My heart is all over the place and my chest seems about to burst. Morning brought another quail but that was all we bagged. What a bounteous land! No firewood, no animals, no birds, no berries. Not a drop of water.
1 September 1936
Day off. Today is International Youth Day. There’s no difference here between working days and holidays.
Khodzko in the Third Section is phoning everywhere, looking for me so that he can order me to Phalanx 11, evidently to conduct a review meeting. No peace even on your day off.
2 September 1936
One day is so much like another it could drive you nuts. There’s no way to vary them. Even Divisional Commander Inyushkin wouldn’t mind getting away. Goes to Potseluika for his rheumatism.
The day is as empty as the Torricelli vacuum. Everybody just loafs about but I can’t. What’s the point? There is none. It’s nice that the weather is good, makes things seem less awful.
Sapozhnikov from GHQ is secretly living in the company to observe what goes on. Let’s see what he has to say after lunching in one of his own subsections.
We’re preparing for winter and there is not enough work to go round. Phalanxes moved from one place to another, finishing off what’s left. If they don’t let me leave in November I’ll have to go all the way, take off on holiday and not come back. What a life!!! Khrenkov isn’t bothering to ask for leave, evidently thinking he’ll be off when it all ends. Or so I would like to think.
6 September 1936
This is supposed to be a day off, but they’ve organized a commanders’ training day. What does that involve? Adjutant Kamushkin reads out the first exercise from the marksmanship textbook and that’s it. I could have read it for myself, better than him too.
Borisov, in vowing that we will work even better, says, ‘We will complete the Second Track, there’s just two months left, and then we’ll all see.’
It transpires that Borisov has no qualifications either. Kamushkin is another autodidact. Here, in his own words, he tells us all how much he knows and just how keen he is to work:
‘This training day caught me out, I hadn’t prepared for it. I’m self-taught, so I can’t teach courses properly.’
You just wonder how people at that level can lead anyone, and how they have the cheek to pretend to teach a course. They review the deployment of the company’s 5 Platoon, and appoint me to 1 Platoon.
Political Instructor Sergeyev quips, ‘Chistyakov to the west, closer to Moscow!’
I answer, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get back to Moscow. How about you?’
Kamushkin interjects, ‘I’ve been working five years in the camps and would like to go back to Leningrad, but there’s no way I would leave.’
He evidently does the bare minimum, without enthusiasm, not thinking, just slogging away. His time is passing by pointlessly, and so be it. He has no aspirations and it seems that, in addition, he has a court conviction, which he has to work off, holding him back.
Kamushkin now has little time for Gridin: ‘He did nothing at all to train the commanders, and Khrenkov hasn’t been seen at company HQ for the past three months.’
The two-day gathering was supposed to have us burning with enthusiasm, but somehow we never caught fire. They needed to give us a quick shot of indoctrination before they wrapped up, to stop us thinking about nothing but how soon we could leave, so they decided on a training session. I went out with Lavrov in the evening in search of quail, but didn’t see a single one. Kozhedub, one of the guards who’s a zek, got drunk in Bureya with Chechulin, an operations sergeant, and lost his rifle.
7 September 1936
I am gradually handing the platoon over to Nikolenko. We go to Phalanx 11. Nikolenko tells me about Lilin. He had a zek guard, Borisov, who was a thief. Lilin knew and covered up for him. One time Borisov brought him a whole bucketful of eggs, 200–300 of them, and puts them under Lilin’s table. ‘Lilin was drinking and everything. He gave some to me. I asked where they came from. He answered, “Just eat them. ‘Where’, indeed!” I asked Borisov and he said he had nicked them. Lilin issued an order that Borisov was not to be given fatigue duties other than special assignments outside the camp. Lilin himself swapped his old boots for new ones from the storeroom. Plug and I knew what he was up to but didn’t denounce him.’
8 September 1936
I’m far away in Kaganovichi now, out of the way of the top brass. Brench is accompanying me as political instructor and is not at all happy. It’s a bit rich, they’ve promoted the political instructor of 1 Platoon and Divisional Commander Inyushkin to ‘inspector’ (whatever that means), and demoted him. He’s probably offended about it. He’s conceited enough for that.
They’ve given me a strip of land, like a disgraced vassal. It’s 80 km from Pozdeyevka to Zavitaya. There’s no point in despairing, I need to think of something. Well, I could at least get them to take out the area to the bridge between Tur and Troyebratka. Acting Platoon Commander Kravets is displeased. He has been in command of this platoon for two years, under the title ‘acting’ for the whole time. He wants to write a letter resigning as of i January 1937. They’ve dumped me in a new place with no accommodation, no fuel, nothing, and nobody gives a damn. Sort it out yourself! I have chest pains, an expectation of bad news. I’m sick at heart, bitter. I’ve been lumbered with Phalanx 11 again. Khodzko of the Third Section has withdrawn the guards from ten prisoners sentenced under Article 59 to ten years. They are effectively released. Run for it, villains!
The way I understand it is, the workers here don’t need to be under guard, so with less responsibility for me it should be easier, but as long as you don’t mess up, Petrovich! I want the days to pass quickly, the sooner we reach October the better. And then the matter will come to a head, one way or the other.
I sometimes picture Moscow so vividly it gives me a headache.
12 September 1936
It’s my day off, but what use is that if there’s nothing to do with it!
Zaborsky came, we played billiards, sang, that was it.
13 and 14 September 1936
I spend the night at Phalanx 11. It’s a foul situation but the guards are resigned to it. Thus are people’s wishes stifled, their aspirations reduced to nothing.
Platoon Commander Vasiliev, a Muscovite, wanted to get out, hit the bottle, and was fired after serving ten days in the cells. He must be so disappointed!
Uncertain situation. One day everything seems to suggest we’ll be finished in November, the next it looks like we’re going to be here all winter. I am comforting myself with the hope that I am just about to be discharged. I got the top brass to reduce the platoon’s area of responsibility by 15 km down to Phalanx 28.
15 September 1936
I got a good rest after a sleepless night. Thoughts invade my head. Here’s one: the volunteers employed as armed guards choose to come and live here and are not depressed by the absence of anything human, cultural, artistic, literary, sporting, technical, and so on. They are not at all burdened by their complete mediocrity. They are not interested in society, and have a petty bourgeois outlook on life. ‘A samovar and a canary in a cage’ is happiness.
It’s awful, but can it really be true that my only salvation is self-annihilation? Can I live with that?
I don’t feel good about admitting that I have lived with that thought for over a year.
And the future? What does Political Adviser Khrenkov mean when he says, ‘Soon I will be sitting on a bench doing nothing’?
16–19 September 1936
It is just impossible to get things sorted out here at BAM.
I go round the phalanxes. I walked 50 km to Phalanx 9, from 9 to 11, and to the platoon in Kaganovichi. It’s wet: rain, sludge. I have cramp in my leg and an ache in my right arm. No chance of getting dry or warm. I expect shortly to go mad.
A group escape from Phalanx 11. Girenko either let them out to gather nuts, or, in his words, lost his head, and six people have done a runner. In Pha
lanx 35, four zeks have disappeared. It beggars belief. I still cannot imagine why anyone would assign me to the Armed Guards Unit.
Gave courses at Phalanx 3 as well as at 11. Told them off.
As I’m walking down the track, a sandpiper takes off from the quarry: bang! Dead.
I go to pick it up – a teal flies out: bang! Dead. Right, I’ll be having game soup.
I sleep with the guards for five nights, without taking my clothes off. Adjutant Kamushkin and Kalashnikov arrive. I go to meet them at the station. I report to Kamushkin; he shakes hands first, to my surprise, and doesn’t lecture me about the escapees. Some big chiefs are due and we need to go out along the track. We talk about hunting and boots. There are hunting boots in the retail store. I ask Kamushkin to get me a pair. He replies that he’d only do that sort of thing for me. All a bit baffling. Anyway, who cares, I want those boots.
Another 25 km on foot. My feet haven’t dried out yet. There’s nowhere to rest, either. That’s my life, may it burn in hell. Now Political Instructor Novikov has returned from Moscow.
Oddly enough, the man says he doesn’t want to live there. Why on earth not? He says everything is too expensive. But people do manage to live in Moscow, and everyone else, or at least most of us, would like to. He says a non-Party member can just resign quite easily.
We’ll bear that in mind. I must get through October somehow. Freedom freedom!!!! Autumn is all around. Already autumn gilds the maples, birch leaves come cascading down and, like a carpet, deck the pathway.’§§§§§§ A pleasant, warm autumn day with a pungent aroma of rotting leaves. There’s a sense of well-being and serenity, but . . . This is only a moment, an instant. I could find peace if I resigned. Could it be? Will I really not be allowed to resign? I wander over the hills with a rifle and remember hunting in autumn in the countryside. Joy, only fleeting, but so welcome. My tormented soul floundering.
Perhaps I’ll feel calmer after I settle into my new quarters. I’ll be able to forget everything when I’m on my own, do some painting, do some writing. It’s my day off, but there’s no way to enjoy it. What sort of a day off can you have when there’s nowhere to go apart from your guards unit accommodation and a railway track. The food’s bloody awful too. Come on, project, end!
20 September 1936
Something isn’t right. In a month’s time it’s the anniversary of the October Revolution, in a month’s time we’re supposed to hand over the project, but no one is making any preparations. There’s just a dozy, unbroken silence. It’s like a stagnant pond covered in slime with nothing good visible underneath. Makarova is the zek leader of Phalanx 35. In every phalanx she has been in charge of there has been nothing but trouble. I wonder what effect all this ‘re-education through labour’ has had on her.
The rulebook is just a fence separating us from the real world. We need to tear one or two boards out to get through to reality.
21 September 1936
I would so like to be writing that this is the end. The end of this record of my stint at BAM. But the days still go by, cluttering my mind up with escapes, robberies, knifings. I walk the 18 km to Phalanx 11. The weariness from all this trekking every day is getting to me. My body feels drained. At Phalanx 11: more joy, an escape. I join the search, having completed my course on the rules of shooting. On the way I hop on a train carrying ballast and ride it as far as Kaganovichi.
Adjutant Kamushkin is at the platoon. The atmosphere thaws gradually. He is the first to mention the boots, informing me that, ‘The retail shop wouldn’t let us have them, but I’ve ordered fourteen pairs and will keep a pair especially for you.’
The 97 baggage train has been ransacked. When I arrive there is nowhere to relax – I’m in with the guards.
22 September 1936
A new day greets me with rain and cold.
Yesterday I told the guards about the seasons, and night and day. They don’t know these things. In the evening I went with Soldatov to the puddle people here call a lake. I gave one duck a fright but that was all. With every day that passes I recall life in Moscow in greater and more torturous detail. The wet weather turns my thoughts to boots, but there’s no way of getting new ones.
Come on, November! Come on, discharge! I give a talk about the international situation. The guards’ and commanders’ wives are present. I’m received with the usual illiteracy and indifference to politics. Philistines, philistines! I just want to stay at home without anyone summoning or bothering me. The trains are going to the west. The 1 rumbles by, the passengers counting the kilometres and hours to Moscow. I steel myself against the pain.
23 and 24 September 1936
After lunch, went to spend my day off in Zavitaya. There’s a canteen there where you can get a decent meal. Rain and sludge. I’m wearing boots that don’t function as boots, with more holes than leather. The water leaks in and my health leaks out.
I’m called in to the Third Section by Khodzko and we have a heart-to-heart. It kicks off with the observation that the weather is abominable and everyone is feeling the same way.
We begin with the escape of Gershevich [illegible] from Phalanx 35, move on to how I’m feeling, then we talk about hunting.
‘So, how are you feeling?’
‘Not good, Comrade Chief!’
I tell him about my profession and how I view the local commanders:
‘They are not concerned about being so poor at everything. Neither the political instructors nor the commanders are up to the job, and if a unit is holding together, it is only out of fear. How can a political instructor be expected to give a literary reading or a talk on a general subject when Brench, Sergeyev, Mikhailov and many others are barely literate themselves?
‘I’ve had a couple of days of rest, though that’s only relative, of course. I’ve been able to relax a bit.’
Khodzko consoles me, ‘We’ll all be leaving soon, Comrade Chistyakov!’
We’ve been hearing that for a while now. What I am surprised to hear is that, with the need to finish the Second Track in the near future, there is more slipshod making-do than proper work going on.
25 and 26 September 1936
The days are as empty as a blank sheet of paper. I seem to be descending into a state of idiocy.
I have no thoughts, as if all that is human about me is atrophying. I am content to be fed whenever and whatever, to sleep, get yelled at, and expect nothing more. I am almost an animal, not a human being.
Brench, my political instructor, continues to live somewhere else and do something else. He’s working on some task he’s been given by the Party Committee. What about the work he’s supposed to be doing here?
I ask him, ‘Are you going to move here to the platoon?’
He replies, ‘No, what’s the point if we’re only here for a month?’
By Order No. 423 of Company Commander Gridin, various bonuses are to be paid to those working in the phalanxes. Will that include prisoners working as guards? No, because guards don’t have any quotas to exceed, and so on. They have not been paid for two months and have nothing to smoke. They are reduced to begging tobacco off the ‘soldiers of the track’. I walked 32 km to high-security Phalanx 35 and back, gave a talk about the end of the project and tested their knowledge.
I can barely walk. What’s it all for, I ask myself. Is the pay good? Is the work interesting? Is it hell! Brench turned up for a day, no activities, no political talks. Great job he’s doing.
27-29 September 1936
I give a talk to the guards and their wives about the speeches of Hitler and Voroshilov.
There’s a hullabaloo at Phalanx 9. A sheep has been slaughtered, two rifles and a greatcoat and some other stuff stolen. Galkin orders the culprits to be sent to Zavitaya but they refuse to go. There’s three days of turmoil over that. I’m at Phalanx
II because of escapes. Nochayev, a hired guard, doesn’t want to work any more, releases zeks, refuses to go on sentry duty or escort a contingent. The rest of them just w
ant to get away from 11.
Kardanets announces, ‘I’m going out searching for escapees and won’t be back for fifteen days. I’ll live in one of the villages.’ Vasilchenko and Gribenko say, ‘It’s time they sent someone to relieve us and we went to an open phalanx for a rest.’
I’m trudging 40–50 km every day. I came upon some game, took a shot at them and got four jackdaws straight off.
30 September 1936
It’s our day off, but we are not idle. I thought yesterday I might go hunting but Golubev appeared.
Phalanx HQ, ten-day Stakhanov shock-work campaign declared, etc. Lavrov and the head of combat training came by. What hospitality could I offer? How do you spend a day off when it’s your first day in rented rooms and nothing has been tidied up or organized? We went for a walk in the hills. It was russet-brown all around. It’s a shambles at the top, in the section. Golubev is being dismissed. Yershov already dismissed.
Golubev travelled the track and reported everything was fine everywhere, but the section Plan was only 80 per cent fulfilled. Yershov had failed to organize a Stakhanov movement. Romanov, the foreman at Phalanx 35, was also working indifferently, delaying planned output, failing to assign brigades to specific objectives.
Makarova, the phalanx leader, comes in and reports, ‘I sent for the foreman, but he said, “I’m already in bed.”’
Golubev didn’t say a word about completing the project by the October holiday, commenting only that it was important to have a gift for the anniversary. There’s almost no work being done but no evidence that the end is in sight. Tinkering.
1 and 2 October 1936
Some bastard is spreading false rumours. We received a report that a group of 14 zeks had escaped, supposedly while being escorted from Phalanx 11 to 47. It turns out to be completely groundless, total nonsense. We’re surrounded by people trying to wreck, disrupt, goad. We spend all night on our feet searching for escapees. I wrote to Adjutant Kamushkin to say that, following his example, I had conducted a first commanders’ day. I don’t know how he’ll take that. I wrote another letter of resignation. I also wrote upstairs to Krylov. Something to GHQ [illegible].
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