Russia in the Shadows

by H. G. Wells

I had, I will confess, a very uphill argument. He suddenly produced Chiozza Money’s new book, The Triumph of Nationalisation, which he had evidently been reading very carefully. “But you see directly you begin to have a good working collectivist organisation of any public interest, the Capitalists smash it up again. They smashed your national shipyards; they won’t let you work your coal economically.” He tapped the book. “It is all here.”

And against my argument that wars sprang from nationalist imperialism and not from a Capitalist organisation of society he suddenly brought: “But what do you think of this new Republican Imperialism that comes to us from America?”

Here Mr. Rothstein intervened in Russian with an objection that Lenin swept aside.

And regardless of Mr. Rothstein’s plea for diplomatic reserve, Lenin proceeded to explain the projects with which one American at least was seeking to dazzle the imagination of Moscow. There was to be economic assistance for Russia and recognition of the Bolshevik Government. There was to be a defensive alliance against Japanese aggression in Siberia. There was to be an American naval station on the coast of Asia, and leases for long terms of sixty or fifty years of the natural resources of Khamchatka and possibly of other large regions of Russian Asia. Well, did I think that made for peace? Was it anything more than the beginning of a new world scramble? How would the British Imperialists like this sort of thing?

LENIN.
Behind him stands Gorky: to the right of Gorky (i.e. on his left) are Zorin (hat) and Zenovieff. Behind with cigarette is Radek.

But some industrial power had to come in and help Russia, I said. She cannot reconstruct now without such help....

Our multifarious argumentation ended indecisively. We parted warmly, and I and my companion were filtered out of the Kremlin through one barrier after another in much the same fashion as we had been filtered in.

“He is wonderful,” said Mr. Rothstein. “But it was an indiscretion——”

I was not disposed to talk as we made our way, under the glowing trees that grow in the ancient moat of the Kremlin, back to our Guest House. I wanted to think Lenin over while I had him fresh in my mind, and I did not want to be assisted by the expositions of my companion. But Mr. Rothstein kept on talking.