Last Conversations with Isaac Babel

While Lenin was still alive, Soviet writers and artists found it quite easy to obtain permission and the means to go to the West and stay for a few weeks or even longer. As Napoleon said to Savary, who succeeded Fouche as head of his political police: “Treat literary men well…. They’re useful.” The early Communist government followed that advice, although its leaders had never heard of it. Lenin advised Gorky to go and “have himself treated in Europe,” wish...