Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. SISSON PAPERS George Kennan is in error when lie asserts (NL....
...They are alleged to deny Lenin's honesty as a revolutionary and to assert that the October Revolution was "made" by German gold...
...Strangely enough, nothing that Silone said in his letter touches on this crucial point, either by agreeing or disagreeing with it...
...Kennan's supposition that the assassination of German Ambassador Mirbach in June 1918 "evidently put an end to" the Germ,1 assistance...
...However, since Silone himself has brought the matter up, I think it should be said that the collective revolt of the peasants in Fontamara is rather different from the stubborn resistance, in The Secret of Luca, of one lone individual against that very peasant community's prejudices and atavistic passions...
...There is no ib for Mr...
...The policy of keeping the Bolsheviks in power was abandoned by the German Foreign Office only in November 1918...
...If, despite all that he says in his fiction, Silone still engages in politics, this is a tribute to his courage, his persistence, and, finally, his willingess to overlook in his public role the oppositions and contradictions he erects in his fictions...
...The documents do confirm such financial support during that period...
...New York City RAYMOND ROSENTHAL...
...January 5) that German foreign office documents "do not confirm" that the Germans supported the Bolsheviks financially between November 1917 and April 1918...
...In this story, this goes both for the Bolsheviks and the German nationalists...
...At long last, these "red-her...
...I maintained, in fact, that this is what Silone did in The Secret of Luca, in much the same way that Tolstoy condemned the social world by minutely analyzing it in his novel, Resurrection...
...They expected the Bolsheviks to create chaos and thus set the stage for German hegemony over Russia...
...Obiously one must deal with the social world before one can think of condemning it...
...If there is a moral in the story of the Bolshevik-German relationship it is that extreme political ends pursued radically and with singleness of purpose ultimately will necessitate the use of questionable and dirty means...
...Leilin's acceptance of German aid was in perfect accord with his operational principles...
...Was Lenin a German agent...
...Washington, D.C...
...Those who would emphasize Lenin's complex relationships with the Germans during World War I usually are accused of perpetuating discredited "slander...
...he sometimes was the object of slander...
...Lenin certainly was not an agent in the sense that he was put formally on a German "payroll" and asked to execute orders...
...Lenin was a true, tested and convinced Bolshevik...
...provided the secret could be kept, Kennan's suggestion that the Bolsheviks may not have received the money the German diplomatic, service transmitted to them through was channels and during several years is a forlo hope: Lenin was no somnambulist...
...Whatever this ambiguous word means, obviously Lenin was not an "agent" of anyone but himself...
...No one ever said this, let alone that Lenin was merely a spy, which seems to be Shub's interpretation of the term "agent...
...to reconstruct what really happened...
...Lenin never would have accepted such an arrangement...
...The Germans, who especially since Bismarck had become highly skilled in political warfare, never proposed such arrangements to any of the political parties or groups they supported in various countries...
...Since when does a condemnation of the social world, as is quite clearly expressed in The Secret of Luca, signify that the written has ignored the social world...
...Financial support probably was continued into August 1918 or even later...
...As for predicting Silone's departure from active politics, I fail to see how any such interpretation can be placed on my review, I made it quite clear that Silone still considers himself a Socialist and said nothing at all about his political activity, either in the past or to come, since this did not enter my province as a simple hook-reviewer...
...This technique of "revolutionizing," which the German foreign office called Aufwiegelungen, has been used widely since the 18th century, and not only by the Germans...
...Most assuredly, he was not interested in helping Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany to win World War 1. Nor did the Germans want a durable Communist government in Russia...
...still, he needed German help to make his revolution...
...To argue as though anyone denies these platitudes is to evade the foremost .obligation of the historian...
...Lenin knew this, of course...
...arguments could well be forgotten...
...Moreover, by pitting Luca Sabatini's integrity against the fear-ridden customs and taboos of his native town...
...The insinuation that the Bolsheviks should have taken "official cognizance" of German support, or should have acknowledged an "obligation" to the Germans, surely is incompatible with Ambassador Kennan's own practical experience...
...But he can scarcely object when a critic points out that such oppositions and contradictions do exist...
...The Germans considered Lenin to be valuable precisely because he was no "mere agent" but the authentic leader of an authentic movement...
...in addition to German money...
...It may be my liberal superficiality, yet I am convinced that a gulf separates the ideas of Karl Marx and those of Simone Weil...
...January 5...
...and the October Revolution had numerous cause...
...This is one of the silliest questions ever asked...
...I must confess that Silone's letter bewildered and astonished me...
...STEFAN T. POSSONY SILONE I think I am safe in assuming that Ignazio Silone's December 22 letter concerning alleged misinterpretations of his novel, The Secret of Luca, was elicited by my review of this book in you page (NL, October 27, 1958...
...Silone's novel seemed to me an exaltation of the individual as opposed to the prudence and cowardice of the collectivity...
...it is different on the face of it, and presents us with widely differing approaches to the world of political action...
...The Germans needed Lenin to weaken Russia and to terminate the war in the East...
...The question is, however, whether Lenin had been maneuvered into a position where he had lost some of his freedom of action and whether his policy vis-a-vis Germany was partly influenced by the risk of blackmail...
...David Shub could well have done without his unjustified barb about "the vulgar accounts in a national magazine which pretend that Lenin was a mere German agent" (NL...
...The relationship between Lenin and the Germans neither was fortuitous nor shortlived, but was a significant element in Lenin's rise to power...
Vol. 42 • January 1959 • No. 4
