10.01.2023
We are in Constantinople, first at the Consulate, then in a private apartment. A few pages from his wife’s notes on this first period:
I don’t think we should dwell on the petty adventures connected with our settlement in Constantinople: petty exchanges and petty violence. I shall mention only. I shall mention only one incident. On the train, on our way to Odessa, when the deputy of the On the train on its way to Odessa, when Bulanoff, a deputy of the GPU, was making all sorts of.
On the train en route to Odessa, when Bulanow, authorized by the GPU, was giving all kinds of suggestions (completely useless) on how to ensure safety abroad, he interrupted him saying, “Let me go with my collaborators, Sermux and Poznansky, this is the only real way to do anything. Bulatov immediately relayed these words to Moscow. At one of the following stations he solemnly brought the answer he had received over. The GPU, i.e., the Politburo, agreed, L. D. told him laughing: “You will cheat anyway.” Bula nov, apparently sincerely satisfied, exclaimed: “Then you will call me a scoundrel! “Why should I insult you,” L. D. replied. It’s not you who will be insulted, it’s Stalin who will be insulted”. On his arrival in Constantinople, L.D. asked about Sermux and Poznansky. A few days later, a representative of the consulate brought a telegraphic reply from Moscow: they would not be released.
Everything else was of the same nature. What came over us immediately upon our arrival in Constantinople through the newspapers was an endless chain of rumors, speculation, and conjecture about our fate. The press does not tolerate the press does not tolerate gaps in its information and is not stingy in its efforts.
Nature throws a lot of seeds to the wind for the seed to sprout. So does the press. It picks up and spreads rumors, multiplying them without end. Hundreds and thousands reports die out before a credible version is confirmed. Sometimes this only happens after a number of years.
But it also happens that there is no time at all for the truth. What is striking in all those cases where public opinion is captured alive, it is the human deceitfulness. I say this without any moral indignation, but rather in the tone of a naturalist who states a fact. The need to lie, as well as the habit to it, reflects the contradictions of our lives. One might say that newspapers tell the truth rather as an exception. I don’t want to offend the journalists with this. I don’t mean to be offensive to journalists.
I don’t mean to be offensive to journalists. They are their mouthpiece.
