Table Of ContentEneounters .·
with LENIN
NIKOLAY VALENTINOV
ENCOUNTERS WITH LENIN
The author in middle age
NIKOLAY VALENTINOV
(N. V. VOLSKY)
Encounters with Lenin
Translated from the Russian by
PAUL ROSTA AND BRIAN PEARCE
with a Foreword by
LEONARD SCHAPIRO
LONDON
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEWYORK TORONTO
1968
Oxford University Press, Ely House, London W.r
OLASOOW NE.W YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
CAPE TOWN' SALISBURY IBADAN NAJR081 LUSAKA ADDIS ABABA
BOMBAY CALCU"ITA MADRAS K.AllACHI LAHORE DACCA
KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONO TOKYO
English translation and foreword
© Oxford University Press 1968
This work was first published in Russian as
Vstrechi s Lminym (New York, 1953).
A French translation has been published under
the title Mes rmcontres alJec Unine.
© Librairie Pion 1964
Made in Great Britain at the Pitman Press, Bath
Foreword
NEARLY fifteen years have passed since these remarkable memoirs
were published in Russian in New York. Unhappily the author,
Nikolay Vladislavovich Volsky, who used the pen-name Valentinov
(among others) did not live to see this translation into English,
indeed did not live long enough even to know that an English version
was in course of preparation. He died near Paris on 26 August 1964
at the age of eighty-five, in the modest flat in Plessis-Robinson
which had been his home in exile for many years. His long and
painful illness and his death evoked the sympathy and grief of
innumerable friends, admirers, and students (some, like myself,
were privileged to count themselves as members of all three cate
gories) in many parts of the world.
This is not the place, nor have I the competence, to assess the
achievement of Volsky as a life-long socialist, as a publicist, as an
economist, a philosopher, and an historian. It is much to be hoped
that someone will undertake the preparation of a full biography,
before all of those who knew him are gone. For his life forms a
chapter in the history of the Russian intelligentsia, and the ideas
and standards of the men who made up this category which it is so
hard to define are a part of the glory of Russian civilization. Today
we can see, what could not yet be observed in 1953, that the tradi
tions of the Russian intelligentsia, so long silenced under Stalin and
later, are not dead. Perhaps the life and work of Volsky will still
have a meaning for the rising generation of Soviet intellectuals. For
a sketch of that life and work the reader is referred to Professor
M. M. Karpovich's introduction to the Russian edition, which is
reproduced in translation in the pages which follow.
Professor Karpovich is unhappily also dead. I would not presume
to add anything to his assessment of the value of these memoirs to
the historian, save to say that the past fifteen years have fully
confirmed his judgement. Every reader familiar with the literature
on Lenin which has appeared in recent years will immediately
discern the debt which it owes to Volsky.
I should like here to pay a short tribute to the memory of a man
vi FOREWORD
whom I loved and admired. Like so many really courageous men,
he was gentle and tolerant. He was slow to judge and even slower
to condemn. What roused him to anger and indignation was above
all bigotry and intolerance. This is perhaps what stands out most
clearly in my mind of all the memories of the many absorbing
hours which I passed with him and his devoted wife, Valentina
Nikolaevna-who is happily still with us. I remember on one
occasion listening to his reminiscences of his extensive tour through
Russia, around I g 1 1, for the purpose of his economic researches. He
told me how he used to visit village churches-and then came an
outburst. He had found in some of the churches he visited icons of
Judgement Day. These depicted (in the traditional manner) the
pious Orthodox ascending to Heaven. Below, the infidels were being
herded into Hell-and at this point the old man burst into a tirade
against bigotry, against intolerance, and against the presumption
of any group which set itself up as elect, and condemned to perdition
everyone who thought otherwise.
The other impression of Volsky which will always remain with
me is that of intellectual integrity. He never evaded the facts which
did not fit in with his ideas or his beliefs-and no man had stronger
or more sincerely held socialist ideals. Nor did he go out of his way
to denigrate even his opponents, or those with whom he most
fundamentally disagreed. I think his sense of the dignity of every
human being was too strong for that.
Perhaps Pasternak is right in believing that the real immortality
of the human spirit consists in the quality of the thoughts and
influences which a man transmits to his fellows in the course of his
lifetime. If this be so then the immortality ofNikolay Vladislavovich
Volsky is assured. And I think it was the kind of immortality in
which he believed and which he desired.
January 1968 LEONARD SCHAPIRO
London School of Economics
and Political Science
Contents
Foreword
V
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgement X
Introduction to the Russian Edition xi
Author's Foreword to the Russian Edition xv
I. Crossing the Border. Katya Roerich
rr. First Meeting with Lenin. My Bolshevism 11
m. My Attempts to Understand Lenin 39
IV. Lenin the Athlete. The Story of the Handcart 77
v. Two Declarations 94
VI. Lenin Writes One Step Forward, Two StepJ·
Back. The Wrath of Krupskaya 111
VII. Semyon Petrovich and Professor Sergey
Bulgakov 1 52
VIII. My Conflict with Plekhanov. My First Clash
with Lenin 169
IX. 'N. Nilov' at the Service of Lenin I go
x. A Violent Clash with Lenin. I Rebel 205
XI. Two Meetings. My Final Break with Lenin 223
Conclusion 244
Postscript 261
Index 267
