Time Will Run Back (11 page)

With his eyes sharpened by experience and by Adams’ dry comments, Peter became increasingly appalled by the carelessness, waste and chaos in production. The output of one item never seemed to match that of any other. There would be too many suits of one size and too little of another. Whole housing projects would be held up because of a shortage of tar paper. But in the Moscow district there were far more window frames than could be used in the planned new housing because the window-frame makers had proudly exceeded their quota.

“Bolshekov must have read of your promotion in the newspapers, Peter,” said Stalenin. “In his last report from Kansas he adds casually that it would contribute to your education to go out there and see conditions at first hand. Of course all he really wants is to have you under his eye. But you should go.”

“What does he say about Kansas?”

“A million peasants have already died there this year from starvation and typhoid. At least another million will die before the year end.”

“What does he say caused the food shortage?”

“The drought. The worst in history.”

“Can’t food be brought in from other sections?”

“Into Kansas? Which is supposed to feed other sections?”

“But—”

“We simply haven’t the transport,” said Stalenin. “Practically all the bread being consumed in Moscow now is from wheat from the Argentine. Of course Russia must get priority in everything; and there just isn’t any more wheat to be had from the Argentine—But you can get all that from Bolshekov.”

“When do you want me to start?” “Tomorrow. Bolshekov is at Wichita. You are to meet him there. Sergei is making all the arrangements for your trip.”

Great Bend, Kansas. Peter was at breakfast in his private car. He gazed out the train window. The station platform was crowded with begging peasants. They stared at him, and at the food still on his table, with hollow eyes. Women held up infants for him to see—deformed little monsters with big heads, horribly swollen bellies, and skeleton limbs dangling from them.

He got up and went to the train kitchen. “Something must be done for these people!”

“We have only enough for ourselves, Comrade Uldanov,” said the chief cook. “And I am under absolute orders not to give—”

“Then at least let the rest of my own breakfast be given to them!”

“We are under absolute orders from Moscow not to permit that either, Comrade Uldanov. Whatever you leave untouched is eaten by members of the train crew.”

Beaten, Peter returned to his seat. He was ashamed to look out again until the train started to move. At the edge of the platform men and women were lying prone, staring up out of expressionless eyes. A mass funeral procession went by.

The whole trip had been a nightmare. He had taken off from Moscow on a large bomber. He could not now remember the number of dreary stops for refueling and repairs—in Siberia, Alaska, Canada, CVA. They had had to land first at a forced labor camp in Siberia, where Peter had seen hundreds of scarcely human creatures, mostly women, filthy and in rags, working in complete silence, many of them up to their knees in muddy water. Armed guards watched their every movement.

The plane had come down twice in Alaska, in clearings in the wilderness.

Because of Peter’s curiosity, they had flown relatively low when they got to the remote district of CVA. A guide had pointed out to him, every now and then, a herd of elk or bison roaming the prairie states; but there were few signs of human habitation.

The original plan had been to fly direct to Wichita, but the plane had had to make a forced landing at a place that had once been the site of the proud capitalist city of Denver. For a whole day Peter, accompanied by a member of the plane’s crew, had wandered among the crumbling and deserted ruins.

Peter tried to imagine what Denver must have been like in the days of its glory, when the barbarian capitalist chiefs held court. The only sign of life he found now was a lizard.

It had finally been discovered that the plane would have to wait for new parts from Moscow, and Peter had been forced to finish the journey to Wichita on this single-track railroad.

They passed one more station—Hutchinson—without stopping. He was grateful for that.

At Wichita he was conducted to Bolshekov’s waiting automobile. Bolshekov stood just outside, looking taller, gaunter, more green-complexioned than ever. He looked Peter up and down. “Congratulations on your amazing promotion!” His tone was bitingly sarcastic.

A crowd of starving peasants and workers stonily watched them drive off.

About fifteen minutes later, in the open country, the chauffeur had to stop to change a tire. Everyone got out. Peter noticed thick weeds along the roads and vacant fields full of wild sunflowers. All the seeds had been picked out of the blossoms.

They started off again.

A light rain began to fall. Peter felt his first wave of hope, almost of elation. “Rain!” he shouted.

Bolshekov stared at him as if he had said something stupid.

“But doesn’t this break the drought?” Peter asked. “Won’t this mean relief?”

“It’s nothing.”

“But I thought your whole trouble was caused by the greatest drought on record?”

“True.”

“But what has the comparison actually been? How much rainfall did Kansas have in the last six months or so? How does that compare with the second worse year?”

“Am I being cross-examined?” asked Bolshekov coldly.

Peter dropped the subject. What was really wrong? Was this the greatest drought on record, or wasn’t it? Or—it occurred to him suddenly—was it a drought at all? Was it merely government propaganda—the “official” explanation of the famine?

They arrived at a collectivized farm, the first Peter had seen. Broken-down tractors were rusting in the rain. Not a single tractor was in working order.

Bolshekov sent for the director. “The last mechanic on our state farm who knew how to fix tractors died of starvation last month, Your Highness,” explained the director. “We filed an application through the regular channels for a replacement, but so far not a word from Moscow. We have also filed applications
for
the replacement of broken tractor parts.”

“How long ago?”

“Two months.”

“And
nothing
has happened?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Yesterday we received a reply saying that our application had been made on form S-27-Q, which has been obsolete for three months, and that we must obtain new forms from the Central Printing Office.”

“And have you acted?”

“We have been searching, Your Highness, for the proper form on which to apply for forms to the Central Printing Office. The central office doesn’t seem to have furnished—”

“Arrest that man,” ordered Bolshekov.

“You see,” Bolshekov said to Peter as they drove off, “how hopeless the whole problem is. The same story everywhere. The collectivized farm directors blame the tractor parts makers for delays in deliveries. The parts makers blame
their
suppliers in turn, or tell us that the state farms are careless in handling the machinery....”

After inspecting three more collectivized farms, with much the same results, Bolshekov called it a day. They drove back to the hotel Broadview in Wichita.

“Dinner will be brought up to your room at six,” Bolshekov told Peter. “Come to my suite at eight.”

Peter decided to go for a walk, but the moment he stepped out of his hotel he was besieged by starving beggars. Men and women, more dead than alive, were lying on the sidewalks. He had nothing to offer but nontransferable ration coupons. He bought the local newspaper,
Humanity,
and immediately returned to his hotel room to read about the famine.

On the front page was a prominent story about a young coal miner who during his six-hour shift had cut one hundred and two tons of coal instead of the usual seven tons. The story sounded vaguely familiar, even to the figures, but the name and place were new to him. There was also a picture of two well-fed, laughing young peasant girls carrying a banner. The leading editorial denied that there was any distinction between Marxism and Leninism.

He went carefully through the whole paper.

There was not a word about the existence of a famine.

In the evening, Bolshekov explained to Peter the economic system under which the state farms operated.

“Just before I was put in charge, the system was for the State to take everything that each collective farm produced over and above what was necessary for the sustenance of the workers on the collectives. That system broke down. The collectives would raise only enough for their own sustenance, and leave little or nothing for the State. So I reversed the rule. My system was to set up first a minimum quota of grain, vegetables or livestock for each collective to turn over to the government. Only when
that
was filled was the collective allowed to retain the quota for its own sustenance.”

“But suppose,” Peter asked, “that the quota you took away from a collective left its workers without enough to live on?”

“They starved, of course. And though they probably deserved to, we were later forced to change the formula again, to our present formula.... Our government investigators now figure first what ought to be the normal production of grain, livestock, and so forth, of each State farm. This assumed ‘normal’ yield isn’t the maximum possible, but it is better than the expected average, for it assumes good weather, good growing conditions, good management and hard work. Then we deduct from this total ‘normal’ yield the amount needed for the sustenance of the workers and managers of the collective itself. This is called the Sustenance Quota, and the balance is called the Government Quota.”

“Suppose, Your Highness, that the total yield of a collective farm in a year is only 75 per cent of its calculated ‘normal’ yield?”

“Then the government only gets 75 per cent of its normal quota, and the collective gets only 75 per cent of its Sustenance Quota. Nothing could be fairer than that, could it?”

“Can the workers on a collective live on only 75 per cent of their Sustenance Quota?”

“Barely. But that is why they will try to make sure of reaching their full quota the following year.”

“How do you know, Your Highness, that the quotas have been fairly assigned to each collective?”

“A government investigator who assigns too small a quota is simply liquidated.”

“And if he assigns too large a quota—too big a quota for the collective to be fairly expected to reach?”

“Oh, that is what the collectives are always contending! That’s their stock excuse for every failure.”

Peter thought it wise not to press this particular question further. “But suppose,” he continued, “that a collective farm exceeds its set normal production quota?”

“The surplus above the Sustenance Quota all goes to the government, of course.”

“Why, Your Highness, doesn’t the government apply the same rule in reverse? That is, if the collective produces 110 per cent of its total quota, why not increase the State’s share only 10 per cent and allow the collective’s own share to increase 10 per cent?”

“But what would the collectives do, in a socialist society, with a surplus above their own needs? Withhold it? Waste it? Wonworld needs every bushel of grain it can get.”

“But if you allowed the collectives to keep the surplus above the quota to be set aside for the State, or even a proportional percentage of the surplus,” said Peter, thinking out loud, “wouldn’t that give them an incentive to produce more?”

“Merely
for themselves?
In an equalitarian society?” asked Bolshekov. “And just what do you mean by
incentive?
That sounds to me like the language of capitalism. Are you talking of private profit?”

Peter confusedly apologized for the suggestion.

PETER kept his own notes on the Kansas trip. On the day of their return Bolshekov reported his findings to a special meeting of the Politburo. That evening Peter was called in to give an independent account to his father.

“There are a lot of things in your report,” said Stalenin, “that Bolshekov did not tell us. I like your thoroughness. Perhaps you weren’t completely miseducated after all.”

He started to wander off into reminiscences, and talked of the weekly reports he used to receive about Peter from Bermuda. For the first time Peter saw clearly what until now he had sensed only vaguely. At each meeting his father was a little less brutal, a little more human, a little less sure of himself. This was a symptom, Peter now concluded, of the old man’s physical deterioration.

Stalenin suddenly broke off his reverie. “How are you coming on with my handwriting?” he asked.

Peter wrote several Stalenin signatures.

“They are still not perfect,” said his father, “but they’ll do as a start. Here!” He pushed several legal decrees at Peter: “Sign these with my signature....

“We’ll begin now,” Stalenin continued as Peter was signing, “to alternate the imitation with the real thing. After a while I’ll have you sign my name to all decrees. Then if anything happens to me your forgery will already have established its authenticity.” He grinned.

He got up and closed and locked the door which, like all the doors in his office, consisted really of two doors with an air space between, to prevent eavesdropping. Then he led Peter over to the safe, turned the combination, and opened the heavy steel door. He took a key from his breast pocket, opened a little steel drawer in the upper left-hand corner of the safe, and carefully drew out two phonograph records. He carried one over to a phonograph by the wall, and turned it on.

It was Stalenin’s voice.

“Comrades and citizens of Wonworld,” it began. “I told you on my last public appearance on May Day that the mounting pressure of work upon me would prevent me from making any further public appearances. This pressure has now grown to a point where I am forced to deputize more work than ever. I have therefore asked my son, Peter Uldanov, to sit as my deputy in meetings of the Politburo and on other occasions, and to make public announcements in my name of whatever new policies or decrees I find necessary. I shall, of course, be more active than ever as your leader...”