wrestling with the difficulties of European Russia have not
acquired, as it were in spite of themselves, a national,
domestic point of view. They are thinking less about world
revolution than about getting bread to Moscow, or
increasing the output of textiles, or building river
power-stations to free the northern industrial district from
its dependence on the distant coal-fields. I was
consequently anxious to hear what the Executive Committee
would have to say, knowing that there I should listen to
some expression of the theoretical standpoint from which
my hard-working friends had been drawn away by interests
nearer home.


The Executive Committee met as usual in the big hall of the
Hotel Metropole, and it met as usual very late. The sitting
was to begin at seven, and, foolishly thinking that Russians
might have changed their nature in the last six months, I was
punctual and found the hall nearly empty, because a
party meeting of the Communists in the room next door was
not finished. The hall looked just as it used to look, with a
red banner over the presidium and another at the opposite
end, both inscribed "The All Russian Executive Committee,"
"Proletariat of all lands, unite," and so on. As the room
gradually filled, I met many acquaintances.


Old Professor Pokrovsky came in, blinking through his
spectacles, bent a little, in a very old coat, with a small black
fur hat, his hands clasped together, just as, so I have been