Time Will Run Back

by Henry Hazlitt

  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.

  Chapter 12

  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 th
ings 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...”

  The record went on for about fifteen minutes. It ended in a rousing appeal for more work, more loyalty, more austerity, and more sacrifices.

  “I have marked this Record X,” Stalenin said. “It is to be broadcast immediately on the entire Wonworld network... if I should get a stroke that incapacitates me. Here is the announcement to precede it.” He handed Peter a script. It began by declaring that His Supremacy, Comrade Stalenin, No. 1 Citizen and Leader and Dictator of Wonworld, had a most important announcement to make....

  “And here,” said Stalenin, more solemnly, “is Record Z. It is to be broadcast immediately... in the event of my death. You would have to act quickly, before Bolshekov got the news.”

  He put it on. It announced that his doctors had warned Stalenin that a continuation of his work would destroy his health; that he was therefore resigning as Wonworld Dictator, and that he had appointed Peter Uldanov to succeed him, under the title of Stalenin II. He urged all his supporters and every citizen of Wonworld, including every member of the Politburo, to rally round Stalenin II. He was glad to announce, he continued, that he had the loyal support of Bolshekov in this plan, and that it was, in fact, Bolshekov who had originally suggested to him that Peter Uldanov would be the ideal successor. “The next voice you hear,” concluded the record, “will be that of your new Dictator. The Dictator has abdicated; long live the Dictator!”

  “Did Bolshekov really suggest that?” Peter asked, astonished.

  Stalenin stared at him incredulously. “Of course not. That was put in to forestall any effort by him to unseat you.”

  Peter looked at him admiringly. “You think of everything.”

  Stalenin put the records back carefully in the drawer, locked it, and locked the safe. “Burn this combination into your memory,” he said to Peter. “You will be the only one to know it besides myself: 8—2—7—5...” He made Peter try it three times, first repeating the numbers to him as Peter turned the knob, then making Peter open the safe twice from memory. “Here is a duplicate key for the small safe drawer. Guard it with your life. I have left orders with Sergei that you are the first one, and the only one, to be notified in case either of these things happens to me. I think Sergei is trustworthy: I saved his mother from one of Bolshekov’s firing squads.

  “And now,” he continued, “about your living quarters. The only safe place for you to live is right in this building. I have had the apartment below mine prepared for your occupancy. One room is being soundproofed, like this one, and in that you may have a piano.”

  “That is wonderful of you, father—”

  Stalenin cut him short. “You are never to use it for more than an hour a day. The room will be ready within a week.”

  He took his pipe from his desk and began leisurely to fill it. “Tomorrow we have a hurdle to take. I am going to arrange your election to the Politburo. It may not be easy. The Politburo has to vote on it. You remember No. 7—Petrov? He is sixty nine; his health hasn’t been too good. I have persuaded him to hand in his resignation tomorrow on the promise that he can retire in grand style in the country. He is to propose you as his substitute. Of course he will vote for you. I will recommend that you be admitted only at the bottom—as No. 13. That means that everybody below Petrov would automatically be promoted one number. Counting mine, that ought to mean eight votes for you. And we can certainly count on Adams. Even Bolshekov may not think it good politics to vote against you....”

  Chapter 13

  HIS election to the Politburo had a mixed effect on Peter. Though he felt guilty about it because he had done nothing to earn it, the deference now paid to him increased his confidence, even in his talks with Bolshekov. He became bolder in his questions.

  “Though I have now inspected any number of factories and collective farms,” he said at their next meeting, “I am still not clear how our economic system as a whole works. For example, how do you decide—”

  “Very simply, No. 13,” cut in Bolshekov. There was heavily sarcastic emphasis on the No. 13. “We decide everything on communist principles. These principles were laid down by Karl Marx. The chief one is: From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.”

  “Does everybody in Won world have what he needs?”

  “Is that a hostile question?” asked Bolshekov sharply.

  “But from what I’ve seen—”

  “You’re interpreting Marx too literally. Of course everybody can’t have everything he needs unless we first collectively produce enough for everybody’s needs. That’s why we have to send so many Social Unreliables to concentration camps and shoot the rest—to force them to produce up to their abilities. Unless people produce up to their full ability they can’t have everything they need. But until then, of course, we try to distribute equally what there is. The great principle is that of no economic class differences. The great principle is that of equal distribution.”

  “How do you get equal distribution?”

  “Simple. First of all, the Commissar of Production—that’s me—determines how many calories people need to live on, how many yards of clothing they need, how many square feet of shelter, and how much and what kind of amusement. Then he gives orders for all that to be produced. His subordinates assign quotas of production to particular industries. Their subordinates assign quotas to particular factories. Their subordinates assign quotas to particular workmen. And then each industry, factory, manager and workman, down the line, is held responsible for producing its or his quota.”

  “Suppose these quotas happen to be assigned unfairly?”

  “Remember, I am in charge. That never happens.”

  “But suppose your subordinates make mistakes? Suppose they try to be fair, but just don’t know what a particular industry, factory, or workman is capable of producing?”

  “Of course we can’t entirely eliminate mistake
s. But if a subordinate makes a serious mistake, he is sent to a concentration camp—or shot. That reduces mistakes to a minimum.”

  Peter had seen this system in operation. He was still not convinced of its efficiency.

  “Are you always sure,” he persisted, “that you are shooting the right man? For example, suppose one factory—not maliciously, or intentionally, but because somebody has made an honest mistake—is assigned twice as big a quota as it can possibly fulfill, and a second factory only half as much as it could easily fulfill? Even if you shoot the workers in the first factory for falling below their production quota, the Workers in the second factory will still be producing less than their best. Or, if they exceed a quota which has been fixed too low, they will be applauded when they do not deserve applause.”

  “Even if you are a member of the Politburo, No. 13—in fact, precisely because you are now a responsible member of the Politburo—you will have to guard your tongue. Such things do not happen under our system.”

  “My questions are purely hypothetical,” Peter hastened to say. “I’m just asking them to learn how you meet these problems—I must know how to answer subversive critics.”

  There was just a touch of sarcasm in Peter’s voice. He smiled slyly. He was learning how to handle himself with Bolshekov.

  “We have several ways of dealing with this problem,” said Bolshekov, less hostilely. “The quotas are usually based on the previous production record of each industry or factory or workman—”

  “But that might mean, No. 2, that some factories and workmen were penalized for their own good production record in the past while other factories and workmen were rewarded for their bad past production records—”

  “We are also guided by averages in assigning the production quotas. For example, if nail factories on the average turn out a thousand nails per man per—”

  “But suppose one factory, with old machinery, turns out only 500 nails per man per—whatever period—while another factory, with new machinery, turns out 1500 nails per man in the same period? Then the average rate of the two factories is, say, 1000 nails per man. But it isn’t the individual worker’s or the individual manager’s fault in the old factory—”