ABSTRACT
The writers of Cheka-novels and Cheka-films have, indeed, done excellent work in the way of propaganda on behalf of the Soviet State, first of all through their exaggerations, and secondly because they continued singing the same songs at a time when the bolshevik government had long since abandoned a manifest reign of terror in favour of less conspicuous methods for the maintenance of power. No one can learn what Russia is really like at the Metropole Hotel or the Savoy Hotel in Moscow. These hotels, and three or four others in all Russia, though by no means elegant or even orderly and clean to European eyes, are nevertheless oases among Russian caravanserais. In November 1927, for the decennial celebration of the November revolution, in addition to thousands of workers from all countries, a number of foreign intellectuals had been invited to attend.
