Institute of Revolutionary Transformation, Gagarinsky Lane, Moscow.
20 August 1918
*
The day began in the IRT with the clanging of Mr Kobelev’s huge copper gong – one of the few possessions of his that still remained in the house – at six each morning. How delicious those summer dawns were, the morning sun through the poplar trees dancing on the ceiling of my bedroom. I dressed rapidly; everything was quicker now – no dreary lacing of stays, no elaborate hair arrangements. All the female members of the commune – Sonya Kobelev, the sisters Marina and Vera Getler and I – wore our hair short and had exchanged our corsets and underpinnings for loose cotton dresses, and all of us were amazed at the difference it made. Whereas before we were hardly aware of our bodies and gave them no thought, except to feel uncomfortable, now suddenly I noticed the muscles sliding under the skin of my arms, I felt the air on my legs and the sweat trickling down my torso on hot days. And if I was careful, and worked hard, and concentrated on such matters as the muscles in my legs, the fresh morning air, and so on, then I found I could keep my mind off dark thoughts for whole hours at a time.
At six-thirty we sat down to eat breakfast in the airy, high-ceilinged dining room with its large windows giving onto the garden and listened while one of the members read something suitable – Gorky, perhaps – a relief, as the food was best not dwelt on. It was usually kasha, buckwheat porridge, or perhaps blondinka, as we called millet porridge, with salt fish. Even in the summer, when supplies were relatively plentiful, there was already the sensation of dread before you had started your bowl . . . the last spoonful was drawing near. You took smaller and smaller bites and you savoured the feeling of food on your tongue, in your mouth; you never swallowed too quickly. You found different ways to eat your portion; a slice of bread could make a whole plateful of tiny balls of dough. I remembered little Liza’s words, years before – ‘I don’t like to eat, I prefer to be hungry’ – and I understood her better now. The only way to overcome hunger was to welcome it in.
At the time we were brisk with ourselves. Communists are too tough to whine about hunger, we said. We joked about the Moscow Slimming Diet and then we changed the subject. But all these years later, I still have what my little grandsons call ‘the tins’ – the hoard of tinned and dry foods that I keep piled up to the ceiling under the stairs. My daughter Sophy tells me I am absurd, but I can’t help it. If you’ve once been hungry like that, you never quite feel safe again.
After we had scraped our bowls clean, if it was not a working day, we sat in the garden and debated how to run the commune. We set it up as if we were establishing a small independent state. We had a Customs House, run by two Customs Officials to whom all members handed over any food they came by. A Finance Ministry controlled most of the money the members might earn, apart from a small amount to be kept by individuals. A Triumvirate of Food Commissars was in charge of buying and bartering the supplies for the month. Small articles such as soap, paper, pencils, hairpins, and so on were in theory available from the Shop Without a Clerk, which was in a cupboard in the meeting room; a small red book was provided for members to note down what they had taken, and we relied – in this as in all our arrangements – on the communards’ good faith. All these positions were rotated weekly, and those who were not assigned any that week were expected to show solidarity with their labouring comrades. For example, while the Ironing Brigade was at work, volunteers might entertain them with songs or funny anecdotes.
Almost despite myself, I loved it all . . . so many jokes, so many passionate debates. We pinned up reproductions of non-objective pictures we admired. We painted slogans on the walls: ‘Come on, Live Communally!’ in yellow letters on the red wallpaper in the hall, and in the study a quote from Gerrard Winstanley: ‘Live together, Eate together, Show it all abroade’. In Slavkin’s workshop, which he set up in the empty drawing room, we nailed a banner along one wall: ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains.’ (‘And that hammer . . . I’m sure I left it here somewhere,’ added Pasha, of course.) The men’s dormitory was Mr Kobelev’s bedroom, while at first the female members of the commune had the small, separate bedrooms at the back of the house. Then Dr Marina (as we called her, although she was still in training) disagreed with this arrangement.
‘Why do women need privacy? Only to hoard some kind of private property, some frippery; or to indulge in private fantasies instead of working; or perhaps to facilitate sexual relations, which would be the most offensive reason of all . . . We women, more than any men, need to rid ourselves of the insidious reactionary voice in our head – look pretty, be charming, please everyone! A collective life will help us to be free of it. We assert our right to a communal women’s dormitory. They are only partition walls between the bedrooms; I propose we demolish them.’
Tall and thin with short dark hair, constantly smoking and grave as a Spanish hidalgo, Dr Marina was the most militant of all of us. She had already spent three years struggling against the casual chauvinism of her male colleagues, and no battle was too small to fight.
‘Well said!’ approved Slavkin. ‘Everyone, share your thoughts on this suggestion.’
‘Let’s hope the house shows a proper Revolutionary spirit and doesn’t collapse on us all,’ ventured Pasha.
‘They’re such nice little bedrooms,’ Vera said wistfully.
She could barely have chosen a more outrageous description, in our terms.
‘Nice!’
‘Perhaps you mean cosy!’
‘Verochka, you should be ashamed of yourself! Explain to your sister that we’re in the middle of a Revolution, Doctor—’
‘Let’s vote on it – who’s for the women’s dormitory?’
The motion was carried unanimously, even the blushing Vera putting up her hand, and the following week the three back bedrooms were knocked into one. Sonya, Dr Marina, Vera and I moved in together, and it did mean that there was little time for vanity – and even less for introspection. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I still felt desolate – although what right did I have when Nikita had been so honest with me from the beginning? But at least, day by day, my ego was being eroded – ‘dragged out and crushed’, as our Manifesto said. I was changing, little by little, and the pain it caused me was only natural. It was a sacrifice worth making for our cause.
‘The children seem to be turning everything upside down, Miss Gerty!’ Anna Vladimirovna kept saying querulously. ‘In my day, Father would have sent them to bed with no supper.’
‘Well, that’s more or less what happens these days too.’
‘Nichevo strashnovo,’ Vera soothed them. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ Vera, who wasn’t remotely interested in politics, was probably the most generous and selfless communard of all of us. Kind and plump, with shiny dark hair and huge blue eyes, she often helped me with the old ladies, who adored her. ‘Let’s listen to the gramophone, shall we?’
‘If you say so, my dear . . .’
Dr Marina and Vera had brought the gramophone with them; in the evenings we played ‘Sensation Rag’ and Marion Harris singing ‘I ain’t got nobody’, and danced on the lawn. Pasha asked his aunt to dance, and Nikita led out a shy and delighted Mamzelle. I hung back as each song ended, hating myself for minding that he never asked me. Later, under the warm night sky, we lay on the grass, told stories and read poems. The one I remember best was the Futurist poet Khlebnikov’s ‘Incantation by Laughter’, which, read aloud, always reduced us to helpless snorting heaps:
O laugh it out, you laughsters!
O laugh it up, you laughers!
So they laugh with laughters, so they laugherise delaughly.
O laugh it up belaughably!
O the laughingstock of the laughed-upon – the laugh of belaughed laughsters!
O laugh it out roundlaughingly, the laugh of laughed-at laughians!
Laugherino, laugherino,
Laughify, laughicate, laugholets, laugholets,
Laughikins,
laughikins,
O laugh it out, you laughsters!
O laugh it up, you laughters!
*
‘Miss Freely,’ said Miss Clegg, striding into the hallway one hot August day. ‘I made a promise to your poor parents. I cannot abuse their trust. I simply will not allow you to remain in this house a moment longer.’
It was some months since I had last seen Miss Clegg. Her appearance, however – solid and weathered, still topped by her small crocheted cap – had scarcely changed. I admired her for that. There were not many who had stayed so unbowed by the hardships of the Revolution.
‘Miss Clegg, how kind of you to think of my parents, and me. But there is no reason to feel concerned, I assure you. I make a reasonable living by giving English lessons, and I’m among friends. I’ve lived here for over four years now – I feel at home.’
Her eyes flickered over our ‘Red Corner’ with its slogan and portraits of Marx and Engels.
‘Miss Freely, you know I am not one to mince my words. You are living in a house of ill repute. Your name is connected with the most depraved behaviour. There are those at St Andrew’s who would refuse you entrance to the hostel, but I have used what little influence I have to persuade the Reverend Brown that we must offer you this charity.’
‘Please thank the Reverend for me and tell him that I’m in no need of assistance.’ I smiled at her and attempted to be firm. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have a meeting to attend.’
‘Miss Freely! I will not be sent away like this—’
‘Well – then perhaps you’d like to stay for our evening meeting? You will see that there is nothing remotely depraved about it.’
It was perhaps unfortunate that she attended the session at which we set up the Commissariat for Clothing.
‘Comrades!’ began Slavkin, once we had all gathered. ‘Good, all here, and we have with us also an acquaintance of Comrade Freely’s. Welcome, Comrade Clegg.’ He nodded towards Miss Clegg, who was perched on a chair in the corner, her expression a wonderful mixture of excitement and disgust. ‘Now we must discuss the matter of the collectivisation of our clothing. We have already decided to pool all our possessions for the common good. We have handed over our income and our valuables. How can we, therefore, allow one member to walk about in an astrakhan coat, while another shivers in a cotton jacket?’ As he talked, he loped about on his long, knobbly, Bactrian legs.
‘Quite right,’ said Dr Marina. ‘Clothes only provide fuel for vanity. We cannot have them creating inequality between us.’
‘I don’t see anyone in an astrakhan,’ commented Pasha.
‘Pasha, you’re a . . . a Galliffet,’ Sonya said, frowning at her brother (the latest term of abuse, it was a reference to the French general who suppressed the Paris Commune). ‘A wool coat, then. You know what he means.’
‘I am not! I just don’t think this idea is radical enough. Why do we need clothes at all? It’s warm at the moment, clothes only get dirty and need washing, as well as promoting inequality. I mean, even collectivised clothes – give one man a smock, and he’ll look like a wastrel; give the same smock to another and he’ll wear it like a hero,’ he ran on. ‘Everyone knows that. Only the naked body can be truly equal.’
‘I’ll second that,’ Volodya, the ex-soldier drawled, speaking past the soggy cigarette stub that lived in the corner of his mouth. ‘Clothes off, everyone!’ He stood up and took off his jacket with a flourish.
Miss Clegg made a noise in her throat, something like ‘Oglf.’
‘Well, in that sense nudity wouldn’t be equal either, would it? Some people are better made than others, there’s no escaping that,’ snapped Fyodor. ‘We need clothes for protection and warmth. Enough of this oafishness.’
Even then, of course, fault lines existed within the commune. Volodya, just back from the trenches and highly suspicious of anything that smelt of refinement or intellectual snobbishness, did not blend happily with Fyodor’s rather prissy emphasis on ‘Revolutionary culture’ (that is, neatness, politeness and meticulous self-discipline), and Fyodor disapproved of Pasha’s jokes.
‘Don’t be so hasty!’ Pasha retorted. ‘Haven’t you heard of the nudist movement these days? They dance with only a loin cloth, or a fig leaf, or something. I’m sorry to say I haven’t seen it yet. Anyway, I think some of the other members agree with me. Didn’t I hear Comrade Clegg expressing an interest?’
Miss Clegg, chins quivering, stood up. ‘I didn’t come here to be insulted. This is the last time I offer the hand of friendship to you, Gertrude Freely.’
‘Oh Miss Clegg, please don’t be offended. It was a joke, that’s all. Pasha, come and apologise, won’t you? She didn’t understand . . .’
But she had gone, rushing out of the house, clutching her bag to her chest. I went back into the meeting, where we decided on the finer details of laundry and mending, and established the Commissariat, to start work with immediate effect, the first Underwear Commissar being Pasha himself, who promised to work hard and absolve himself of the crime of ruining my reputation for once and for all at St Andrew’s Hostel for Governesses.
‘I couldn’t let that nasty woman take you away, could I, Gerty?’ said Pasha, not particularly repentant.
*
However much I resisted her attempts to interfere, I was still full of gratitude to Miss Clegg for bringing me to Gagarinsky Lane, for unwittingly allowing me the chance to participate in the task of auto-transformation. Mankind, we believed at the IRT, was only a half-designed product that had taken shape by accident rather than through conscious choices. In many ways we were not so different from the millions who seek self-improvement today – the spiritual questers, and those in therapy, and the readers of self-help literature; like them, we were hopeful that with self-awareness human beings are capable of living together in harmony.
‘It may sound an insurmountable task,’ Slavkin said, ‘but the whole history of man is really a long, slow war against our base instincts. A couple of centuries ago it was acceptable to burn witches and to hang pigs for heresy. In this context you see a large part of the road has already been travelled . . .’
Pasha, who was fascinated by Freud, argued for a psychological approach, and from the beginning all of us were expected to write accounts of our Revolutionary Development (a few of which I still have in my dusty cardboard boxes) – the steps that had led us towards the commune, that we read aloud to the other members. He also suggested episodes of ‘group criticism’, at which people were encouraged to express any emotional difficulties they might be experiencing as a result of our communal life. We attempted to solve disagreements in this way.
Fyodor saw simple discipline as the key. The Revolution, as he perceived it, was chiefly a matter of efficient organisation and training. He and Nikita clashed over this view.
‘I can’t help it, Fedya,’ said Nikita. ‘Your picture of the future fills me with dread.’
‘You’re too emotional about it,’ snapped Fyodor. He was rather cherubic, with very red, full lips. ‘Behind all your talk of technology is a sentimentalist.’
Nikita, in fact, was an unusual mixture of the pragmatic and the idealist. He understood better than any of us that from now on, in human history, man would be formed by machines as much as the other way around. Man would have extraordinary powers – the power to fly like a bird or swim in the deepest oceans, the power to throw up mountains, even blast out of the shell of the Earth’s atmosphere – thanks to the advance of technology. His focus, therefore, was on designing the machines that would reshape man’s psychology.
Towards the end of 1917, he had begun work on his first psychotechnological device, the Propaganda Machine. This ‘audio-visual sensory chamber that aimed to convert an individual’s mindset from bourgeois to Revolutionary in a single, twenty-minute session’, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica later described it, was no more than a rusty upside-down grain hopper from the back stables bolted onto the Kobelevs’ open carriage. Nikita ins
ulated the hopper with thick cotton wadding and covered it with canvas, all but the funnel, which peeked out at the top. We coated it in what should have been Revolutionary red paint, but dried a sickly salmon pink, so from the outside the whole thing resembled nothing so much as a colossal, plumply upholstered bosom on wheels.
To enter, one mounted the steps of the carriage and squeezed through a door cut in the side of the hopper. The benches had been removed and instead there was a single large chair, heavily padded, with a footstool, while the curving wall in front was entirely covered by a white screen. The patient seated himself in the chair and was strapped in around the waist, legs and arms. A sizeable helmet was lowered to restrict his viewing solely to the screen. Then the door was closed and the anti-bourgeois vaccination began: a series of short films and flashing images, accompanied by a soundtrack played on a gramophone lodged at the top of the funnel. The images were very large and close; the sound was slightly distorted by the acoustics within the hopper, and rather loud. Meanwhile canisters of different, powerful smells were discharged into the hopper; the temperature was raised by means of several gas lamps and, at certain moments in the session, the whole construction could be violently and unexpectedly pushed and joggled from the outside. We hoped the combination of these effects would produce an indelible impression on the brain. Night after night, we pooled our ideas and experimented with the Propaganda Machine settings – the right images, the snatches of speech, the timing – searching for the irresistible coup de foudre, the touchpaper to light people’s hearts.
What will people think of our efforts now? As I write this, in 1974, the dreary banner of realpolitik with its stench of atom bombs and oil fumes seems almost to have smothered any talk of a better world. Of course there are my friends in the Women’s Reading Groups and the anti-racist organisations; there are the demos and the strikers. But outside a few places like our little radical republic of Hackney – after Vietnam and Watergate, Hungary and Prague, hasn’t idealism been universally dismissed as a shorthand for naivety and self-indulgence? Graham Greene expressed it succinctly in The Quiet American: ‘God save us always from the innocent and the good.’ This cold-war generation will probably say that we were impractical and unrealistic – ‘not living in the real world’, as the patronising phrase goes.
The Vanishing Futurist Page 6