THE TESTIMONY OF MONSIEUR HERRIOT 249
visited. They achieve this—and here the third and fourth stage
of the propagandist exploitation are reached—by producing a
flood of articles in their own press and that of various other
countries and also by enriching the world's more permanent
literature, if possible in several languages, on the country they
have explored. What will the honoured guest do on his return?
Will he continue to act in the desired way, after he has left his
hosts? Such is the great question asked by the organizers of
these increasingly popular expeditions, the more so since books
or articles in well-known papers have a more lasting effect than
brief statements made at the time.
At first the prospects for this further stage in the exploitation
of M. Herriofs journey were extremely favourable from the
Moscow standpoint. While the tour was actually in progress
some of the journalists attached to M. Herriot had made an
extremely interesting discovery. They telegraphed long reports
of this to their papers, so that Jacques Sadoul, the Paris cor-
respondent oflzvestia, was able to report on the same day: "The
result of Herriofs journey"—so ran the report by M. Lucien to
the Petit Parisian, which Izvestia had got hold of—"will among
other things be the publication of a book. M. Herriot has shown
us some of the notes taken during the journey. We were sur-
prised to find some of the chapters practically ready for press.
Each night M. Herriot had written down his impressions, and
in spite of fatigue had spent an hour a day on his book. His
capacity for work struck all those who met him."
It is easy to imagine the joy in the Kremlin at this new
achievement of the French statesman. Not only had M.
Herriot correctly studied and appreciated Soviet conditions
"in close contact with the people" during his high-speed but
triumphant progress through Russia, but the resulting book
was almost finished before the journey was over. It had only
to be printed for the world to be able to form an opinion on
Soviet affairs on the strength of this popular man's evidence.
It can easily be understood that M. Herriot now appeared