A Visit to Lenin

From Soviet Life Magazine, 1969:

By Alexander Serafimovich (1863-1949)

I OFTEN HEARD Lenin speak at congresses and conferences, and it always struck me that he took less time to make his point than those who preceded or came after him. But the impact of what he said was tremendous.

I met Lenin personally only once, at his home. Of this visit shall now speak.

My doorbell rang late one afternoon and a man said, “ Comrade Lenin sent a car for you."

In about five minutes I was in the Kremlin. A young Red Army man took me to Lenin's top floor apartment.

Ushered into a small dimly lit hall, I started taking off my coat when I heard quick, light foot steps. Lenin came forward to meet me. He gave me one swift glance and heartily shook my hand.

"Do come in," he said cordially.

He led me into the small but unusually tidy and intimate dining room with simple furniture that had seen better days; some of the workers' homes I visited were furnished far more sumptuously Clearly it was Lenin's principle not to live better than the masses did.

Without taking his eyes off me, as though fearful that I might run away, Lenin began to question: "What is your life like ? With what sort of people do you associate most? With workers or intellectuals?”

"A little with both," | replied, hesitant and somewhat abashed, not knowing what I could tell Lenin that he did not know already and that he might find interesting.

He sensed my uneasiness and to give me time to get over it, asked Nadezhda Konstantinovna to make us some tea.

I cannot think of another man in his position so utterly without vanity and with so consuming an interest in ordinary people.

On that memorable day I was able to get a picture of Lenin very different from the revolutionary leader and tribune who addressed congresses. Here was a new Lenin, companionable, jolly, keenly interested in the whole world, gentle and loving toward his fellow men.

"Are you doing any writing now?" he asked.

"There is little time to write; we're head over heels in organizational matters."

Lenin frowned.

"Yes, there's a great deal of organizational work to be done in our country today,” he said. "You writers must bend every effort to draw workers into literature. Every story written by a worker should be welcomed with joy."

In these words rang faith in man and affection for the workers.

A samovar appeared on the table; it was dented and timeworn. The crockery was cheap and the spread was more than frugal.

Undemanding, burdened with the heavy cares of state, Lenin gave no thought to his own needs. We might have been in some far away Russian village, for that was just how we sat around the steaming samovar, drinking the tea scorching hot and nibbling sparingly at the sugar.

Smiling, his eyes screwed up, Lenin waited for me to talk.

I must tell him about the workers,  I thought. He invited me so that I could help him into the world from which he was so often cut off by his colossal labors.

“The other day I made a trip to Losiny Ostrov Station," I began, plucking up courage, “and saw the big armory in which more than a thousand workers are employed."

Lenin moved up and leaned toward me, listening eagerly. With characteristic animation and interest he plied me with questions about the armory workers, their earnings, work, schools, recreation. His canny, pointed questions showed his deep insight and understanding of working-class life. His speech was sparing of words but brimmed with thoughts.

Seeing how interested he was, I told him how the armory workers had fitted out a clubhouse with a theater for themselves. They had neither funds nor building mate rials, and the municipal authorities were in no position to help them. And so at a general meeting they passed a resolution to convert the local stable into a clubhouse.

Lenin was all ears. Creases spread from his temples to the corners of his eyes, and the eyes themselves held a merry twinkle.

"Wait a minute, how could they turn a stable into a club ?” he asked eagerly.

“A rich landowner once lived in the area," I explained. “He kept first-class race horses and built a magnificent stable. And so the workers got busy making a theater out of the stable. They cleaned it up, whitewashed it, cut windows in the walls, laid floors, built a stage, knocked together furniture, put in electricity and when everything was ready, went to Moscow to invite actors. The actors gladly accepted and practically the whole settlement was present at the opening of the new theater. It was a very grand occasion."

Lenin was delighted and his eyes sparkled.

"Well?” he pressed me to go on.

It was a word he often used, investing it with different shades of meaning, from guarded doubt and irony to the kind of approval and encouragement that come from a keenly observant person familiar with life's adversities.

"And so you see," | went on, "the workers took a stable and turned it into a sort of fashionable high society club."

Lenin's eyes shone brighter than ever. He jumped up from the chair, a well-knit, stocky figure, and grasping the lapels of his jacket, burst into rippling boyish laughter. I have never met a man whose laughter was so infectious. It was odd to see this austere realist, this man who had made history, laugh like a little boy, until the tears came into his eyes. Choking with laughter and trying to stop, Lenin said:

"It takes workers to turn a stable into a high society club. Wait, give them time and you'll see what they'll build."

If I had never heard of Lenin, seen him or known what he thought of the working class, these words of his and his heart felt laughter would have revealed to me the depth of his devotion, his faith and pride in the workers who are the makers and builders of the world.

Lenin's thoughts, like the needle of a compass, always swung to the side where the interests of the working people lay.

Brushing away tears of laughter, seriously now and with great emphasis he said in a low voice:

"The workers paid a heavy price for the right to govern their lives, but in the long run they will win out. That is the will of history."

There were footsteps in the hall. Nadezhda Konstantinovna listened and hastily went out. When she came back, she whispered something to Lenin.

A dark shadow crossed his face. An unwavering, coldly derisive look; firm and unyielding, came into his eyes. He had changed from the amiable interlocutor into the leader of the working class and general of its armies.

"Excuse me,” said Lenin, "but I've just received a message that the White Guards have driven our troops out of Rostov. I must get back to work "

Our little chat had come to an end. As I said good-by, I could hardly tear my eyes away from Lenin's face.

Two days later news came that the White Guards had been routed from Rostov. They were fleeing from the Red Army to Novorossiysk. In another few days we learned that the White Guard hordes had been driven into the sea.

Writer Alexander Serafimovich (1863-1949) met Lenin's elder brother, Alexander Ulyanov, at St. Petersburg University in 1883. There, too, he became interested in Marxism. He was exiled by the czarist government for a long period. All Serafimovich's literary work was deeply revolutionary. His novels and other writings won him a large audience in the USSR and abroad.