Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/66

 anything so squalid should fasten itself to the reputation of one of the most amazing personalities the war has produced. I was promptly reassured on that point.

"Oh, no, indeed no," was his answer. "Lenin is pure. He seeks nothing for himself. But he is making mistakes. The influences in Moscow are not good. Here we are strong. Red Petrograd is different from Moscow."

So I learnt first, and afterwards was confirmed in the knowledge, that there are several varieties of Communists in Russia, and that to criticise those in power at present is not by any means to be an opponent of Communism. Everybody is behind the Government at present, because of the war. Soldiers and statesmen of the old régime who have not fled; literary men like Gorky; bourgeois citizens who remain in Russia are serving the Government, and every variety of Socialist, hating the methods of the Communist with a deadly hatred, is none the less tacitly behind it so long as the country is in danger from outside aggression.

Men like Kameneff, Sverdloff and Krassin, who hold high and responsible positions in the State service, good and sincere Communists, would not rise to power nor maintain their position by indiscriminate slaughter and brutal methods of tyranny, but having faith in the ultimate triumph