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Correspondence from Walter Duranty to Aleister Crowley
[8 January 1930]
My dear Crowley,
I am sorry to have been so slow in answering your most interesting letter but have been terribly busy, on the one hand, and expected to be going to England on the other. So I thought I would see you. But things are happening here too quickly and now I don't expect to get abroad before the end of February. I don't know whether you remember a young man named Sturgis who apparently was with you at Kephalu [sic]. Anyway I met him in Berlin recently (and I may say he has the highest regard for you) and he also was all thrilled about the idea of giving the Bolsheviks a substitute for the god they have spurned. Having got as far as Berlin he was all hot up to come [to Moscow], but I could not encourage him, and did not. Your suggestion of course is much more interesting, but at least ten years too soon in my opinion. They are too damn busy. Incidentally, the 5-day week—your pet child, as you call it—has not been abandoned in the least (there is nothing so lousy as the news in the English papers about Russia) and is going strong everywhere, especially in the big towns. This, however, you see, is a practical measure which is where the difference comes in. What I mean is that anyone who has not been here lately cannot understand how completely what you call the "spiritual" is eliminated from Russian life at present. I don't say for a moment it has ceased to exist, or won't come back—perhaps all the stronger from repression—but for the time being the Kremlin won't hear of it. And what the Kremlin won't hear of doesn't count. For instance, you say "We have seen how attempts to apply the doctrine of Marx too strictly have been defeated at least partially". That was perfectly true some years ago. But it is not true today. Stalin is now applying 100% Marxism, but more generally and in my opinion with greater chances of success than Lenin was able to do. All of this doesn't alter the fact that it would interest you tremendously to come here and would interest me very much if you came, so what about it?
Yours,
wd.
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