“He [Lenin] was concerned with himself too little to talk to anyone about such things and no one was better able to keep secret the storms raging in his soul. Only once, while caressing someone’s children in Gorki, he said:
“Their life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel.”
Looking out at the hills where a village nestled, he added pensively:
“I don’t envy them, though. Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!”
He patted the children gently, with a light, solicitous touch.”
– Maxim Gorky, “V.I. Lenin”
The Espresso Stalinist 