Editing Maxim Gorky (section)

=== World War I and the Russian Revolution ===
An amnesty granted for the [[300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty]] allowed Gorky to return to Russia in 1914, where he continued his social criticism, mentored other writers from the common people, and wrote a series of important cultural memoirs, including the first part of his autobiography.<ref name="kirjasto" /><ref>{{Cite news|last=Times|first=Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph To the New York|date=19 January 1914|title=GORKY BACK IN RUSSIA.; Amnesty Permits His Return – Is Still In Ill Health. (Published 1914)|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1914/01/19/archives/gorky-back-in-russia-amnesty-permits-his-return-is-still-in-ill.html|access-date=16 January 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> On returning to Russia, he wrote that his main impression was that "everyone is so crushed and devoid of God's image." The only solution, he repeatedly declared, was "culture".

With Russia entering [[World War I]] in 1914 and the outburst of patriotism Gorky became devastated;  shortly after the destruction of the [[Rheims Cathedral]], Gorky wrote Andreeva: "All this is so terrible that I am unable to express even one one-hundredth of my heavy feelings, which are perhaps best described in words such as world catastrophe, the downfall of European culture." At first, Gorky along with the other writers signed a protest against the "barbarism of the Germans", blaming them for the war, "the despicable paper of the Russian liberals" in Lenin's words; later he wrote a series of anti-war publications, but succeeded in publishing only one of them, in which he appealed to feelings of international brotherhood and cooperation; one of the articles was confiscated by the censor, and another was condemned and led the journal being confiscated after being published. While not being a strong "[[defeatism|defeatist]]" like Lenin, Gorky supported "a speedy end of the war and for peace without annexation or indemnities." In 1915, he launched the publishing house ''Parus'' and the magazine ''[[Letopis]]'' to spread anti-war stance and "defend the idea of international culture against all manifestations of nationalism and imperialism"; among its prominent writers were the poets [[Sergei Yesenin]], [[Aleksandr Blok]] and [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]]. Lenin was critical of Gorky's position: "In politics Gorky is always weak-willed and subject to emotions and moods." Gorky's best-known publication of the period were concerning [[antisemitism]], written in response to the severe Tsarist repressions against the Jews, and an essay "Two Souls", which contrasted "the passive East" with "the active West" and promoted the values of European culture and progress and urged Russia to break free from the "Eastern-Asiatic" "soul" and encouraged the Russian bourgeoisie to participate "in the work of reform". Although the [[Okhrana]], the secret police, had failed to find a legal pretext to close the journal, the government decided to do it in January 1917, but these plans failed because of the [[February Revolution]]. Gorky distrusted it at first, but in Spring became cautiously optimist about it. In Summer, Gorky's publishing house published one of Lenin's most famous writings, ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'', with Lenin's criticisms of [[Karl Kautsky|Kautsky]] removed from the text.<ref name="yedlin"/><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FOtOEAAAQBAJ | isbn=978-1-84467-714-6 | title=Revolution at the Gates: Selected Writings of Lenin from 1917 | date=August 2011 | publisher=Verso Books }}</ref>

After the February Revolution, Gorky visited the headquarters of the Okhrana on Kronversky Prospekt together with [[Nikolai Sukhanov]] and Vladimir Zenisinov.{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=91 & 95}} Gorky described the former Okhrana headquarters, where he sought literary inspiration, as derelict, with windows broken, and papers lying all over the floor.{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=91}} Having dinner with Sukhanov later the same day, Gorky grimly predicted that the revolution would end in "Asiatic savagery".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=95}} Initially a supporter of the Socialist-Revolutionary [[Alexander Kerensky]], Gorky switched over to the Bolsheviks after the [[Kornilov affair]].{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=246}} In July 1917, Gorky wrote his own experiences of the Russian working class had been sufficient to dispel any "notions that Russian workers are the incarnation of spiritual beauty and kindness".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=201}} Gorky admitted to feeling attracted to Bolshevism, but admitted to concerns about a creed that made the entire working class "sweet and reasonable – I had never known people who were really like this".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=202}} Gorky wrote that he knew the poor, the "carpenters, stevedores, bricklayers", in a way that the intellectual Lenin never did, and he frankly distrusted them.{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=202}}

During World War I, his apartment in [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]] was turned into a [[Bolshevik]] staff room, and his politics remained close to the Bolsheviks throughout the [[Russian Revolution|revolutionary period of 1917]]. On the day after the [[October Revolution|October Revolution of 7 November 1917]], Gorky observed a gardener working the Alexander Park who had cleared snow during the February Revolution while ignoring the shots in the background, asked people during the [[July Days]] not to trample the grass and was now chopping off branches, leading Gorky to write that he was "stubborn as a mole, and apparently as blind as one too".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=318}} Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks became strained, however, after the [[October Revolution]]. One contemporary recalled how Gorky would turn "dark and black and grim" at the mere mention of Lenin.{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=330}} Gorky wrote that Vladimir Lenin together with [[Leon Trotsky]] "have become poisoned with the filthy venom of power", crushing the rights of the individual to achieve their revolutionary dreams.{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=330}} Gorky wrote that Lenin was a "cold-blooded trickster who spares neither the honor nor the life of the proletariat. ... He does not know the popular masses, he has not lived with them".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=330}} Gorky went on to compare Lenin to a chemist experimenting in a laboratory with the only difference being the chemist experimented with inanimate matter to improve life while Lenin was experimenting on the "living flesh of Russia".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=330}} A further strain on Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks occurred when his newspaper ''[[Novaya Zhizn (Mensheviks)|Novaya Zhizn]]'' (''New Life'') fell prey to Bolshevik censorship during the ensuing civil war, around which time Gorky published a collection of essays critical of the Bolsheviks called ''Untimely Thoughts'' in 1918, which would not be republished in Russia until after the [[Perestroika]]. The essays call Lenin a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression of free discourse, and an anarchist for his conspiratorial tactics; Gorky compares Lenin to both the Tsar and [[Sergey Nechayev|Nechayev]].<ref>Maxim Gorky, Untimely Thoughts: Essays on Revolution, Culture and the Bolsheviks, 1917–1918, ed. Mark D. Steinberg, trans. Herman Ermolaev, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).</ref>

:"Lenin and his associates", Gorky wrote, "consider it possible to commit all kinds of crimes ... the abolition of free speech and senseless arrests."<ref>Harrison E. Salisbury, ''Black Night, White Snow'', New York, 1978, p. 540.</ref>

He was a member of the Committee for the Struggle against Antisemitism within the Soviet government.<ref>Brendan McGeever. Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution. — Cambridge University Press, 2019. — p.p. 247.</ref>

In 1921, he hired a secretary, [[Moura Budberg]], who later became his mistress. In August 1921, the poet [[Nikolay Gumilev]] was arrested by the Petrograd [[Cheka]] for his [[monarchist]] views. There is a story that Gorky hurried to Moscow, obtained an order to release Gumilev from Lenin personally, but upon his return to Petrograd he found out that Gumilev had already been shot – but [[Nadezhda Mandelstam]], a close friend of Gumilev's widow, [[Anna Akhmatova]] wrote that: "It is true that people asked him to intervene. ... Gorky had a strong dislike of Gumilev, but he nevertheless promised to do something. He could not keep his promise because the sentence of death was announced and carried out with unexpected haste, before Gorky had got round to doing anything."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mandelstam |first1=Nadezhda |title=Hope Against Hope, a Memoir |date=1971 |publisher=Collins & Harvill |location=London |isbn=0-00-262501-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/hopeagainsthopem00mand/page/110 110] |url=https://archive.org/details/hopeagainsthopem00mand/page/110 }}</ref> In October, Gorky returned to Italy on health grounds: he had [[tuberculosis]].

In July 1921, Gorky published an appeal to the outside world, saying that millions of lives were menaced by crop failure. He also proposed the establishment of the [[Pomgol]] and joined the organization to relieve the famine. While most members of the organization were later arrested by the Soviet authorities for 'counterrevolutionary crimes', Gorky left Soviet Russia earlier and managed to avoid the arrest.<ref name="rp94">{{cite book |last1=Pipes |first1=Richard |title=Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime |date=March 15, 1994 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=0394502426 |chapter=Chapter 8}}</ref> The [[Russian famine of 1921–22]], also known as [[Volga region|Povolzhye]] famine, killed an estimated 5 million, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River regions.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheBlackBookofCommunism10/the-black-book-of-communism-jean-louis-margolin-1999-communism#page/n71/|title=The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression|last1=Courtois|first1=Stéphane|last2=Werth|first2=Nicolas|last3=Panné|first3=Jean-Louis|last4=Paczkowski|first4=Andrzej|last5=Bartošek|first5=Karel|last6=Margolin|first6=Jean-Louis|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1999|isbn=9780674076082|pages=123}}</ref>