Page:My Disillusionment In Russia.djvu/149

 received me very cordially and expressed "the hope that I would join in the work of the Museum." He and another member of the staff spent considerable time with me on several occasions, explaining the plans and purposes of the Museum. They asked me to join the expedition which the Museum was then organizing, and which was to go south to the Ukraina and the Caucasus. Valuable material of the revolutionary period was to be gathered there, they explained. The idea attracted me. Aside from my general interest in the Museum and its efforts, it meant non-partisan work, free from Commissars, and an exceptional opportunity to see and study Russia.

In the course of our acquaintance I learned that neither Mr. Kaplan nor his friend was a Communist. But while Mr. Kaplan was strongly pro-Bolshevik and tried to defend and explain away everything, the other man was critical though by no means antagonistic. During my stay in Petrograd I saw much of both men, and I learned from them a great deal about the Revolution and the methods of the Bolsheviki. Kaplan's friend, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, often spoke of the utter impossibility of doing creative work within