The camp is just 100 m away. There is no sentry post here. You can go out as often as you like and wherever you like, but you are answerable for escapes. How the hell do you deal with this situation? It really would be better to have a place of my own, apart from the team. I could go there and do as I pleased. There’s nothing and nowhere to help you relax. In the summer we’ll be able to go up into the hills, but that’s a long time from now.
9 February 1936
The thaw is continuing. That’s good.
I saddle up the demon and can’t get him to budge, then suddenly he takes off at a gallop and there’s no holding him. I ride to Phalanx 13 and back in a complete lather. I tried riding without stirrups, which helped, but I have to cling on on the turns if I don’t want to be sent flying.
Sun, sun! What joy you bring us! How life-giving are your rays! We can sometimes even forget our misfortunes. How much lovelier you would be in freedom, or have people there forgotten you? I have always thought of you as a god. You give life to the natural world, reconcile people and make them kinder and happier. You inspire and bring us joy. You are the wellspring of life and my only happiness. Many of my closest friends have stopped writing to me. They have forgotten me, but you do not. Every morning and evening you sustain my soul with beauty. During the day, when your radiant disc is high in the sky, I am in love with you. Your warm, caressing rays play on my cheek and gladden me and I am alive again and filled with energy.
Phalanx 14 are leaving, which is fine, only I am supposed to go and see that they’re sent on their way. I send my deputy. He needs practice.
One thought gives me no peace of mind. I used to know things, have aspirations, be useful. I was a teacher, a textbook for other people. Now, though, the pages of that book have been scribbled over. What am I? Why do I exist? I have no idea. Not even the Red Army riflemen guarding the bridge respect me. They are right, of course, you can’t go over without a pass, but they could at least treat me like an officer.
I live, lost out here in the Far East, and feel like a white crow. I worry that if I go back to civilian life I will be seen as primitive and backward and will have to face up to the full extent of my own nonentity.
You could, of course, though I do not intend to, work in the Armed Guards Unit if there were enough guards, if they had rights, if they were respected, and provided with at least the necessities. But I would prefer to endure privation than serve at BAM. What quality of service can you expect when the political instructor doesn’t want to be here either, and he may not be alone. And to cap it all, you have to defer to a prisoner who is the leader of a phalanx. That’s just great, really delightful.
Evening. The moon rises, a blood-red disc. The smoke between me and the moon turns crimson. Trains thunder past. People travel freely. When will we be able to travel like that?
I give the lads a pep talk. What’s next? There’s dinner, but after that? After that you just sit there going out of your mind. Nothing to read, nowhere to go, no one to talk to or joke with. You have to keep yourself to yourself, because the guards are there with you.
10 February 1936
What a day! It began last night. No sooner was I in bed than I was called to the intercom. At 1 a.m., again. At 3 a.m., I had to go to the station. At 6 a.m., I had to go back again. Completely knackered. Thank you, Commissar Kaganovich. One man can cause so many people so much trouble. It’s good that it’s getting warmer. It’s hard to write anything, my head is so muddled. I yawn till my cheekbones ache. It’s dire when the top brass try to be clever, innovate, have bright ideas, and leave us to carry the can. There are major redeployments in the pipeline. I’ll get sent off somewhere. It’s far cosier in the army, they have facilities, culture, they care about people and make sure they develop. Progress. The New Soviet Man. But here? Everybody knows we are stuck in the back of beyond and that everything is worse than backward. I would so like an answer to a question I know is ridiculous: why is everything here such a shambles?! Why are we here at all and what, in the end, is the point of this? Why are we not being looked after properly? Why does everyone look down on us? And how am I different, for better or worse, from the masses (i.e., everybody else)?
11 February 1936
Making a little joke out of it, just barely hinting, the political adviser mentions mentoring. Incentivization. If a phalanx fulfils more of the Plan, the platoon commander gets paid more. I’m not swallowing that bait. How could I be a Stakhanovite when I have no wish to work at BAM for more than a year? If you stand out then you will never get away. In any well-ordered project you find some disorder, but we have more disorder than order. They put pressure on the guards and hint at incentivization, but make no attempt to address the real problem. There are all these miscellaneous ‘educators’ in the Education and Culture Unit slobbing about, getting drunk and generally behaving scandalously, and the guards are expected to cover for the job they are not doing.
The phalanx leaders have it in for the guards. Our superiors are supposedly rehabilitating zeks and we’re supposed to just put up with it. Why doesn’t someone put those people in their place and stop them undermining our authority! If you dismissed me now without a month’s notice I’d agree to it in a flash. In fact, I’d agree to donate a month’s pay on top. What sort of work can you do in that kind of mood? All the same, I wonder what they do with the educated people who would be capable of managing a phalanx, teaching them and so on.
12 February 1936
The sun is coming into its own. In the afternoon the ice on the roof starts melting and dripping. Your spirits rise, but the joy only serves to emphasize the blackness. I still haven’t found the way to get myself dismissed. Through the window I can see them marking out, preparing to dismantle something and build the bridge. Axes thud, bringing so many memories of freedom to mind.
Today is a holiday in Moscow. I would be riding the tram home, planning my evening.
I went out to Territory 14 yesterday, to lecture the lads on the origins of the world and of man. Some bits of it they understood, some bits they didn’t. They are so poorly educated. It was 20 km on foot but no one seems to think there is anything wrong with that. I was really angry with the Third Section, because of the way they let the phalanx leader take charge. If he feels like it, he may do something for the guards: if he doesn’t, he won’t. Starikova refuses to fit out a wagon for the Armed Guards Unit and that’s the end of the discussion. She rants and raves. When the political instructor comes back we’ll find out what’s been going on and lodge a complaint.
13 February 1936
The hills, the taiga, my thoughts, all exist in a kind of vacuum. Not only that, but a vacuum with constraints. There is another world abroad. I know it exists, but I can’t get there.
14 February 1936
A reshuffle, but not without something in it for me. I take charge of 5 Platoon. That’s another 10 km for me to walk.
What a shambles! There’s no discipline whatsoever. On the way back I drop in on Bureya Bridge Special Camp. They live like human beings. Their office is warm, clean, bright and spacious. They have electricity and radio. It’s as spacious as an apartment and, pinned up on the wall, an official chart introducing the head of the guards, the political adviser, and the filing clerk. Compare my conditions. It’s best not to dwell on it and upset myself.
A right mess at Kulustai. An engine driver went through a stop signal and our own driver then crashed into a shunting engine. That’s two locomotives for the scrapyard, one shunting engine and three wagons. Those complete bastards! They already have a conviction for transport sabotage and still they got drunk, the wretches, while in charge of a locomotive. They’re in for a rude awakening.
Morozov, Morozov! He’s a proper commissioner, and humane with it. They’re going to go after Starikova.
Got a message there was a parcel for me. I wondered for a long time who could have sent it and what could be in it. I also have another pleasant enough surprise: a telegram asking me to
come and collect a bonus. What for? I don’t know and it seems odd, but I must be doing something right and am climbing the ladder. It’s exactly what I don’t want, but what can you do?
None of the old platoon commanders or political instructors are getting a bonus, but I’ve been singled out. Odd. And little consolation. We are short of guards. What can I do about that? Lilin is freezing me out.
15 February 1936
Not even the devil knows what is going on now.
The top brass have gone off to swear in a new company. The phalanxes are leaving, taking guards with them. It’s pandemonium, to put it mildly. I go to HQ to collect my bonus. 250 rubles. I don’t know what it’s for but think I can guess. I am an improvement on many of the platoon commanders and they may have me in their sights for promotion. If they knew what I think I’m sure they would be really delighted. I collected my parcel at the same time. Held off opening it for ages, trying to guess what was inside and, when I did open it . . . apples and tangerines! What a hoot. Who would have guessed?
16 February 1936
Light snow. A grey day. To get through it I go out to Phalanx 13. Out of sight, out of mind. Savchuk, the clerk from HQ, walks by my side. He reminisces about Leningrad, the White Sea Canal, cooking the books. He tells me if it hadn’t been for cooking the books and ammonal explosive there would be no White Sea Canal.
We have no vehicles and the zeks are not allowed to give political lectures. There are knowledgeable lads among them who would be more effective than the paid help, but what can you do? It isn’t allowed.
I really do need to move to a place of my own. At least I might get a proper night’s sleep, and might be able to get my thoughts together.
17 February 1936
Again the sun, but still the east wind cold.
And from my thoughts there is no rest.
It seems they can’t be silenced or suppressed.
Oh, thinking, thinking. Something That I cannot stop, cannot control.
Moscow, the factory, the sound of hammers and the screech of saws,
Machinery clattering, the workshop full of dust.
A ray of sunshine makes it through the double glazing,
Plays lovingly upon the wall.
And people come to me. I go to them.
Here work is in full swing, progressing in the sweat.
And when the closing door shuts me off from the workshop,
I breathe so deep a sigh, a sigh so free . . .
And see a face before me.
The clatter of trams, the noise of cars.
Horns, sirens, signals showing red,
Feet tramping pavements,
People hastening about their business.
They all have cares, they all have lives.
One to the theatre, others to a meeting,
And I, among them, hurrying to the stadium.
How many me’s? Perhaps a million?
The city’s life, so various,
So tedious, so gregarious.
You sometimes wish the ground would swallow you.
You sometimes feel in Moscow like merging with this bustling crowd,
Joining the roundelay, plunging in head first.
But here? In Siberia? In the taiga?
Such stillness all around, such peace and all of that.
The only sound the tapping of a woodpecker, the chattering of crows.
I am alone and friendless, a troubled soul.
Wandering, like Berendey, a spirit of the forest, paths untrodden.
Bridges, depots, second tracks, a railway.
Words and rhetoric.
All needed, like the pathos.
No fraudulence, no ammonal
Would mean no grand White Sea Canal,
That’s what they say.
Without the fraud and ammonal And all that we poor suckers lack You could forget your Second Track.
Bitter cold, the hills, the criminal underworld,
Shovels and picks and ammonal,
Orders, escape reports, and everywhere a shambles,
All mixed up. Confusion, endless tangles,
Till no one has a clue what’s going on.
You cannot tell when you are right or if you’re wrong,
Or sometimes even what you ought to do.
Comrades, you should not just forget about the people, about commanders.
You say we are the ones in charge,
Are representing Soviet power,
But that is not where happiness lies.
We are small fry, nothing special.
Just give us what we really need, some warmth, a clean shirt, A private space, away from all the calves and pigs.
It’s all we ask.
We claim no right to butter and white bread.
We claim no right to films and theatres.
The only thing we really want is the right to a good night’s sleep,
And perhaps a day off to call our own.
Although actually what we really want Is to shuck off BAM and get back home.
18 February 1936
Commanders’ training day. Taking charge of a platoon requires many qualities, of which the most essential is to be as thick as two short planks. It’s also useful to be able to turn up at a station at 5 a.m. and wait for the express to come through, which it will, but without stopping, so what you actually need to do is go a kilometre down the track from the signal and sit out in the open at the bottom of a hill. The more straightforward alternative is to trudge 40 km on foot.
We give the commanders a pep talk. They listen, but do they believe what they are being told? Will they take it on board? The devil only knows. The human soul is a dark forest. You are instructing away and suddenly ask yourself: if all the commanders are here, what will happen if there’s an incident in their squad? Still, the physical exercise has an effect. I go to bed and wonder whether I’ll be called to the intercom or something else. It’s impossible to get a good night’s sleep with all that going on in my head. I wish the redeployment of phalanxes was over and everything would settle down! Snow gradually building up. The weather and my mood, as overcast as each other.
19 February 1936
I would like to write a lot, put all my thoughts into this pen, but nothing comes out. Decide to clear my mind by riding out to Phalanx 10. My amazing steed gallops the whole way. The squad commander’s grey can’t keep up. The lads sing well in the evening. I want to join them but don’t like to muscle in on it. The anxiety over escapes is getting to me. Any time now the zeks will start running away.
On top of everything else, we have 250 kilos of high explosive ammonal stored in the corridor. What if it explodes? We should move it somewhere safe and post a sentry but don’t have the manpower. The store at Phalanx 30 was robbed. Thieving is the only thing they know how to do.
20 February 1936
Day off. Cold. Rest.
21 February 1936
Empty. I edit the wall newspaper. Romanenko, a platoon commander, is just plain illiterate. That’s the kind of person they need for BAM, someone who would be useless anywhere else. In civilian life I would be ashamed to admit that this was a platoon commander, ashamed not for him, but for myself. I’ve caught a chill somewhere and have a sore back. The notes of the accordion tug at my heartstrings. It’s nauseating. I could look at the map of the Far East Region, go to Bureya and say, ‘Send me there,’ but it’s not that easy to survive even a single winter here.
In the state system a human being’s individuality doesn’t matter. To them you are just ‘a specialist’ and they don’t give a damn about your aspirations.
22 February 1936
Went off into the forest this morning to forget it all, at least for a time. Trekked along the Great Siberian Highway and came upon a couple of grouse but didn’t have time to shoot.
I didn’t want to go back. Luckily there were no escapes. I really need to get somewhere separate from the guards. To be able to relax in the evenings at least. Our bridg
e is at a standstill. Of 220 zeks only 80 came out to work, the rest just stayed in their huts. They get the same meal rations as those who work, so, you might well ask, why would they bother to work? The company commander knows but does nothing about it. Does it trouble me more than everyone else?
I’m sure people will say, ‘Why are you always writing about yourself? You should write about the life of the prisoners.’ I will write about the zeks, of course, but only when I’ve got my own life sorted and can think straight. When I’ve at least got the bare essentials. Then I can start taking an interest in the lives of others, even marvel at the project and the building work as I might survey it from a train, especially a train taking me back home. When I’m no longer a worker at BAM.
The political instructor likes riding to visit the squads. He gets round them in two or three days. I have no idea what’s in it for him.
Order received at 10 p.m.: hand over the platoon and leave. Something is brewing. We’ll get through it somehow. At BAM you aren’t allowed to, but can, do anything.
23 February 1936
Red Army Day. I hand over 5 Platoon and prepare 4 for handover. Something is in the air. I’ll be somewhere, somehow. I don’t like moving, carting my belongings around, settling in. I’ll even miss 4 Platoon a bit. They weren’t such a bad lot.
24 February 1936
Went to Arkhara to hand over the platoon.
25 and 26 February 1936
In Zavitaya. Spent a sleepless night in a truck. I feel doped all day. The boss calls me in and appoints me commander of a division. I’ve drawn the short straw, I’ll have to serve in this army for decades now, like a serf. I sit with Savchuk and listen to the gramophone. It’s emotionally unsettling.
I receive my letter of appointment. I have to start forming a divisional HQ. I have a meeting with the men from Moscow. Someone has a keen ear and long tongue. The company commander alludes to my demob yearnings. It feels strange, after the taiga, to be in an actual town. I’ll have to get used to it. I’m not feeling quite right in the head. Must be the sleepless nights.
The Day Will Pass Away Page 9