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Page:George Lansbury - What I saw in Russia.pdf/53

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LENIN AND OTHER LEADERS
27


be ; he has suffered with the workers, and to suffer together is the cement of human friendship —he understands these things. Like the saints of old, he has devoted his whole life to the destruction of capitalism, which he believes is the most awful cancer in the life of humanity. Those who would be his friends must be as pure hearted as he : he has no room for any of us who are half and half, he wants us to be one thing or the other. He does not understand patriotic socialism. He does understand the pacifist attitude although he does not agree with it, but he will have nothing to do with those socialists who cry out for the defence of the fatherland, because the fatherland to him is the world. He typifies in my judgment, a living expression of the saying of Tom Paine : “ The world is my country, to do good is my religion, all mankind are my brethren.” Thus he will take no part and expects other Socialists to take no part in the wars waged by capitalism. It is his enthusiasm and his words which have made soldiers in the Red army realise that in fighting, they are fighting not for Russia but for all humanity.

I repeat it is strange to me to think of him as having no religion, because his whole life seems to be that of one of the saints of old. Whatever may happen to him in the days to come he will be enshrined in the heart of all