In the summer of 1920, Benjamin Schlesinger, president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), sailed for Europe and Soviet Russia. The ILGWU — then one of the six largest unions in the United States and among the most left-wing within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) — sent him officially to attend the International Clothing Workers’ Congress in Copenhagen. But what Schlesinger remembered most of his trip was an impromptu midnight meeting in Moscow with Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the world’s first socialist state.
The encounter, held in Lenin’s modest Kremlin office, was informal and warm. As Schlesinger later recalled, Lenin greeted him not as a foreign dignitary but as a comrade. “Before I realized it, I knew that we kissed each other, Russian style, and it appeared so simple, so matter-of-course-like to me.” He went on to describe a man whose
eyes are kind and laughing, especially when he is engaged in conversation. Lenin laughs very frequently, giving a start every time something strikes him particularly funny. . . . After two minutes talking with him, I thought I knew Lenin for a number of years; not only knew him, but that we were friends and comrades for a long time. There was not a trace of ceremony or officiality about the entire affair. We kept on constantly interrupting each other and breaking into one another’s talk. And then his reassuring smile and laughter! There was something genuinely bewitching about it.
There was, however, a moment of slight tension when the subject of some openly anti-Bolshevik Socialists came up:
In the course of our further conversation I mentioned the names of Spargo and Walling. Lenin almost trembled with indignation. “These are vermin,” said, “recently someone showed me their books about Russia. I could not see further than the first two pages. It nauseated me; they are traitors of the worst kind.”
“The Socialists in America will probably have no quarrel with…
Auteur: Jonathan Michaels
