Page:George Lansbury - What I saw in Russia.pdf/67

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

LENIN AND OTHER LEADERS
41


women and has achieved considerable success in bringing Russian women into the work of administration. She and Madame Balabanoff both consider that women in Russia are more free than anywhere else in the world. The Secretary of the Moscow Soviet is a woman. It was my very bad luck to miss Trotsky. He left Moscow the day before I arrived. My colleague Griffin Barry interviewed him a few weeks previously. If Lenin is the soul of the revolution Trotsky is the living embodiment of the revolution at work. He is the organiser of victory in the field and he will be the organiser of victory in field, factory and workshop. It is his iron will and determination which will never acknowledge defeat either on the bloody or bloodless front. When he and Lenin speak at a congress or demonstration they are listened to as representing two necessary sides of the revolution, enthusiasm and constructive work. He is the one outstanding Jew in the world to-day in Russia ; he is as Carnot was to the French revolution, organiser of victory over enemies at home and abroad, but, unlike Carnot, he is now organising a triumph in the sphere of Labour, and it is this which will stamp him as one of the greatest leaders of men.