He has a temperament much like Tchicherin; shy, aloof and deeply puritanical. One feels he can neither understand nor forgive moral weaknesses in others, since he himself possesses that fanatical devotion which has made it possible for him to travel the hard, bitter road where his ideals lead. He asks nothing of life but to serve the cause of Socialism. Ease, wealth and happiness, he puts behind him as he would Satan. Such a man can sign away life with an unruffled firmness that would break one of a warmer temperament. He needs only to be convinced that his course is righteous; nothing else matters. The individual is not considered in that “Nirvana” which is his ultimate goal. Dzerzhinsky adores Lenin and serves him with the abject faithfulness of a slave; in his eyes Lenin can do no wrong. In the first days of the terror, he brought his doubts before Lenin, doubts which had only to do with the effect of such measures on the national and international political situation and not with his own soul. Lenin, when all is said, is the only man who cannot afford to be swayed by doubts. His responsibilities are those of a field marshal during a battle; he has no right to indecision. He reserves only the right to change his tactics--which is quite another matter. The terror was established in a moment when the revolution was almost lost. The liberal government had fallen, the moderate Socialist government had fallen. If the Bolsheviks fell, only chaos or a return to the monarchy was possible. So it was that when Dzerzhinsky came to the Kremlin and stood hesitating like a school-boy before his master, it was often Lenin who for the moment became the high lord of life and death. I can see that scene in my mind’s eye. In his hand Dzerzhinsky would have a list of prisoners and the evidence hastily gathered. Lenin would look at Dzerzhinsky’s list, asking sharp, short questions in his shrewd way. Most of the names of the counter-revolutionary conspirators were familiar to him. He could quickly piece together the scanty evidence of the secret trials. In his mind thoughts like these must have traveled: “Ah, yes, there is X---- caught plotting with Y----, which, of course, entirely accounts for the rising at B----.” Suddenly he would turn to Dzerzhinsky and say without excitement and without raising his voice: “It would be better to shoot these two, hold these five and release the rest.”