59
and Paul Levi who accompanied us to Stettin with a number of other comrades, everything went off comparatively smoothly. At the last minute the harbour police tried to make themselves still more objectionable. Thanks again to the intervention of Adolf Hoffmann everything passed off well on this occasion also. The steamer is leaving the shore. The workers and sailors who wanted to accompany us had to stay at home. We ourselves asked them to do so in order not to cause a collision with the "Orgesch." Only a few groups of workers and sailors gathered in the harbour. At the last minute they could no longer restrain themselves. We heard them singing the "International." In Swinemunde (four hours from Stettin) a special police boat approached our steamer to ascertain whether we were really leaving Germany. This was the last we saw of the representatives of the German Government.
For six days I was kept under arrest in my room, guarded by my dear "comrades" the detectives, the envoys of my "comrades," Severing and Richter. The time, however, was not lost. I was allowed to receive visitors, and made a sufficiently wide use of that privilege. Perhaps I never before received such a large number of comrades as I did in those days of involuntary leisure. I was visited during this period by representatives of the Communist and Socialist parties of France. Italy, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg. Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Holland. Some of the delegations consisted of four or five persons, and I had to have a detailed conversation with each delegation. It was a kind of international conference. Apart from that I was constantly visited by the German comrades of the K.P.D. (German Communist Party), the U.S.P.D. (the Left Independents), and the K.A.P.D. (the German Communist Labour Party). Several joint sittings of the two Central Committees of the K.P.D., our U.S.P.D., took place in my room. The time was not lost, and for this I could express once more my hearty thanks to Comrades Severing and Richter.
I was scarcely able to observe German life. I could obtain fleeting impressions only. First impressions of railway stations and streets, which seemed fairly lively, incomparably livelier than in Petrograd or any other part of Soviet Russia. When
