V. I. Lenin

SUMMARY OF A TALK WITH A CORRESPONDENT of THE NEW YORK HERALD

The first interview was conducted on March 13, 1921. See HERE for that interview. The second interview, conducted on March 26, 1922, is HERE

I believe that there are only two kinds of government possible in Russia—a Government by the Soviets or a
Government headed by a tsar. Some fools or traitors in
Kronstadt talked of a Constituent Assembly, but does any man
in his senses believe for a moment that a Constituent
Assembly at this critical abnormal stage would be anything
but a bear garden. This Kronstadt affair in itself is a very
petty incident. It no more threatens to break up the Soviet
state than the Irish disorders are threatening to break up
the British Empire.

Some people in America have come to think of the
Bolsheviks as a small clique of very bad men who are tyrannizing over a vast number of highly intellectual people
who would form an admirable Government among themselves the moment the Bolshevik regime was overthrown.
This is a mistake, for there is nobody to take our place save
butcher Generals and helpless bureaucrats who have already displayed their total incapacity for rule.

If people abroad exaggerate the importance of the rising
in Kronstadt and give it support, it is because the world
has broken up into two camps: capitalism abroad and
Communist Russia.

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