A telling prediction of Lenin's, recalled by Gorky, is worthy of retelling here. Referring to Soviet children in 1924:
Their lives will be better than ours: they'll be spared many of the things we have been forced to live through. Their lives will be less cruel. Mind you, I don't envy them. Our generation will have carried out a task of tremendous historical importance. The cruelty of our lives, imposed by circumstances, will be understood and pardoned. Everything will be understood, everything!
Well, we don't envy them either. Those children either died early and violent deaths, lived their lives in a prison system, or lived in terror under Lenin and his successors. They suffered as all those Lenin DID envy.
