In two days I was on my way, with every necessary probsk to ride on any train or stop in any government hotel. I carried a personal letter from Lenin and had two soldiers for escort! Any other official in Russia would have considered me an infernal nuisance even to suggest such an adventure in the middle of a revolution.
Lenin has always stood for allowing political enemies to leave Russia. This shows an unexpected softness in his make-up which only those who know him well comprehend.
Naturally, the Cheka disagrees with him on this point, holding that when these people “succeed in getting out of Russia” they are just as much a part of the war on Russia as the White Army is.
The explanation is that Lenin has by no means a forbidding personality: revenge never occupies his mind. He will flay an opponent in a debate and walk out of the hall arm-in-arm with him. He is extraordinarily human and good-natured and wishes to see everyone happy.
In the beginning of the revolution he imagined that he could maintain a free press, free speech and be liberal toward his enemies. But he found himself faced by a situation where iron discipline was the only method capable of saving the day.
There were times when he rather ruthlessly suppressed the Anarchists, but only because they threatened violence at every step. The supreme test of his power to forgive came during the Social Revolutionary trial, which took place in the summer of this year. He was lying ill in the country from the effects of an operation to remove an assassin’s bullet from his neck. The people responsible for the bullet were duly sentenced to death after a long and illuminating trial, in which the absolute evidence of their guilt was established. It was through the irrepressible influence of Lenin that their sentences were all commuted.
Lenin never scorns a deep affection or a personal sentiment. At the time of Kropotkin’s death, the widow and daughter sent a telegram to Lenin asking that the Anarchist leaders then imprisoned in Moscow be allowed to attend the funeral. Lenin let them go “on their honor” without guards for three days.
The Cheka objected, the Foreign Office objected and the Moscow Soviet objected, but Lenin’s will, as usual, prevailed. This generosity toward his enemies costs Lenin nothing and helps him to maintain his astonishing equilibrium.
Every man in Lenin’s cabinet, with the exception of Trotsky and Tchicherin, has been working with him for over twenty years; they really are his disciples. He knows their characteristics as well as if they were his own children. He knows just how much brains and ability each one has.
Once he was asked why he keeps a certain man, who is so obviously inferior to the others. He smiled and said, “Isn’t it always necessary to have at least one fool in every cabinet?”