“I met her at international gatherings in the old days.”
“She produced a deep impression on my mind, and after that I began meeting various persons of leftist turn of mind. At the Paris Peace Conference I acted as secretary-translator to Professor Charles Alston, and there I came to know George D. Herron and Lincoln Steffens, and was the means of bringing Steffens and Colonel House into touch with three representatives of the new Soviet government who came to Paris. At that time, we were all working desperately to stop the attacks of world capitalism upon your new government. We succeeded in persuading President Wilson to appoint Herron to a conference at an island called Prinkipo, if you remember.”
“I am not apt to forget any of the events of those days, Mr. Budd.”
“We failed, but things might have been much worse, and doubtless would have been if we had not striven so hard. The effort was important in my personal life, because I got an education out of it, and I made a few friends. It was Professor Alston who vouched for me to President Roosevelt.”
“You know the President well, I am told.”
“I have had perhaps a dozen long conferences with him—always at night, and in his bedroom, where he works lying down. I have never spoken of that to anyone, but I tell you about it, because I am sure the President would wish me to do so. I should prefer that you keep the matter between us—at least until I have found out what my next assignment is to be. Let me explain that I was on my way to England on an especially confidential mission when I got both my legs broken in an airplane crash at sea. I was told to take a six months’ furlough, and that is about up. I am well again, and expect to have another assignment.”
“Thank you for the explanation. I am greatly interested in your President, and glad to meet anyone who knows him well.”
“You should meet him yourself, sir. He is one of the most delightful of companions, and his sincerity convinces everybody—except, of course, those who hate his efforts to reform our economic system.”
“I should like nothing better than to meet him; but it would be a long trip for him, and I, unfortunately, cannot leave Moscow while this crisis continues.”
“If all goes well, I should see the President in a few days, and if you have any message you care to entrust to me, I will deliver it faithfully.”
“Tell him that we need help of every sort, and we need it now. All our information is that the Hitlerites intend to make a new onslaught within a month or so—depending on the weather.”
“Do you have any idea where it will be centered?”
“It will be all along the front, and we cannot tell the main objective; it may be another try at Moscow, or it may be for the oil of the Caucasus. It will probably depend upon where they find a weak spot. Very certainly they will throw in everything they have, and we shall be strained to the uttermost.”
“I understand your idea, sir, and will report it.”
X
Lanny had said that his own knowledge was out-of-date; but he knew enough about F.D.’s position to understand that there would be a score of nations clamoring for armaments, and especially planes: Britain for her own shores and for North Africa; the Free French for their colonies, and the Dutch for theirs; the Chinese, the Australians, the New Zealanders—to say nothing of American generals and admirals on many fronts, and civilians in every harbor of the Atlantic and the Pacific. What F.D. would want was Stalin’s political views and intentions, and especially what Lanny thought about the matter—did he mean what he said?
So now the P.A. ventured: “May I ask you one or two questions, sir? I meet a good many influential persons, and they will all wish to know: Will the Russians hold out?”
“Concerning that you may answer without any qualification: We shall fight on our present lines, and retreat when we are forced to. We shall fight every foot of the way, wherever we are. We shall fight on the Volga, and in the Urals, and in Siberia, if we have to retreat that far. Whatever is left of the Soviet system will fight Hitlerism to the last breath.”
“That assurance will be comforting to some of my friends, who do not understand the difference between the two systems as clearly as I do.”
The Premier raised his keen gray eyes to the visitor’s face and watched him closely. “Tell me, Mr. Budd—when your friends ask you what is the difference between the two systems, what do you tell them?”
Lanny knew that that was a crucial question; but he didn’t have to hesitate, having answered it many times, in his own mind and elsewhere. “First of all, I try to make it plain that the Nazi system is based upon a racial point of view—really a national one—whereas the Soviet system is based upon an economic point of view, and applies to all races and nations equally. Under your system it is possible to believe in the brotherhood of man and to work toward it; whereas the Nazis offer the rest of the world nothing but perpetual slavery and war.”
Lanny could see by the look on his host’s face that he had passed his examination successfully. Without waiting to get his marks he ventured to go on: “When people hear that I have talked with Premier Stalin, they will crowd round to ask: ‘If he wins, is he going to try to take all the rest of Europe?’”
“What would I do with the rest of Europe, Mr. Budd?”
“You must tell me that, sir, in order that I may be able to quote you.”
“You may say without qualification: The Soviet Union does not want the rest of Europe. The Soviet peoples have all the land and resources they need; they want only peace, so that they can develop what they have. Let the rest of Europe work out its own problems in its own way—subject to but one restriction, that it does not permit itself to be turned into a center of intrigue against the Soviet peoples, such as we saw in the so-called cordon sanitaire during the past quarter century.”
“There is a great deal of talk in America about an international organization to preserve the peace after this war. Tell me what you say to that.”
“We shall be for it without reservation. I point out to you what our record has been on the League of Nations. We joined as soon as they would let us and we stayed until they booted us out. But America never joined.”
“Would you assent to the idea that America, Britain, and the Soviet Union shall take the lead in forming such an organization, and constitute its nucleus?”
“I would say that if we failed to do it, we should be indicted before the bar of history.”
“Is that your personal attitude, Premier Stalin, or is it the attitude of your government?”
“It is both. I am familiar with the fact that people in your country have been taught to think of me as a dictator, like Hitler; but there is no resemblance between our functions. I never act without consulting the membership of our Politburo; and if I should find that the majority opinion was against me, I should not act. I will illustrate by telling you what happened in the case of the defense of Leningrad. The majority of the group thought that the city could not successfully be defended. I had read Peter the Great’s opinion that it could be defended by artillery, and I advocated that we try. The question was fought out with fierce arguments, and in the end I was able to persuade the majority. So far, it appears fortunate that I succeeded.”
“The American people are disturbed by the idea of dictatorship. When they question me, I remind them of the Marxist formula, which Lenin approved, that after the victory of Communism the state would wither away. Do you still hold to that idea?”
“It would never occur to me to revise any of Lenin’s ideas. I consider myself his pupil, and I ask myself one question: What would he have done in this situation?”
“One could hardly expect any state to wither in wartime,” Lanny ventured.
“Surely not. You may be quite sure that when you arrive in America, you will find the state growing rapidly, and you will hear President Roosevelt being called a dictator.”
“I have already heard it a hundred times,” smiled the visitor.
“The capitalist state, in
the Marxist-Leninist interpretation, is an agency of class repression. In a classless society there would be no function for it. As fast as people get education, they will assert themselves, and a democratic society will come automatically.”
“I may say that is your ultimate aim, Premier Stalin?”
“I myself have said it many times, and so have all our theorists. But we do not use the name democracy as a camouflage for the continuation of wage slavery.”
Lanny smiled again. “I perceive, sir, that you have some acquaintance with the political theories of American big business.”
XI
The son of Budd-Erling was supposed to have come here to give information to the Soviet leader; but he took the occasion to explain that he would like to take information to his own Chief. He knew pretty well what his Chief would want to know; and also he could guess what ideas his Chief would like to put into the mind of the Red Premier. “Tell me, sir,” he ventured, “what sources of information you have concerning my country.”
“I get many reports, and also I have editorials and leading features translated from your newspapers. I know that when your Red-baiters, such as Mr. Hearst and Colonel McCormick, talk about democracy, they mean the opposite of what I mean. To them it is the defense of their class system; the freedom enjoyed under it is their freedom, not that of their workers.”
“You have those gentry right, sir; but do not make the mistake of exaggerating their influence. The people read their papers but do not take their political advice. In the last three elections President Roosevelt was opposed by seventy per cent of our capitalist press, and yet he was elected.”
“You would oblige me if you could tell me why your people read such vile papers.”
“The reasons might be difficult for a foreigner to understand. The papers are old and long established, and people are used to their names and their format. They have huge sums of money and buy the best talent of all sorts—cartoonists, sports writers, movie gossip, and above all, comic strips. The children follow those stories and clamor for them; a large percentage of the children never grow up mentally, so they go on reading the same thing. When it comes to voting, they are frequently deceived, but in the long run the idea of their class interest does penetrate their minds.”
“America is indeed a difficult country to understand—or even to believe in. You have such violent contrasts.”
“We are a violent people, sir—and my guess is that both the Japs and the Nazis are going to find it out. As for Willie Hearst and Bertie Mc-Cormick, they are two spoiled children who inherited vast fortunes, and have used them according to their furious prejudices. Hearst came to Naziland and found everything to his taste; he made business deals with Hitler, and defended him with ardor, up to the point where the persecution of the Jews became too extreme, and he had to remember several million readers and a large block of his department-store advertisers. But not all our great capitalists have such predatory minds; there are men of social conscience among them, and President Roosevelt has been laboring to train a group of these in the public service.”
“But President Roosevelt cannot live forever, Mr. Budd. What are we to expect if he should die?”
“He is doing just what Lenin did, and what you are trying to continue: building a party which will keep his ideas and ideals alive. One of these is friendship and co-operation with the Soviet Union. Our Vice-President, Henry Wallace, is just as ardent in holding to that idea, and I do not believe the Republican Party will ever again come back into power, except by adopting the New Deal program in essentials. You may have observed that tendency in Wendell Willkie’s campaign; he made the Old Party bosses furious by the concessions he made to New Deal thinking.”
“I was struck by that fact, Mr. Budd.”
“If I may make a suggestion, sir, nothing will promote President Roosevelt’s desires so well as expressions from you of democratic tendencies and intentions in your own country. You follow Lenin’s words, while we in America follow Lincoln’s: ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people.’ The nearer you approach to that platform, the easier it will become for our two peoples to co-operate in world affairs.”
“I will bear your suggestion in mind, Mr. Budd.” Could it be that there was a touch of dryness in the Red statesman’s voice?
“Let me make it plain,” persisted the idealistic visitor; “I am not speaking my own thoughts, but those of the President. In my last talk with him he referred to the Soviet Union, and I ventured to point out that its distrust of the capitalist powers was no phobia, but was based on historic facts. The President replied: ‘I know it well, and I have a Fifty-Year Plan for making friends with the Soviet Union.’”
The Premier stared at his guest while these words were being translated, and then his stern features relaxed, first into a smile and then into a laugh, the only one during this long interview. “Capital! Capital!” he exclaimed. “He is a man of true humor.” Then, after these words had been put into English: “Tell him for me that we shall try to exceed our quota, and to finish ahead of schedule.” These were the technical terms, the slogans of the Piatiletka, the Five-Year Plan, and even the self-effacing translator grinned as he repeated them for the guest.
XII
It was an excellent note on which to close. The hour was one in the morning, and Lanny had had two hours of this busy man’s time. No doubt he had a stack of documents piled on his reading table, as F.D. invariably did. He pressed a button, and in a minute or two a servant appeared, wheeling a tray with various liquors and a plate of dry crackers.
“I am going to give you a toast,” declared Stalin. “In what do you prefer to drink it?”
“In what looks to be red wine,” was the guest’s reply. “I am afraid of your Russian firewater.” The host was amused when this phrase was translated to him, and he asked, was it American? Lanny told him it was the very earliest—American Indian.
The Premier poured out two glasses of the red wine and handed one to Lanny. He held his up, and the guest followed suit. “To the friendship of our two countries!” proclaimed “Uncle Joe.” “May we teach you industrial democracy at the same time that you are teaching us political democracy!”
They clinked glasses and drank. Lanny knew that custom required him to drain his glass and then hold it inverted over his head as a sign that he had done so. He complied, and his host showed that he was pleased by this conformity. He took the glass and filled it again, then filled his own. “And now, your turn.”
Lanny recited: “To the health of Stalin and Roosevelt. May they live to carry out a program of democracy, with freedom of speech and religion for all men.” He wasn’t sure if the Soviet chief would drink that toast, but the chief showed no sign of distaste. The visitor said: “I have kept you too long, sir. I am honored by the confidence you have given me, and I will faithfully report your words.”
“You are a well-informed man, Mr. Budd, and good company. The next time you come this way, I hope you won’t fail to let me know.”
He had already pressed another button; the young officer appeared, and escorted the visitor into the anteroom, where he donned his fur-lined coat and hat, and went out into the bitter cold and utter blackness of that city of the tsars. Only the stars far overhead were not blacked out. Perhaps they didn’t know there was a war on, and that human insects on a remote obscure planet were using the forces of nature and their own minds to bring an end to one another’s existence.
The presidential agent, going over the interview in his mind, was saying: “God grant that he means it!”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lanny Budd Novels
1
Humanity with All Its Fears
I
Lanny Budd’s heart was high as he drove northward along the Palisades. Hardly a day during the past six months had passed that he had not imagined this hour when he would make his report to the Big Boss—what he would say and what the Boss would answer. Six months is a ch
unk out of any man’s life, and Lanny’s had been crowded with new experiences. He had been all the way round the earth, and most of the trip near the equator, where the distance is greatest. Meantime that earth had been witnessing events of pain and terror, cataclysms so momentous that men would continue to write and talk about them so long as there was anybody on the planet able to know what had happened in its past.
The sun was shining warm on this early April afternoon. Small white clouds drifted across the blue sky, above apple orchards wreathed in pink satin blossoms, to welcome a world traveler home. The well-paved highway wound irregularly along the wooded cliffs, dipping now and then into hollows, or coming out upon open places where a driver could observe the broad sweep of the river, the railroad on the opposite shore, the villages, and the hills dotted with farmhouses and country mansions. Lanny, who delighted in motoring, had not had a steering wheel in his hands for half a year. He had come from the snows of Archangel and the fogs of Newfoundland; and here was warmth, sunshine, beauty, comfort—all the gifts of nature and of civilization which an American of the leisure classes takes for granted and appreciates only after he has been traveling in wild and poverty-stricken lands, or amid scenes of war and destruction.
The warmth seeped in through the traveler’s skin, the orchard scents through his nostrils, and the beauty through his eyes. His subconscious mind absorbed these while his conscious mind was busy with the great man he was going to see, the story he had to tell him, and what questions would be asked and what answers given. Lanny had missed so much, in these days when significant events came piling one on top of the other, hardly giving people time to realize any of them. America had been at war for a matter of four months, and it had been one defeat after another, with not a single success. Bataan had just surrendered, and the Japanese were close to India; the Germans were close to Leningrad and to the Suez Canal. Lanny thought: F.D.R. is the man who will know about everything. How much will he tell me and what will he want me to do?