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PAGE FOREWORD xi

LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES 1

JACOB PETERS, FEDORE S. DZERZHINSKY AND THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION 43

ANATOL VASSILIEVITCH LUNACHARSKY AND RUSSIAN CULTURE 69

MICHAEL IVANOVITCH KALININ AND THE PEASANTS 85

MADAME ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 109

LEON TROTSKY, SOVIET WAR LORD 129

ENVER PASHA AND THE MOHAMMEDANS 147

TIKON AND THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 165

TCHICHERIN, COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND HIS SUBORDINATES 179

KALININ 86

KOLLONTAI 110

TROTSKY 130

ENVER PASHA 148

FOREWORD

Revolution! The air is filled with flames and fumes. The shapes of men, seen through the smoke, become distorted and unreal. Promethean supermen, they seem, giants in sin or virtue, Satans or saviours. But, in truth, behind the screen of smoke and flame they are like other men: no larger and no smaller, no better and no worse: all creatures of the same incessant passions, hungers, vanities and fears.

So it is in Russia. And in this book I have tried to show the leaders of the revolution as they really are, as I know them in their homes, where the red glare does not penetrate and they live as other men.

They differ from the political leaders one meets in Washington, London and Paris, largely because they are able to be franker and more themselves. Public opinion, which is the boon of politicians and the bane of statesmen, does not drive them to drab conformity or high-sounding platitude. The public they have to satisfy is small and sophisticated--the trade unions of the larger cities. And these workingmen demand, above all else, frankness and the unpowdered truth. An address by Lenin is, therefore, as direct, unsentimental and full of facts as a statement to a board of directors by an executive of an American corporation. The slow, strong wants of the peasants have to be heeded, too; but they are simple wants, land and free trade, and do not yet touch intricate things, remote from the daily life of the farm, like foreign affairs and higher economics. In the end the peasants will rule Russia, but to-day public opinion is the opinion of the class-conscious workingmen of the cities. Therefore, the leaders of Russia can afford to be frank.

In the western democracies, politics is the art of seeming frank while not being so. Only three types of politicians ever emerge in the highest places. First, the statesman of brilliant intellectual understanding, like Lloyd George, who always knows what he ought to do, and never does it--until the public also comes to understand, usually some months, or years, later. Second, the sentimentalist, who is always able to muddle an inconvenient understanding of facts and muffle his conscience with high-sounding principles that endear him to the public heart. Third, the kindly blockhead, who discovers what ought to be done just a little later than the public. These types do not exist in Russia. The trade unions compel the Russian politician to be a stark realist, talking frankly, acting on the best information he can obtain and giving that information fully to his public. The leaders pictured in this book will seem, therefore, franker and more direct than the leaders of the western world.

They will also seem more desperate; not because it is their natural character to be desperate but because they face as desperate a problem as ever strained the human brain. They have been caught, from the first, on the horns of the revolutionary dilemma. The same intolerable breakdown of economic life, which alone makes revolution possible, also predestines revolution to almost certain failure. That dull beast, the public, will move to revolution only when life has become unbearable, only when the established order has broken down so completely that ruins alone remain. Revolution does not come before ruin. And to build on ruins a new and fairer life is a task almost beyond the powers of men. So much of the exhausted energy of the nation must be consumed in re-establishing the mere fundamentals of life--food, shelter, clothing and security from fear--that little remains to attack the task of remoulding life in a shape that is closer to the heart's desire. But to this task the leaders of Russia have dedicated their lives. And if they succeed or if they fail, they will be remembered always for their courage in following an ideal through destruction, famine, death and the hatred of the world.

Here, then, they are: the Russians of to-day: close to the Tartar and the Cossack of the plain, children of serfs and Norsemen and Mongols--close to the earth and striving for the stars.

LOUISE BRYANT.

LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES

LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES

NIKOLAI LENIN

Lenin became an active revolutionist through the spiritual motives that have moved all great reformers--not because he himself was hungry and an outcast, but because he could not stand by unmoved in a world where other men were hungry and outcast. Such characters are predestined internationalists; the very quality that lifts them above materialism places them above borders and points of geography; they strive for the universal good. Lenin believes that the only thing worth living for is the next generation. Communism is his formula for saving the next generation from the injustices and inequalities of the present.

When I think of Lenin and his place in the Russian revolution I am reminded of a statue which, until the late Fall of the year 1918, adorned the busy square before the entrance to the Nikoliavski station in Petrograd. It represented one of the former rulers of Russia astride a huge stallion. One could not fail to be struck by the tremendous strength of the animal and the frailty of the rider. The contrast was intentional; the titled sculptor meant to warn his sovereign of the dangers threatening the throne. Russia was the wild horse, fierce, untamed, powerful, a force as yet unaroused but which might wake up any moment and cast off its royal burden.

When Lenin took the reins of state, he was in exactly the same position as a man riding a runaway horse. The utmost his constituents could have expected was that he would guide Russia away from complete destruction. They could hold him responsible for immediate situations but not for ultimate results. To what goal those vast urges and desires which caused the revolution would carry Russia, was beyond him or any man to command. His heart and his mind wished to direct it toward the crimson portals of socialism. Russia, however, in its stampede seems to have slowed up dangerously near the old, familiar gates of capitalism. Nevertheless, she will never be the same; Lenin is responsible for it that Russia has forever gained the larger fruits of the revolution.

Legends spring up around every famous man, manufactured largely by his enemies, who spread tales of his lavish extravagance, his vices, his affairs with women. It is important to know such facts about a man's life. His personal relationships mean a great deal; if he fails in these, he eventually fails in all ways. The life of the leader of a great world movement must harmonize with his doctrines; his conduct must be as austere or as lax as his doctrines dictate. That is why we have a natural antipathy to dissolute priests and none at all to dissolute poets and Bacchanalians. So it is worthy of note that even the narrowest moralist could not pick a flaw in Lenin's personal conduct I am convinced that if he had lived in any other way than he has, he could not have maintained his remarkable poise.

Whatever inward storms arose he was impressive because of his outward serenity, because of his calm, majestic as a Chinese Buddha's. Without any fuss he took power, faced world opposition, civil war, disease, defeat and even success. Without fuss he retired for a space, and without fuss he has returned again. His quiet authoritativeness inspired more confidence than could any amount of pomp. I know of no character in history capable, as he was through such distressing days, of such complete, aristocratic composure.

Every normal man is pushed forward or back to some degree by women. It is my theory that Lenin's amazing stability was substantially strengthened by the women who meant most to him. Those women were: his mother, his wife, his sister and his lifelong friend and, in late years, chief secretary, Fotiva.

During all the years since the Bolshevik uprising, Fotiva has been his assistant. On days when he was ill or away in the country she actually had charge of the office. She is a highly efficient woman of forty, tall, dark, healthy and full of enthusiasm. She is quiet, also, and cheerful, and creates a pleasant atmosphere about her.

Lenin's office, with Fotiva managing all the under-secretaries, is an agreeable office to enter. You never feel like an intruder, nor, at the same time, that it is a place to loaf in, which means that she knows how to preserve a happy balance. In all one's dealings with Fotiva, one finds her a woman of her word. She has the very un-Russian quality of always being on time for appointments and never going back on her promises. She is a Communist of old standing and occasionally contributes articles to newspapers and magazines.

As for Madame Lenin, no one could be disturbed in her presence. How different the state of the Soviet Premier's temper might have been on occasions were his wife the sort of woman who would weep because her apartment in the Kremlin was small, or would quarrel with the other Commissars' wives, or would be jealous of Fotiva. The truth is, she admires Fotiva and is entirely glad of her existence.

Madame Lenin, whose real name is Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaya Ulianova, acted for many years as Lenin's secretary. Only ill health prevented her from continuing the work.

When Lenin was editor of Iskra in Switzerland, she was the secretary of the whole Iskra organization, which not only had charge of publishing a newspaper but carried on vast party activities. All the correspondence was in her hands. At one time she was in communication with every revolutionist in Russia.

That is one reason why she is so well known from one end of the country to the other and why people still continue to call her by her revolutionary name.

Under the Tsar, Lenin was twice exiled and Krupskaya always shared his fate. Together they passed hard years in Switzerland, England and especially Paris, where for two years Lenin spent almost his entire time studying in the national library. His only means of existence was by his writings, and he wrote solely for and about the revolution--by no means a remunerative occupation. The entire period of exile extended over ten long years. In that time the Lenins never knew a day of ease or luxury. They had become accustomed to privationshat they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow out the moral lights around us, they must penetrate the human soul and eradicate there the love of liberty, and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery in this country."

He laid his spear in rest and went forth with armor on, the champion of freedom. He claimed she should walk the world everywhere, untrammeled and free to bless the lowest as well as the highest. It was not right and never could be made right, to forbid working lawfully that all men might be free. Slavery debased--freedom lifted up. Slavery corrupted, freedom purified. Freedom might be abused, but slavery was itself a colossal abuse.

He was no dreaming visionary, but stated with commanding clearness the doctrine of equality before the law, or political equality, distinguishing it from social equality. In old Independence Hall, in 1861, he said of the Colonies: "I have often enquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the mother land, but the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight should be lifted from the shoulders of all men." He held that instrument to teach that "nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, degraded and imbruted by its fellows."

With such views he came to the presidency. Here he was an executive officer, bound by the Constitution, and charged with its maintenance and defense. He was to take the nation as the people placed it in his hands, rule it under the Constitution and surrender it unbroken to his successor. Accordingly he made to the Southern States all conceivable propositions for peace. Slavery should be left without federal interference. They madly rejected all. War came. He saw at the outset that slavery was our bane. It confronted each regiment, perplexed each commander. It was the Southern commisariat, dug Southern trenches and piled Southern breastworks.

But certain Border States maintained a quasi loyalty and clung to slavery. They were in sympathy with rebellion, but wore the semblance of allegiance and with consequential airs assumed to dictate the policy of the President. He was greatly embarrassed. He made them every kind and conciliatory offer, but all was refused. Slavery on the gulf and on the border, in Charleston and in Louisville, was the same intolerant, incurable enemy of the Union. He struck it at last. The Proclamation of Emancipation came, followed in due time by the recommendation that the Constitution be so amended as forever to render slavery impossible in State or Territory. For these acts, he was arraigned before the American people on the 8th of last November, and received their emphatic approval.

In a letter written to a citizen of Kentucky, the President gave an exposition of his policy so transparent, that I reproduce it in this place. It is his sufficient explanation and vindication.

Executive Mansion, Washington, April 4, 1864.

A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.

"My Dear Sir:--You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally stated the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

"And now let any Union man who complains of the measure test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking three hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot face the truth.

"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any man desired or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.

"Yours truly,

A. Lincoln."

He struck slavery because slavery had clutched the throat of the Republic, and one of the twain must die! Mr. Lincoln said, LET IT BE SLAVERY!

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