Whatever else they may think of him, not even his enemies
deny that Vladimir Ilyitch Oulianov (Lenin) is one of the
greatest personalities of his time. I therefore make no
apology for writing down such scraps of his conversation as
seem to illustrate his manner of mind.
He was talking of the lack of thinkers in the English labour
movement, and said he remembered hearing Shaw speak at
some meeting. Shaw, he said, was "A good man fallen
among Fabians" and a great deal further left than his
company. He had not heard of "The Perfect Wagnerite,"
but was interested when I told him the general idea of the
book, and turned fiercely on an interrupter who said that
Shaw was a clown. "He may be a clown for the bourgeoisie
in a bourgeois state, but they would not think him a clown in
a revolution."
He asked whether Sidney Webb was consciously
working in the interests of the capitalists, and when I said I
was quite sure that he was not, he said, "Then he has more
industry than brains. He certainly has great knowledge."
He was entirely convinced that England was on the eve of
revolution, and pooh-poohed my objections. "Three
months ago I thought it would end in all the world having to
fight the centre of reaction in England. But I do not think so
now. Things have gone further there than in France, if the
news as to the extent of the strikes is true."
I pointed out some of the circumstances, geographical and
economical, which would make the success of a violent
revolution in England problematical in the extreme, and put
to him the same suggestion that I put to Bucharin (see page
81), namely, that a suppressed movement in England would
be worse for Russia than our traditional method of
compromise. He agreed at once, but said, "That is quite
true, but you cannot stop a revolution . . . although Ramsay
MacDonald will try to at the last minute. Strikes and
Soviets. If these two habits once get hold, nothing will
keep the workmen from them. And Soviets, once started,
must sooner or later come to supreme power." Then, "But
certainly it would be much more difficult in England. Your
big clerk and shop-keeping class would oppose it, until the
workmen broke them. Russia was indeed the only country
in which the revolution could start. And we are not yet
through our troubles with the peasantry."
I suggested that one reason why it had been possible in
Russia was that they had had room to retreat.
"Yes," he said. "The distances saved us. The Germans
were frightened of them, at the time when they could indeed
have eaten us up, and won peace, which the Allies would
have given them in gratitude for our destruction. A
revolution in England would have nowhere whither to
retire."
Of the Soviets he said, "In the beginning I thought they were
and would remain a purely Russian form; but it is now quite
clear that under various names they must be the instruments
of revolution everywhere."
He expressed the opinion that in England they would
not allow me to tell the truth about Russia, and gave as an
example the way in which Colonel Robins had been kept
silent in America. He asked about Robins, "Had he really
been as friendly to the Soviet Government as he made out?"
I said, "Yes, if only as a sportsman admiring its pluck and
courage in difficulties." I quoted Robins' saying, "I can't go
against a baby I have sat up with for six months. But if
there were a Bolshevik movement in America I'd be out with
my rifle to fight it every time." "Now that," said Lenin, "is
an honest man and more far-seeing than most. I always
liked that man." He shook with laughter at the image of the
baby, and said, "That baby had several million other folk
sitting up with it too."
He said he had read in an English socialist paper a
comparison of his own theories with those of an American,
Daniel De Leon. He had then borrowed some of De Leon's
pamphlets from Reinstein (who belongs to the party which
De Leon founded in America), read them for the first time,
and was amazed to see how far and how early De Leon
had pursued the same train of thought as the Russians.
His theory that representation should be by industries,
not by areas, was already the germ of the Soviet system.
He remembered seeing De Leon at an International Conference.
De Leon made no impression at all, a grey old man,
quite unable to speak to such an audience: but evidently
a much bigger man than he looked, since his pamphlets
were written before the experience of the Russian
Revolution of 1905. Some days afterwards I noticed that
Lenin had introduced a few phrases of De Leon, as if to do
honour to his memory, into the draft for the new programme
of the Communist party.
Talking of the lies that are told about Russia, he said it was
interesting to notice that they were mostly perversions of
truth and not pure inventions, and gave as an example the
recent story that he had recanted. "Do you know the origin
of that?" he said. "I was wishing a happy New Year to a
friend over the telephone, and said 'And may we commit
fewer stupidities this year than last!' Some one overheard it
and told some one else. A newspaper announced Lenin
says we are committing stupidities' and so the story started."
More than ever, Lenin struck me as a happy man. Walking
home from the Kremlin, I tried to think of any other man of
his calibre who had had a similar joyous temperament. I
could think of none. This little, bald-headed, wrinkled
man, who tilts his chair this way and that, laughing over one
thing or another, ready any minute to give serious advice to
any who interrupt him to ask for it, advice so well reasoned
that it is to his followers far more compelling than any
command, every one of his wrinkles is a wrinkle of laughter,
not of worry. I think the reason must be that he is the first
great leader who utterly discounts the value of his own
personality. He is quite without personal ambition. More
than that, he believes, as a Marxist, in the movement of the
masses which, with or without him, would still move. His
whole faith is in the elemental forces that move people, his
faith in himself is merely his belief that be justly estimates
the direction of those forces. He does not believe that any
man could make or stop the revolution which he thinks inevitable.
If the Russian revolution fails, according to him, it fails only
temporarily, and because of forces beyond any man's
control. He is consequently free with a freedom no other
great man has ever had. It is not so much what he says that
inspires confidence in him. It is this sensible freedom, this
obvious detachment. With his philosophy he cannot for a
moment believe that one man's mistake might ruin all. He is,
for himself at any rate, the exponent, not the cause, of the
events that will be for ever linked with his name.