it alone. He has no patience with the policy
of intervention ; in fact, he declares it is
intervention which has brought his country to
the plight in which it now is.
One morning, almost before I was up, I had a visit from Vladimir Chertkoff and his son. People who are interested in the work of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom will remember the long years that Chertkoff lived in this country at Tuckton House near Christchurch. He is a Tolstoyan and I found talking to him, or rather listening to him talking, with his son joining in occasionally, one of the most interesting of the interviews that took place between myself and Russians.
They are typical Tolstoyans in that they believe no evil and try to think good of all men. They are distressed because of the horrors and violence which has accompanied the revolution. They would have preferred that the cooperative movement had remained a voluntary organisation apart from the Government. They think there is too much discipline, too much organisation, but both are absolutely loyal to the Government. They recognise the difficulties which beset Lenin and his colleagues ; they understand, too, the terrible difficulties which the revolution has created ; both believe that the present Government and all its machinery of compulsion is only a passing stage.
