MADAME KOLLONTAY
I met Madame Kollontay in the National Hotel, three or four days after I arrived in Moscow. She is a beautiful, cultured woman, and an excellent speaker. She had just returned from a tour of the southern part of Russia, where she had been establishing schools and organizing homes for the aged, and informed me that the children are so enthusiastic that they do not want to go home when the day’s session is over. “There is a feeling of solidarity among them,” she said. “They are being educated without the feeling of property of any kind. The psychology of the people has so changed since the revolution that the old order could not last even if it were to be restored,” she said “and if the Allies would only withdraw their armies and stop supporting the counter-revolutionary forces Russia could recoup herself without outside aid of any kind.”
Asked about the devotion of the people to Lenin she replied that while he was deeply loved and respected the people were not following him blindly, and that their devotion was due to the fact that they realized that he stood always for their best interests.
Madame Kollontay has spent several years in America and asked me about many of her friends in this country. She said she hoped to be able to return at some future time.