The Marxist writer who railed against Lenin

The writer Maxim Gorky edited the Menshevik newspaper New Life during its short run from May 1, 1917 to July 16, 1918, before Vladimir Lenin gave the personal order to shut it down. Gorky was a one-time friend of Lenin’s and a committed socialist (when Lenin gave the order to shut down New Life, he is reported to have said, “Gorky is one of us”), but he was also a frequent critic of the Bolshevists.

In his column for the paper, which ran under the heading “Untimely” — because it focused on culture and morality rather…