The birthplace of Stalin has been left as it was, and the whole thing covered by an enormous canopy to protect it from the weather. The top of the canopy is of stained glass. The birthplace is a tiny one-story house, built of plaster and rubble, a house of two rooms with a little porch that runs along the front. And even so, the family of Stalin were so poor that they only lived in half of the house, in one room. There is a rope across the door, but one can look inside at the bed, the shallow clothes closet, a little table, a samovar, and a crooked lamp. And in this room the family lived, and cooked, and slept. Square golden marble columns support the canopy of stained glass. And this structure is set in a large rose garden. On the edge of the rose garden there is the museum of Stalin, in which is preserved every article that could be gathered that is associated with his childhood and early manhood—early photographs and paintings of everything that he did, and his police photograph when he was arrested. He was a very handsome young man at that time, with fierce wild eyes. On the wall there is a big map of his travels, and the prisons where he was incarcerated, and the towns in Siberia where he was held. His books and papers are here, and the editorials he wrote for small papers. His life has been consistent, and from the very beginning he started the line that has continued to the present day.

In all history we could not think of anyone so honored in his lifetime. We can only think of Augustus Caesar in this respect, and we doubt whether even Augustus Caesar had during his lifetime the prestige, the veneration, and the god-like hold on his people that Stalin has. What Stalin says is true to them, even if it seems to be contrary to natural law. His birthplace has already become a place of pilgrimage. People visiting it while we were there spoke in whispers and tiptoed about. A very pretty young girl was in charge of the museum on the day we visited this place, and after her lecture to the group of us, she went into the garden and cut roses and gave everyone a blossom. And the roses were carefully put away to be saved and treasured as a remembrance of a kind of holy place. No, in all history we do not know anything quite comparable to this.

If Stalin can have this amount of power during his lifetime, what will he become when he is dead? In many speeches in Russia we have heard the speaker suddenly quote a line from a speech of Stalin’s that has the stopping quality of the ipse dixit of the medieval scholar who put his argument in the lap of Aristotle. In Russia there is no appeal from the word of Stalin, and there is no argument against anything he says. And however this has been accomplished, by propaganda, by training, by constant reference, by the iconography which is ever present, it is nevertheless true. And you can only get the sense of this force when you hear, as we did many times, the remark, “Stalin has never been wrong. In his whole life he has not been wrong once.” And the man who says it does not offer it as an argument, it is not refutable, he says it as a matter completely true and beyond argument.