Other oases of electricity burning from dusk till dawn: the
Committees. Committees of Three, of Five, of Seven, of Nine, the
Enlarged Committees, the Extraordinary Committees, the Permanent, the
Temporary, Special Subaltern, Superior, Supreme Committees deliberating
on the problem of nails, on the manufacture of coffins, on the education
of preschool children, on the slaughter of starving horses, on the
struggle against scurvy, on the intrigues of the anarchists, on
agitation and propaganda, on road transport, on the stocking of women’s
hats after the nationalization of small business, on the consequences of
the Treaty of Versailles, on the infraction of discipline committed by
Comrade N., on the famine … So much thought straining and working
everywhere in these messy rooms under the same portraits, in the same
atmosphere of neglect characteristic of conquered places where people
are always rushing in and out! New dangers were appearing at every turn.
The thaw was approaching. Piles of filth hardened by the cold filled
the courtyards of buildings and the floors of whole rooms which would be
transformed into cesspools with the first warm days. The water conduits
had broken in many areas: they would soon be infested with disease.
Typhus was already present; it was necessary to head off cholera, to
clean up a huge enfeebled city within a few weeks. Kirk proposed to the
Executive the formation of an extraordinary Committee of Three with
unlimited powers. Kirk telephoned the Urban Transportation Committee: “I
need four hundred teams…” At the other end of the wire Rubin answered:
“I’ll give you thirty and you’ll feed the horses yourself.” Kirk
requisitioned the old retired tramway cars and posted notices declaring
that “persons belonging to the wealthy classes, aged 18-60,” were
drafted into sanitation duty. Formed into teams supervised by the Poor
People’s Committees, this workforce would clean up the city. Only 300
disinherited ex-rich people were to be found among the 750,000
inhabitants. Kirk, swearing in English into his stained moustache,
ordered roundups in the centre of the city and had the trams stopped in
the streets to pull off well-dressed people who were adjudged
ex-bourgeois by their appearance and sent off to sanitation duty with no
further discussion.
Frumkin had no workers to unload trains of foodstuffs; as a result
there was a shortage of cars, and the cars in the stations were being
pillaged. He announced an obligatory registration of former employees
and unemployed functionaries, picked up nine hundred naïve fellows at
the unemployment office, and sent them off to the stations escorted by a
Communist battalion; but one third of them melted away en-route and
another third on arriving. The flour sacks, unloaded with unheard-of
slowness and clumsiness by the remaining three hundred petits bourgeois,
were left under the snow along the tracks: a good part of them went
rotten. The black markets were inundated with flour for several days.
The great writer, Pletnev, and the brilliant tenor, Svechin, having
learned that professors, men of letters, and gracious lawyers who, under
the old regime, had brilliantly defended the Revolutionaries, were
being drafted for these “Public Works,” protested to the President of
the Soviet against these proceedings, which were “unworthy of a
civilized people” and would “end up dishonouring the Revolution.” The
President had just received a stock inventory from the Town Council
indicating that in three days there would be no more food; and from the
Railway Commissariat a telephone message begging him to take urgent
actions aimed at supplying combustible materials for the lines and
raising discipline among yje railwaymen; otherwise all traffic would
probably halt in less than a week. Kondrati had just announced to him
that a strike was brewing at the great Works. He gazed at the great
writer and brilliant tenor with polite indifference.
“I’ll look into it, I’ll look into it; we’re swamped…. Do you need anything?”
Naturally , they were in need of many things, despite the fact that the
whole city envied their opulence, which was of course exaggerated by
gossips.
“I’ll have two sacks of flour sent over to you, Simeon Gheorghievich…”
The brilliant tenor lowered his chin as a sign of thanks; in this way
his thank you was no more than a silent acquiescence masking both
disdain and servility. Pletnev, whose greatest pleasure-all the while
feigning indifference- was to discover the hidden inner man (“the true
brute, the vain, hypocritical madman, who nonetheless has created God in
his image..”) beneath the masks of social man, noted this movement,
which was worthy of a flunky taking huge tip. The President took him
affectionately by the arm.
“Vassili Vassilievich, look at these charts: I thought of having them sent to you.”
green triangles, connected by straight lines to pink circles, blue
rectangles, and violet ovals, each inscribed with figures and % symbols
of percentages, dancing around them like air bubbles in clear water full
of aquatic plants, described the progress of public education over the
past year.
“What a thirst for learning!” exclaimed the President. “Look: the number
of teaching establishments has grown by 27%, not counting adult
courses, preschool, and the Remedial Service for Deprived Children;
altogether, it adds up to 64%, 64%!”
Pletnev, tall, stooped, grey-headed, wearing a grey sweater under an
old English jacket with wide grey stripes, shook his low, wrinkled
forehead, sniffed the warm air of the room with his mujik nostrils,
brought his hostile glance back from the green triangles to the pale,
flabby, sad, self-satisfied face of the dictator and said evasively:
“Mmm. Yes. Great progress. Hum. Hum.” He cleared his throat. “I really
must discuss the school problem with you one of these days; quite
right.”
How to make these confounded great men understand that the audience had
gone on long enough! The President’s fingers snatched a piece of paper
just handed to him through the half-opened door. A decoded message:
“According to agent K.: Major Harris back in Helsingfors. Stop.
Negotiations resumed. Offensive nearing Finland. Informed circles think
agreement likely.” If an agreement is likely, that means our existence
becomes rather unlikely.
“Harrumph” said Pletnev, restraining the hoarse sounds ready to
burst out of his hollow chest, with the strange coyness of an old
consumptive who had been holding on for twenty years, “ you know some
funny things are going on in the schools…”
he finally vented his spleen with a short growl:
“I know of one high school where four students were found pregnant last
month. Of course the old directress is in prison, no one could quite
tell me why…”
Finally they left, the one after the other, colliding in the narrow
opening of the doorway: the tenor, still elegant in his long overcoat
lined with monkey fur, the writer extraordinarily erect, his stiffness
accentuating his thinness, a sly expression on his face. Fleischman
brushed past them without recognising them. Tenors and writers were the
last thing he could be bothered with at that moment anyhow! He burst
into the huge presidential office, with ts soft atmosphere of carpets
and leather furniture, bringing with him the street, the wind, the old,
dry mud clinging to soldiers’ boots. Muddy and booted himself, sheathed
in black leather, pockets stuffed, chest crisscrossed with rust-coloured
straps, his face the face of an inexhaustible old Jew, he
unceremoniously picked up the thread of a conversation begun the
previous night by direct wire from the front.
“We’ve got to put a stop to these outrages…”
These were not the same outrages, but they had just cost the lives of
forty soldiers who had frozen to death near Dno while the overcoats
being sent to them were held up in a railroad station because the
shipping order hadn’t been filled out according to regulations. Varvara
Ivanovna Kossich, the heroine of the trial of the 206 (1877), had sent
an indignant letter to the President of the Soviet of People’s
Commissars of the Federated Republic demanding an end to the same
excesses denounced by Pletnev and Svechin. The letter ended with these
lines: “I warn you: you will be held responsible by future generations.”
The President of the Soviet of People’s Commissars was more concerned,
under the circumstances, about his present responsibilities. He thanked
Varvara Ivanovna for having pointed out abuses of which he was well
aware and had her letter sent on to the President of the Soviet of
People’s Commissars of the Northern Commune. The Party Control
Commission was informed about it. Meanwhile, the Poor People’s
Committtees and the population had more or less finished the job of
cleaning up the city by dumping most of the garbage into the canals.
Public Health reported the first cases of poisoned water. Kirk and
Frumkin were about to be censured by the Control Commission when the
affair was suddenly forgotten. A bunch of sailors, whom some described
as drunk and others as anarchists, had just shot down three militiamen
during a brawl. The Wahl Factory had stopped work and demanded two weeks
paid leave for all workers to go to the country and replenish their
food supplies individually. The strike, inspired by Menshevik agitators
whom no one dared arrest, threatened to become general. That same night
the Special Commission incarcerated seventeen Social Democratic
intellectuals, most of whom were strangers to the movement. Among them
was Professor Onufriev, the author of the authoritative History of
Chartism. During the search of his house, a manuscript study on
Democratic Freedoms in England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth
Century, which Commissar Babin mistook for a counterrevolutionary satire
was seized and lost. Several days later a few odd pages were found in a
public garden.
Pletnev, the great writer and Svechin, the admirable tenor, once
again presented themselves at the office of the President of the Soviet.
A harsh article by Pletnev on “The Tragedy of the Intellectuals” was
turned down by the official newspapers. This created a fresh incident
which was greeted with malicious joy by the foreign press. Professor
Onufriev had only been freed for a short while when he died of
dysentery. The President of the Special Commission, who drank too much,
was replaced by Frumkin. The ruble declined disastrously.
The Commission on Workers’ Housing, whose seventeen members received
the same food rations as members of the Executive, put the finishing
touches on its grand plan for rebuilding the slums. It called for an
initial delay of three years and a hundred million rubles credit. The
painter Kichak showed a full length portrait of the President, his hair
blowing in the wind, his hand extended in a vague but eloquent gesture
which looked as if he wanted to see if it were raining, to bless a
crowd, or to politely approve a takeover. In the background there was an
armoured train so beautiful that no one had ever seen any like it. He
charged admission.
The newspapers announced the coming visit of the old French
revolutionary, Durand-Pepin, author of a Plan for the organisation of
Socialist Society in 2,220 articles. Pravda (The Truth) announced that
the situation at the front was improving. The next day it was learned
that a catastrophe had taken place near Narva, which was overrun by the
Whites. The problem of the front was thrust forward before the problem
of nails could be resolved, before boots could be found for workers in
the factories. Typewriters crackled ceaselessly: ORDER. ORDER. ORDER.
MANDATE. EDICT. DECREE No. XXX. DECREE No. XXXX. DECREE No. XXXXX.
DECREE… Cancelling DECREE No.XXX… From the Kremlin, by direct wire, the
Soviet of People’s Commissars of the R.F.S.S.R. implored the Soviet of
People’s Commissars of the Northern Commune to execute the measures
decreed by the central government. The Northern Commune replied:
“Impossible. Situation getting worse and worse.”
From dusk to dawn, the Comittees of Three, of Five, of Seven, of Nine,
the Enlarged Committees, the Extraordinary Committees, Permanent,
Temporary, Special Subaltern, Superior, Supreme Committees deliberated,
planned, ordered, decreed….
“The meeting is called to order” said Fanny.
her wrinkled face bore the imprint of contradictory forces: vanquished
diseases, hidden pride (the stubborn forehead, the sounding glance like a
plumb line, the inner shock one felt on first contact with her),
warmth, suspicion, and somewhere deep inside a secret instability,
perhaps a noble madness, perhaps a half repressed hysteria.
A brass plaque alongside the door: S.T. ITIN, CERTIFIED DENTIST.
Cardboard, on the door itself: LABOUR’S RIGHTS CLUB. Crumbling corridors
smelling of piss and sweepings; old papers under a coat rack, the
surprise of a large mirror in one corner, piles of newspapers tied to
with twine and covered with a layer of dust, stifling heat; the
desolation of a young bride’s smiling portrait left hanging over a
chimney, of this tiny room itself, furnished with a camp bed, a mahogany
table covered with ring marks from glasses, and a broken down couch.
Cigarette smoke, steamed-up windows. Seven heads, so close they nearly
touch at times, emerging and receding into the shadows; grave,
undistinguished, austere heads; one of them charming, like a black
flower fallen from a Persian poet’s paradise.
“Goldin has the floor,” said Fanny.
He had come from the Ukraine by way of the Volga: Czaritsin under siege,
Yaroslav in ruins, starving Moscow, forty-seven days on the road,
leaving behind him the shades of two brothers-in-arms, one hanged by the
Whites at Kiev, the other shot by Reds in Poltava. He had slept in the
vermin infested straw of the cattle cars along with typhus-ridden
refugees, wounded men miraculously rescued from unknown battlefields,
with raped Jewesses escaping from pogroms, and pregnant peasant women
who hid foodstuffs over their bellies and paid for their corner at night
by giving themselves standing to the men who ruled the roost. He
brought back with him a bullet lodged in his flesh, at the back of his
chest, against the spinal column, expressly to provoke the admiration of
the surgeons (“You’re sure hard to kill!”), a pure and delicious love
rent by pride- pride is sometimes only the noble side of egotism- some
letters of the young Korolenko discovered in a country house during a
guerrilla battle, and the secret correspondence of the vanquished party:
five cigarette papers covered with ciphers hidden inside his metal
tunic buttons.
He emanated power, a bitter power somewhat drunk with itself, yet
capable of sweeping others along. His style of talking was deliberately
unadorned, yet vibrant with heat; its seductive power came as much from a
veiled lyricism as from its firm dialectic. He was dark and bony with a
thick head of hair, burning eyes, a prominent nose, and an ardent
mouth. He wiped out all those faces surrounding him- insignificant for
him except for the one which was feminine and beautiful- by pronouncing
the single word “Comrades” in a warm voice which conveyed the strength
of his formidable brother. Fanny was watching him from the side and
judging him severely within her soul: too eager for exploits, not
devoted enough to the Party to perform mundane tasks and remain in the
ranks. Adventuristic. He brought the six heads surrounding him back to a
life as strained and imperious as the health of the Revolution.
Balance sheet: hatred and famine in the countryside, ready to march on
the cities armed with nail studded clubs as in the Middle Ages. A
despairing decimated Proletariat. Paper decrees- impotent, annoying-
dropping from the Kremlin towers onto the masses paralyzing the last
living strength of the Revolution. The Regular Army, built at the hands
of old generals, steamrollering over the partisans, the true people’s
army. Opportunists and bureaucrats eliminating enthusiasts. A monstrous
state rising from the ashes of the Revolution. “This Robespierrism will
devour us all and open the gates to counterrevolution. We haven’t an
hour left to lose.”
The head which was beautiful as a black flower murmured softly: “Reconstitute the fighting organization.”
“You’re crazy!” Fanny cut in sharply. “And you don’t have the floor.”
Timofei, of the Great Works, rose, filling the tiny room with his
shadow. He had large, sky blue eyes set in a craggy face like a clenched
fist.
“Department B wants a strike; Department A is hesitant but will go
along. The best of them are with us, the rest are worthless anyway.
Morale among the women is excellent. They’d be ready to smash up all the
cooperatives in a single morning. Liaison with the Wahl Factory has
been established.”
Kiril, who had gone through the experience of the 1914 strikes and of
three years in the mining towns of Northern France, advised caution
don’t commit the military organisation, which was still weak, until the
strike movement became generalised. Formulate clear demands: Down with
the despotism of the Commissars, free elections, continuation of the
Revolution. Discriminate carefully between the masses’ legitimate revolt
against rule by decree and their weariness, their despair and counter-revolutionary bitterness. Don’t give ourselves illusions: perhaps
the masses are not yet ready for a new upsurge.
Fanny nodded approval. – Who do we send to the Great Works? Kiril, with
his firm moderation, based on self-assured strength, his intuitive
understanding of the feeling of crowds, his temperament of a forty year
old worker little inclined toward empty gestures and phrase mongering?
Better Goldin, with his intelligent passion, his eagerness for exploits.
You have to throw a man into certain assemblies as you would throw a
torch into dry wood.
“The meeting is called to order,” said the dictator.
A dozen people were seated around the big green table. Bare walls
painted white, bright lights hanging in frosted glass globes; faces,
silhouettes, papers on the table, everything sharp with the stark bright
clarity of an operating room. Karl Marx, flowing beard, vague Olympian
smile, framed in black, a red ribbon on one of the upper corners of the
frame… The windows open over the river, at present undistinguishable
from its banks in the whiteness and the fog.
Agenda:(1) the situation at the front; (2) supplies; (3) the Wahl
Factory affair; (4) the situation at the Great Works; (5)nominations.
Present: eleven names. Excused: two names. The recording secretary fills
in the blanks of a form divided into two columns: Reports heard,
Decisions taken. The catastrophe of Narva is recorded here, following
Fleischman’s laconic report, in terms as incomprehensible as the
scientific names of diseases are to the laymen in a hospital room. “Make
note of the negligence in Transport and the incompetence of the
leadership. Replace the political cadres in the Xth Division. Intensify
agitation among the troops. Demand that Supply deliver fresh equipment
within the week. Give Comrade Fleischman the responsibility for carrying
out the measures decided.”
Maria Pavlovna, in a black blouse, a high collar, an elderly school
teacher’s complexion, old fashioned pince-nez with tiny lenses, and a
severe mouth, had only one word to say about the nominations. “I’m
against promoting Kirk. He’s been a Party member for only a year.”
(Since the night before he and his sailors smashed open the gates of the
Winter Palace.) His nomination was set aside. Garina, tiny, wizened,
her glance amazingly young, infectious laughter constantly lurking in
the depths of her eyes, a round nose, hair always a little wild, also
had only one word to say – about the Wahl Factory:
“At the end of the resolution, instead of “We will not hesitate to use
compulsion,” put: “We will not hesitate to use the most energetic
pressure…”
And she explained, giggling in the ear of her neighbour, Kondrati: “For in reality we no longer have the means of compulsion.”
The men all looked drab in this operating room lighting, with two
exceptions: the President –prominent head, blue cheeks, abundant hair,
the well sculpted yet slightly flabby features of a young Roman Emperor
or a Smyrna merchant, a deep voice which ran to falsetto when got
excited, an appearance of heaviness, nonchalance and mastery, fatigue
and intrigue, established greatness and hidden mediocrity; and the
committee secretary, Kondrati – light complexion, golden curls at his
temples, a fine featured yet rugged face, Scandinavian blood and Mongol
blood. All interchangeable: around this table, in this city, this
country, at the front, before the task and before death itself; each
head here being but one head of that eleven headed being (this evening)
called the Committee, each merging his intelligence and his will with
those – anonymous, impersonal, sovereign, and superior- of the
Committee, each knowing himself to be powerful and invulnerable through
the Party yet insignificant and defeated in advance without the Party;
each refusing to exist for himself other than through the fulfilment of a
prodigious will in which his own will was lost, a useful drop in the
ocean.
“Whom do we send to the Great Works?”
A single head inside eleven skulls weighed the problem maturely. Osipov?
He was there; chin in hand, with the long face of a seminarist or a
convict. Osipov had led the proletariat of the Great Works into battle
during the great decisive days. No, no, too idealistic, too inclined
toward self-sacrifice, incapable of understanding the masses when they
sink, discouraged, back into the passive desire to live in peace, even
if it is barely living…. Rubin? A good organiser but too hidebound.
Kondrati? Too early… If things go really badly, to prevent or see
through a disaster, but not before. Garina? A woman wouldn’t be right
for the job; and in any case her subtle theoretical mind made her a
first-class propagandist but a very poor agitator. Saveliev? Worn down
by the workers’ problems, tormented by scruples (“Look at what the
worker eats since he took power!”), capable of losing his head. No, no….
Several voices said:
“Antonov”
Antonov. Naturally. Nobody could be better. What a voice, Antonov! Made
for covering the tumult of a railroad station. And character. Stubborn.
Not intelligent. Not Stupid. Disciplined. Not many, ideas, guts. Vulgar.
Tactful.
“Antonov. You give him instructions Kondrati,” said the President.
The rest of the meeting was taken up in the reality by intrigue.
Kondrati’s coterie was contesting for some positions against that of the
President, whom they suspected of trying to squeeze them out. A
confused argument in which no one said what he was thinking took place
over the nomination of some district secretaries. A compromise was
finally agreed on: the positions were shared. A slight advantage for
Kondrati.
“We’re making progress,” murmured Fleischman.
Osipov voted mechanically with the others, for at every vote unanimity
was re-established. We’ve come to that, he thought. The Great Works
against us! Hemmed in by hunger, picking up all the old weapons of
power… What can we promise these workers if they no longer want to die
for the Revolution?
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