doubts, not as to Communism in
itself, but as to the wisdom of holding a creed so firmly that for its
sake men are willing to inflict widespread misery.

Trotsky, whom the Communists do not by any means regard as Lenin's
equal, made more impression upon me from the point of view of
intelligence and personality, though not of character. I saw too
little of him, however, to have more than a very superficial
impression. He has bright eyes, military bearing, lightning
intelligence and magnetic personality. He is very good-looking, with
admirable wavy hair; one feels he would be irresistible to women. I
felt in him a vein of gay good humour, so long as he was not crossed
in any way. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that his vanity was even
greater than his love of power--the sort of vanity that one associates
with an artist or actor. The comparison with Napoleon was forced upon
one. But I had no means of estimating the strength of his Communist
conviction, which may be very sincere and profound.

An extraordinary contrast to both these men was Gorky, with whom I had
a brief interview in Petrograd. He was in bed, apparently very ill and
obviously heart-broken. He begged me, in anything I might say about
Russia, always to emphasize what Russia has suffered. He supports the
Government--as I should do, if I were a Russian--not because he thinks
it faultless, but because the possible alternatives are worse. One
felt in him a love of the Russian people which makes their present
martyrdom almost unbearable, and prevents the fanatical faith by which
the pure Marxians are upheld. I felt him the most lovable, and to me
the most sympathetic, of all the Russians I saw. I wished for more
knowledge of his outlook, but he spoke with difficulty and was
constantly interrupted by terrible fits of coughing, so that I could
not stay. All the intellectuals whom I met--a class who have suffered
terribly--expressed their gratitude to him for what he has done on
their behalf. The materialistic conception of history is all very
well, but some care for the higher things of civilization is a relief.
The Bolsheviks are sometimes said to have done great things for art,
but I could not discover that they had done more than preserve
something of what existed before. When I questioned one of them on the
subject, he grew impatient, and said: "We haven't time for a new art,
any more than for a new religion." Unavoidably, although the
Government favours art as