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 much as it can, the atmosphere is one in
which art cannot flourish, because art is anarchic and resistant to
organization. Gorky has done all that one man could to preserve the
intellectual and artistic life of Russia. I feared that he was dying,
and that, perhaps, it was dying too. But he recovered, and I hope it
will recover also.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Electrification is desired not merely for reorganizing industry,
but in order to industrialize agriculture. In _Theses presented to the