Voshchev’s address to the fallen leaf is one of a number of images or sentences that encapsulate central themes of the novel—in this case, the theme of remembrance. No less important is a brief speech made by Safronov, in a moment of uncharacteristic gloom, to Chiklin: “But why, Nikita, do the fields lie there so boringly? Is it really sorrow inside the whole world—and only in ourselves that there’s a five-year plan?” Almost every word here deserves comment. The verb “lie” is used a huge number of times in the novel—about dead bodies, about sleeping bodies that seem as if dead, and, as here, about the vast “unorganized” areas of horizontal space that the apostles of the Five-Year Plan hope to conquer through their vertical towers. The words “bore,” “bored,” and “boring” (in Russian “boring” and “bored” are the same word—skuchny) are used still more often. Platonov may be suggesting that the madness he describes in the novel springs from a sense of emptiness, that it is people’s desperation to escape from this emptiness that makes them so violent. “Sorrow” and the “five-year plan” are both spoken of—in typically Platonov fashion—as if they are physical substances; the five-year plan is “in ourselves,” and sorrow is “inside the whole world.” As a young man, Platonov was what one might call an idealistic materialist; he believed, passionately, that science and socialism could transform the world. This, of course, was also the promise of Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. By 1930, however, Platonov had understood that no plan can balance the “sorrow inside the whole world” and that the arrogant grandiosity of such plans can indeed only add to this sorrow. The Foundation Pit is—amongst many other things—Platonov’s reassessment of his own youthful dreams.
The Foundation Pit is probably the work in which Platonov does most violence to language. This, no doubt, reflects the violence of the period he is evoking, but Platonov does more than simply reflect his time; it would be truer to say that he actively resists the pressures of his time.fn23 Like Prushevsky, Platonov was an engineer; he understood about forces and counterforces, about pressure and resistance. This account of Prushevsky studying samples of “ground”fn24 can be read as a description of Platonov’s attitude to the words that are the material for his own constructions: “The engineer examined this ground and for a long time . . . assessed it for compression and deformation.” “Compression” and “deformation” are certainly among the outstanding characteristics of the language of The Foundation Pit, and it is these qualities —the depth of often incompatible meanings compressed into an individual sentence—that enable Platonov’s work to resist the pressures to which it was subjected. It could even be said that Platonov’s language has something in common with Safronov’s deformed rhetoric. Like Safronov, though to a very different purpose, Platonov reinforces his words “with two meanings—one fundamental and one reserve—the same as he would any other material.”
There is, no doubt, something of Platonov in each of his characters, and his achievement can also be seen as equivalent to Chiklin’s superhuman feat at the end of the book: “Chiklin gouged out a sepulchral bed in eternal stone and, by way of a lid, he prepared a special granite slab so that the vast weight of the grave’s dust should not press down on the little girl.” In language that never buckles, Platonov has fashioned a lasting memorial to the orphaned Nastya—and to “the socialist generation” that she represents.
—ROBERT CHANDLER AND OLGA MEERSON
January 2009
fn1. Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag (New York: Oxford, 2007), p. 7.
fn2. Andrey Platonov, Vzyskanie pogibshikh (Moscow: Shkola Press, 1995), p. 630.
fn3. Andrey Platonov, Sochineniya, I, 1 (Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2004), pp. 456–57.
fn4. Andrey Platonov, Kotlovan (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2000), p. 324.
fn5. Natalya Kornienko, Zdes’i teper’, Moscow, 1993: 173.
fn6. Platonov later rewrote this in the first person and published it in 1939 as “The Motherland of Electricity.”
fn7. One of these, The Engineer (Mashinist), written in early 1930, can be thought of as an early draft of the second half of The Foundation Pit. At one point a character named “the Activist” says, “Why are you preparing coffins? Or do you suppose that this world is ours, while the other world will be yours? I warn you that the other world will be organized according to the same principle as this world. You can live if you like or die if you like—but you’ve got no way out.” (Platonov, Kotlovan, p. 313.)
fn8. This has been best brought out by the Moscow scholar Natalya Duzhina, whose outstanding commentary on The Foundation Pit, Putevoditel’ po povesti A. Platonova “Kotlovan,” is yet to be published.
fn9. We use the word “chapter” for the sake of convenience. Platonov divided the text into twenty sections of gradually increasing length, though he did not number or title these sections.
fn10. An incomplete Russian text of Soul was first published in the Soviet Union in 1966. A considerably better text was published in 1978. The complete text was published in A.P. Platonov, Proza (Moscow: Slovo, 1999), but this edition, published with the help of George Soros’s Open Society, has always been almost impossible to obtain. As for The Foundation Pit, a bowdlerized version came out in Paris in 1969 and in the Soviet Union in 1987.
fn11. Andrey Platonov, Gosudarstvennyi zhitel’ (Minsk: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1988), p. 649. Platonov uses language precisely and with unusual consistency, and it is striking that he uses the word “overturn” (oprokidyvat’ ) three times in The Foundation Pit—once with regard to an individual peasant, once with regard to the peasants in general, and once with regard to the activist.
fn12. Oleg Lasunsky, Zhitel’ rodnogo goroda (Voronezh: IVGU, 1999), p. 100. Platonov may, of course, simply have wanted not to upset his mother or some other family member. Still more remarkable, however, is the fact that the christening took place on November 7, on the fifth anniversary of the Revolution. It is possible that Platonov chose this date for practical reasons. He might have been unable to take time off work except on this public holiday; and in the Russian Orthodox Church a mother is not allowed to be present at a baptism until forty days after she has given birth—and November 7 is just over six weeks since Platon’s birth. Still, whatever the reason for this choice of date, Platonov could not have been unaware of its symbolism—though there are many different ways that he might have interpreted it.
fn13. Platonov’s words are “dlya sogrevaniya Nasti.” The earlier scene with the bear and the potty may, incidentally, allude to the fact that one of the materials used for these bonfires was the excrement of animals.
fn14. “tselymi selami, volostyami, raionami, dazhe okrugami.” (Platonov, Kotlovan, p. 161.)
fn15. “Barrack-train” is how, in this sentence, we have translated the word already used by the activist: eshelon. For the main part, we have been consistent in our translation choices, but it seemed impossible to find a single English word that would be adequate for all three occurrences of eshelon. The third time the word is used is with regard to the kulaks’ raft, which Platonov refers to as “the kulak river transport” (kulatskii rechnoi eshelon).
fn16. Karl Marx, “The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works, vol I, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962), p. 217.
fn17. Quoted by E. Yablokov in Andrey Platonov, Chevengur (Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola, 1991), p. 547.
fn18. In the present version we have translated all instances of the verb poluchat’ (“to receive”) literally—with the exception of this very first instance. After much hesitation, we settled on: “‘Who are you—and do you want to receive from me?’ prompted the cripple. ‘Fancy a fist in the face?!’” The Russian could be translated more literally as: “‘To whom am I speaking?’ reminded the cripple. ‘Do you want to receive from me?!’” The inadequacy of this is not so much that it is unidiomatic—Platonov, after all, often violates ordinary idiom, even if he does not do so here. The more serious problem is that it is by no means obvious
, from the literal English rendering, that Zhachev is making a threat. And so we have translated Zhachev’s words twice, once literally and once—at least relatively—idiomatically.
fn19. Aleksandr Kharitonov, “Sistema imen personazhei v poetike povesti’ ‘Kotlovan,’” Strana filosofov (Moscow: Nasledie, 1995), pp. 152–73.
fn20. More literally: “He felt the cold on his eyelids and closed with them his warm eyes”—but this is a great deal clumsier than the original.
fn21. Platonov returns to this theme in The Fourteen Little Red Huts (1932), which is set in a collective farm by the Caspian Sea. In answer to the question “Don’t you want to eat?,” one of the starving inhabitants of this farm says, “No, what keeps me alive is consciousness. You can’t stay alive here from food, can you?” (Andrey Platonov, The Portable Platonov [Moscow: Glas, 1999], p. 177.)
fn22. Platonov’s ambiguities can seldom be translated literally. The word we have translated as “hopefully” is, in fact zhelatel’no (“preferably” or “desirably”). The ambiguity, however, is the same; it is unclear whether the desire belongs to the activist or to the masses.
fn23. Platonov seems to have thought it his duty to do all he could to influence the course of events. According to a report written in 1933 by an informer for the OGPU, Platonov said of his story “For Future Use”: “I don’t care what others say. I wrote that story for one person (for comrade Stalin). He read the tale and in essence has given me his reply. The rest does not interest me.” (Vitaly Shentalinsky, The KGB’s Literary Archive [London: The Harvill Press, 1993], p. 211.) “For Future Use” is set, like The Foundation Pit, against the background of collectivization. On reading it in 1931, when it was published in the literary journal Krasnaya Nov’, Stalin referred to it as a “kulak chronicle” and called Platonov “a bastard” (svoloch’ ).
fn24. Platonov uses the relatively uncommon grunt, a borrowing from German.
NOTES
1. Voshchev was made redundant: The name Voshchev, like many names in Platonov’s works, is invented. Some of the associations it evokes are with voobshche (“in general”), votshche (“in vain”), and voshchony (“waxen”); it seems that he is intended as a Soviet Everyman. This and subsequent understandings of characters’ names are drawn mainly from Aleksandr Kharitonov, “Sistema imen personazhei v poetike povesti ‘Kotlovan,’” Strana filosofov (Moscow: Nasledie, 1995), pp. 152–73.
2. workers from the villages and low-paid categories: By the beginning of Total Collectivization, a vast number of peasants were leaving their villages and seeking work on the numerous construction projects of the era.
3. a salty bread ring: Similar to an Italian bread stick, but in the shape of a ring.
4. whether he was of use to the world: Platonov may have endowed Voshchev with some of his own feelings. In the late 1920s Platonov published three books in quick succession: The Locks of Epifan (1927), The Hidden Man of the Heart (1928), and The Origin of a Master (1929). But by autumn 1929, when he began work on The Foundation Pit, Platonov had become the object of vicious criticism. His story “Doubting Makar” was attacked both in the journal Oktyabr’ (November 1929) and in Pravda (December 3, 1929); his long novel Chevengur was accepted for publication and even typeset, but never printed.
5. about a plan of life: Newspapers and posters at this time were full of exhortations about the fulfillment of the first Five-Year Plan for the Soviet Economy—in essence an attempt at extraordinarily rapid industrialization. Stalin introduced this in 1928, and in January 1933, ahead of schedule, he falsely proclaimed that its goals had been achieved.
6. the Red Corner: A Red Corner was a special room in a Soviet hostel, factory, or other institution, which was stocked with educational literature and reserved for reading and recreation. Before the Revolution the term was used mainly with regard to private houses; it referred to the corner of the room where the icons were kept (the Russian word krasny originally meant both “red” and “beautiful” —a connection independent of communism).
7. at the tail end of the masses: Trade unions were expected to be ever more forceful in the imposition of labor discipline. Those that failed to do this were accused of being “at the tail of the demands of life.”
8. you used to work eight hours, but now it’s seven: The years 1929 and 1930 saw a gradual introduction, in principle, of a shorter working day. In reality, workers were expected to work longer and longer hours. (Andrey Platonov, Kotlovan [St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2000], p. 144. This edition includes not only the final text but also a transcript of the manuscript and a range of other supplementary material.)
9. a column of Pioneer children: The Young Pioneers was the Communist Party organization for ten- to fifteen-year-olds. By the beginning of 1930, there were nearly two and a half million Young Pioneers. (Platonov, Kotlovan, p. 144.)
10. last night’s cold beef: In late 1928 and early 1929 severe food shortages led to the introduction of rationing. Forced collectivization, however, led many peasants to slaughter their animals; as a result, for several months in early 1930, there was a huge surplus of beef.
11. The engineer told Chiklin: Chiklin is another invented name. It evokes the verb chikat’/chiknut’, meaning “to clip,” “to cut,” “to hit.” Chiknut’ has an additional colloquial meaning of “to kill,” “to shoot.”
12. The labor exchange: There was a shortage of labor throughout the late 1920s, and by the end of 1930 the volume of construction work was such that unemployment almost ceased to exist. Labor exchanges were abolished soon after this.
13. “Kozlov!” Safronov shouted to him: The name Kozlov, derived from kozyol (“goat”), has the slang meanings of “wanker” or “sexual pervert” and also “informer.” The primary meaning of the word kulak is “fist.” During the late nineteenth century it acquired the meaning of “prosperous (i.e. tight-fisted) peasant.” Platonov’s notebook for 1929–30 contains the line: “A kulak is like a masturbator; he does everything in the way of an individual holder, into his own fist.” (Platonov, Zapisnye knizhki, p. 34) Kozlov is not, of course, a kulak—but Platonov has endowed him with some of the characteristics associated with kulaks.
14. we can live for the sake of enthusiasm: The importance of enthusiasm was a central theme in “The Year of the Great Breakthrough,” one of the most important of all Stalin’s articles. Published in Pravda on the twelfth anniversary of the October Revolution, it heralded the most intense period of collectivization—the winter of 1929–30. Stalin also emphasized the need for enthusiasm in a report for the Central Committee in June 1930. (Platonov, Kotlovan, p. 147.)
15. Could a superstructure develop from any base?: Karl Marx referred to a society’s economic structure as its “basis,” and its political and cultural organization as its “superstructure.” Prushevsky’s excessively literal understanding of Marx has the effect of reducing his “scientific materialism” to absurdity.
16. a dark wall had appeared straight in front of his groping mind: This wall seems to represent the same eternal laws of nature that so enraged Dostoevsky’s Underground Man, who complains about the way sensible, rational people “bow down in all sincerity” before this wall: “a wall for them has something soothing, morally resolving, conclusive, perhaps even something mystical about it.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground [London: Bristol Classical Press, 1994], p. 9.) Prushevsky seems to have something in common with the Underground Man, though his rebellion has taken on a different form.
17. to keep himself going until a still-faraway death: Late one evening the suicidal narrator of Dostoevsky’s The Dream of a Ridiculous Man sees a star that somehow inspires him with determination to kill himself that very night. Instead of killing himself, however, he falls asleep and dreams of being taken to a distant star or planet where people live in utopian harmony. Simply by telling them about life on earth, he corrupts the inhabitants of this world. As in The Foundation Pit, there is a link between the motif of utopia and that of suicide. Dostoevsky an
d Platonov both see something deathly in any utopian project.
18. You should reinforce yourself with physical culture: An April 1930 decree declared the development of physical culture to be a matter of State importance. Slogans of the time include: “Sport without class content is a dangerous amusement”; “Sport is not an aim in itself, but a means in the proletarian class struggle”; and “Physical culture nurtures an inexorable will toward victory.” (Platonov, Kotlovan, p. 149.)
19. Safronov looked at the people around him: The name Safronov is derived from the Greek sofron (“prudent,” “judicious,” “sensible”). It may be significant that the first vowel has changed—as if Safronov’s good sense has become distorted.
20. various potions and vials for the reinforcement of health and the development of activism: During the first months of 1930 three tonics were advertised with surprising frequency in the main Soviet newspapers. One was called “Spermin-pharmakon,” another “Spermol,” and the name of the third, “Sekar fluid” (after the French scientist Brown-Sequard [1817–94], on whose researches this preparation was based), was followed by the Latin words “Extractum testiculorum.” The (supposedly) active ingredient of all three tonics was an extract of the sperm glands of various animals. No other tonics were widely advertised at this time, so it is certainly one of these that Pashkin is taking. (Natalya Duzhina, “Vymysel, osnovannyi na real’nosti,” [in Voprosy literatury 2 2008], p. 95.)
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