H. G. Wells: On meeting Stalin

H. G. Wells
(21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946)

In 1934, H.G. Wells, then one of the most famous writers in the English-speaking world, was received by Stalin in Moscow. "I have never met a man more candid, fair or honest," he wrote in An Experiment in Autobiography, " and to these qualities it is, and to nothing occult or sinister, that he owes his tremendous undisputed ascendancy in Russia. I had thought before I saw him that he might be where he was because men were afraid of him, but I realize that he owes his position to the fact that no one is afraid of him and everybody trusts him, ..."