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Dear Alexey thanks very much. The Gorky on Anatole France is exactly what the source I was looking for. I still need to find out if it actually was Lenin who turned Gorky's comment into a maxim. Godard's character Bruno Forestier in Le petit soldat (1960) says: "There's a beautiful phrase, I think it's by Lenin: 'Ethics is the aesthetics of the future.' I find this phrase beautiful and also very moving. it reconciles the right and the left." In an interview at the time Godard repeats the phrase and says: "It's by Gorky, but I attribute it to Lenin because I prefer Lenin." Thanks also to John Riley for the Russianist list. While we're at it, does anyone know where these two phrases used in Le petit soldat might come from: Sometimes you must have the stength to carve your path with a dagger. (Il faut avoir la force quelquefois de frayer son chemin avec un poignard) Perhaps with remorse begins liberty. (Peut-ête qu'avec le remords commence la liberté.) This phrase also appears in Denis's Beau travail. thanks Roland-François Lack