“Yes.”
“And may have made technological progress in that period?”
“Yes. And if it did—”
“And if it did—Why did the world’s knowledge and technological state actually go backward after that? Well,” continued Adams, “what with civil wars, physical destruction, the necessary burning of books saturated with capitalistic thinking, the suppression of some kinds of knowledge in order to prevent dangerous insurrections, and so on, a good deal of theoretical knowledge was lost. Though people were able to make some things simply by copying the old ones, we lost some secrets. It is probably just as well that we did, for some of these were terribly destructive.”
“But hasn’t there been any progress in more than a century of Wonworld?”
“Entre-nous, practically none.”
“Why not?”
“That, Comrade Uldanov, is a question I have never been able to answer.”
One of Peter’s first visits with Adams was to the offices of the New Truth. There were two newspapers published in Moscow—the New Truth, in the morning, and the Evening Revelation in the afternoon. The Revelation contained almost nothing but cartoons and comic strips. Its existence was necessary, Adams explained, to interest the Proletarians, who almost never bought the New Truth.
Though nominally only the morning newspaper of Moscow, the New Truth was in fact the master newspaper of Wonworld. While other cities had a morning and an evening newspaper of their own, each with its own title, every newspaper in Wonworld carried the same editorials every day, all telegraphed out from the offices of the New Truth. This applied also to about two-thirds of the news items. The other news items referred to local events. Peter found even here, however, by making comparisons of his own in the files, that the identical story would be repeated in, say, the Moscow New Truth, the Berlin Tageblatt, the London Times, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune under local date lines. (Most of these names and newspapers had originally been bourgeois in origin; the Wonworld government had simply expropriated and continued them as communist publications.) The names and addresses of the persons involved would be changed, as well as the locale, but the story otherwise would be exactly the same.
Peter asked about this, and Adams referred the answer to Orlov. Orlov was a round-faced, bland little man. In addition to being editor of the New Truth, he was a member of the Politburo and head of the entire Wonworld Press Department.
“Naturally,” said Orlov, “readers are most interested in what is happening to people in their own localities.”
“But precisely the same thing,” protested Peter, “couldn’t have happened on the same day to different people with different names in different places.”
Orlov and Adams laughed.
“Are these stories deliberately invented?” asked Peter.
“If you stop to think, Comrade Uldanov,” said Orlov, “you will see that, for propaganda purposes, invented stories have every advantage over real ones. There is no objection to basing a story on a real incident, but even in that case it will almost always be found to require processing. It will have to be changed from the real event to make it more dramatic, or to point a clearer moral. Suppose nothing real happens on a given day, for example, to point a good communist moral? What would you do then, comrade, if you were editor?”
“But what about these stories of workers whose output is five or ten times as great as that of the average worker?” asked Peter. “These are true, aren’t they? You show their pictures, and I have even heard some of them make speeches about their work, and urge their fellow workers on.”
Orlov and Adams laughed again.
“Stop and think a minute, comrade,” said Orlov. “Do you really think it would be possible for a bricklayer, say, to lay ten times as many bricks in a day as the average bricklayer?”
“But why—?” Peter began.
“To point out that some worker laid 35 per cent more bricks than the average would be interesting,” Orlov went on, “but hardly inspiring. Our idea is to make the workers thoroughly ashamed of their present production rate. This is precisely what our system of creating special prodigies does. Stakhanovite heroes, worker giants, we call them. And we also accomplish another purpose. Workers are not likely to think they have a right to express any dissatisfaction with their lot when you make them feel that they are turning out only 10 or 20 per cent of their potential output.”
“But what about B-42? You made a motion picture of him laying bricks. I saw that. It was amazing.”
“B-42 is a professional motion picture actor,” Orlov said. “He never laid a brick in his life.”
“An actor?”
“Of course,” said Orlov. “You don’t suppose that we could get a bricklayer to make as eloquent a production speech as that!”
“But he seemed to know what he was talking about—”
“The whole dialogue was written by professional writers.”
“But I actually saw him laying bricks.”
“Are you sure? When the bricks were actually being laid all you saw was a picture of a man up to the chest. Those pictures were taken of a professional bricklayer dressed up exactly the same. They alternated with pictures of the actor from the chest up. As his voice was going on all the time you thought it must be he laying the bricks.”
“But the bricks were certainly being laid fast.”
“Of course they were. Do you know how long you actually saw bricks being laid in that picture? In three separated takes of less than one minute each. No bricklayer on earth could keep up that speed for more than a few minutes. You don’t really think that he could keep it up for the full ten-hour day?”
“The final thing you ought to tell him,” Adams added, “is that the bricklaying camera shots were taken in fast motion.”
“That picture has had a tremendous effect,” said Orlov solemnly. “Tremendous!”
He explained in detail to Peter how the editorials and news items in the New Truth were printed simultaneously in hundreds of cities and towns throughout Wonworld.
“It is a wonderful and inspiring thing,” he said, “when one thinks that everybody in the world is simultaneously reading the same editorial, imbibing the same views, reaching precisely the same conclusions. What harmony!”
“But why is there, in effect,” Peter asked, “only one newspaper in Wonworld?”
“If there were any other newspaper,” explained Orlov patiently, “and it agreed with the New Truth, it would be unnecessary and superfluous, while if it disagreed, it would be pernicious. Under capitalism, as I understand, there were many competing newspapers. What was the result? Wherever they said substantially the same thing, they were hiring many reporters or editors where they only needed one. That illustrates the enormous wastefulness of competition. Socialism has achieved enormous overhead newspaper economies under unification and mass production.”
“But suppose,” said Peter, “that the old capitalist newspapers reported different things from each other, or expressed different views of them?”
“When they did,” Orlov replied, “the results were even worse. The public became confused and ended by believing none of them.”
Peter was troubled by this logic but could not put his finger on the flaw. “I think we should impress upon Comrade Uldanov,” said Adams, “the vital co-ordinating function of the New Truth.”
“Yes,” said Orlov, “the New Truth is the mouthpiece of Won-world. It is here that the Party members, the Protectors and the people everywhere learn each day what to do and what to think. Of course the major policies are laid down by the Politburo as a whole; I merely carry them out. It is for the Politburo to decide, for example, whether we shall say that the production record is very bad, in order to exhort and sting everyone to greater output; or whether we shall say that it is very good, in order to show how well the regime is doing and to emphasize the blessings of living under it.”
“These decisions are sometimes very difficult,”
Adams put in. “We often find that a zigzag course is best. For example, if goods are shoddy and fall apart, or if too many size nine shoes are made and not enough size eight, or if people cannot get enough to eat, there may be grumbling and complaints—or silent dissatisfaction. We must make sure that this unrest does not turn against the regime itself.”
“Therefore,” said Orlov, “we must lead the complaints. We must ourselves pick scapegoats to denounce and punish.”
“This is known,” added Adams, “as communist self-criticism.’*
“It is in the columns of the New Truth/’ Orlov resumed, “that everyone learns what to think of every new book or play.”
“One thing I do not understand, Your Highness,” said Peter. “The government publishes all the books, and would not publish any book that it did not approve. And it puts on all the plays. Yet I sometimes see a very unfavorable review of a book or a play.”
“That might happen for all sorts of reasons,” Orlov explained. “Most high officials do not see a play, for example, until after it has been put on. They may then find it unamusing, or even deviationist. And if the public does not go to see it, we must decide whether we shall denounce the play or denounce the public. And with books, again, the party line may have changed between the time the book was ordered and the day of publication. Or a reviewer—provided he outranks the author or the publisher’s reader who passed on the book—may detect some deviation that escaped the publisher’s eye. All of which,” Orlov concluded, smiling, “explains why we have to change the head of our publishing house so often.”
“Publishing is the most hazardous occupation in Wonworld,”
Adams explained.
“Another important function of the New Truth,” continued Orlov, “is to decide who are the heroes and who are the villains. There must be heroes to inspire the people to greater achievement, greater conformity to the party line, and greater relentlessness in tracking down deviationists; and there must be villains as scapegoats and as examples to be shunned. We on he newspaper decide who they are.”
“But when you decide, for example,” asked Peter, “whether to say that the production of shoes, say, is very good or very bad, or who is responsible for it, why don’t you just find out the real facts and say whatever happens to be the truth?”
Orlov looked bewildered.
Adams came to the rescue. “Comrade Uldanov,” he explained, “has still not yet learned to make the neo-Marxian logic an integral part of his thinking. As I have already pointed out to you”—he turned to Peter—“the truth is whatever belief works successfully; it is whatever statement has the best results. The truth is whatever is good for communism.”
Chapter 11
PETER moved quickly into the Inner Circle. While Bolshekov was still away, he was made a member of the Party. Only about one in every ten Protectors, he learned, was so honored.
“I must act quickly,” was the only explanation Stalenin gave him.
A week later he became one of the 140 members of the Central Committee of the Party. His promotion was the fastest in the annals of Wonworld. Articles about him appeared in the New Truth and were reprinted everywhere. He was credited with all sorts of prodigies he had never performed. Nowhere did he find it once mentioned that he was Stalenin’s son.
With Adams he inspected innumerable government bureaus. His principal impression was of mountains of paper work. “Every pin produced in Wonworld is recorded,” he was proudly told. It certainly was. At least in triplicate, and sometimes through endless carbon copies. Peter wondered whether the time and expense of recording the pins weren’t greater than that of making them.
At the headquarters of the Bureau of State Security—the secret police—Peter walked past miles of steel cabinets. A complete dossier, he found, was kept about every person in Wonworld. There was a vast amount of cross-filing. In addition to every person’s serial number, name if any, annual photograph, finger prints, biography, family connections if any, occupation, friends and acquaintances, there was also a notation of what he could be accused of in an emergency.
“Just to keep everybody in line,” explained Kilashov. Kilashov was head of the secret police and a member of the Politburo. “This emergency accusation,” he said, “isn’t necessarily the one used when an accusation has to be made. But it’s often a great time saver.”
“What evidence have you,” Peter asked, “that these accusations are true?”
Kilashov smiled grimly. “There is no better evidence than a man’s own confession, and we know how to get that.”
Adams took Peter on an inspection tour of shops and stores. There were not many. People often had to come long distances to get to them. “This means a great economy in distribution costs,” he was told. He invariably found fewer and poorer goods for sale in the shops themselves than in the shop windows. The latter were mainly samples, he learned, not yet turned out in quantity—things scheduled for the next Five-Year Plan.
No item could be bought, moreover, except with a specific ration coupon for that particular kind of item. There were no proletarian ration tickets for specialties. There were merely bread ration tickets for bread, chicken ration tickets for chicken, shoe ration tickets for shoes....
“Suppose a man breaks a shoelace?” Peter asked.
“Each pair of shoes,” Adams explained, “is sold with an extra pair of laces.” “And if he breaks even this second pair—?” “He can get a third pair of laces by applying for a special coupon and swearing out an affidavit that the breakage was an accident. His application for this special coupon, however, is recorded against him on his passport, his labor book, and in the secret police dossiers.”
“Doesn’t that procedure rather discourage applications for special shoelace coupons?” “It certainly does. And it discourages the breaking of shoelaces, dishes, or anything else.”
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 do
ne 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.
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