His description of Moscow in the grip of Lenin’s dictatorship still elicits shudders in readers today:
"There was no law but the anarchy of terrorism. All night long the machine-gun spluttered. Time after time the black van left the Bolshaya Lubyanka [a torture and execution center] to dump its load of corpses beyond the city. All day the limousines that once belonged to the court dashed through the streets carrying Commissars in leather coats, whose leather portfolios symbolized now the power of life and death. Then night came down again and the patrols, like wolves, broke into the rooms of private houses, ransacked them, and took away women and children to shame and death. Meanwhile, the church bells were silent and military bands played the Internationale on the Kuznetsky Bridge."
Source