Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (31 page)

What was I talking about? I was talking about love…my first wife…When our son was born, we named him October. In honor of the tenth anniversary of the Great October Revolution. I wanted us to have a daughter, too. “You must really love me if you want a second child,” my wife teased. “And what will we name this daughter of ours?” I liked the name Lyublena, a combination of
lyublyu
(“I love”) and Lenin. My wife wrote out all of her favorite girls’ names: Marxana, Stalina, Engelsina, Iskra…Those were the most fashionable names of the day. That piece of paper just sat there on the table…

The first Bolshevik I ever saw was a man who’d showed up at my village one day, this young student in a soldier’s overcoat. He made a speech on the square by the church. “Today, some people go around in leather boots, while others only have bast shoes. When the Bolsheviks come to power, everyone will be equal.” The men shouted at him, “How?” “A wonderful time will come when your wives wear silk dresses and high-heeled shoes. There will no longer be rich and poor. Everyone will be happy.” My mother would get to wear a silk dress, my sister would be in heels. I’d go to school…everyone would live like brothers and sisters, everyone would be equal. How can you not fall in love with a dream like that! Poor people, those who had nothing, believed the Bolsheviks. They won the support of the youth. We walked through the streets crying, “Melt down the church bells! Turn them into tractors!” The only thing we knew about God was that there was no God. We mocked the priests, and at home we destroyed icons. Instead of sacred processions, we held demonstrations with red banners…[
He stops.
] Have I told you all this already? Senility…I’m old…I’ve been old for a long time…Anyway…Marxism became our religion. I felt lucky to be alive at the same time as Lenin. We’d get together and sing “The Internationale.” When I was fifteen or sixteen, I was already in the Komsomol. A communist. A soldier of the Revolution. [
Silence.
] I’m not afraid of death. At my age, it’s just unpleasant…And it’s only unpleasant to me because someone is going to have to deal with my body. All that hassle with the corpse…I went to a church once to meet the priest. He told me, “You need to confess.” I’m really old…It won’t be long until I see whether there’s a God or not for myself. [
He laughs.
]

We were half-famished, half-naked, but we went to
subbotniks
^*10
all year round, even in the winter. It was freezing! All my wife had was a light jacket, plus she was pregnant. We were at the depot, loading coal and timber, pushing it in wheelbarrows, and a young woman we didn’t know was working alongside us. She turned to my wife: “Your jacket is so thin. Do you own anything warmer?” “No.” “You know what, I have two. I had a good coat and then I also got a new one from the Red Cross. Give me your address, I’ll come by with it this evening.” That evening, she brought us a coat, but it wasn’t her old one—she had brought us her new one. She didn’t know us, but it was enough that we were Party members like her. It meant that we were like brothers and sisters. There was a blind young woman in our building, she’d been blind since childhood, but she would cry if we didn’t bring her along to
subbotniks.
Even if she wasn’t able to help out much, she could at least sing Revolutionary songs with us!

My comrades…They’re all underground now…The inscriptions on their tombstones read: Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1920…1924…1927…Even after you die, it’s important to know what you believed in. They would bury Party members separately, wrapping the coffins in red calico. I remember the day Lenin died…What? How could Lenin be dead? It can’t be! He was a saint…[
He has his grandson take a number of small busts of Lenin down from a shelf and shows them to me. They’re bronze, iron, porcelain.
] I ended up with an entire collection. All of them were gifts. And yesterday…They said on the radio that Lenin’s hand was sawed off from the monument in the center of town in the middle of the night. Traded in for scrap…for kopecks. It used to be an icon. An idol! Now, he’s nothing but scrap metal. They buy and sell him by the kilogram…And yet, I’m still alive…Communism is denigrated! Socialism trashed! People say to me, “But who could take Marxism seriously today? Marx’s place is in the history textbooks.” And who among you can say you’ve ever read the later works of Lenin? That you know all of Marx? There’s early Marx…and Marx at the end of his life…What people today disparage as socialism has no relation to the socialist idea. The Idea is not to blame. [
His coughing once again makes it difficult to understand him.
] The people have lost their history…They’ve been left without faith…No matter what you ask them, they answer with blank stares. The bosses have learned how to cross themselves and balance candles in their right hands like they’re glasses of vodka. They brought back the moth-eaten two-headed eagle…Holy banners and icons…[
Suddenly his speech is completely distinct.
] My final wish is that you record the truth. But my truth, not yours. So that my voice may live on…

[
He shows me his photographs, occasionally commenting.
]

…They brought me to the Commander. “How old are you?” he asked. “Seventeen,” I lied. I wasn’t even sixteen yet. That was how I enlisted in the Red Army. They gave us cloth to wrap our feet in and red stars for our hats. There weren’t any
budyonovkas,
^*11
but they did hand out red stars. What kind of Red Army would we be without red stars? And they gave us guns. We felt like we were the defenders of the Revolution. There was hunger all around, epidemics everywhere. Fever…typhoid fever, trench fever…But we were happy…

…Someone had dragged a piano out of a destroyed manor house…They’d left it standing in the garden, in the rain. Cowherds would herd their cattle close to it and try to play it with sticks. People had gotten drunk and burned down the estate. Looted it. But who needed a piano?

…We blew up a church…I can still hear the cries of the old women, “Children, don’t do it!” they begged us. Grabbed onto our ankles. The church had stood there for two hundred years. A prayed-in place, as they say. They built the municipal public toilet over the ruins. And forced the priests to work there as cleaning men. Washing out the shit. Today…of course…Today, I understand…But back then, it was fun…

…Our comrades lay dead in the field…They had stars carved into their foreheads and chests. Red stars. Their stomachs had been cut open and filled with dirt: You want land, here you go! For us, it was victory or death! Let us die as long as we know what we’re dying for.

…By the river, we’d seen some White Officers impaled by bayonets. “Their Excellences” had grown black in the sun. They had epaulettes sticking out of their stomachs…Their stomachs were stuffed with epaulettes. I don’t feel sorry for them! I’ve seen as many dead people as I’ve seen living…

—Today, it’s sad for everyone, the Reds and Whites alike. I feel sorry for everyone.

—You feel sorry for them…Sorry for them? [
It felt like this could be the end of our conversation.
] Well, yes, of course…“universal human values”…“abstract humanism”…I watch TV, I read the papers. For us, mercy was a priest’s word. Kill the White vermin! Make way for the Revolution! A slogan from the first years of the Revolution: We’ll chase humanity into happiness with an iron fist! If the Party says so, I believe the Party! I do.

…The town of Orsk, near Orenburg. Freight trains full of kulak families rolling through night and day. On their way to Siberia. We were guarding the station. One time, I opened the doors of one of the train cars: A half-naked man was hanging from a belt in the corner. The mother was cradling the little one in her arms, while her older boy sat on the floor next to her eating his own shit with his hands like it was kasha. “Shut that door!” the Commissar shouted at me. “That’s the kulak bastard! There’s no room for them in our new life!” The future…It was supposed to be beautiful…It will be beautiful later…I believed that! [
He’s practically screaming.
] We believed in a beautiful life. Utopia…it was utopia…And how about you? You have your own utopia: the market. Market heaven. The market will make everyone happy! Pure fantasy! The streets are filled with gangsters in magenta blazers, gold chains hanging down to their bellies. Caricatures of capitalism, like the cartoons in
Krokodil.
^*12
A farce! Instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it’s the law of the jungle: Devour the ones weaker than you, and bow down to the ones who are stronger. The oldest law in the world…[
A coughing fit. He catches his breath.
] My son wore a
budyonovka
with a red star…When he was little, it was his favorite ever birthday present. I haven’t gone to the stores in a long time. Do they still sell
budyonovkas
? They were popular for a long time. They were still around when Khrushchev was in power. What’s in style these days? [
He attempts a smile.
] I’ve fallen behind the times, of course…I’m ancient. My only son is dead. I’m living out my final days with my daughter-in-law and grandchildren. My son was a historian and a convinced communist. And my grandchildren? [
Smirking.
] My grandchildren read the Dalai Lama. Instead of
Capital,
they have the
Mahabharata
. The Kabbalah…Now everyone believes in something different. Yep…that’s how it is…People always want to believe in something. In God or in technological progress. In chemistry, polymers, a cosmic consciousness. Today it’s the market. So all right, we’ll eat our fill, and then what? When I go into my grandchildren’s room, everything in there is foreign: the shirts, the jeans, the books, the music—even their toothbrushes are imported. Their shelves are lined with empty cans of Coke and Pepsi. Savages! They go to the supermarkets like they’re museums. They think it’s cool, celebrating their birthday at McDonald’s! “Grandpa, we went to Pizza Hut!” Mecca! They ask me, “Did you really believe in communism? How about aliens?” I dreamt of war on the palaces, peace to the cottages—they want to become millionaires. Their friends come over and I overhear them saying things like: “I would rather live in a weak country where there’s yogurt and good beer.” “Communism is the dregs.” “The Russian path is monarchy. God save the Tsar!” They play songs: “Everything will be all right, Lieutenant Golytsyn / The Commissars will get what they deserve…”
^*13
And yet, I’m still alive. I’m here to see it all…It’s really happening, I haven’t lost my mind…[
He looks at his grandson, who remains silent.
] There’s loads of salami at the store, but no happy people. I don’t see anyone with fire in their eyes.

A joke from his grandson

A professor and an Old Bolshevik are at a séance. The professor: “From the very beginning, communism was based on an error. Remember the song, ‘Our train is flying forward, / The next stop is the commune…’ ” The Old Bolshevik: “Of course I do. What’s the problem?” “Trains don’t fly.”

—

—First they arrested my wife. She went to the theater and didn’t come back. I got home from work and found my son sleeping on a little rug in the hall next to the cat. He’d waited and waited for Mama until he finally fell asleep. My wife worked at a shoe factory. She was a Red engineer. “Something strange is going on,” she’d told me. “They’ve taken all my friends. For some kind of treason…” “You and I are innocent, so no one is coming for us.” I was sure of it. Absolutely positive…Sincerely! I was a Leninist, then a Stalinist. Until 1937, I was a Stalinist. I believed everything Stalin said and did. Yes…The greatest, the most brilliant leader of all eras and peoples. Even after Bukharin, Tukhachevsky, and Blyukher
^*14
were all pronounced enemies of the people, I still believed him. It seems stupid now, but I thought that Stalin was being deceived, that traitors had made their way to the top. The Party would sort it all out. But then they arrested my wife, an honest and dedicated Party warrior.

Three days later, they came for me…The first thing they did was sniff inside the oven: Did it smell like smoke, had I burnt anything in there recently? There were three of them. One walked around the apartment picking things out for himself: “You won’t be needing this anymore.” He took down the clock from the wall. I was shocked…I hadn’t expected that…At the same time, there was something human about it that gave me hope. This human nastiness…yes…So these people have feelings, too. The search lasted from 2
A.M.
until morning. There were lots of books in the house and they flicked through each and every one of them. Rifled through all of our clothes. Cut the pillows open…It gave me a lot of time to think. Trying to remember, feverishly…By then, there was a mass incarceration going on. People were being taken away every day. It was pretty frightening. They’d take someone away, and everyone would be silent about it. It was useless asking what had happened. At the first interrogation, the investigator explained, “You’re automatically guilty because you failed to inform on your wife.” She was already in jail…During the search, I racked my brains, scrutinizing every last detail…I only remembered one thing…At the most recent citywide Party conference, they read a salutation to Comrade Stalin, and the whole auditorium had stood up. A storm of applause: “Glory to Comrade Stalin—the organizer and inspiration behind our victories!” “Glory to Stalin!” “Glory to our Leader!” Fifteen minutes…Half an hour…Everyone kept turning and looking at one another, but no one wanted to be the first to sit down. So we all just stood. And then, for some reason, I sat down. It was mechanical. Two plainclothes officers went up to me: “Comrade, why are you sitting?” I jumped up! I jumped like I’d been scalded. During the break, I kept looking around. Waiting for them to come up and arrest me on the spot. [
A pause.
]