA 1920

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unique constellation or ``cascade'' of stations. The hydroelectric stations were indeed like pioneers, who are the first to come to the scorching sands to lay roads to the cities and factories. The hydroelectric stations are the pioneers of our age. It is only at first glance that this comparison seems purely American; who knows---perhaps the time will come, and in the not so far distant future, when the pioneers of technological progress in the far-off lands of Russia will also be hydroelectric stations? Was it not about this that Lenin intended to speak with Krzhizhanovsky today? I had already once witnessed a conversation between them on this topic. "Comrade Rybakov, I want to talk to you!" Lenin called to me from the far end of a corridor at the Council of People's Commissars: he sometimes came out into the corridor during breaks between sessions. "Just a moment!" He raised his hand, as if wanting to indicate by this that I should wait for him where I was. "You must understand, Comrade Krzhizhanovsky," he said, continuing his interrupted conversation, "that a plan is necessary, not a technical one, but a political or state plan!" For a moment Lenin disappeared into the shadows and I could not see him, but his voice reached me, becoming increasingly resonant. "We shall build twenty, thirty, even fifty stations in approximately ten years, fired by peat, shale and coal. Within a radius of four hundred versts of any point there will be a station! And take in the whole country, town after town and village

after village!" His voice came from immediately beside me. "The interest of the workers and conscious peasants must be engaged in the prospect of an electrified Russia." His hand remained raised, as if he wished by this to give Krzhizhanovsky to understand that the conversation was to cease for a moment and, turning to me, he asked whether I was going to my office. Would I be seeing Chicherin? Then I was to tell him most emphatically that he, Lenin, had still not received the Turkish agreement. Lenin resumed his measured, thoughtful pacing, as if inviting Krzhizhanovsky to continue the conversation that had just been broken off. His voice grew softer and I could only make out the barely audible words: "A map of Russia with the main centres and the districts...."

The idea of an electrified Russia had dominated his thoughts previously, too, but it had never exercised such force over him as during these years. In this connection he had asked me to prepare the synopsis of "Diplomacy and Electricity".

At exactly eight o'clock I arrived at the Maly Palace, but Lenin was not in his office. He had evidently gone out on to the veranda and I hurried there.

At the entrance to his apartment I met his sister, Maria. Beside her was a man in a black overcoat, holding an imposing travelling-bag. It was not

MARIA

ULYANOVA,

LENIN'S sister, in the editorial offices of Pravda

LENIN and NADEZHDA KRUPSKAYA and a group of peasants in Kashino village at celebrations marking the opening of the Kashino power station. 1920

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and imagination which his thoughts find in poetry. The gap between the two poles will crumble and technology become poetry.

For a better world, For holy freedom.

The veranda was in shadow and the lights beyond the Moskva River seemed immediately beneath its windows.

``Don't take off your overcoat," Lenin said to me, "it's quite cool here. We shall soon be going downstairs, anyway."

Lenin and Krzhizhanovsky were sitting at a table and the lamp, with an enamelled shade, was lowered a little.

"But why should we invent a wooden bicycle?" Lenin said. "Everything we can get from abroad we should take, without making some kind of tragedy out of it. The Americans build power stations on their great rivers, so we should go to them for the technology."

``They're a kind of secret society," Krzhizhanovsky objected, "with their own commandments and passwords." He agitated his fingers and then hurriedly concealed them in his beard, as if he had scorched them.

"Subversives can be found in any secret society."

Lenin rose, his feet echoing on the boards of the veranda. There was nothing in his walk, his face or his voice to suggest illness.

"Did you leave something unsaid, out of tact, eh?" hs said.

He looked searchingly at Krzhizhanovsky, who met his glance and carefully smoothed his tousled eyebrows.

"When the subject of electricity comes up, America, as a state, takes a back seat."

"What do you mean by that?" Lenin asked, moving impatiently.

"There is a second state, an electrical one, inside America, that almost has the rights of a sovereign state," Krzhizhanovsky began. "This second state has its own constitution, its way of life, its own rewards and punishments. It may be paradoxical, but this state, called into existence by the advances of our age, obeys the laws of the Middle Ages. Light and darkness are nowhere so firmly interwoven as here. The most faithful proponents of the Christian faith are not farmers and shopkeepers, but officers and scholars. There is no denser jungle in our age than that of technology---the virgin thickets of Africa have been moved into the draftsman's office. By comparison with the fortress wall with which its masters have surrounded the electrical state, the Great Wall of China is a mere nothing. In these conditions the freedom and independence of man are illusory. Of course, Edison and Steinmetz are great scientists, but even their freedom is relative. To stretch out a hand to the new world means to renounce the old---and those who do so are punished."

We left the veranda and had already descended the staircase when Lenin turned and asked:

"Steinmetz, you said?"

"Yes, Charles Steinmetz."

"A brother electrical engineer?"

Krzhizhanovsky agreed briefly.

"A star of the first magnitude, is he?"

Klemperer: the man with the travelling-bag spoke Russian with too pure an accent for a German.

"Yes, the connective tissue appeared but they are easily palpable", the man said and, meeting my glance, hurried to the door.

I noticed that as he went out he took a pair of mittens from his pocket, and after putting them on opened and closed his hands. They seemed strong hands to me, flexible and mobile.

"Tomorrow at twelve o'clock, then."

"At twelve," the man replied.

"He definitely has a surgeon's hands," I thought. "A surgeon? Then what does that reference to 'connective tissue' mean?"

Lenin's sister was still standing by the open door.

"My brother is waiting for you," she said, as if her remarks were addressed not to me but to someone standing behind me; her eyes were on me but she was seeing the man with the travelling-bag. "He is upstairs, with Gleb." She quickly corrected herself and said more formally: "With Comrade Krzhizhanovsky."

I went upstairs slowly, but stopped after mounting a few steps on hearing the unexpected sound of voices softly singing, as if the singers were apprehensive of disturbing the quietness.

Proudly and boldly,

We shall raise the banner of struggle

For the workers' cause.

I recognised Krzhizhanovsky's soft baritone and Lenin's voice, which was also a baritone, like Krzhizhanovsky's, or perhaps a tenor, sensitive but not strong. They were singing quietly but with sincere feeling, deeply stirred. Probably they were recalling something far off yet still close to them---perhaps that winter evening on the bank of the Yenisei River, locked in its icy armour, when they had walked for a long time, dreaming of the future.

The banner of struggle Of all peoples, For a better world, For holy freedom.

Gleb Krzhizhanovsky---``Kler'', as Lenin called him on rare occasions, recalling a nickname of past years---was one of those to whom Lenin was most intimately bound. Something in the nature of this man was infinitely dear, infinitely appealing to Lenin. Perhaps it was the integrity of his personality, perhaps his intelligence, perhaps---and this was very possible---his artistic ability, which always retained its charm and held out the promise of so much pleasure. Krzhizhanovsky's songs were filled with such sacred fury and at the same time so profoundly felt! How many persecuted men and women had sung them at moments of joy and pain! Who was it who said that technology and poetry lie at opposite poles? When man overturns nature's last defences, he will communicate to his technological accomplishments that same freedom

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We were now standing in the hall of the apartment, a coat rack directly in front of us.

"Certainly!"

"And I didn't know him at all," said Lenin. "Not at all, I must confess," he went on with cheerful ebullience, as if the thought that everyone had heard of the famed Steinmetz except him gave him pleasure: evidently, such unawareness was not a common occurrence. "I suppose he has a couple of dozen patents to his name, eh?"

Krzhizhanovsky took off his scarf and hung it up neatly.

"Two hundred, rather."

"Has he built a power station in America, then?"

"He has been responsible for constructing the machinery for many stations."

Lenin looked perplexed.

"So he is called Charles Steinmetz?"

Lenin took off his overcoat, but instead of hanging it up, held it indecisively in his hand, evidently overwhelmed by Steinmetz' magnificence.

"Does Graftio know Steinmetz?" Lenin was still holding his overcoat.

"I think so. He couldn't but know."

Lenin hung up his coat and we went into the apartment.

"Maria, where are you?" he called cheerfully. "Do you know Charles Steinmetz, then?" He turned to Krzhizhanovsky and said seriously: "What does Martens think about your Steinmetz?" Lenin picked up the telephone receiver. "Ludwig Karlovich? We are going to give you a test! What does the name Steinmetz, Charles Steinmetz mean to you?" Lenin was silent for a moment, then directed a thoughtful look at Krzhizhanovsky. "He is asking whether we are talking about the arc-lamp Steinmetz? Yes, yes! At the beginning of the century all American cities were lit by arc lamps? And his generators were used? And his condensers? Well, thank you ... no, it's all clear now!"

He turned to Krzhizhanovsky. "Have you put everyone up to saying the same thing about Steinmetz? Got everyone on to your side?---Martens certainly is."

Krzhizhanovsky smiled.

"Is all this because of Steinmetz?"

"Because of him," Lenin replied, laughing. He looked round quickly and called to his sister: "Maria, can you hear me?"

He glanced at the door leading to the room where his sister was, as if waiting for her to answer, and then went out. She came back with him, his hand resting on her shoulder. "Well, so it's connective tissue, but don't worry," he said quietly and followed his sister for a few steps, simply, it seemed to me, in order to keep his hand on her shoulder a moment more.

It cost him an effort to return to the interrupted conversation.

"And now," he said to me, "let us see your translation."

There was a moment before he said this, brief but quite perceptible, when his thoughts were still in the other room with his sister; the conversation that had just taken place between them had considerably disturbed him.

"Let us see it," he repeated, but he was still thinking of what his sister had said.

He bent over the text and I saw that he put his hand carefully to his forehead, touching and then gripping it: his head was aching, as it did in the evenings.

It was midday, bright for early spring, and the corridor outside Lenin's office was unusually deserted; the secretaries' room was almost empty and---what was really surprising---the door into Lenin's office was wide open and Lenin himself absent. Of course, I had seen his room empty before, but on this midday in spring, filled with strong yet not harsh sunlight, the quietness in the room seemed fragile and, I must confess, alarming.

"Is Lenin in town?"

"No, he is at home."

"At home?"

"Yes, he has been there all day."

It was only then that I noticed Krzhizhanovsky, deep in some papers, at the other end of the room in which sessions of the Council of People's Commissars took place. He, too, had evidently come to see Lenin.

"Excuse me, but you mean he won't be here today?" I repeated, so that Krzhizhanovsky would also hear me.

"He won't be here at all."

Krzhizhanovsky had torn himself away from his papers; his eyes, half covered by his wiry eyebrows, glittered sombrely. He gave a scarcely perceptible nod, expressive of greeting and a desire to tell me something. "You can convey everything you want to Lenin through his sister; she is at home now."

He spoke softly, as if fearing to break the silence which flowed through the house---in the way people speak when someone is ill.

"Have you seen her?" I asked, approaching him.

"Yes, just now." Krzhizhanovsky indicated the piece of paper lying before him with a glance, inviting me to read it.

It was a note by Lenin and had evidently just been written in his quick, firm hand. Before I had grasped the meaning of the first line I saw the name of Steinmetz, that same magician with electricity ("the arc-lamp Steinmetz!"), who had been the subject of yesterday's conversation.

"I received the enclosed only today. It is about Steinmetz. You will recall saying to me that he is a world figure."

I looked at Krzhizhanovsky. It was as if he was asking me whether I had read the note through and suggesting by the movements of his hands and the impatient movement of his eyes that I read it to the end.

"Should I indicate something practical to him in reply, since he offers his assistance? In view of this, should I indicate concrete forms of assistance to him?"

I shifted my glance to Krzhizhanovsky, whose eyes were following me unwinkingly.

"Should his letter and my answer be published?

"Please return the enclosed and my letter with your advice. I shall be consulting further with Martens. We must consider our reply very carefully. Yours, Lenin."

COMING HOME

COMING HOME

Krzhizhanovsky rose and walked slowly along the table. He held his right hand low over it, from time to time carefully touching the cloth, as if wanting to feel its pleasant roughness.

"If you intend to go to his apartment," he said to me, "you had better go later on. He is sleeping now." "At about four o'clock?" "Yes, then, perhaps."

At four o'clock I arrived at Lenin's apartment. Maria, Lenin's sister, opened the door to me. I could not see her face, for the window was behind her, and only her steel-grey hair, looking like smoke in the light, was visible. "Can I give you something for Lenin?"

"Of course. But perhaps you would like to give it to him yourself? Then wait a minute, please---Borkhardt is with him."

I sat in the dining room; a car drove past somewhere under the window and the nailed boots of Red Army men ringing on the flagstones could be heard very far off.

There was a smell of spirit and strong mustard---mustard plasters have a moderating effect on headaches. The door into the bedroom was half open and I could see a man in a black jacket, buttoned up to the neck, taking off a pince-nez; without them he resembled an owl. He put the pince-nez on a table and immediately began to load a pair of heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles on to his nose. He did this hurriedly, as if wishing to remove his strikingly owl-like look.

"So that is Borkhardt? Klemperer is a physician and Rozanov a surgeon," I said to myself and repeated: "Klemperer is a physician, Rozanov a surgeon. Surely Borkhardt, too, cannot be a surgeon?"

Maria came into the room, carefully closing the door behind her, and sat with me.

"He wanted to write a reply to Steinmetz himself." She turned and looked towards the door, as if tenderly reproaching her brother for his stubborness and at the same time rejoicing at it. "When the conversation about Steinmetz began, I heard.... Incidentally, do you want to have a look at Steinmetz' letter?"

"Is it in there?" I asked, glancing at the room in which Lenin lay. "I would not want to disturb him." "No, I have the letter by me." "Then if I could...."

She went for the letter. A picture of Charles Steinmetz, his moon-face surrounded by hair, came before my mind and I thought: "I wonder how much does the writing convey Steinmetz, personality. Is there the same sombre curiosity in the eyes, the same small, stubborn furrow on the bridge of

his nose, the same kindness__Do his eyes have the warmth of a man who has

seen much and is still keenly receptive to everything new. How far does his portrait resemble him?"

The room was full of light and every line of the letter from beginning to end was clear before my eyes. The first sentence had an inspiring ring---there it was, that kindly softness of the eyes: "My dear Mr. Lenin!" The letter could be taken in at a glance---three sentences contained its entire meaning. Steinmetz expressed his admiration for the marvellous work in social and

industrial reconstruction that Russia was carrying out under difficult circumstances and wished the country success in this. The great work begun in Russia must and would be finished, he affirmed. He was always ready to help or advise Russia on technical matters, particularly those relating to electrical engineering, in any way he could.

As I read, Maria stood a little distance from me. I could hear her breathing and it seemed to me that her face wore the same gentle thoughtfulness as her brother's when he was reading the letter.

I pushed the letter to the other side of the table, where Maria was now sitting.

"Is the reply ready?"

"He has been writing it all morning."

The door behind me opened.

"Maria, the professor is leaving." It was Lenin's voice.

Borkhardt had in fact appeared in the door. He had removed the horn-rimmed spectacles and resumed his pince-nez. Borkhardt was a domesticated man and blooming with rude health; his plump shoulders, his neck and his cheeks were redolent of well-being. He was beautifully dressed in an excellently tailored suit, the heavy, gleaming cloth of which would still look new in a century's time. He carried a travelling bag of soft, yellow leather and the massive chain hanging from his waistcoat pocket was just long enough to permit the heavy disc of his watch to lie on the palm of his hand. And all this, the suit, the travelling bag and even the cool metal of the watch, seemed to breathe of the calm of his professorial nature, the rotund joy of his healthy professorial stomach and his awareness of his own worth.

Borkhardt left.

"Is he a surgeon?" I asked Maria.

"Yes, why?"

"Only a surgeon could have such a blooming appearance, and then...."

"Then?"

"He was talking about the heart."

Maria understood me.

"Yes, the heart."

Half an hour later as we said good-bye, she promised that if the reply to Steinmetz' letter were ready that day, she would send it to me immediately. "My brother would like to see it translated."

We arranged that she should telephone me, no matter how late it was.

I walked back to my office in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. So Borkhardt was a surgeon? And then, there had been the conversation about the heart---and that time the talk had turned to connective tissue. Would there be an operation?

I waited for the parcel from the Kremlin to come.

A thunderous sky hung over Moscow. Somewhere above the horizon there was still a sliver of blue, but the clouds were advancing inexorably even on this. The impression one received was that stones were being rained down from the sky and that their glancing blows had cut out the clear patch.

I could see Lenin half sitting up in bed, covered with a check plaid---the same plaid his mother had given him when they had met for the last time. How many times, in drawing the plaid over him, had he, perhaps, caught himself

COMING HOME

COMING HOME

thinking that the soft wool retained the warmth of his mother's hands. He moved the table lamp closer to the bed and put a book on his knees: it was more convenient to write that way. Perhaps, in his thoughts, he was moving across the ocean and trying to form a mental picture of Steinmetz.

``Dear Mr. Steinmetz,

``I thank you cordially for your friendly letter of February 16, 1922.1 must admit to my shame that I heard your name for the first time only a few months

ago from Comrade Krzhizhanovsky__He told me of the outstanding position

which you have gained among the electrical engineers of the whole world.''

Lenin put the sheet of paper to one side and fell into thought. He recalled that first conversation with Martens, the latter's question---"The arc-lamp Steinmetz?" Lenin had immediately asked Krzhizhanovsky---yes, it was that same Steinmetz!

``Comrade Martens has now made me better acquainted by his accounts of you. I have seen from these accounts that your sympathies with Soviet Russia have been aroused, on the one hand, by your social and political views. On the other hand, as a representative of electrical engineering and particularly in one of the technically advanced countries, you have become convinced of the necessity and inevitability of the replacement of capitalism by a new social order, which will establish the planned regulation of economy and ensure the

welfare of the entire mass of the people on the basis of the electrification of entire countries.''

Lenin took his hand from his forehead and moved the book and the piece of paper resting on it closer. The dry burning in his temples seemed to have abated and his clarity of vision returned: objects were softly threedimensional, the gleam did not hurt his eyes and the blue sky did not dazzle them but was rather a source of pleasure. For the first time that day, looking out of the window, he saw how furiously the clouds were spiralling and how soaked they were with light. How marvellous it was when an idea suddenly burst forth, free, beautiful in its harmony and proportions, aimed at the future! It was always like that and only that: thought, eternally alive, joyful and active, gave man physical strength. The clouds were free, like thought, and like thought, they were surging forward....

``In all the countries of the world there is growing---more slowly than one would like, but irresistibly and unswervingly---the number of representatives of science, technology, art, who are becoming convinced of the necessity of replacing capitalism by a different socio-economic system, and whom the 'terrible difficulties' of. the struggle of Soviet Russia against the entire capitalist world do not repel, do not frighten away but, on the contrary, lead to an understanding of the inevitability of the struggle and the necessity

Lenin's letter to Charles Steinmetz

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COMING HOME

COMING HOME

of taking what part in it they can, helping the new to overcome the old." Lenin seemed to have tired and, placing a pencil in the book, he softly closed it. He drew the plaid higher and straightened his legs. Somewhere at the other end of the apartment, perhaps in the kitchen or perhaps even further away, there was the sound of running water---somewhere flashes of sunlight, dry branches and dry leaves. How long was it since he had begun the letter---an hour, three hours? He opened the book.

``In particular, I want to thank you for your offer to help Russia with your advice, suggestions, etc. As the absence of official and legally recognised relations between Soviet Russia and the United States makes the practical realisation of your offer extremely difficult both for us and for you, I will allow myself to publish both your letter and my reply, in the hope that many persons who live in America, or in countries connected by commercial treaties both with the United States and with Russia, will then help you (by information, by translations from Russian into English, etc.) to give effect to your intention of helping the Soviet Republic. "With best greetings,

``Yours fraternally, "Lenin."

The letter finished, he called his sister.

``Maria, read it through, please, and tell me whether I understood Gleb Krzhizhanovsky properly. Is that the way we should answer Steinmetz' offer of help? We haven't been too clever here?''

He gave the letter to his sister, thinking: "But how shall I make use of his experience, when there is an ocean between us---and not just an ocean? Had he been here, on the spot, we could have called on his experience, too, to help us---there is our peat and coal, we could have said, here are our rivers, the Volkhov, the Dnieper, the Volga---and there, at the other end of the world, are the Yenisei and the Lena. The problem is---how to harness them and make them work for Russia? How old is Steinmetz? Sixty or seventy? If he had been younger, it would have been possible to do battle with America for Steinmetz. If Russia had been socialist at the end of the last century, who knows where Steinmetz' path would have led?''

``Maria, I asked you to find out whether Rozanov had seen Borkhardt. Has he and will he be seeing him again? Where? In the Soldatenkovskaya hospital? And I have to go there? Well, I'm ready. It means an operation, then?''

Two days later I went to Sweden: the order for turbines for the Volkhov power station had to be finalised before the Easter holidays. After a week and a half in Sweden I returned, stopping en route in Petrograd to meet Krzhizhanovsky, as previously agreed. As always, Krzhizhanovsky had worked everything out exactly: he was travelling to Volkhov via Petrograd, but had timed has journey to coincide with my return from Stockholm. He wanted to be able to go to the power station with the latest information at his fingertips. I arrived in Petrograd in the evening, preceding Krzhizhanovsky, whose train from Moscow would be arriving in the morning.

I called the porter and asked for the March file of Pravda. Nothing, I thought, could better tell me of what had happened in the country during the previous ten days than the newspapers. However, it was only in the morning

that I received the file and with it the preceding day's newspaper. I carried the file over to the window and opened it. The day was dazzlingly bright; the sun had already risen and the heavy stone blocks of St. Isaac's Cathedral seemed weightless. I began to leaf through the file rapidly, because I had learned of some of the events from the Stockholm papers, and of others from friends. "Famous American scientist on Soviet Russia." Yes, it was Charles Steinmetz' letter and Lenin's reply: so Lenin had carried out his intention of printing the letter. I turned over a few more pages. There it was, in the same upper right-hand corner of the second page: a report in heavy type and a photograph---not even a photograph, indeed, but a drawing, evidently made from a photograph. A drawing of a bullet? The report was very terse---Lenin had been operated on, the forearm had been opened and a bullet extracted: yes, that same bullet fired by a Socialist-Revolutionary, the result of the August attempt on Lenin's life at the Michelson factory. The operation had been performed by Professors Borkhardt and Rozanov and the condition of the patient was satisfactory. I suddenly realised that I had been sitting, looking out of the window, for half an hour---looking at the sun and the square stone blocks of St. Isaac's, which were suddenly heavy again; I seemed to see the earth's crust tensing and ready to burst through. Two bullets had been discovered in the forearm during the operation? I remembered the veranda over Lenin's apartment, the conversation with Maria, his sister, and the meeting with Krzhizhanovsky in the room where sessions of the Council of People's Commissars took place, when the latter had walked along the table, touching the rough surface of its cloth with the palm of his hand....

Krzhizhanovsky arrived at eleven o'clock. He had obviously walked for quite a distance, perhaps in the face of the wind, for his cheeks were glowing.

``Well, what about our Stockholm order?" he fired at me as he entered. "No, just tell me: yes or no?" He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes, which were filled with tears from the wind. "Let me have a look at you. Well, will we receive the machines?" He glanced up, his eyes now troubled and sharp, and saw the file of newspapers on the table; it was lit up by the midday sun and the drawing in the upper right-hand corner of the page could be made out from a distance. "You already know?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the newspaper.

``I know. How did things go?''

Krzhizhanovsky stretched out his hand and turned over the page: the drawing had disturbed him.

``Who can say? On the third day after the operation he was receiving foreigners and ordering nails for Kashira." Krzhizhanovsky fell silent and looked out of the window. "When he was seeing me off yesterday, he said that his head was burning, burning." He walked over to the window and not turning round, fearing to turn round, went on: "He also said that there was no worse affront than not to have enough life. I objected that that might have been true in Zurich, when the October Revolution was still over the horizon. 'You mean, there was enough life?' he asked me and his voice had a joyful tremour: it is easy to hide one's grief, but much harder to hide one's happiness. 'There was!' I said. He knew that without my having to say it, but it seemed to me then that of all the words he wanted to hear, those were the dearest: 'there was enough life!'"

Krzizhanovsky turned, not ashamed now that his eyes were filled with tears.

LENIN. Moscow, July 1920

A Father

To V. A. Tsyurupa

he wind whipped up the powdery snow and the two figures walking Tin front of me dissolved into the white blur, then appeared again. •*• Quickening my pace, I recognised Louise Bryant and beside her, Selin. It was still only ten minutes to five and they were not hurrying.

Louise Bryant was walking with her head slightly bowed, raising her hand before her face when the wind strengthened. She seemed absorbed in a gently meditative mood. Perhaps the snowy half-light of a morning in Portland was before her eyes now. The footsteps in the fresh snow looked black and could be seen from afar. Snow powdered the windows and here and there lights were already burning. In their gleam a starched tablecioth, bread in a china bread-bin and a dish of crabs had the golden-white hue of the sun. Reed was sitting beside Louise and read poetry troughout the meal: "The wind coiled the white tresses, the snowy tresses...". Then they looked at Louise's watercolours and, glancing sideways at him, she saw that in the light his brows were Huffily gilded. Later the snow stopped falling and the sun lay on the snow, rolled up into a ball, like a little red fox, and it was good to stand on top of a snow-drift, feeling how softly the light and the wind wrapped around you, streaming and flowing down....

As she walked around the Kremlin squares, banked up with snow, Louise Bryant could remember the day when they had first met---and the day when they had last met. Last met? Yes, it had been a windy day, powdered with broken leaves and the bitter dust of autumn. Even at this moment, if you looked hard, you could make out the Nikolsky Gates and the Kremlin wall, its crenellated top like a broken chain of fir trees. Reed lies there.

A FATHER

The snow stopped and the Maly Palace, or rather its windows, could be glimpsed. Two windows on the third floor were those of Lenin's office. He was inside, it seemed: perhaps he had come early or perhaps he had remained until dawn with Tsyurupa---during the night communiques had been coming in from the hungry Volga and Transurals. "My dear Tsyurupa, Gorky rang me yesterday from Petrograd---he said they had picked up the corpse of a Putilov worker at the Narva Gates. An old proletarian---the revolution was made with his hands." When were those words said? Perhaps half an hour ago. Tsyurupa's windows, incidentally, were also lit---Tsyurupa, too, was awake.

The snowstorm had abated and light was showing through the snowy curtain. Louise Bryant and Selin had already reached the Maly Palace. Whom did they meet right at the entrance? Was it not Lenin himself? There was snow on the astrakhan collar of his overcoat and no doubt he had been walking for a long time along a snowy path; to the right was the shifting gloom of the Tamitsky Garden and when the snowstorm died down, as it had now, the lights of the Sofiiskaya Embankment blinked dimly. If he had been walking about the Kremlin, it meant that he could not sleep.

"Wait a minute---but why Saltykovka and so early?" he said, looking inquiringly at Louise Bryant. ``Isn't the peasants' canteen Tsyurupa told me about there?"

A FATHER

Lenin had pronounced the last few words in Russian, depending on me to translate, but she caught their meaning and answered before I could begin.

"Yes, there," she said, laughing; and taking off her hat began to shake the snow from it. She did this with great thoroughness and large snowflakes, wet and amorphous, fell on to her hair.

"You know," Lenin began suddenly, his eyes following Selin, who had gone to get the car ready---no more than half an hour remained before departure---"you know, that lanky fellow in steel-rimmed glasses---yes, Fyodor Selin---is an extraordinary man. Mark my words: extraordinary." He went on, his voice very soft: "Tsyurupa, apparently, brought him here from Ufa and he has an instinct for people."

It was hard for him to conceal his fondness for Tsyurupa. Recently they had been working together in the room in which sessions of the Council of People's Commissars were held. In the course of two hours perhaps five words had passed between them, but in the glances Lenin cast at Tsyurupa I more than once detected an unsentimental but deeply felt sympathy. How were things with Tsyurupa? Lenin asked himself. For Tsyurupa took the view that the position of People's Commissar for Food gave him no privileges other than that of going hungry with the rest of the country: on three occasions at sessions of the Council this strong man had fainted from hunger and Lenin was

John Reed and His Wife Louise Bryant

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Iskra (The Spark)---the first all-Russia Marxist newspaper---was founded bv Lenin in 1900

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A FATHER

A FATHER

seriously concerned that his family should not starve to death. Scrupulously, as only he was able, Lenin worked out the budget of the Tsyurupa family, including monthly income (two thousand rubles), the cost of a dinner (twelve rubles) and monthly expenditure on food (2,520 rubles---more than Tsyurupa's income). A note to the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee containing these calculations concluded with the anxious words: "They are not getting enough to eat! They take only four portions and that isn't enough. The children are adolescents and need more than adults.''

I walked beside Louise Bryant along the long corridor of the Council of People's Commissars. She had not put on her hat and whenever a ray of light from a window fell on us I could see that large drops of melted snow lay upon her hair.

``You noticed that Lenin seemed pale---he was cold. That is the result of insomnia---I don't think he went to bed last night.''

``Neither did Tsyurupa," I said.

``Were they working together?''

``Apparently.''

It was quiet in the room occupied by Tsyurupa's secretariat: at night he preferred to work alone. The door into the office was left wide open so that he could hear us. Now he would push his chair back and we would hear him call: "Who's there, please?" But we heard nothing except the tramp of feet somewhere in the corridor as the morning inspection was carried out.

We approached the open door. Tsyurupa's black leather jacket lined with sheepskin was lying on a rush-bottomed armchair: he had evidently just removed it from its hanger and was waiting for us. A partly drunk glass of dark-brown, almost black, tea was on the table. The shade on a table lamp concentrated the light on a single spot. Tsyurupa was dozing, sunk in his armchair, his head supported on his hand. For a moment we stopped in the doorway, not knowing whether to enter the room or not. But Tsyurupa slowly removed his hand from his forehead and met our glance with eyes that were half-closed from sleep and unsteady. He looked at us uncomprehendingly for a long time---his brief sleep had clearly been a sound one.

``Come in, please!" Supporting himself on the arm of the chair, he rose to his feet. "Would you like some tea? There's nothing better after a night like this---it's like a bathe in spring water," he laughed. "It really puts heart into you! Would you like some tea? We have about ten minutes while Selin is getting the car ready." He opened an oven and took out a large kettle; a small sieve was suspended from the end of its large spout to catch the tea-leaves. "Only remember that this is extremely strong tea. If you have the shivers or are down in the dumps or don't feel up to things, this will fix up, as well as driving away sleepiness.''

After some ten minutes Selin came in. As he entered he took off his spectacles and was instantaneously transformed from a rather formal figure to the good fellow we held in affection. How old was he---nineteen, twenty-two?

``The car is ready," he announced, almost ceremoniously, and put on his spectacles.

...We had been travelling about thirty minutes. Snow was falling and nothing could be seen through its white shroud. The moon had become

entangled somewhere in the gloom: occasionally, not without difficulty, it managed to tear itself free from the snow and for a time would move from snowdrift to snowdrift before getting stuck again and stopping. Our car moved through the murk in almost the same way, with only the whistle of the wind and the roaring of the motor.

I kept my eyes fixed on Tsyurupa: a different element had attracted the revolutionary today.... Tsyurupa, Sasha Tsyurupa. Agent for Iskra (The Spark), correspondent, distributor and friend of the newspaper. It would enter a town with him. Tsyurupa arrived in Kharkov and the newspaper appeared in dug-outs and workers' barracks. Then he set off for Nikolayev and the newspaper moved from factory to port, from street to street. Iskra stirred things up, pricked peoples' minds. And then a dash into the north, to Tula, as if he were a native of the town, one who had breathed the fire and smoke of working-class Tula. Then to the south-east, to Tambov, city of grain, and a brief clash with the police, who were following on his tracks, and exile.... Olonetsk, rivers in their icy armour, a white silence.... "What is waiting for me in the future? Prison, penal servitude, persecution by the secret police. But I have become wedded to this path and there is no other road for me. Just struggle, fierce and merciless struggle....''

Occasionally, when the snowstorm died down, villages could be seen not far from the road---one, a second and, on a rise, a third. Dark and silent, they flashed past like flying clouds in rough weather. I saw Tsyurupa's head jerk up as he half-raised himself slowly in his seat (he was sitting beside the driver) to follow the villages with a long, uninterrupted gaze. Everything was revealed to his tired eyes now: the fact that the villages were without lights and the streets deserted (in earlier times peasants had risen earlier), that no one was standing by the village well and that the chimneys were dead---no smoke wreathed from them. He saw everything: perhaps that was why he was so silent.

``Yesterday, when I was at my friends, the Pevtsovs, on Pokrovka," Bryant began, aspirating the last two words amusingly, "they told me a story.''

``Yes, Comrade Bryant." Tsyurupa turned his head. Now I could see how sombre his eyes were, as if every village that had flashed past had let fall a drop of its sadness into them.

She was silent, as if displeased that she had begun her story in this way, for such a beginning committed her to something important.

``The man who told me all this had the knack of telling a story, as they say, and I must confess I don't know whether I can....''

``Yes, Comrade...." Tsyurupa's eyes were still sombre and he did not yet know what Louise Bryant wanted to tell him; but he felt that the snowy fields of Russia would be in it, the bleak whiter weather, the dark villages which were scurrying past us and slowly retreating and the mood of disaster that was not to be lifted from the land, not to be torn from its iron-bound misery, not to be loaded on to one's shoulders and carried away, so great was it.

``This happened in a village beyond the Volga or in the Urals," she said, beginning her story. "Somewhere near Shadrinsk or perhaps near Ufa." "Near Ufa?" The speaker was Selin, who hastily set his spectacles straight on his nose.

A FATHER

A FATHER

Having spoken, he fell tensely silent, even the car slowing from a brisk speed to a walking pace.

"Somewhere amid hilly country there was a large village with a church, a square in front of the church and several shops. They say that it was known as a rich village in those parts, and if it was rich, that meant it had grain. In America, too, in our north-west, the wealthiest settlements grow grain." She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully, for she wanted her story to carry conviction. "The village was surrounded by forest, like a fortress wall---you couldn't get to it either from the west or the east. The one route was the river, which was open in summer. There are settlements like that in our north-west---not settlements but money-boxes with locks...." She fell silent and only her breathing could be heard. It is no easy job to tell a Russian story to Russians and she was extremely agitated. Perhaps it was to give her story the ring of truth that she repeated with increasing frequency the words: "Like that in our north-west." "No, this wasn't in late autumn, it was already the winter of 1918, when famine came to Petrograd and Lenin sent off his fellow revolutionary leaders to the grain-growing areas. And from beyond the forests and hills two people came to the village. Commissars? Perhaps, only one was too young to be a commissar."

The car roared and suddenly stopped, as if Selin had switched off the motor

in order better to hear Bryant's last words ("...only one was too young to be a commissar"). Snow covered the windscreen and we were surrounded by a snowy twilight.

``We've arrived!" Selin said in a lowered voice and switched on the motor. The car dashed forward once, twice and began shuddering rapidly and feebly; there was no hope of its being able to break free from its snowy prison. "There's a village somewhere near here, I think," said Selin softly; a damp silence lay all around. "We won't be able to get out without horses. There's a village somewhere near here with a school."

"And if there is a school there will be horses?" I asked.

"Perhaps there will be horses and perhaps there won't be," Selin answered, "but there certainly is a school. I stopped here in summer and the caretaker treated me to wild strawberries."

"Wild strawberries?" Tsyurupa grinned. "That must have been in June?"

"In July!"

"Aha!"

Selin climbed out of the car, slammed the door and disappeared.

"So the caretaker treated him to wild strawberries," Tsyurupa said, not without a smile, I thought. I may note that in the silence that had intervened, all of us were concealing our smiles: there was something militantly honest in this fellow.

We had not long to wait before Selin returned---or, rather, came running up, waving his arms so that it was immediately visible how long they were.

"The school!" he cried delightedly. "And ... it's warm there! There's a stove burning---no, not coal, but wood, wood! It's glowing as red as the sun!"

We clambered out of the car and followed him carefully stepping over the snow like geese emerging from water. It was true: in the middle of a small room, half-lit by a kerosene lamp, a stove glowed red hot.

"Make yourselves comfortable," Selin said and stretched his white hands towards the stove. "You can put your things on the bench." He kept his hands close to the heat.

"And what about the horses?" Tsyurupa asked quietly.

"There aren't any horses here!" Selin said in the same irrepressible tone. "Not here!" he repeated, glancing at Tsyurupa shyly and in some confusion. "But at the brick factory there are two!"

"Perhaps we can manage without the brick factory?" Tsyurupa asked: he was reluctant to let Selin go.

"No, we can do nothing without the factory." Selin again glanced at

Tsyurupa.

I could see affectionate attention and an enthusiastic devotion in his glance; there was something filial there. "The school caretaker volunteered to accompany me. He said that it was about five versts to the brick factory, not more," Selin said. "The sun will not rise, but I'll come back."

Holding his hands over the stove, Selin put on his gloves (as if scooping up some warmth for the journey) and went out.

"You said that two of them came to the village?" Tactfully, but insistently enough, Tsyurupa asked Louise Bryant to continue her story.

A meeting during a journey by the Krasnaya Zvezda propaganda ship, organised at a point for the transfer of grain by peasants to the state. 1919

A FATHER

A FATHER

``Two of them," she said, moving nearer the stove. "The elder was around forty-five years old, the younger perhaps seventeen.... Incidentally, I know something about them. The elder was a Lett---yes, one of the Lettish Riflemen who guarded the Smolny in the first days of the Revolution. His surname was completely Lettish---Vitol---and he could have passed for a fisherman from the Baltic coast. In our north-west I have seen more than one person like that: neither time nor weather has any effect on them. If you meet them after a ten-year interval, they look just the same as they did yesterday---apparently the sea wind tans the skin. I later learned that he had been a fisherman in the early part of his life, but for the last twenty years he had worked in a salt mine. And the second person---what should I say about him? He was a boy! With a damp forelock, a scrubbed, shining face and a cut chin---the previous day he had shaved for the first time and had naturally been streaming with blood. In our north-west we call lads like that 'young colts'. But it was obvious that he was very attached to the older man, because he imitated him even in his appearance: like him, he was wearing a fur hat with a red ribbon across it, and a leather coat, belted, with a sword hanger and, of course, a holster. No one knew what he had in the holster, but a holster he certainly had. And so they arrived in that village: the old divisional commander and the young divisional commander, although they say the young man was tall, very tall, a head taller than his companion. They arrived and ordered the bell to be rung, calling the people into the square. Yes, the elder man had a completely Lettish surname---Vitol---but the younger? I don't know his surname, but his first name.... It seems his name was Theodore, at least that was what his companion called him.''

The door squeaked and opened slowly. Selin was standing on the threshold, as if he had heard Bryant's last words and wanted to come in.

``You haven't forgotten something?" Tsyurupa asked, looking closely at his young friend.

``No, I haven't forgotten anything, I just wanted to say that I was off.''

``Well, take care of yourself," said Tsyurupa, raising his hand slightly.

Selin responded with the same gesture, smiled and carefully closed the door behind him.

Our eyes turned to Louise Bryant.

``It was obvious that the bell wasn't often rung at such a season," she continued. "Within about half an hour the square was black with people. (It is the same in our north-west, by the way: when there is a fire or a storm is coming on, the people are called together by hammering on a rail.) Those who lived on the outskirts, along the river came, and with them those whose houses looked out directly on to the square. Then a machine-gun cart drove into the square, on it the old divisional commander and, of course, the young divisional commander. 'Comrades, citizens....' The old divisional commander rose to his full height. Clearly, he had been warned that this was no ordinary village and that was why he began so cautiously. 'War is advancing across Russia, civil war, ideas and classes are locked in mortal struggle. But for children there is no war---they are all equal. Why is it that some children should live and others die?' `You've come to tell us fairy stories, my dear comrade!' The cry came from a man in leather cap with a high crown: he was unusually broad-shouldered, this fellow. `You've come to tell us fairy stories.'

His cry was taken up by some other fellows standing beside him: this was obviously not the first time they had echoed their leader. The old divisional commander was silent for a moment, glancing at the man in the leather cap. The commander, of course, did not know that the latter, together with his companions, had come here an hour previously from a neighbouring wood, where forces were gathering for a kulak uprising. At that time the smoky bonfires of these rebellions were springing up everywhere and their flames often merged with the cruel blaze of the oncoming white armies. 'Fairy tales!' the man in the leather cap repeated. 'Children are children everywhere and ours aren't whelps!' This time his words were taken up by those standing near him as well as the fellows beside him. 'Our children are no whelps!' I know a little of the psychology of a crowd when it is listening to an orator. In our north-west I have heard both Haywood and Debs and I know that then a crowd is like a mountain covered with snow: one false step and an avalanche will strip the mountain bare from its summit to its foot. I also know that if there are seers, they are children. With their timid spirit they are the first to sense both good fortune and disaster. At first the face of the young divisional commander was bright, like the sky above him, then it seemed to cloud and become overcast; finally, everyone who saw on his face what became evident a moment later was seized by anxiety. The crowd surged towards the machine-gun cart and dragged the old and the young divisional commanders to the ground. 'However much you stab him, a man can only die once!...' They say that when the crowd threw itself on the divisional commander a child's voice was heard crying out: perhaps it was the boy.''

I glanced at Tsyurupa. The white-hot metal of the stove seemed to have entered his eyes, which were glowing tensely.

``Who aroused the fury of the crowd against these two men? Was it the man in the leather cap and the fellows with him, who had come from the nearby wood? But when the crowd surrounded the cart it was hard to say who struck the first blow---the square was at one in its blind fury. The crowd trampled on the old divisional commander---really trampled on him with their heavy hobnailed boots, smeared with tar, while the boy.... They beat him half to death and threw him from a steep slope into a ravine. Perhaps he would not have come to his senses, had he not been lying beside the river, for in the middle of the night the river rose and the boy found himself in the water. He opened his eyes and saw the slope above him and the bell tower on the slope, the bell tower of that same church, by the wall of which.... The boy remembered everything that had happened the previous day---the square, the machine-gun cart, the divisional commander standing on the cart, his speech about starving children, the menacing rumble of the crowd, the dozens of hands reaching out for the divisional commander, the kicks and those words: 'However much you stab him, a man can only die once....' And the thought came into his mind that his friend, his good friend, was probably lying dead at that moment on the village square. He was not a little surprised when he felt that he could raise himself a few inches off the ground. Feeling the path with his hands---literally feeling it---he crawled along. His hands became badly cut and bloody, but he continued to crawl. He reached the church wall and, holding on to it, got to his feet: that was how he reached the square, leaning against the wall. The sky was covered with cloud, but the moon had broken

A FATHER

A FATHER

regretted that they had not beaten the boy to death the previous day, but had allowed him to return and plague the village again. The boy let the bell tower become silent and came down. The crowd saw him climb from cornice to cornice, jumping from roof to roof---where could a man get the strength?---not hiding himself, wanting to reach the ground as quickly as possible. And then.... Miracles, no doubt, happen even on this earth. Of course, the boy was brave, but that was not what changed the attitude of the crowd towards him: it was that the boy was going to certain death and, without fearing it, continued to advance. The boy jumped on to the ground and walked to the wall, where the old divisional commander lay. The crowd was now curious to see what he wanted to do; indeed, what could he do when the man was dead? The boy climbed up on to the wall and, just as the old divisional commander had done, touched his forehead with a weary hand before drawing in a breath and saying: 'Comrades, citizens of the Soviet Republic....' In essence, he said to them that if they wanted to kill him they could, but that before they killed him he wanted to tell them whom they had trampled on in the square the previous day."

Out in the courtyard the wind again blew up and threw a handful of icy snow at the window. Tsyurupa, whose eyes had been fixed on Louise Bryant all this time, turned and looked, not without anxiety, at the street. He saw, as,

through and in the bright moonlight he could see the entire square. Broken pieces of the cart lay where it had stood. He was about twenty paces away and was gathering his strength to move across the square when, on looking round, he saw the divisional commander's overcoat right by the wall. Probably only death could have done it, the consciousness that a man who was dear to you, very dear, could never again stand beside you.... Probably it was only this that could give birth to such strength in a man and, perhaps, such boldness of mind. The boy crawled over the wall and got into the bell tower; thunderous peals rang out across the dark village, each louder than the last. No, only a consciousness that a man dear to you was dead could arouse such...."

Louise Bryant suddenly sighed, as if, her lips tightly closed, she had gone a long time without drawing breath, and had then opened her lips to let the air burst into her chest of itself. She was silent. It was not easy for her to continue her story: something imperceptible in it harmonised with her thoughts, with all that she had experienced during these past eighteen months.

"The bells rang out over the dark village and people came running from everywhere, just as when a chance spark sets light to ripe grain or a locust appears over a spring field. The bells rang out and the square, illuminated by the moon, filled with people. In the moonlight some had already seen the boy on the bell tower; some recalled the past day and swore violently, some

Marching to the front! Kharkov, 1919

A piquet of Red Guards in the courtyard of the Smolny. Petrograd, October 1917

A FATHER

A FATHER

no doubt, we all did, Selin marching across a great field, stuck in the snow up to his waist and trampling a narrow path out for the horses. Tsyurupa glanced at the window and then at Louise Bryant; her story had aroused his interest and by this wordless look he was asking her to continue.

"Yes, he wanted to tell them whom it was they had trampled on the square. The man now lying by the wall of the church was a worker, he said, a simple working man, who had worked for many years in a salt mine and whom not the blandishments of his friends but life itself had made a Communist: life amid black drifts, without a glimmer of light, even though they had been hewn from white salt, years and years spent underground and dust, salt dust, which grazed the eyes and body and burned out everything inside. In the autumn of 1917, with other miners like himself, he had come to Petrograd to defend the Revolution and had been put on guard duty at the Smolny, where the Smolny park goes down to the Neva. He had continued his guard duties from autumn 1917, through into the winter of 1918, when the famine began in Petrograd. He had been living then beyond the Narva Gates with the family of an aunt and had seen how people, children among them, were dying; he had no children of his own, but his heart had not become hard because of this. Men from the Putilov Works, who were also mounting guard at the Smolny, called him the `Lett', which had both a menacing and a gentle sound. Three people had died in the family of the boy---two of his brothers and his sister---and it was then that the Lett had come to Theodore's father and begged him to permit his son to go to the Smolny. The boy was not strong enough to get there by himself, having lain in bed for the previous three weeks, and the trams were no longer running, but after midnight the Lett had come with a freight-carrying tram. 'Get up, Theodore, there is a tram below for you.' 'What?' 'I said a tram, Theodore.' He called him `Theodore'. At that time everyone in the Smolny, from Lenin to the guards by the Neva, was living off barley gruel: that was what had put Theodore on his feet. And then had come the march on Pskov, against the Germans and afterwards, against the Whites along the Volga. The Lett had become divisional commander. Day and night he had been on horseback, with Theodore in a cart behind him. Once the divisional commander had carried Theodore across a flooded river on the neck of his horse; once, covering him with his body, he had dashed through a wood occupied by the enemy; once the village in which the Reds were sleeping had caught fire and when they had woken the flames were higher than the stars---and the flames had claws, which had torn everything from the soldiers, singeing everything. When they had got out of the village the flames had stripped them to the skin. Sometimes a new member would join the division, look around and blurt out without any preliminaries: 'Comrade divisional commander, excuse me, but Theodore doesn't look like you. His eyes are different, his face is a different shape and his skin is a different colour.' 'People come in all sorts,' the divisional commander would reply, his face darkening: for him there were no more painful words. What was the divisional commander to Theodore? A father? Probably more. 'One step remained to peace, sonny, only one!' he would repeat. They had returned once more to Pskov and then to the sea. One night the divisional commander had suddenly jerked the boy from sleep and said: 'Come, Theodore, I must show you this.' And he had drawn him through the night, across a village and over a

hill to a small valley, then along a path that led along a river to a door. They had gone into the darkness. 'I must show you this, Theodore,' the old divisional commander had said. He had lit the kerosene lamp he was holding and Theodore had seen that the feeble light of the lamp---and it was very feeble---was reflected on the walls, the ceiling and the floor, grey and glass-like. Theodore had been rooted to the spot. Where had he been brought? He had stretched out his hand---the wall retained the cold. He had brought his fingers to his lips: salt? The divisional commander had brought him to the salt mine. From here, he had thought, yesterday and, perhaps, tomorrow could be more clearly seen. 'One day remained to peace, sonny, only one.' That had been on Sunday night and on Monday they had boarded a train and set off for the east. 'That is all I wanted to tell you---now do what you like with me,' Theodore concluded and looked around the square, which was dark and full of people. 'Do what you like with me!' he repeated and jumped down from the wall. But the crowd parted before him, and not only him, but also before the man who lay on the ground. Everyone watched as Theodore threw back the overcoat covering the body and lowered himself to the ground beside his dead comrade; everyone saw him smooth back the hair from his forehead and wipe the blood from his cheeks. 'Was he a father to you?' a voice from the crowd asked the boy. 'He was a father,' Theodore affirmed. 'Being without a father is like being without light.... A father.' And then a miracle happened, for as many people as were there that night in the square stretched out their arms to the dead body and raised it...."

Louise Bryant's story was over.

I glanced at Tsyurupa. His hands were resting motionless on his knees, the fingers squeezed tight and bloodless. I could not see his eyes, which were half closed. Tsyurupa seemed to have withdrawn into himself, filled with grief and fury.

``Selin hasn't come back yet?" Tsyurupa looked up with difficulty. "It's time." He rose, slowly drawing the gleaming black disc of his watch from a side pocket of his warm jacket, and looked towards the door. "Perhaps we should go and meet him?''

``I'll go and you wait with our guest," I replied.

``No, we'll ask our guest to wait.''

We set off along a snowy lane, polished in places to a brilliant sheen by the wind, walking towards the forest, the dark strip of which formed a barely visible division between earth and sky. The way was blocked by drifts of dry, powdery snow, which was difficult to walk across, and we moved to one side, walking further and further along a drift, now and then glancing round to keep the road in view: if we lost it we would not be able to reach the forest. Selin had probably followed the same route.

``It won't be simple to get horses through here. Perhaps Selin took another way?" I said.

``Another way would bring a disaster," Tsyurupa replied. His gaze was fixed tensely ahead. ``Isn't that a dark spot there? In the middle of the fields?" He pointed towards the side of the forest. "Your eyes are younger than mine.''

``No, everything is white.''

In this way circling round snowdrifts and trying to feel the uneven surface of the ploughland, we reached the forest. Coming out of it, we saw that the sky

18---801

A FATHER

A FATHER

had cleared and the snow had stopped falling; the cold fire of a star had broken through the infinite blue of the firmament.

``Isn't that them?" I pointed towards the far end of the field which had opened out before us. A small black spot had clearly emerged.

``Wait a minute while I have a look---something is blurring my eyes," Tsyurupa said, raising his hand to his eyes. "Yes, yes, it's them! Now you can see the horses as well.''

He began walking more rapidly, his tiredness and feelings of uneasiness wiped away at a stroke.

``Selin!" he cried, when we made out the lanky figure. "Is that you?''

"It's me."

In the evening we returned to Moscow, our car wrapped in an enduring silence. Each of us, perhaps, was thinking about Saltykovka, where we had been that day. The canteen which the Poor Peasants' Committee had set up in the spacious wing of a former landowner's mansion was feeding the village children after school---meagrely, but for the children even this was a great joy: the main thing was to survive the mercilessly cruel winter, to breast the hill and keep the children alive until spring. But it was not only Saltykovka we recalled during those long minutes of silence: Louise Bryant's story of the old divisional commander and the young divisional commander also came back to us. Something in the story found an echo in our thoughts about the winter and, consequently, about the children and Saltykovka.

``All the time I felt I was listening to a story that had already been written," I said to Bryant. "That was a chapter from a book, wasn't it?''

``Yes, it was, but the book has yet to be written.''

``Will it be written?''

``Perhaps....''

(In fact, Louise Bryant carried out her intention and the story appeared in her book Mirrors of Moscow.)

As our car drove on I did not realise that, however remarkable what I had come to know that day was, I had still to learn the most important fact of all.

The snowstorm had died down and white drifts of snow lay silent and immobile in the fields, as if carved from stone. The silence that dominated the fields as evening drew in transferred itself into our vehicle. An effort, and no small one at that, seemed needed to break it.

``Selin, I've been intending to ask you all this time," Tsyurupa said suddenly, with the huskiness that was characteristic of his voice when he wanted to say something important: "You were near Pskov, weren't you?''

``Yes, I was," Selin replied after a moment's thought. For some reason I could not understand this question disturbed him.

``And took part in the conquest of the Volga with divisional commander Vitol?''

Selin's long silence made it obvious that Tsyurupa's question had thrown him into utter confusion.

"Yes."

``Why was your name Theodore then, and not Fyodor?''

Silence fell again, this time physically tangible, as if the seconds were being ticked off by our hearts.

``Theodore or Fyodor---they are the same name. My father called me Theodore." Selin cleared his throat: the wave of heat bathing him had evidently reached it and was drying it out. "Being without a father is like being without light," he managed to get out and added: "A father....''

At the Troitsky Gates we said goodbye to Tsyurupa and Selin. For a long time Louise Bryant and I watched as they walked along the steep, even path up the hill: Tsyurupa, powerfully built, and Selin, stooping beside him. It was evident that Selin was talking, talking slowly, his long arms motionless. I could not hear his voice, but I wanted to believe he was saying again what he had just said: "Being without a father is like being without light.... A father.''

LENIN. Moscow, July 1920

The Road

It was still no more than a rumour: Lenin was to speak at a session of the Central Executive Committee for the first time since his recovery. I rang

the Kremlin---yes, it was true. Getting into the Andreyevsky Hall was not going to be easy, for everyone wanted to see and hear Lenin.

The past five months (Lenin had not been in Moscow since spring) had been anxious ones. The unbounded spaces of the woods near Moscow, the scent of pine and the caressing softness of the grass had not, it seemed, been enough to give him back his strength; Lenin's erstwhile briskness of speech was gone and he suffered from constant tiredness and headaches.

Now, Lenin was back in the Kremlin and about to make his first public speech.

An hour remained before the session opened and the paved path that led from the Maly Palace to the Bolshoi Palace was empty.

``Comrade Rybakov, I see that, as always, you are in a hurry.''

I looked round and saw Lenin walking along the edge of the path, his feet almost on the grass. Beside him was a young man in pince-nez.

``Can I keep you for a moment, just a moment?" Lenin laughed, wagging his index finger in a comical way, but his face was pale and yellow and not as I remembered it. "Have you met? This is Harold Ware.''

I looked at Lenin's companion. Only youth, perhaps, could give his eyes such a gleam. How old was he? Twenty-seven or thirty at most.

``Well, now, Perm, a Russian town on the Kama River---does the name mean anything to you?''

THE ROAD

THE ROAD

I tried to grasp the meaning of Lenin's question and even felt I had some hazy idea of his drift, but from force of habit shook my head.

"And the name of the village of Toikino also means nothing to you? Or the Toikino State Farm near Perm?"

``No, nothing at all.''

"Oh, you diplomats! It's all the fault of this 'Chinese wall'* round Moscow. I said to Chicherin: 'You can't see anything round it!'" He silently waved his hand, as he had used to do when something greatly amused him, as if wanting to say: "Let me have my little joke!" "It would be useful for you to get out from behind it sometimes, yes, useful to see what is happening in the land of Russia, which you have the honour to represent. I assure you! So, Comrade Rybakov, I'll explain everything to you and, incidentally, give you the opportunity to get out from behind the 'Chinese wall'."

Lenin was speaking in English now as we passed the Kremlin churches, his leisurely and thoughtful conversation echoing the pace of our walk. His companion listened in silence, gratefully nodding his head. During the summer, while Lenin had still been in Gorki, a tractor detachment had

* An untranslatable pun. The old commercial centre of Moscow was known as `` Kitaigorod''---"China Town".---Ed.

arrived from abroad. A twenty-cent coin counted for little, but when thousands upon thousands of people each contributed one it became a force: sufficient, in fact, to buy a tractor, even more than one, and to fit out a detachment of them for abroad as well. What could twenty tractors do amidst an ocean of Russian peasant farms? They were a mere drop in that ocean, even if they succeeded in ploughing hundreds of dessiatinesol land. Yet it was also true that nothing so much as a tractor could give an idea of tomorrow's Russia. If you wanted to see what the Russian fields would look like in ten years, you should go to Perm. Or, more precisely, to Vereshchagino, near Perm, to the Toikino State Farm and ask for Harold Ware, the American agronomist. Yes, that same young fellow with the youthful gleam in his eye, who was walking beside us now. The first thousand dessiatines had, incidentally, already been ploughed and it was only three days since the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee had conferred upon this detachment the title of "best detachment". By doing this it had made it clear once again that the state farm near Perm should be a school and its hilly fields classrooms and lecture halls, from which our first mechanics and tractor drivers would come. The first, do you hear? Yes, pioneers in their own way of Russia's technological renewal.

Lenin quickened his pace and, looking round, met my glance.

"Comrade Harold Ware returns tomorrow to Toikino, taking with him the resolution of the Central Executive Committee. Strictly speaking...." Lenin's pace slowed. "Strictly speaking, it should be carried not by him, but by one of our people. Yes, definitely one of our people,"who can present the document to the Americans and say a few words congratulating them, preferably in their own language. It's very important that he should speak their language. You can't imagine how much is lost when an interpreter stands between you and a friend."

"You mean that...."

"I mean that for diplomats, too, it is sometimes useful to get out from behind the 'Chinese wall'."

Lenin parted from us and we continued walking. "Ware, Harold Ware," I repeated.

"Excuse me, Comrade Ware"---I turned my gaze to the American---"but in what relation do you stand to Ella Bloor, Ella Reeve Bloor?"

The sun, looking from behind the bulk of the Church of Ivan the Great, seemed to shiver Harold Ware's spectacles into a thousand fragments, so joyful did his eyes become.

"Ella? She's my mother."

We agreed that we should leave for Toikino the following day.

I came home that evening towards eleven o'clock. Following the custom of our Petrograd days, my father would wait up for me until midnight: his eyes were still young and a single book scarcely sufficed him for an evening's reading. What my father called "belles lettres" now took up less of his time than formerly and historical works or, more precisely, volumes of memoirs, interested him more and more. Perhaps, this was because of his age---with the years a man acknowledges only the merciless force of facts and ideas---or perhaps it was because of the flood of interesting memoirs that had appeared

Sculptural portrait of ELLA REEVE BLOOR

THE ROAD

THE ROAD

in recent years. The great changes that had taken place in our country were making no little contribution to this torrent. My father averaged one book an evening, but even at that rate he would hardly be able to read all the books that had appeared. A new volume of Herzen's Memo/rswas constantly beside him and with it everything available on Pushkin's duel, the trial of "March 1" group (who had attempted to assassinate the tsar) and the murder of Stolypin.

Having my own key, I was able to enter our flat almost noiselessly. It was quiet in my father's room, but from the kitchen came the cheeky whistle of the kettle: he was waiting for me.

Following another long-established Petrograd custom, I sat down opposite my father and told him of the day's happenings.

``Wait a minute, wait a minute." He stopped me. "You say that he is Ella Bloor's son?" My father half rose, the volume of Shchegolev firmly put aside. "Do you know who Ella Bloor is?" He was highly excited. "I heard her speak in 1903,1 told you about it once. Yes, in Vancouver, when the dockers' strike began and the workers stood for three weeks before the dock gates, their arms linked, not allowing anyone to slip through. Ships were tied up in the harbour, silent and angry like the workers. It was as quiet on the wharves as if everything had petrified: people, machines, the water that splashed up against the shore, all were as if suddenly voiceless. The bosses already knew, better than we, what reserves of strength the working people had---the hospital was full of old men, for the old were the first to go under. The question was this: 'Will the men have enough strength to last out a week and win three dollars more from the bosses?' If they hadn't, they would fail. A week? On a full

stomach a week passes in a flash, on an empty one it is an eternity__" My

father fell silent and went over to the stove, shutting the door firmly. He sighed impatiently. "And that was the moment when Ella arrived. Everyone called her that, old and young alike---`Ella'. The sea was stormy and the rain poured down, but the workers stood firm---they might have taken root. A narrow-gauge railway ran through a square and the workers turned the railway platform into a rostrum. Ella told us, to put it in a few words, that she had brought the strikers money which the workers of America had collected in nickels and dimes and called on Vancouver not to give in. We got our three dollars then. Later, I often recalled Ella. There is something of America in her---no, not the America that incinerates Blacks on bonfires and hoards gold, but our America, workers' America. Think over what I have told you---there is something of our America in her. She is brave and stubborn, like America.''

At six o'clock the following evening I was standing on Yaroslavsky Station. The Perm train was already boarding and I walked to our carriage, which smelled of kerosene and dust---the cleaner had only just been through with a wet besom and a rag soaked in kerosene. Some seven minutes remained before departure and there was still no sign of my companion. I was beginning to become anxious. The first bell sounded, then the second. The platform was noticeably emptier; soon the third bell would sound and the train would move off. At that moment I saw Ware's immediately recognisable figure at the far end of the platform. He was walking unhurriedly, his body swaying slightly from side to side. He raised his hand when he saw me.

``Hallo, there, Comrade!" He clasped his hands together and then quietly drew in a breath. I noticed later that for him this was a sign both of surprise and pleasure.

``Hurry up!" I cried. "The third bell will sound at any moment!" But the American was imperturbable.

``There is still plenty of time!" he said, showing not the slightest desire to hurry. ``Don't worry, we'll be going to Perm together---I've worked everything out.''

The carriage was, symbolically at least, divided into compartments, but our neighbours both to left and right were clearly visible. The place to the right of us had been taken by an old man in a wadded jacket and long, woollen socks stretching almost to his knees. The old man was travelling to the far north and was already in his seat when we entered. I could hear him singing a folk song to himself.

The train passed through the woods surrounding Moscow on its way eastward. The sky had an autumnal sombreness and on the horizon the uneven lines of hills and rises, covered with forest, could be made out.

``You know, these central Russian forests of yours are something like the forests of Canada. In the valley of the Peace River and along the banks of the Reindeer Lake there are also lots of conifers." Ware continued to look out the window. "There is nothing more interesting than wandering across the wide world. What I value in a man is the daring, quickly and unwaveringly, to resolve on the longest and most difficult journey." He glanced at me. "There was a time when our family was renowned for this.''

``Even the women?" I asked meaningfully.

He looked at me attentively---not in perplexity, but simply attentively.

``Even the women.''

There would not be another opportunity like this to begin talking about what interested me, I thought; at least, not that evening.

``I've been told that Ella Bloor....''

He rose to his feet.

``My mother?''

I told him of the conversation I had had with my father.

``So she is like America?" I had not thought that these few words could so agitate him. "But you know, there is something in this comparison." He seemed to be expecting me to reply. "I have my own theory on how a person reaches maturity, how his mind gathers its force.''

``Is the most important thing how correctly a person realises what his or her calling is?" I asked.

Behind their round spectacles Ware's eyes lit up for a moment with an ironic light.

``The most important thing is whom a person meets in the first twenty years of his life.''

``You think that Ella Bloor was lucky?''

"Yes, I think so."

``The people she met were interesting?''

``Yes, but I would call them something else, something that Ella called them.''

``What was that?''

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He could not conceal his smile now. "People with something of the courageous bird in them." "The courageous bird?" I said and, turning, saw that we were approaching a station; I think it was Alexandrov.

Beyond the window, illuminated by the dim station lights, the lines of the rails appeared, the wet asphalt of the platform, the black girders of the bridge over the roadbed, the station, strangely empty, its windows thrown wide open and the crowd, streaming purposefully along the platform. The train was still moving quickly and the crowd seemed to roll past. On the platform there was only the clatter of tin kettles, the thump of plywood suitcases and a cry, dreary and blurred. The train slowed and the flood of people on the platform stopped. We could see the sharp points of Red Army helmets, the black "frying pans" of Kuban caps and military caps with cloth peaks and red stars. Over the crowd, topping it by a head, a young woman in a soldier's greatcoat floated rather than walked, her head bare, her elbows sticking out and in her arms a child.

The train began moving again. The crowd had thinned out: many people had clearly boarded the train, and the young woman with the child, too, was no longer to be seen. It was just at that moment that I heard a woman laughing, somewhere beside us in the carriage. It is her, I thought, she must laugh in just that way. It seemed to me that Ware, too, had been following this woman, had heard her laugh a moment before and, perhaps, was also thinking: "That's her." But he gave no sign of what he was thinking.

"The courageous bird in the Indian fairy story," Ware said and smiled quietly at his own thoughts.

I thought that it gave him pleasure now to pronounce those words: "the courageous bird".

"The story is as long as a titmouse's beak," Ware said. He had not forgotten what we had just been talking about and was now ready to continue the story. "The land was covered with icy armour; frost had shackled the rivers and trees, all that was living stopped and birds fell from the sky like stones. A dispute arose in the kingdom of the birds over how to save the world from destruction. The birds said to the eagle: 'You are the strongest, you must lead us.' The eagle refused, for although the strongest, he lacked courage. Then they told the bird of paradise: 'You are the most beautiful, you must lead us.' The bird of paradise refused, for although it possessed beauty, it was without brains. 'There is nothing else for it than that you should go, titmouse,' said the birds. The titmouse shuffled its feet and glanced at the bay, which was locked in ice. It possessed neither especial strength, nor beauty, nor courage, but the choice had fallen upon it and so it flew off. The other birds could see it flying farther into the icy gloom, soaring, skirting crags, then falling to the earth before soaring upwards again and plummeting like a stcne to the frozen ground. It fell, but it had pointed the right way to the flock. The other birds waited until the wind died down, then flew in the same direction across the bay and took shelter behind the crags. Ella used to say that all her life she had looked in people for something that would recall, in some way, the courageous bird in the Indian fairy story, although this bird was plain and undistin-

guished in appearance and its strangeness was more evident than character or mind...."

Ware leaned towards the window, intending to continue his story, but at that moment we heard a sigh from the corridor, then footsteps and the sleepy murmuring of a child. A woman in a greatcoat, the same tall woman we had noticed on the platform, stood before us.

"The conductor took pity on me," she said hurriedly, trying to smooth over the moment of awkwardness. She pronounced her "o`s'' in the deep, sonorous way peculiar to people from Vologda. "He said that there was an empty seat here somewhere."

But the old man had already risen to meet her as she came in.

"Come over here, my daughter. This place has been waiting for you right from Moscow."

I could see the woman clearly now, as she laid the child carefully on the seat, bending over it. She had dark hair and full, pale lips.

Ware, I noticed, was following the woman's actions with close attention. It even seemed to me that he was waiting until she had settled the child before continuing his story.

"Please don't worry, he has been asleep for two hours and won't wake up," the woman said to the old man. It was costing Ware an effort, I thought, not to look at her.

"What did she say?" he asked, still not looking at her.

I translated what she had said.

"No, she isn't simply a peasant woman," Ware observed and stole a glance at her. "It even seems to me that she might understand us---what do you think?"

"Perhaps." I smiled.

When he resumed his story it seemed to me that he was not talking for my benefit alone: he wanted the woman to understand us.

"You remember how Whitman puts it---

...As I see my soul reflected in Nature, As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,

See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

"That's how I think---to understand a person you must know his mother. Everything you encounter in life, no matter how long and rich that life may be, only adds something to what your mother gave you. Ella used to talk about her mother---she said that everything about her was fine, both body and mind. Yes, a daughter can talk like that sometimes. To judge from pictures of her, she was not pretty, but what can pieces of paper tell one about a human countenance? She had what makes a person beautiful, no matter how irregular the lines of his or her face are---goodness of heart. She was both given to laughter and strict, old-fashioned in a nice way and child-like. There was something of the child in her nature---in her conversation, which was slightly muddled, and in her laugh. Everyone who knew her loved her laugh. Her life was love in the great and indivisible sense, when it becomes everything around you---family, children, home, the very air in your home, the sun, what is lying on the window sills, the wind that ruffles the blinds. And this love was not just a joy, lighting up and elevating the spirit, but also a great support for a person, for his faith and, ultimately, for his conscience. Ella would say

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that her mother had been born and died a free person, free, first of all, from prejudices. Her house was the only one in the hills of Bridgeton where you could meet white and Black, rich and poor around the same table. In the hills of Bridgeton! Not the poorest part of the town, after all.

``Her father's five sisters held sway over the hills. Their mansions, built of brick and covered with ivy, stood side by side: on this earth it is not only reason and light that draw their strength and solidarity from mutual pledges, but obscurantism as well. The sisters imposed their will on the town, but their writ ran only as far as Hattie's door. Grandfather wanted his mansion, built of brick and covered with ivy, to be in no way different from those of the sisters and the manner of life pursued there to be the same as that established in the homes of the Wares. However, he wasn't master in his own home. Hattie Reeve produced children---a daughter, a son, another son, another.... Seven sons and five daughters in all. Her large family was a joy to her and she brought the children up and taught them how to run a home---how to cook and sow and even how to bake bread. Her home was always full of young people, of all races and from all social backgrounds. They used to say in Bridgeton that if there were an Indian and a Jew in the town, they would meet at Hattie Reeve's table. Incidentally, when there were guests the elder children were seated next to them. Hattie taught her children to hate evil by showing them those who had suffered from it.

``The children grew up free men and women. What spiritual and physical health was needed to give life to so many people! And not simply to give them life but to impart to them passion, character, energy, the ability to lead, faith in man. When the elder children were growing up, the younger ones were still in their cradles and so the house resembled a school, in which all forms were represented. The alphabet, arithmetic, the laws of Newton and logarithms were all taught there. In addition to all her other gifts, this woman possessed a talent for mathematics. In general, she was a person both generous and precise---perhaps it was because she was generous that she was precise.

``However, somehow she overestimated her own strength and at the age of thirty-eight she died. It was a gloomy December midday and the mansions of Bridgeton looked out glumly through the drizzle. The inside shutters were half closed, the Venetian blinds half lowered. The coffin was carried out, followed by those who lived near the hills of Bridgeton, among them many Blacks. When her mother died, Ella was not yet seventeen years old. Yes, her seventeenth year---which seemed to her the hardest year of all. Childhood was behind her, while before her lay independence, life: how big and empty that life seemed, if she had to enter it without her mother! They say that a person who has not learned the lessons his mother taught him has, in large measure, passed his years in vain. But what sort of person had her mother been, when one looked into her heart? What had her mother's life taught Ella? A stubborn and unquenchable love of life, perhaps, or perhaps a hatred of everything that impoverishes life and deprives it of the colours given it by nature. But the main thing had been a brave and unselfish love of man and the ability to uphold the greater happiness of man....''

He pronounced the words "greater happiness" as if everything he had said had been directed not to me but to some third person. In the twilight surrounding us only the eyes of the young woman were alive. In them one

could see thought and passion, as if she had heard something that for her, too, was a revelation. No doubt, Ware had also noticed this.

``That was in Camden," he continued. "Whenever her father made a long journey across the country he would leave Ella with his sister, Ann. It is said that a person is never so innocently curious as at the age of ten.

``Next door there was a large estate, in the middle of which a house stood. An old man lived alone in the house and no one else lived on the estate. People passing the estate would stop and look at the house for a long time, as if waiting for the old man to appear at a window. It was easy to enter the estate---one had only to put one's hand through the bars of the gate and unlock the latch---and sometimes neighbours would do this. Spring and summer have their own immutable laws: the violets appeared, the cherries ripened---in that part of the world they are large and yellow---roses bloomed, new potatoes were dug up in vegetable gardens and housewives baked biscuits from the new flour. Neighbours would bring the old man violets and potatoes, cherries and roses and, of course, biscuits baked from the new flour. But it wasn't only on those occasions that people brought the old man gifts from the earth. His neighbours' children would fall in love; engagements would be celebrated. Autumn is the time of weddings and the whole town celebrated them. Women brought their babies home. Young people built themselves homes, just as they do here, from freshly cut logs still smelling of resin and glue. The town celebrated Love and Life and at the head of the table, unnoticed, would sit the old man from the wooden house. No, it was no ordinary man who lived in that house. Once, Ella unlatched the gate and went into the yard. A sign was fixed to the log wall of the house: 'Here lived the Good Gray Poet.' 'Who is the old, grey poet?' Ella asked her aunt. 'Whitman.' That name doesn't mean much when you are ten years old. But something marked the old poet out: in the evening children would gather on his porch.

``The poet's house was built of logs, but the porch was of a noble stone that somewhat resembled marble. Everything was soaked in the heat---the trunks of the trees, the dust on the roads and the log walls of the house; only the marble remained cool. And it was here that the poet came. He wore his famous hat, with its broad brim and low crown; the hat was a brilliant white, the same white as Whitman's beard and his freshly laundered shirt, which was open-necked, revealing his hairy chest---grey now. He was already hard of hearing and when he spoke he cupped his hand to his ear---always the right hand, for his left was almost immobile. If he bent the elbow clumsily, he would press the arm to his body, his bright eyes, only a moment before imperturbable and clear, filling with darkness. It was said that many years previously, during the Civil War, Whitman, while caring for the wounded, had absorbed some poison from a corpse into his arm and the result had appeared decades later. Sometimes the poet would send one of the children into the house for a book or a jug of water. The house was bright and clean and, except for the bed, the table and the benches, contained nothing but sun and lots of air. Perhaps that was what the dwelling place of a poet should be like? Whitman drank cool water from the jug, put it beside him and began to read:

/ hear America singing, the varied carols I hear....

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order to reveal her pale, softly curved neck. She covered the child, keeping her hands on his chest for a moment.

It was after ten o'clock in the evening and the lights in the carriage were dimmed as the train continued its journey. The child cried briefly, mumbled drowsily and went back to sleep, but the young woman remained motionless. Her eyes were anxious and wary; neither sleep nor tiredness could throw a veil over them or close them. She was speaking to the old man.

"So the first thing they did was to force them towards the cliff?"

"Yes, at first towards the cliff and then they let them take cover in a cave," the young woman responded, but her eyes continued to rest on me, as if it was to me she was talking, rather than the old man. "The wind was coming off the sea, bringing with it a frosty haze. They say that is awful."

"You want to go away, but your legs won't move?" the old man asked after a pause. He wanted her to tell him everything herself.

"How could they go away!" she said quietly. "At first their toes fell off and then their feet had to be amputated." She sighed. "Perhaps feet were amputated from the living, perhaps from the dead---no one knows."

"He has died?" asked the old man after a silence.

"This is the third year I have been alone."

"Ella often failed to understand the meaning of the lines, but she understood the mood of these verses---the mood of anxiety and rebellious challenge, of joyous peace and revolt. Sometimes Horace Traubel, the poet's friend, came. He would establish himself on the porch steps together with the children: the poet sat on the highest step, Traubel and the children below him. By comparison with the poet, Traubel was so young that to the former he seemed almost a contemporary of his young friends.

"But the words he used to address Traubel were different from those he used with the children.

"'We shook off England,' Horace once said to the poet; 'we threw off the slave-owners. What must we throw off now?' 'Money!' the poet said. 'The power of money.'

"Horace stayed on the porch even after the poet had gone into his house. At these times Traubel would take out a pencil and a notebook with an oilcloth cover. He would bend over the notebook like a watchmaker over his wheels and screws; he could sit like that for hours and cover no more than a half-page or two, so closely did he write. But what did he write? Everything, perhaps, that the old poet said: about money, about pine-trees, about the house built of logs and about an axe. Ella loved to watch Traubel writing. No, he had no wish to be the poet's shadow, but to call himself his friend would have been too presumptuous. Perhaps he was a disciple who had come to the poet for his thoughts and who had set himself the task of preserving those thoughts? And was this not a noble work---to stand side by side with the poet and to preserve for those to come what his mind had brought to life?

"Sometimes evening came before the poet went into his house. From the stone steps there was a fine view of the river, the ferry and the other craft on it and, beyond the river, the fields and the sky above them, huge and filled with stars. Whitman loved to look at the evening sky. Later, recalling those evenings on the porch of the poet's little house, Ella would think that no, he was not overwhelmed by the distances and the scale that a glance at the sky opened up! At such moments he would come quietly from the porch and after taking a few steps stop in the middle of the meadow, throwing back his grey head and directing his gaze at the sky, face to face with the heavens and an unknown star. Ella would look at the old man. He had a gentle kindness and a wise sadness, grim courage and rebelliousness; and still, for Ella, he was like that distant star to which his weak eyes were now turned. Yes, that is how it is in life: like true beauty, the longer one contemplated this man, the more fully one understood him. He roused only Ella's vision---her understanding had still to grasp him. I believe that Whitman, in his declining years, called Horace Traubel to him in order to extend his life__"

Ware glanced through the window: the train was crossing a bridge over the still unfrozen Volga. The woods beyond the Volga passed the window, as black and immobile as the Volga itself__

The young woman took off her greatcoat and covered the child with it. She was wearing a blue blouse and a skirt with shoulder straps, of the kind worn by senior pupils in provincial grammar schools. She looked different in her overcoat---older and sterner. Suddenly we noticed her eyes: they were grey, with clearly outlined pupils and slightly puffy lids. Her chin had a tender rounded curve, her neck.... She seemed to have taken her overcoat off in

EUGENE DEBS

WALT WHITMAN

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down-to-earth, and consequently, more human, what happened was, the more involved in it he became---a wedding, say, or the birth of a child. It was probably all his poetry's fault: that had only one hero---Life. Yes, life from birth to death and, of course, the struggle against falsehood. Life and Love and the struggle for truth....' Traubel fell silent, as if pondering on what he had just said. 'I sometimes think that he drew the strength for life from love, that it gave light to his eyes and warmth to his blood,' Traubel said, continuing his story. He had not ceased to find new aspects to Whitman: 'I still think that all his life he loved one woman. I even try to imagine her to myself. No, she wasn't the heroine of a Greek epic, no, she was rather the daughter of a farmer from Texas or North Dakota and so a fighter and a mother and a wife all at the same time. She had tresses the colour of well-baked bread and rounded shoulders like full moons. She was the greatest wonder in the world to him---greater than the Earth itself, which was a god for him, greater than the Universe, which remained for him a riddle. For all his restless nature he loved this woman throughout his life and was faithful to her in his own way. He grew old, but she did not age. His skin became dry and wrinkled up, his hands lost their suppleness and drooped. His eyes began to fade. He was old, but she was young, as young as if he had not made her up.

"Then Ella and Traubel went to the 'editorial office'. Ella remembered that the business-like approach and even the unaffected pride with which Traubel walked to his oval table in the restaurant, set out his note pads and pencils and prepared to see visitors seemed unusual to her at first. There were, incidentally, many visitors. Writers came and artists and actors and---what was then surprising---working people and not a few of them. What views did these people hold? As Ella understood it, there were radicals and anarchists among them, but there were others, too---socialists came, including Eugene Debs. Yes, the great Debs, the man who brought Bill Haywood to the fore, who inspired John Reed to struggle and at the same time pointed the way to Ella Reeve Bloor, sat at Horace Traubel's table."

As I listened to Ware I was looking at the woman. She reached out and picked up a scarf. Even the dim light in the carriage could not quench its colours: the scarf was a violent green and one's eyes ached to look at it. The woman put the scarf on her knees, smoothed it and then, with an easy movement, threw it over her shoulders, keeping its ends on her breast. Her eyes seemed to have taken on a brilliant greenness and looked as if wrapped in smoke.

"So your brother has his own house?" the old man asked.

"Yes, a peasant farmstead," the woman observed after a pause.

"Eugene Debs was tall and thin, with long arms and a narrow chest," Ware continued. "A man so extraordinarily thin should have dried up spiritually, too---where could he retain his warmth when there was only skin and bone left? But when Eugene began to talk he was transformed. An invisible flame embraced him, a flame that permeated his skin and gave strength and passion to his voice. His stream of words was often incoherent, but the listener could not resist their inspired and brave passion. He was about forty at that time, confident, happy and full of life. No, he had not yet formed the IWW with Big Bill, had not yet led the rail workers' strike, not yet run for president (which he did five times), not yet been thrown into prison for ten years for his

19---bOl

``Don't give in---hold on, you have a firm rear defence---a son. And the road ahead is open."

The young woman smiled sadly.

"The road ... the road."

The train had evidently passed a station, for the carriage lit up and for a moment I could see her eyes, in which pain seemed to have entrenched itself again.

"You know, it sometimes happens that you meet someone when he is standing on the threshold of life, then again during that sad time of maturity and finally in his twilight years," Ware said, continuing his story. "Only his eyes have retained their former colour and, perhaps, his voice still has a little of its old tone, but all the rest has gone, even character. He was one person and now he is another. How did it go with Horace? Many years passed, the good old poet died and Traubel left Camden. He settled in Philadelphia and wrote the work he had scribbled down in that notebook---Walt Whitman in Camden. In Camden he had, really, been a youngster, with a long neck and sharp elbows, against which his shirts wore out. And now? The elbows of the old dustcoat he put on when he stood by the press to print the newspaper were also tattered, but a wise melancholy, the melancholy of age, had accumulated in his eyes.

"Traubel edited a small newspaper in Philadelphia, together with a certain Dr. Salter. When Salter was in town, the newspaper was one thing---when he was away, it was completely different. One had only to open the paper to discover which of the editors was in town that day: its articles provided an unmistakeable answer to the question. Salter was the proponent of a strong, bourgeois America and his god was Theodore Roosevelt. Traubel spoke out for a socialist America and Walt Whitman and Eugene Debs were his ideals. But the most fascinating thing of all was that, up to a certain moment, the editors did not seem to have noticed that their views were quite disparate. Up to a certain moment. Once, upon returning to Philadelphia, Dr. Salter discovered that his co-editor had printed something which had shaken the foundations of America. There was an explosion, Traubel uttered his warcry 'Everyone to whom the name of Whitman is dear...' and a new paper came into being. In his single person Horace Traubel combined editor, publisher and printer. He wrote the articles, set the type, printed the paper and distributed it. The paper's editorial office was located at the circular table of a restaurant on Market Street, while the printing shop.... Ella saw Horace Traubel for the first time in many years in his printing shop. 'You want Mr. Traubel? Go over there, to the edge of the pavement.... Now look up. You see that roof and the attic window beside it? The grey head that popped out and vanished, then appeared again? That's Mr. Traubel printing his newspaper!' Ella climbed up to the attic. Traubel had run off the next hundred copies and was taking a rest, seated on a box of paper. They recalled Camden, the frame house with the stone porch, the wide-open windows, the jug of cool water, the townspeople who brought the poet flowers and new potatoes and the poet, standing beneath the stars.

"'I understand you,' Traubel told Ella. 'For you he could have been an unknown star. Yes, he lived as a recluse, although nothing happened in the town without his taking part in it. And it's interesting that the more

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speech in Canton, but he was a man to whom everyone was drawn, to whom freedom was dear. He had only to appear at Traubel's table in the restaurant on Market Street for people to move their chairs from all sides of the room nearer to that circular table.

"'People come to understand properly in different ways, Ella,' Debs said, planting his bony fists on the table. 'My father came to America from Alsace and brought with him the most important thing a person needs in life---character. I can prove that easily. He owned a factory in the town of Colmar in Alsace and he could have lived comfortably. But he fell in love with my mother---and she was an ordinary worker in the factory. The question came down to this: either the factory or the woman he loved. Of course, my father chose love and poverty. That was poverty in the American style, incidentally---there is nothing worse than it in the world---and my father went through all its trials. And that wasn't the only proof of his character: as I said, my father was of Alsatian origin and he could not reconcile himself to the fact that Alsace belonged to Germany. All his life he could not reconcile himself to that and he ordered us to inscribe on his grave: 'Born in Colmar, Alsace, France.'

"Debs and his father were, no doubt, quite different people, but one thing they had: fearlessness. There was an episode in Debs' life that Ella often recalled---an episode that explained everything to her. When America entered the war on the side of the allies, it required considerable courage to say: 'This isn't my war!' Overnight, Debs' little house in Terre Haute became an island: and when a single house in a small American town becomes an island, that's something to worry about. Apparently passers-by would cross to the other side of the street when they reached this house; then the milkman stopped coming, the postman refused to call and the children began to leave the house alone. Only the electricity continued to flow along the wires and enter the house, but by then even this seemed something like a miracle.

'"You have to look them straight in the eye, that's the essence of the thing...'---and he came out on to the porch. It turned out that the town could not look him in the eye. He looked straight at them, with unabashed courage, but the eyes of the town shifted wildly about, as if trying to escape from their very sockets. Someone said that a committee, a `patriotic' committee, was threatening a German worker. Debs is no letter-writer, but on this occasion he wrote: 'Rather than go to the house of that poor man, you had better come to me. I have a fowling piece that is waiting for you and is getting impatient.' And Debs was in no hurry to leave his porch---he was even glad of the opportunity to put the town's will to the test."

Ware finished his tea, drinking it down with some pleasure---the tea was cold and went down well---and began getting ready for bed. I walked along the carriage, hoping to be able to get to the end of the corridor and stand by the window. I loved to stand by a carriage window in the quietness of the night, watching how, far beyond the fields and woods, an unknown town was trying to overtake the train, flying at the hills around the rivers until, falling behind, it would continue to threaten for a long time, raising the yellow fists of its lights a little way into the air. It was unusually quiet in the corridor. The train was passing through an expanse of fields; not a single light showed itself around us, but lakes were scattered over the fields and at this midnight hour

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they gleamed weakly, shot with blue-grey, yellow and glassy-blue flames. I looked at the fields and thought how strangely Ella Bloor and Horace Traubel had met that night amidst the plains of Russia and how wonderful that the Americans who had come to Russia's aid this grim year had done this in the names, too, of Whitman and Debs. I was so absorbed in my reflections that I did not see the young woman come up to the window.

"I noticed you a long time ago," she said, smiling with confusion. "All the time I was wanting to ask you something, but I couldn't make up my mind and waited for the right moment. May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Are you going to Vereshchagino?"

"Yes, to Vereshchagino. Why?"

"To the American tractor detachment?"

"Yes. And you too?"

She lowered her eyes and her nostrils trembled.

"I have no other road."

"It's a good thing to do."

"If I can..." she murmured and smiled.

"Why shouldn't you be able to?" I asked, but she did not have time to reply, for the child began crying and she left the corridor, so quickly that one might have thought she welcomed the opportunity to end the conversation.

When we awoke the following morning---the sun had already risen and clouds were rushing across the windy sky---I could not see the young woman with the child anywhere in the carriage.

"Her ticket ran out a station back," said the old man. "She implored the conductor to let her stay on the train, but what was the good of asking him---he's an official. 'Your ticket has run out!'---and that's the end of the story. She has a brother there, with a house."

Ware was as upset as I.

"She was coming to us at Vereshchagino?"

"To Vereshchagino?"

"And she was wearing her husband's greatcoat?" He could not calm himself.

"Yes, her husband's."

Ware was downcast for a long time and it was not easy for me to get back to our interrupted conversation. It was only towards evening, when twilight was penetrating the carriage and the old man, submitting to his ceaseless feeling of melancholy, began singing, that Ware brought a kettle of boiling water and scattered a pinch of tea on his palm, as if reckoning how long the evening would be.

"It remains for me to tell you one episode---the rest you'll understand yourself," he said slowly, scattering dry tea into the hot water. "It was some time in spring, when the Russian revolution had already taken place, that mother came to my farm in Westchester County. Yes, my farm, that wasn't a slip of the tongue. I used the small inheritance my father left me to buy a farm---there's some sense in that for an agronomist, even if he is a Communist. 'If mother with her constant journeys to the Deep South and the Far West, has found a minute to visit me, it means that something out of the ordinary has happened,' I thought. She looked round the property, as she

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know America as well as Lenin knows it to make so correct a choice of subject,' I said. 'I know,' Ella replied. 'What is happening today on the roads of America is not even a resettlement of the people, it is more,' I said. 'Poor farmers are fleeing their homes like the plague. Whole villages are now on wheels. But neither the scientists nor the writers are devoting any attention to this: I, at least, know of no books. But there is another way of obtaining material, Ella!' She looked at me questioningly. 'One would have to cross the country together with the refugees.' Ella seemed both surprised and disheartened. 'Cross the country? But who could do that?' 'I shall do it.' Ella pondered, her hands extended towards the young apple-tree. 'But how? You would need money.' 'If I can find five dollars and perhaps a toothbrush, I'll be set.' 'You will work?' 'Yes, I'll do everything that the people who are travelling from east to west do.' Another mother, perhaps, would have tried to dissuade her son---what I was proposing was no easy matter. But Ella was Ella. 'You know best, Hal!' she said and with these few words gave me her blessing. In two weeks I had left the farm and a week after that I was moving westwards with the farm labourers. My journey lasted six months: for six months I was a farm labourer. I ploughed, harrowed, planted wheat, dug trenches for silage and built a dam. I worked as a carpenter, a blacksmith, a village clerk, a cooper and, once, even as a doctor. Yes, as a doctor, in quite unusual circumstances. At the end of December, towards the conclusion of my journey, I was overtaken by a snowstorm in the hills of North Dakota. I heard a voice unexpectedly crying somewhere to the right of me, at first barely audibly, then with increasing insistence. I tried to move towards the voice and came upon a road, which led me to a hut from which the voice was coming. Well, to cut a long story short, I found a young woman there, a very young poor farmer's wife, on the point of bringing a child into the world; her husband had gone for a doctor. But the birth had begun before the husband returned and I had to deliver the child. (It wasn't difficult, because once previously, under similar circumstances, I had delivered a child.) The poor woman thought I really was the doctor her husband had gone to fetch. 'How lucky you came in time, doctor!' she said to me.

``I began my journey in spring and finished it in winter, crossing the American South and the Middle East, reaching the North-West and returning through the wheat fields of Minnesota and Wisconsin. America stood befare me, such as I had never known or seen her: her fields, her woods, her rivers, her towns, great and small.... And once I saw a hydroelectric station, rising up before me as in a fairy story. That was in the late evening during bad weather, but the murk as if parted and there was the square concrete station, bathed in the light of searchlights and seeming white. I recalled how a teacher had told me of the discovery of electricity, the fascinating tale of Edison and Steinmetz. It took several months to digest everything I had seen and put it into a general shape. This was the job of an eye-witness, of someone who had participated in the events and, I like to believe, of a researcher. Only after that trip could I say to myself that I knew American agriculture as an agronomist should know it---it was then that I finally graduated. Did Lenin find my work useful? I have not talked with him about this and he may not know that the man who wrote the survey and I are the same person. But I can say to you as, indeed, I can say to myself, that I am happy to think I did not pass up either

usually did, shared my joy at looking at the fruits of my efforts in the vegetable plot and the garden, had dinner and then.... 'Now for the explanation---why mother has preferred to come to my farm rather than make a trip to Vancouver,' I thought. 'Listen, Hal,' she said---she called me Hal---'I want to have a word with you. May I?' I knew that half-ironic, half-serious intonation---she talked like that to her dockers and to the syndicalists of the women garment-workers' union. 'Perhaps you are planning a trip to the Far West and want me to look after the family, Ella?' I asked. (When she went away for a week or two at the instructions of the Party, I filled the role of eldest in the family.) 'Your efforts around the* house have borne fruit, Hal,' she said, looking with smiling eyes at the open-air kitchen I had recently put up under a plywood canopy. We reached my garden like that, making jokes at each other's expense. (My apple orchard was not three years old that spring and looked bare and unsightly---clumsy and woody.) 'No, I was thinking of something else...' she said, touching a young apple-tree. 'The thing is, Hal, I am talking about a request from Lenin.' 'Lenin?' I need hardly say that I did not expect to hear that name. 'Yes, a personal request from Lenin. A personal request.' I was now prepared to hear something unusual. 'Because Lenin has addressed a personal request does not diminish it in any way for me. Was it a

request to me, Ella?' 'No, to the Party and that is its significance__' She

lapsed into thought. 'Lenin is writing a major work dealing with the transformation of private farmers into farm labourers, the resettlement of farm labourers and the laws bearing on this resettlement....' 'And he is asking for help in the form of books?' I asked---the question asked itself. 'Yes, and, perhaps, in the shape of the thoughts of those who know American agriculture. People like you, I think---forgive the liberty. That's how it seems to me as a mother.' I didn't let Ella go away that day. For a long time I stood

under the stars, thinking over what she had said to me. 'Lenin requests__

Just think: Lenin requests. It doesn't happen so often that Lenin makes a persona] request to you.' In the morning I brought my mother back to the same young apple-tree beside which we had stood the previous day...."

Ware seemed to raise his hands slightly in order to clap them together and then change his mind: he was, after all, the subject of his conversation and to express surprise and, still more, pleasure would have seemed conceited. I noticed, incidentally, that he talked willingly about his farm---or, more precisely, about everything he had accomplished on the farm with his own hands. I saw something characteristic of him in this. He was a townsman and an intellectual; moreover, he was not physically robust (he had suffered from tuberculosis at one time in his childhood) and this, I thought, was in no small measure the cause of his hidden afflictions. He was drawn to work that required physical strength and willingly performed it: a well-dug bed, a carefully planed plank, a pile of wood chopped in a morning---these could give him no less pleasure than a successful article or a well-received lecture. He used to talk of "holding life in one's hands", by which he meant doing everything for oneself.

"And so my conversation with Ella continued by the apple-tree," Ware went on. "'Look, Ella, I haven't slept all night....' 'I know that. I stood by the window and saw everything, but I didn't want to disturb you.' 'One must

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job to someone else. 'It is not everyone who has the good fortune to help Lenin,' Ella said; 'but if you are lucky, then be glad.'"

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"Alexei Lukin, secretary of the Party cell," the big man said, balancing cautiously on his crutches, which- were broad and had been strongly and reliably made, evidently by their user. "And you, Comrade, have come direct from Lenin?"

"Direct."

"Good."

We walked with him from tractor to tractor.

"You are thinking, perhaps, that I'm something like a commissar to Comrade Warov? Nothing like it! Why should he need a commissar when he himself is a Communist through and through!" Lukin threw his fist back then stopped, his hand seemingly frozen upright; his face had turned a grey-green colour. "Cramp again! It squeezes the leg!" He jerked once and then again at his leg. "Leave off, don't play around!" His eyes became dull, as if sand had been thrown in them. "Leave off!" He clumsily drew back his outstreched leg, then released it; the leg struck the floor like a dead thing. "Leave off, then!" He sighed with relief. "As I was saying, he is a Communist through and through!"

Lukin leaned heavily on his crutches and went up to a tractor. ' "I was brought down by case-shot and it's given me plenty of pain ever since!" he said, glancing down at his game leg. "Have you ever had to cross the headwaters of the Kuban? The water is colder than ice and cramp seizes you with a dead grip---you can't move a finger! That's what it's like with me, only it happens on dry land, not in the water...." He tried to smile, then, with an unexpected flash of shyness, his face became stern.

We left the workshop together with Ware. Four hours sleep had evidently been enough to restore his energy and good temper, for he immediately took me out into the fields. There was a lot of snow and this pleased him.

"I must confess that I dreamed about the Don and the Kuban---the steppe! That's the place to try out a tractor! But suddenly to come here---to Perm,

with its ravines and sandbanks__However, I've got over that now---there's

plenty of useful work to be done here, too. The main thing is not these, how do you say, dessiatines." The word dessiatine did not come easily to him, but he took it in his stride: I had noticed that he liked to introduce Russian words into his speech and this, too, reflected his desire to "hold life with his own hands". "The main thing is the training we can give! And that's a good thing everywhere---on the Don and in Perm! Isn't that right?"

I looked at Ware: no, the sleepless night had not passed without trace and he was pale, but he drove away his tiredness. The sun was beginning to go down, but the day was still mild and we did not want to leave the fields. Alexei Lukin suddenly hailed us from the side of a large ravine. He was standing on a rise, one crutch raised in the air.

"Come on, Comrade Warov, our dinner will get cold!" His bald patch was damp and gleamed more brightly than the sun. "Come on and make it snappy---we're dying of hunger!"

This Lukin was evidently something of a daredevil. The road that ran past us by the hill both tempted and called him and if it had not been for his crutches, he would have dashed now along the snowy road down the slope, leaping the rivulets that, towards midday, cut through the bottom of the ravine, inadvertently dipping his hand into the water and touching his cold

We arrived at Vereshchagino after midnight. A vehicle was waiting for us at the station, one of two given to the detachment. It was a kind of truck, with a covered deck. Ware offered me the place beside the driver, but I refused and climbed up beside him---from the deck you could savour the scent of fresh hay. The driver, a stocky fellow who had, God knows how, managed to gain a tan in the watery sunlight of the region, clapped Ware on the shoulder for a long time with his great paws. Then, having had his fill of this, he began to persuade Ware to go to Toikino immediately, promising that we would be there before daylight; moreover, he said, there could be a thaw by morning, which would carry the road away. Ware told the driver that it had always been impossible for natives of North Dakota to resist common sense and so we left for Toikino. The man who had loaded the vehicle with hay had apparently possessed enormous hands (perhaps it had been the driver), for there was enough hay to engulf the truck. We had scarcely climbed on to the hay before Ware fell asleep, but I could not close my eyes for a long time.

A dim square of glass was let into the wall of the truck-body to my right. It was easy to clear a patch of the glass and through it I could see snow and more snow. I recalled Ware's story: my companion had certainly known a story in a hundred, I thought. From tiny acorns mighty oaks grow. It also occurred to me that in telling the story of his own life, Ware had not recalled the courageous bird. But perhaps it should have been recalled in just this connection? The story of Ella concluded with this story---or perhaps it continued endlessly, endlessly__

The patch of window I had cleared was beginning slowly to cover with ice. I wiped it clean and again saw a snow-covered field, hummocky, with sparse clumps of trees in the hollows. The wind whipped up flurries of powdery snow, covering the road, and the vehicle roared anxiously as it ploughed into the drifts.

Unexpectedly, the young woman with the child who had left the train after Vyatka came back into my mind. I recollected her grey eyes with the clear outline of the pupil, and then the green smoke in the whites when the scarf lay on her shoulders. Where had a person like her come from and what had happened in her life before she had become a soldier's wife? Perhaps she was the daughter of a village doctor, shot by Kolchak for sympathising with the Reds, or of an exiled schoolteacher and follower of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) movement. Perhaps she had sworn to follow the path of her husband and had set her face towards the tractor detachment, not because she felt this her calling, but because she linked this inseparably with Russia's great future. There was something unyielding, direct and fearless in her.

We arrived in Toikino at dawn and went into the workshops: the detachment had already breakfasted and was out with the tractors.

"Welcome back, Comrade Warov!" The speaker was a big man with round shoulders and a receding forehead, who came stumping towards my companion on crutches.

Ware introduced us.

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palm to his neck with a wild and troubled joy. He would have walked for hours beside us, forgetting dinner and everything else in the world. But now he was standing on a rise, leaning heavily on his crutch which was groaning and complaining.

"Come on, our dinner will get cold!"

It was clear to everyone and no one more than Lukin that dinner was, of course, not the point of issue: he was eager to talk about what was most important: a man's deep feeling and lively excitement.

He walked beside us, leaning more heavily than usual on his crutch (the journey into the fields had tired him), then stopped, waving his huge hands, and asked me:

"So you have come direct from Comrade Lenin?"

"Direct, Comrade Lukin."

"Good."

After a few steps he stopped again.

"That John---Ivan, we call him in Russian---who brought you to Toikino---he's the real thing! No, he's not just a driver, he's got real class as a tractor-operator, too. 'Everyone's going to America, but I'll stay! Only choose me a wife!' he said to me. 'That can be done in a minute,' I said to him. Yes, the real thing...."

In the evening Ware called the detachment together, while Lukin went off to the school.

Overhead, six hurricane lamps; the table was covered with a piece of red cloth. Lukin began the proceedings.

``This is Comrade Rybakov: he has come direct from Lenin and the envelope in front of him, that's from our leader, Comrade Lenin-- Ulyanov.''

Then I spoke.

"Comrades...."

It was only then I noticed that two mighty, untameable torrents had, as it were, fused into one: the stream that came from beyond the ocean and the Russian one---The blue overalls of the Americans and the wadded jackets of the Russians, red scarves, home-knitted sweaters, warmly if simply made, knitted caps with short peaks, the flannelette jackets of our guests, field shirts, sheepskin coats, Russian shirts and soldiers' helmets were mingled before me.

"Comrade guests and farmers, Americans and Russians---"

I seemed to hear the wicks in the lamps crackling; the faces before me were serious and concentrated, the yellow light intensifying their tan and making the faces appear coppery-red.

I said that Lenin, who had recently returned to Moscow after his illness, had asked to be told of the work of the American detachment. I realised how simple these words were and, at bottom, how ordinary, even if pronounced in two languages; but there was one circumstance that gave them strength---the person who had sent me here was Lenin.

"He thanks our friends from America for the help they are giving Soviet Russia and had asked the government that this thanks be recorded in a special act. The essence of this is that the work and experience of Toikino should be a beacon, raised high amidst the great sea of peasant Russia...."

The flames in the lamps crackled, leaping up and dimly illuminating the faces, which seemed touched by the dull gleam of copper.

We agreed that I should leave at dawn.

Late that evening, Lukin knocked at the hut in which I had been given a bed.

``So you are going direct from here to Moscow?" he asked, arranging his crutches beside him.

``To Moscow," I confirmed.

``Good.''

He took out his tobacco pouch and had already found a piece of newspaper on the lintel to roll a cigarette when, glancing at me, he changed his mind.

``I've come to speak to you," he said.

``I can see that.''

``If you can, then listen, Comrade Rybakov." He stretched out his hand towards the crutches, standing them more firmly in the corner. "I wanted to talk about Comrade Warov and his chaps!" He waved his great fists. "I don't know what Comrade Lenin thinks, but I'd keep them in Russia for a bit! Not for ever, heaven forbid, but for a bit, a year or two. We are building a proletarian power, I would say---Ah!" He broke off, his fist, raised high, remaining immobile: his leg had been gripped by cramp. "Leave off, then, don't play up!" His words were hardly audible between white lips. "It's still a bit... leave off---" He made an effort to open his fist, raised above his head, then squeezed it tight. "Leave off---Oh!" He seemed to breathe out the pain. "As I was saying---we are building a proletarian power---" He wiped his damp forehead with the palm of his hand.

Half an hour later we parted and for a long time I could hear his crutches thumping on the ground, which had frozen hard as the evening drew in.

I left Toikino at nine o'clock in the morning. A vehicle was waiting on a hillock by the road running out of the village; Ware came to see me off. The sun was low in the sky and a snow-covered path, filled with blue shadows, led us to the hillock. When the path came out on top of the rise we could see the fields and the road, open and running straight to the station. I was preparing to enter the vehicle when I heard my companion quietly bring his hands together and let out a barely audible sigh. I looked round: the woman in the greatcoat was walking along the road. Yes, it was the same one, the woman with the child. She reached the fork in the road, stopped for a moment, then turned right, towards the village. She was walking quickly now, like someone who has unexpectedly seen the end of a road he has been following for days and perhaps years.

We said good-bye.

``That woman has something of the courageous bird in her," Ware said, stretching out his hand.

When the vehicle came out on to the road I saw Ware again: he was on the road along which the woman was walking towards the village. It seemed to me that they were walking side by side now.

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My story has an epilogue.

Do you remember that Ware spoke of a unique meeting with Charles Steinmetz---or, rather, with one of Steinmetz' creations beside the mighty Missouri?

My last memories of Harold Ware are connected with the name of Steinmetz and, of course, with that of Lenin.

In the spring of 1922 Lenin received a letter from Steinmetz, in which the scientist wrote that news had already reached him of the Soviet plan for electrification and offered his help.

Lenin wrote a letter to Steinmetz in reply.

Lenin wanted the letter handed to him personally. However, the opportunity for this presented itself only in December 1922. Harold Ware was returning to America and Lenin entrusted to him the letter to Steinmetz, together with a photograph which, with an inscription, Lenin was sending the American scientist.

The inscription on the photograph represented, in fact, a new letter to Steinmetz from Lenin. It was written in English and expressed great respect for the American scientist and confidence that this example would be followed by others.

"To the highly esteemed Charles Proteus Steinmetz, one of the few

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exceptions to the united front of representatives of science and culture opposed to tlse proletariat.

"I hope that a further deepening and widening of the breach in this front will not have to be awaited long. Let the example of the Russian workers and peasants holding their fate in their own hands serve as an encouragement to the American proletariat and farmers. In spite of the terrible consequence of the war destruction we are going ahead, though not possessing to the extent of one tenth the tremendous resources for the economic building of a new life that have been at the disposal of the American people for many years.

"Vladimir Oolianoff (Lenin)" "Moscow, 7/XII, 1922.''

Several years later I saw Ware again, when Lenin and Steinmetz, too, were no longer alive.

It was a typical Moscow summer, mild and cool, and Ware and I had gone to Vorobyovy Hills.

We settled ourselves in the shade of an old tree, sitting on its protruding roots, and my American friend told me the story of his mission to Steinmetz.

Charles Steinmetz' letter to Lenin

*•

to •*»**• to yen ay *lsir»«9B of the work of aooisl an* iaiBStrla.! r<«*»o«r«Ue» "Moh Sassi* 1» sooaaplisMnp andor «tt«k terriM.8 &ifficaltl«».

I wish jtm Ut» fallaet *asc««i aaS l»«»« overjr aenf Ideas* will 8000084. Ind8»4, yo« oaart «ttoe«4. tor the *wt

worSc

*ki«h Hussia has starts* mat net be alienw* to fail.

If in *oelK>i««a and sere particularly In slsetrioal riaK <aattera I can «art •»«!* in tar o^msr with 8*M»««tlen or aonsi to 4o so a* fw aa

Fraternally yeare,

CFSJH

LENIN in Gorki. 1922 »-

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"I went to Schenectady to hand the letter to Steinmetz," Ware said. "It wasn't easy to reach him: he was surrounded by a wall of secretaries. 'Mr. Steinmetz is receiving no one today,' I was told, 'he has summoned the vice-presidents of all his companies and they are conferring together. Of course, when I declared I had a letter to Mr. Steinmetz, and even when I said it was an important letter, I produced no impression at all. The answer I received was only too sensible, 'If you have a letter, you can leave it with a secretary: Mr. Steinmetz receives his mail at a fixed time.' It was impossible to scale this wall---one could only break it down by bringing one's heavy artillery into play. And so I took a decision. 'I have just arrived from Moscow with a personal letter for you from Lenin,' I wrote on a sheet of paper, 'and will wait until you are free.' My note had a truly magical effect: Mr. Steinmetz stood before me. 'Come in, come in---' He invited me into his office, which was next door. 'No one else is to be admitted!' he called. Our conversation lasted for several hours and Steinmetz showered me with questions about Lenin, the Soviet system of education, Soviet science, the electrification programme and Soviet organisation of industry and agriculture. From time to time the door of his office would partly open and one of the vice-presidents would poke his head in. `Don't disturb our conversation!' Steinmetz would cry and the door would immediately close.

"Steinmetz said good-bye to me very cordially. 'Young man,' he exclaimed enthusiastically, 'can you imagine what Russia is doing? In a short period it has created an electrification programme for the whole country! Nothing like that could have happened in any other country. What they have done is amazing: I would have given anything to have gone there myself and worked together with them!' Steinmetz said that he had agreed to go to Russia and work as a consultant in carrying out that country's great plan, but unfortunately he was unable to put his intention into effect, for a year later he died."

I cannot remember how my conversation with Ware developed, but, as one would have expected, he touched upon Toikino.

"Do you remember I said to you once that the main thing about our experiment was not dessiatines but people? Not the dessiatines we would plough and sow, although that was very important in itself, but the people whom we would help to gain a knowledge of the tractor. We sought to make our Toikino a school, which would produce tractor-operators and mechanics. If, on a visit to Russia some time, I meet that same Alexei Lukin as the head of a column of harvesters or, heaven knows, as the director of a tractor station, I shall consider that I didn't come to Russia for nothing."

"What did happen to him?" I took the opportunity of this last remark to put the question.

"Alexei became a mechanic and went to Perm 'for knowledge'. Yes, literally---apparently he has already graduated from the institute. 'If my leg holds out, my head won't let me down,' he said to me then. 'It's two nights from Perm to Moscow and there's an Industrial Academy there, they say__'"

"An Industrial Academy ... an Industrial Academy..." I repeated, listening to Ware, but my thoughts were already elsewhere.

"And what about the woman in the overcoat, the young woman we met on the train and then on the highway to Toikino itself?"

Ware turned pale. Yes, I clearly saw a dead whiteness spread.over his face.

"Nastya?" he queried in a barely audible voice. "Nastya Drobysheva? She stayed with us at Toikino and was very successful: she became a tractor-operator. And then in spring, early spring, somewhere near the village, a tractor caught fire in a ravine. The flames blazed up as if caught in a funnel. Nastya tried to smother the flames with her jacket and burned her hands." He fell silent, looking sadly at me. "Do you remember her hands?"

"What happened then?" I asked, after we had begun to walk in silence down to the river: the conversation about Nastya Drobysheva had not been easy for Ware.

"What happened? I visited her in hospital in Perm. She had recovered, but her hands were badly scarred."

"And where is she now?" I could see something important in the fate of this young woman.

"In Moscow, apparently, but it is not easy to find her."

"At any rate, she had something of the courageous bird in her," I said.

``The courageous bird, yes," Ware agreed.

And that is the epiloque: it had to be short.

Notes

HILL JOE (Hillstrom) (1882-1915)---

Swedish-born American poet and ballad-writer. A worker and an active participant in the trade-union movement. Falsely accused of murder by the state of Utah and sentenced to death by firing squad.

BEATTY BESSIE (1886-1947)---

American writer, journalist and author of The Red Heart of Russia. An eyewitness of the events of the October revolution, she met V. I. Lenin on a number of occasions between 1918 and 1921. In 1921 was a member of a propaganda trip through the starving Volga region. In the last years of her life a radio commentator in the USA.

MARTENS LUDWIG KARLOVICH (1875-1948)---

Soviet researcher in the fields of machine-building and thermal engineering. From 1919 to 1921 represented the Soviet government in the USA.

BULLITT WILLIAM (born 1891)---

MCBRIDE ISAAC---

American diplomat, journalist and intelligence agent. 1934-1936 ambassador to Moscow, 1936-1941 ambassador to Paris. Known as a proponent of aggressive, anti-Soviet policies.

correspondent of the Boston newspaper The Christian Science Monitor. Wrote about the workers. In 1919 crossed the front-line and reached Moscow, where he talked with Lenin. In December 1919 published an account of his meeting at the Kremlin in The Christian Science Monitor.

DEBS EUGENE (1855-1926)---

leading figure in the US workers' movement. One of the organisers of the Social-Democratic Party in 1898. Ran for president of the USA on a number of occasions. In 1905 took part in setting up the trade-union organisation, Industrial Workers of the World. In 1918 sentenced to ten years imprisonment for opposition to the imperialist war. Released in 1921 after an amnesty.

MINOR ROBERT (1884-1952)---

prominent American socialist, journalist and cartoonist. A member of the Communist Party of the USA since 1920 and one of its leaders. Editor of the American Daily Worker.

MOONEY TOM (1885-1942)---

GRAFTIO GENRIKH OSIPOVICH (1869-1949)---

smelter, well-known participant in the US workers' movement. Led the smelters' union from 1912 to 1916. In 1916 arrested on a provocative charge of complicity in a bomb explosion in San Francisco. Released from prison in 1939 under the pressure of world-wide public opinion.

research scientist in the field of power engineering, one of the pioneers of hydroelectricity generation in the USSR; became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1932.

HAMMER ARMAND (born 1898)---

American industrialist and secretary of the Allied Chemical and Drug Corporation. From 1925 to 1930 headed the concession held by this group in Russia for the manufacture and sale of stationery.

PLATTEN FRIEDRICH (Fritz) (1883-1942)---

Swiss Communist and one of the organisers of the Swiss Communist Party in 1921. Took part in the Third International. Secretary of the Communist Party of Switzerland from 1921.

HAMMER JULIUS (born 1874)---

American millionaire. Sympathetic towards the October revolution in Russia. 1921-1927 chairman of the board of the American Alameriko concession, which exploited the Alapayevsky asbestos mine.

RANSOME ARTHUR (born 1884)---

bourgeois English author and journalist. Lived for a number of years in Russia and was a newspaper correspondent from 1916 to 1924. Talked on several occasions with V. I. Lenin.

HAYWOOD WILLIAM (Bill) (1869-1928)---

prominent figure in the US workers' movement. A miner, leader of the Left wing of the Socialist Party and one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World trade-union organisation. Lived in the USSR from 1921, where he worked in the International Workers' Aid and contributed to the press.

ROBINS RAYMOND (1873-1955)-

leading American businessman and US Army colonel. 1917- 1918---headed the Red Cross Mission in Russia. Received on several occasions by V. I. Lenin.

STEFFENS LINCOLN JOSEPH (1866-1936)---

American publicist. Author of The Shame of the Cities, The Struggle for Self-Government and Uphuilders.

STEINMETZ CHARLES P (Karl August Rudolf) (1865-1923)---

well-known American electrical engineer, university professor.

VILLA FRANCISCO (Pancho) (real name Doroteo Arango)

(1877-1923)---

a leader of the partisan movement of the Mexican peasantry. Creator of the partisan army during the Mexican revolution of 1911.

WILLIAMS ALBERT RHYS (1883-1962)---

progressive American publicist and active public figure. First came to Russia in 1917 with John Reed. Joined the Red Army in 1918 and organised the International Legion. One of the first to write about the leader of the October revolution in Lenin. The Man and His Work (1919). In 1921 Through the Russian Revolution appeared. After returning to the USSR in 1931 wrote a sketch entitled "The Greatest Reception Room in the World''.

ZAPATA EMILIANO (born about 1877, died 1919)---

hero of the Mexican revolution of 1910-1917 and a prominent leader of the peasant movement in Mexico.