He told me that he did not want to grant a single foreign concession, whether a factory, a mine or a forest concession, unless he could establish a similar Russian institution alongside of it so that the Russians might continually see before their eyes the superiority of the American or the English way of doing things.
He is more interested in America than in any other country.
I remember one afternoon just before I went up to interview him, an official in the Foreign Office told me that if America did not hurry and start trade negotiations with Russia, Russia would be forced to make a trade alliance with Japan. I mentioned this to Lenin and he said:
“Nonsense! Even if we could trust Japan, which we cannot, what could she give us? We need thousands of tractors, railway engines, cars, things like that. We must get such things from America, we must make friends with America.”
I think he feels in closer contact with the United States, too, because of the number of former exiles who once fled to our shores and who returned after the revolution and now hold office under the Soviet Government. He likes the way they have been trained here.
It has given him the idea of working concessions in the manner I have described. He also feels gratitude toward Raymond Robins and always asks about him, considers William C. Bullitt a man of honor, while John Reed was as near to his heart as was ever any Russian.
He is continually reading American papers, books and magazines. When I came home I sent him the “Mirrors of Washington,” and I know how he will chuckle over it as he used to chuckle over William Hard’s articles in the New Republic.
He admires American energy so much that he comes very near understanding an American reporter’s need for on-the-minute news, which no other Soviet official appreciates, except Trotsky.
I will never forget the day during the blackest time of the blockade when I went to Lenin and asked permission to go to the Middle East after the Foreign Office had flatly refused me this permission. He simply looked up from his work and smiled.
“I am glad to see there is someone in Russia,” he said, “with enough energy to go exploring. You might get killed down there, but you will have the most remarkable experience of your life; it is worth taking chances for.”