Settled weather, four days with no rain. I put Political Instructor Sergeyev in his place in front of Golodnyak and Ogurtsov:
‘You’re an informer, are you?’
He answered that he was only replying to Inyushkin, who had asked why I had not gone out as ordered.
Who makes the laws that specify you get three days off in the month, ought to work eighteen hours a day, and get paid pocket money like a little child? What sort of republic is this?
5 August 1936
Back, inevitably, to Phalanx 11. A contingent of fifty prisoners is being sent to Phalanx 12. It should be quieter now, but we’ll see. There’s no escort. I take two armed guards and a dog-handler guard as a guide, and arm myself to the teeth: truncheon, revolver, a pistol in my pocket. The wretches get as far as Tyukan and want to stop. Very well, if you really want to spend the night without a campfire and with the mosquitoes. It’s a cold night, but fortunately a moon lights it. Three guards rotate on sentry duty. I don’t sleep as there’s no one to relieve me. The guards and guide each get two hours’ rest.
Not a single train stops. It’s risky to take them by train to Zavitaya at night anyway, they’ll jump out on the uphill stretches. I have plenty to think over. Zeks sing their prison camp songs, which aren’t devoid of poetry and realism. They’re typically anti-Soviet.
A Chinaman is asked, ‘What’s it like in a Russian prison camp?’ He replies, ‘Beds good for some, floors bad for some.’††††††
‘I’ll tell you about my red letter days,’ one sings, listing all the miseries of life in the camp: a bullet from the guards, the cold, the bad gruel, and the hard labour from sunrise to sunset.
I brought the contingent to Zavitaya. They want to buy bread, they want to buy rolls, they want to buy this and that. I treat them humanely, let them make their purchases. They buy two half-litres of vodka. Well, it’s too late to stop them. They’ll make a fuss if I try to confiscate it, I’ll get it off them on the next stretch. The train takes us back beyond Tyukan to a place we can stop. One half-litre bottle goes flying out on to the embankment. I keep an eye open for the other, and when they start drinking from it I take it off them, and, after a struggle, empty it out and smash the bottle.
Bureya. It’s hot. They sit down near the station wailing, ‘Were thirsty! Water!’ Kingpin Borisov is the group leader. When we reach Malinovka he stops and the rest of the group stop too.
‘Hey, boss man, let us buy some booze, then I’ll keep moving!’
I relent, with the intention of moving the group on and then smashing Borisov’s vodka bottle. I put Grishitsky in charge, a gunsmith temporarily promoted to NKVD agent. They insist on walking by the river. All right, I think, wait till I’ve got you outside the village, then I’ll show you what hot is.
Greybeard Kostyuchenko throws his things down on the riverbank and insists: ‘Stop! Let us have a swim!’
I put a cartridge in the chamber and they move on. How quickly [illegible] load their pistols. Just wait! We reach the phalanx safely. When we get there they insist on bathing. I agree. The heat takes it out of you, especially after a night with no sleep. Everybody is drenched in sweat. It’s not just our throats that are dry but our stomachs too, and the dust rasps.
6 August 1936
That crook Dovbysh is up to something. The zeks bring him potatoes dug up from the plots of the hired workers and he accepts them. Aizenberg says Dovbysh may have taken a bribe to let the prisoners out. The food is consistently unspeakable. The meat is rotten, the macaroni musty. The top brass think only about themselves. Gridin got two extra rations from HQ, had some boots made for him, sold them when they didn’t fit and had a new pair made. Pakhomov and Burov helped. Pakhomov was caught with the boots at the market. Why does nobody care about the guards walking around in plimsolls, bootless, sleeping in attics, ragged?
Zek with pickaxe. BAM – the Second Track
Zek eating in the open. BAM – the Second Track
7 August 1936
Three escapes from the territory. Dovbysh bought a stolen watch, confiscated the money he’d paid and put the receipt in his pocket. Minkov passes on what Guard Zhusman said: ‘Some time I’m going to let them all go to the bathhouse, get boisterous, steal each other’s clothes and beat each other up.’
Platoon Commander Ogurtsov warns me, ‘Watch your back, stay alert! They want to put you on trial. Khrenkov is insisting, but Khodzko is wavering for and against you.’
What’s that about? Is Ogurtsov trying to encourage me to act conscientiously, or does he feel his position in the Party is insecure and wants to use me? People like Slenin never want to leave BAM: ‘What could I do? Thieve? Where would I go? No, I’m better off in the camps. Perhaps they’ll send me for accordion lessons.’
I received a circular from the Central Red Army Club, and once again it brought back, with devastating force, the reality of my life at BAM. Slenin wants to be nowhere else. His one aim in life is to learn the accordion. Since coming to the camp his singing has certainly improved.
They will be in raptures over people like Slenin: ‘The camps have given this man a new life, enabled him to find his vocation,’ and so on.
What vocation has BAM offered me? A career in crime? Despair has become a habit. My whole life in the camps is a tale of despair, and I’ve stopped believing that anything else is possible.
8 August 1936
Phalanx 11 has been moved back to its old location. It should be to the good to have them closer, but I will get more ‘talking to’ and threats. Lighting is to be installed somewhere at some point. The nights are dark and invite escapes. What are the top brass thinking, and what do they think with? Everything can always be blamed on the platoon commander.
The division is asking for character references on Devyatkin. I reply that we can’t help, we have no right to provide that sort of information.
‘Just let us have it!’
That proves the division does not know its own commanders.
I’m at Phalanx 11 till late evening; go to bed without supper, my entire body aching. Rain again. We saw no sign of summer, neither in terms of good weather nor of fruit and vegetables. What a life!
I want to play sport, to learn about radio, I want to work at my real profession, study, keep up with metals technology and try it out in practice. Live among educated people, go to the theatre and cinema, to lectures and museums and exhibitions. I want to sketch. Ride a motorbike, and then perhaps sell it and buy one of those catapault-launched gliders and fly.
Khrenkov and the maniacs like him are welcome to the Armed Guards Unit. There’s no end to the things I’d like to do. Is any of it possible here? No. Freedom will have to be won with blood, at the cost of my health, a chunk out of my life, and what I value most. By serving time, by committing crimes, those are the ways out of this unit. So far there doesn’t seem to be an alternative.
9, 10 and 11 August 1936
First at Phalanx 11, then at 6. At 11 there is no kitchen and no accommodation for the guards. Crockery is shared, and some of the prisoners are syphilitic. Another blessing from BAM. I travel to Phalanx 6 with the dog-handling instructor. He tells me about Political Adviser Zhila, who is marked by the same grotesque illiteracy. He mentions the ‘Chinese’ version of the ditty ‘Building Bricks’.‡‡‡‡‡‡ Recalls the ‘Chinese’ answer to ‘What’s it like in a Russian prison camp?’
Talking about early release moves us on to more serious matters. There is a telegram inviting applications from zeks who have served half their sentence. But what about us? I am classed as an employee and get 300 rubles, enjoy all the delights of life in the camps, am totally demoralized and deprived of everything that makes life worthwhile. Why am I treated differently from a zek?
12, 13, 14 and 15 August 1936
Back to the old routine, ours, of course. The early release scheme has had its effect on the zeks. We’ve had no escapes, but I feel no better. The sense of depression remains.
A
few scenes from recent days: our local top brass wrote to the Armed Guards HQ about me. Item: failed to report and remove Zhusman in a timely manner, resulting in escape of eight persons. Reluctant to work, guilty of sabotage, blah-blah-blah.
They were very confident they would get me put on trial, but the response surprised them: ‘Issue a reprimand and deal with the matter yourselves.’
Now they’re sulking. Even Khodzko is no longer talking to me. Gridin’s tsarist landowner-style pretensions and his would-be aristocratic bumptiousness emphasize his ignorance and uncouthness. He phones our HQ at 11 p.m.
‘Call Pakhomov to the phone! Get me some cigarettes!’
The pathetic bootlicker, trying to curry favour with his superiors, dashes about trying to satisfy this whim. Platoon Commander Zhusov is less than complimentary about Adjutant Kamushkin: ‘He’s a gossipy old woman, tut-tutting with Political Adviser Khrenkov and always about you, Comrade Commander. But they don’t seem very bright. There’s their answer and they’ve got their fingers burned.’
One row behind us in the theatre is Gridin, with his ears flapping. Today, 15 August, Khrenkov’s wife, bumping into us on her way to the canteen, spills the beans:
‘You should be flogged for that stuff you keep writing.’ Evidently I am a topic of conversation with her husband.
I’m doing geometry with Political Instructor Khomenko, and Inyushkin and the dog trainer are nearby. They go out to talk about the kind of commander I am. What’s his education like? Where is he from? What’s he doing at BAM?
When they come back in, the trainer says, ‘It’s good to have someone like that as a platoon commander.’
Khomenko adds, ‘BAM is no place for him.’
I wrote a letter to Krylov at GHQ. Let’s see how he responds.
16 August 1936
Rain, bringing with it even greater gloom in my soul. I go out to Phalanx 11 in the evening. Have dinner and sleep with the bedbugs. I’m waiting for something, but my thoughts invariably turn either to being allowed to resign, which would be ideal, or facing trial. By accepting imprisonment I can win freedom.
17 August 1936
I’m sitting with Divisional Commander Inyushkin. We get to talking about Gridin. Both Inyushkin and Political Instructor Sergeyev now have a low opinion of him, and of Political Adviser Khrenkov. They’re wondering when Khrenkov will be shipped off to you know where.
Inyushkin comments, ‘Gridin has been a bad influence on Khrenkov.’
Chekists in charge of the BAM camp and construction project. BAM – the Second Track
They said nothing before, fearing for their own skins. Party members! Khrenkov appears at the platoon at 10 or 11 in the morning and goes off at 2 for lunch. In the evening he sometimes puts in two or three hours. Nobody accuses him of sabotage or anything like that.
He’s a right idiot. Worked as a guard, resigned. Lived two months in Novo-Sibirsk, then came here and got taken on in the company as a commander. In the outside world he was evidently completely unemployable. People like that infuriate me and I feel nothing but disgust for them. I’m sad about my own life, but what can I do? A stretch in the camps seems the only way out. If they won’t let me resign, I’ll go off on leave and just not come back.
My pay only covers food.
18 August 1936
A miracle! We are moving to a six-day week and today is our first normal day off. I feel quite strange. I go on a trip ‘to the country’ with the head of combat training and lie down on the bank of a puddle locally referred to as a lake. Along the way we talk about resigning. We come to the conclusion that we can choose to serve here for the rest of time, or get ourselves convicted of something as a way out and get discharged. Logic suggests that, if you carry on waiting to be discharged, there’s no guarantee you ever will be. If you get a two to three year sentence and you’re then released, the problem is solved.
The sole ambition in life of the commanders here is to be a lieutenant at BAM. They have no aspirations or wish to leave. So they vegetate here. It’s life of a sort.
19 August 1936
Everything leads us back to talking about how much longer we will be here. They’ve started maintenance on the living quarters, so we’re here for the winter; they’ve sent an order for new uniforms, so we may be able to resign.
Paskevich reasons, ‘I’m a trade union member, so I expect an eight-hour working day. I’ll hang around till 4, but then it’s bye-bye.’
They’re not issuing any new boots as the project winds down. They’ll have to lay off 30 per cent of the workforce to avoid unnecessary expenditure. Presumably the same goes for the new uniforms. Not only do I not want one, I don’t even want to lay eyes on one. Just dismiss me.
I walk the 24 km from Phalanx 11 by night. In the darkness you trip over the sleepers, cursing everything and everyone. Nothing to eat from one morning to the next. Nothing to cook at the phalanx; they’ve gone out for food, will they bring anything back? Temporary, partial calm is interrupted by the intercom. There’s been a group escape from the isolation cells in Phalanx 11. We should shoot the occasional bastard as a warning, but instead we’re soft with them. Many of the phalanx leaders do damn all and leave all the work to the Armed Guards Unit. Gusarov, the deputy commander of 11, doesn’t even go out there. He just lies about, sleeping a lot.
20 August 1936
It’s a nice autumn day, but after the night’s rain the mud’s up to your ears. There’s some chitchat about the new uniforms. They’ll be black with blue collar tabs. Instead of army-style badges we’ve got round buttons and a cockade on the cap.
Will they try to keep us here and not let us resign? We’re to have boots with gaiters or leg wrappings. Real warriors. Look out, Moscow, here we come!!!
21 and 22 August 1936
Political Officer Borisov, a Muscovite, has just arrived at the Organization and Staffing Section and does not mince his words.
‘The project is to be completed by the 7 November holiday, and that’s when I submit my letter of resignation. We’ve not been mobilized into the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army but assigned to a project, so kindly let us go when it’s finished.’ There’s a meeting in the canteen about the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc. Golubev burbles some sort of nonsense. People who’ve gathered for lunch are just thinking, ‘Get it over with, will you?’
Orlov, reading from a note, blurts out, ‘May they be punished by the arm of the law!’
Everybody laughs, evidently thinking, ‘And may you be punished by the arm of the Lord God!’
Sergeyev also blathers a lot of nonsense, trying hard to look intelligent by opening his eyes wide and using a special tone of voice. Brench was making a note of something but, apparently not knowing where to start, stood up and sat down again.
Not one rousing speech! None of them can carry the masses with them, inspire them, know how to guide the listener’s mind. Anyway, is it really possible to direct the masses?
23-30 August 1936
Strange goings-on in the division. There are no lights, so the top brass are nowhere to be seen in the evenings. That’s regarded as an acceptable state of affairs. They imprison zeks in Wagon 98. One goes for the guards with a knife. They bundle him out and Butayev gets heavy with him, and not quietly. They twist his arms behind his back and he howls like a wild animal and rants at them. You just have to put up with it, you may be fuming but your job is to re-educate them, after all, and the law doesn’t say you can swear at them. Besides, there is no law protecting us. Even if they punch you, you are supposed to show understanding.
At HQ the clerks arrange a booze-up. The top brass do nothing, just deprive them of some nominal credits.
Orders from the Armed Guards GHQ are becoming highly original. All items classified in the army regulations as state property are to be taken back from commanders. We have to return our mattresses, so what are we supposed to sleep on when there is nothing to make a new one out of and you can’t buy them?
E
verybody is waiting for the end. The top brass are being less officious and trying exhortation. The head of section, when he meets me on the station platform, asks suspiciously what my profession is. Interesting. I have to bear in mind I may do a bunk from the Unit. In the office Moskvin reprimands me and wants to know if I was ever in the Party. Why was I expelled?
‘You think you are unfairly treated here, but you cause shortcomings in the work quotas and staff training. You are politically more educated than many of our commanders,’ and so on.
Brench, hanging around in the division one evening, does nothing but boast to the guards about his watch:
‘How much do you think it cost?’
‘150 rubles!’
‘No, you try and buy one! It’ll set you back 300.’
You contemplate this representative of the political commanders and think it’s a waste of effort trying to make anything of him. They don’t want to live in the countryside where they would have to work hard, they’re happy in the army. They are, after all, taught something and get paid for doing nothing. They have no ambition. Anyway, what more does he need, and what more could he do?
Sapozhnikov, chief of staff at GHQ, comes to explain that the Organization and Staffing Section is not an official body and community activity is entirely voluntary. Our best and brightest agree but keep quiet about the new approach. Where their superiors go, they follow. They were incapable of showing initiative and finding that out for themselves. They are feckless and treacherous.
31 August 1936
Commanders had half a day shooting practice. After lunch I go hunting with Zaborsky. We are going through open country covered with undergrowth and not a single mature tree. I hear the quail crying, and decide to spend a few rounds on them. They are the only game. I kill the first to take off. It’s getting dark and we need somewhere to spend the night. We find a haystack. The nights are already cold. There’s nothing to make a fire from, no branches, no kindling. Only Korean birch. It reminds me of paintings of hunting scenes in Russia.
The Day Will Pass Away Page 18