We arrived in Kiev. Over the city there flew a yellow-blue flag, Ukrainian soldiers were guarding the Duma, and on the streets there were rallies: Russians argued with Ukrainians, the Jews were sulking and waiting for a bearing.
The situation is nasty.
Now I see and hear things that practically no one sees and hears, that few can observe once in a hundred years.
The socialist minister, worshipped by the mob, and who signifies in its eyes the liberation of Russia from monarchical oppression, rides around the army, passionately appealing to the troops to start advancing. Everywhere he is met with usual expressions of mass excitement by the same people who several months ago greeted Nicholas II in the same way.
It is not love that causes my heart to beat, but my heartbeat causes love.
My request to you is to be wise and calm. You cannot suspect me in anything chauvinistic... But right now I am in no position to respond to your questions. When I left Petrograd, this question had not yet been raised and I am completely unfamiliar with the positions of my comrades. We are in a difficult situation. I don't know in what sense you are talking about Ukraine’s autonomy. See more
I hope with all my heart that the new forces in Russia may be guided by the principles and objects it sets forth!
I am tormented when I read about ‘anarchy’, about the atrocities committed by soldiers, but here I am in carriage, where everyone coos about food and dresses of the ‘real bourgeoisie’ (unctuous, buxom and soft). See more
Russian Revolution is a tragicomedy. It is the final act of a Gogol epic. And perhaps the bleakest and most hopeless in it is what it took from Gogol. In whatever is in it from Dostoyevsky, there are more glimmers of light. Russia needs to break free from the power of Gogol’s ghost .