MIRRORS OF MOSCOW BY LOUISE BRYANT _With five illustrations by_ CÉSARE [Illustration: Logo] NEW YORK THOMAS SELTZER 1923 Copyright, 1923, by THOMAS SELTZER, INC. _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THREE WISE EDITORS-- M. KOENIGSBERG BRADFORD MERRILL PHILLIP FRANCIS CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD xi LENIN AND HIS SUBORDINATES 1 JACOB PETERS, FEDORE S. DZERZHINSKY AND THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION 43 ANATOL VASSILIEVITCH LUNACHARSKY AND RUSSIAN CULTURE 69 MICHAEL IVANOVITCH KALININ AND THE PEASANTS 85 MADAME ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI AND THE WOMAN’S MOVEMENT 109 LEON TROTSKY, SOVIET WAR LORD 129 ENVER PASHA AND THE MOHAMMEDANS 147 TIKON AND THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 165 TCHICHERIN, COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND HIS SUBORDINATES 179 MAXIM LITVINOV, ASSISTANT COMMISSAR, LEONID KRASSIN AND SUBORDINATES 197 ILLUSTRATIONS _Facing Page_ LENIN 2 KALININ 86 KOLLONTAI 110 TROTSKY 130 ENVER PASHA 148 FOREWORD Revolution! The air is filled with flames and fumes. The shapes of men, seen through the smoke, become distorted and unreal. Promethean supermen, they seem, giants in sin or virtue, Satans or saviours. But, in truth, behind the screen of smoke and flame they are like other men: no larger and no smaller, no better and no worse: all creatures of the same incessant passions, hungers, vanities and fears. So it is in Russia. And in this book I have tried to show the leaders of the revolution as they really are, as I know them in their homes, where the red glare does not penetrate and they live as other men. Great events make great men. For to be strong enough even to maintain one’s self amid great events is to be great. Without the event the strength is nothing. Had the revolt of 1917 failed, like the revolt of 1905, Lenin would have worked his life out in an attic in Geneva, Trotsky would have lived and died in a New York garret, Kalinin would have remained a disappointed, debt-burdened peasant, Tchicherin a futile ex-diplomatist in exile. The world would not have known their names: just as the world would not have known Napoleon or Danton or Marat or Robespierre had Louis XVI been a trifle less desperately dull. But the revolt of 1917 became a revolution and its colossal drive and heave flung up the exiles to greatness. As men it did not change them.