(P.D. Ouspensky, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1978)
Have I read this before? I cannot remember.
After the first two letters I wondered if this was really the best book Ouspensky ever wrote. It is direct, telling us how it is, during the civil war: the chaos, the profiteering, the escalating prices, the inescapable need to bribe, the total disregard for culture and for others, how from the very beginning Bolshevism was led by criminals who lied and lied…
But as I read on, I had doubts. Ouspensky seems to believe that it is worth actually fighting the Bolsheviks- what would he have said to “An honourable man does not kill, not even in war” (quoted by Tcheckovitch in “A Master in Life”). And he claims to see the hand of a great conspiracy- which is to suppose that some people (the conspirators, in the present example) can do…
Worth reading. How did anyone find their way out of this???
Further Reading: Gurdjieff-A Master in Life. Recollections of Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch Dolmen Meadow Editions. Toronto