Kalinin’s office in Moscow is not in the Kremlin. To get into the Kremlin requires too much red tape. Therefore, while the President eats in the Kremlin dining-room which is just an ordinary Soviet mess-room, and sits in the Councils of the People’s Commissars, he receives his army of callers in an ordinary office building in the heart of the city. One needs no pass or credentials to get in; one needs simply to walk up a flight of stairs, open a door and emerge into a large bare reception room full of noisy peasants; here he inevitably turns up. I have often thought that Kalinin’s office is the most curious place in which I have ever been in my life; it has the atmosphere of a Russian railway train deep in the heart of the provinces where every passenger talks to every other passenger and where formality is not just overlooked or forgotten but has simply never existed. All day long he receives the never-ending string of peasants in the manner of a village priest, giving consolation and advice--and something more solid and satisfying than a prayer, for he is obligated to make an immediate decision in each case on hand or a promise that it shall be taken up through his office. Under no circumstances can he appear indifferent or helpless. I remember arriving early one morning to find about twenty peasants ahead of me. When Kalinin came in everyone got up and there was a sudden general stampede in his direction and a sort of clamor which arises in any Russian household over any sort of argument. Kalinin’s voice could be distinctly heard above the others shouting, “Comrades, comrades, I must take you in turn.” Then, as he crossed the floor towards his private office, a frail, middle-aged woman sitting near the door burst into tears. I can see him now with his narrow Slav eyes, his broad nose and rumpled hair, his work-knotted hands and faded blouse, stopping to look through his spectacles at the woman before him, kindly, sympathetic, puzzled.... I think that he knew even before he began to question her that hers was one of those unavoidable, personal tragedies that are part of change and war and revolution. She had owned a big country house, but the peasants had taken it when they divided the land and they had allotted her but two rooms to live in. She was humiliated, discouraged and resentful. She cried out, forgetting that Kalinin was also a peasant, “I can’t bear to see those creatures using my pretty things, walking with great muddy boots in my house. My soul is in that house!”