I hate Moscow, but am sitting here. As if in exile. Am putting on Sologub. I have a good stage artist: Tatlin. But I would have run away, like Maupassant, who ran away from the Eiffel Tower.
I have grown horribly thin, but will soon get better. Moscow is a total dump, the yard cleaners are on strike and are preventing others from cleaning the streets. And, of course, it is those who are poorer who suffer. The bourgeoisie have taken their children to Crimea while those of others are playing in manure. This is not good. And the revolution is assuming a singularly economic character.
At the Congress of the Soviets the Bolshevik fraction has publicly announced a declaration that I proposed regarding the anticipated Kerensky’s offensive on the front. We were pointing out that the offensive is a misadventure, threatening the existence of the army.
The Bolsheviks, who were before called “communists,” have been dispatched to Russia from Germany to incite rebellion, and it was also the Germans who gave them money; the Provisional Government knew that communists were emissaries of a state that was at war with us, but still not only granted them permission to enter, but also pompously met them. “Treason,” you will say? No, just stupidity.
Russia's isolation in the world cannot be allowed. It needs to have allies in Europe, and those allies could only be England and France. It needs to stay true to allies and to follow common goals. Only then will it really, and not dreamily, enter humanity, world culture, the extent of the world. Dreamy internationalism only pushes us into Asia and isolates us.
You are suggesting a way towards further destruction. From this chaos, as a phoenix from the ashes, a dictator will emerge—not me, whom you are trying to portray as a dictator—but when you, with an unconscious, crazy union with reactionary forces will destroy our government, you will open the road to a true dictator.
The first All-Russian Conference of Soviets in the Cadet School of the Vasilyevsky District. We, the Bolshevik-Internationalists, made our presence known with a firm line of speeches… In the first rows of the auditorium I noticed Plekhanov. His hair has turned grey. He is not with us, he is an Oboronets. See more