Apricot Jam: And Other Stories

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Ustinov saw his raised hand, but he wasn’t ready to risk letting this scrawny young upstart speak: He was so young, and who knew what he might blurt out? One general spoke, then another; one factory manager, then another. After each speaker Yemtsov would raise his hand (though he was still trembling inside). Ustinov looked questioningly into his eyes, and then Yemtsov sensed how his eyes had lit up, sending a clear signal to Ustinov. And Ustinov understood and accepted that signal. He gave him the floor.

  Yemtsov jumped to his feet and began speaking in a voice filled with energy. He was also relying on his experience with the galvanizing shop: yes, there were times when you had to declare something done that was not yet done. And the business with the Kursk relays as well: we can make up for the failure in time, but we have to have our red column! Though he knew that the system of selection of moving targets had not yet been perfected, it would be perfected! It would—by the law of the great Impetus!

  He tossed his head haughtily and assured the room full of generals in ringing tones: “We have already solved the problem of high-altitude target selection. In a very short time, we will be making the equipment to do it.”

  Everyone in the room froze, mouths half agape.

  Should he stop at this? No, his victory wasn’t yet complete. Now, in a very concerned but also haughty tone, he added: “Actually, we have been working on another problem, one that concerns us all: We want to create a system for identifying low-flying targets. Every now and then the Americans reduce their altitude ...”

  The meeting was stunned. During the break Ustinov grinned approvingly at him: “Well, you didn’t disgrace the defense industries.” Another prominent general took Yemtsov by the arm (Yemtsov couldn’t understand why he had come to him, but later he learned that the general’s influence was on the wane and he was trying to strengthen his position) and led him to a group of even higher-ranking officers: “So, the two of us have been talking ...”

  And so it was all very satisfying but also terrifying: What if we can’t pull it off? Indeed, it was quite possible that we might not be able to pull it off . . . We might not be able to, but for the Great Impetus! That summer he had to repeat at another top-level meeting (the heads of the military-industrial complex were burning with impatience) that everything was going according to plan—yet the equipment still had not been developed.

  In a case like this you wouldn’t just destroy your career, you’d go to prison . . .

  But he had Borunov’s example to follow: be quicker and sharper than your subordinates; don’t allow them to take the initiative (but pick up anything useful from them at once). Use psychology on your subordinates: those blue columns are useful for all sorts of situations! He already felt that he was a ruthless industrialist and an inspired manager. From time to time a car would come during the night to fetch him from home: “The conveyer’s broken down!” or something of the sort, and he would rush back to the factory. (Now they were telling fabulous stories about him as well.) He believed that miracles could be worked. It would seem that the normal laws of nature would not allow a process like this simply to be ordered up in advance; the whole project might fall apart. But there was also a psychological law: “Push on regardless!”

  So they kept pushing. For the fourth quarter of that year, the factory was awarded the banner of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, and the manager was made a Hero of Socialist Labor.

  After that he went on soaring higher and higher. (He could see his inexorable triumph reflected in the eyes of any factory girl—and can we advance very far without feeling this sort of pride? He had some aristocratic blood in his veins, after all, and it showed in the way he held his head high.) His factory, now renamed “Tezar” for security reasons, expanded as more and more buildings were added and thousands of new workers hired. It produced UHF generators, radar transmitters, and the complex power supplies for them; other of his divisions were producing wave guides for antennas and calculating systems for radar sets. (The signals sent out by radar had to be of varying frequency so that the enemy could not detect them and take preventive measures.) The first anti-missile defense system was under construction. The “Moscow umbrella” had already been set up: 140 complexes for each of the four corners of the earth (an attack over the North Pole was particularly anticipated) to detect the flight of a missile from a thousand kilometers away. The complexes were arranged in three belts so that the inner ones would pick up anything missed by the outer ones. A thousand targets could be processed simultaneously. And later, computers were used to assign targets for each missile. (With this “umbrella,” we had left the Americans behind!)

  Still later came multiple warheads, and here we again caught up to the Americans. We learned to use radar signals to distinguish warheads from dummy missiles.

  Yemtsov was heaped with rewards. And he lost count of the number of these high-level meetings he attended, the places he had flown, and the high-ceilinged offices he visited where, as they say, all the doors were open to him (not every door, of course). He even served on a commission editing the decrees of the Central Committee. And how many of those grim faces with their flabby cheeks, double chins, expressionless eyes, with lips that barely opened when it was time to utter a few phrases—how many of them reluctantly changed their innately hostile expression when they faced Yemtsov? (They found this defense plant manager alien: he was too young, too slender, and too lively; he had those eyes that glowed with inspiration and an aristocratic forehead.) Dmitry Fyodorovich Ustinov, though, had simply fallen in love with Yemtsov.

  (There was a time, however, when Yemtsov’s career ran onto the rocks. One of his close friends, a scientist and electronics specialist initiated into many of our secrets, went to Europe for a conference—and never returned! He rebelled against our System! Yemtsov was placed on the list of those not allowed to travel abroad—for twenty years! It could have been much worse, though; he might have lost his job altogether. But how could he comprehend his friend’s sudden and completely unanticipated about-face? There was no comprehending it, in fact: he had simply lost his head. Surely it wasn’t for the blessings of life in the West—he had more than enough of them right here. Freedom? But what freedom had he lacked? Was it personal—an act of treachery? Yes, it must have been “personal.” Because of this turncoat, the whole anti-missile defense system had to change all its codes, its names and its numbers . . .)

  ~ * ~

  Yet over these twenty years Tezar continued to expand. The factory headquarters was a marble palace. Even the new workshops were luxurious buildings, a feast for the eyes. There was never any shortage of money for new buildings. Now it was no longer just a factory but five factories combined, all enclosed behind a stone wall, along with three design offices (these had even tighter security than the factories). There were 18,000 workers and office staff. Yemtsov had presided over it all for almost a quarter century now, still sitting in the same old office chair (he had taken it with him into the new building). He maintained his slim figure, his brisk gait, and his rapid, intelligent gaze. He had lost much of his hair, but what remained on his temples had not gone grey. He gave all his orders forcefully, and there was no one who could get the better of him. He was now past fifty.

  At such an age a wife is hardly likely to present her husband with a second son. But his new son was the focus of his pride, his love, and his hopes and showed promise of continuing in his father’s footsteps in the years to come. It was as if Yemtsov was taking his first steps along with him. His elder son had been on his own for some time and had made many missteps, but this one, who had arrived twenty years after his first son, would go on to astonish them all! And how much meaning he was to give to Yemtsov’s life in the years to follow.

  Tezar continued to lay its foundations ever deeper in the land along the Volga, swallowing up the acres of nearby houses and farmland. But it was its output, its mission, and its activity that made it more and more of a colossus among the defense industrie
s of our nation. Its manager never missed an opportunity and never tired of staking out new areas of production. (Yet he was still not allowed to travel abroad. The Central Committee trusted him—and how could they not?—yet it seemed the security organs still had reason to be cautious . . .)

  Yes, the Soviet defense systems—and its offensive capacity as well-continued as indestructible and effective as before. Still, a sharp mind, one that also was aware of the details contained in secret reports coming from across the ocean, could begin to see in the early 1980s and the Reagan era that we were no longer the same contender in the race that we had once been: we were beginning to fall behind. That could not be tolerated; we must not allow ourselves to pause! But those wrinkled old fellows in their armchairs, with their dead eyes and lowered brows, squinting at you as they listened with only one ear, hostile to anyone subordinate to them— how could they be moved? How could anyone reach their benumbed minds? (Even Ustinov had changed in his old age.)

  Then, suddenly, a new figure appeared on the scene and displayed his talents: Gorbachev! From the first plenum of the Central Committee he roused hopes. We will come to life again! With him was Ligachev, and he allowed Yemtsov to speak to the Politburo! And Yemtsov, as far back as the failed reforms of Kosygin in ‘65, had been aware that the time had come for us to rebuild our economy; but we were timid and halfhearted, and in our indifference we let an opportunity slip through our fingers. In those days the industrial managers felt themselves in fighting trim and believed in the slogans of planning in a totally new way and creating new incentives for labor. And Yemtsov was speaking not only for himself when he eagerly took on the task of speaking to party audiences and even to the Higher Party School on what a new economic system should be and how it would save the country. They listened and were amazed. Then a local university invited him to give a series of lectures on “The Foundations of Socialist Economic Policy.” Yemtsov accepted the challenge. At that time, for his own interest, he had become thoroughly fascinated by the then-forbidden science of cybernetics; he had read much of the work of W. Ross Ashby and included in his course those elements of cybernetics that he had managed to master. He himself was amazed that one might approach absolutely everything from the point of view of complex systems! How about that? (The grateful university awarded him a PhD.)

  But then the swell of reform simply fizzled out as if someone had pricked it with a pin. And it remained dormant for twenty years. Still, we managed somehow. But were we to live out our age without any reforms?

  No, here it was now! Gorbachev! Yemtsov’s faith, which had grown cold, began to glow hot once more. He went back to the university to lecture on the contemporary system of industrial management, using his old but now updated basic ideas (though without mixing in his former ideas from cybernetics—he hadn’t been able to keep up with developments in that field over the past twenty years).

  But Gorbachev the reformer? What are you talking about? What did he do, this nearsighted, clumsy oaf? The orders he gave caused nothing but damage, just one blunder after another. He introduced Councils of Working Collectives! They were to study the plan sent down from the ministry and decide whether or not to approve it! I ask you now, is there any cook (never mind the manager of a powerful and renowned factory complex) who would allow something like that to go on in her kitchen? Wait, here’s something even better: this so-called working collective from now on will elect the manager! Half of what I do goes on outside the factory: all the deliveries, relations with the other enterprises, dealing with government, foreign currency purchasing—and tell me who in this working collective or any other riffraff is capable of deciding all these things? It’s raving lunacy! And then some wretched little newspaper—and one that focused on literature, besides—began a series of articles under the title “If I were the manager ...” Just tell them what you want to do . . . Have you ever seen anything like it? Maybe your memory is better than mine. But I, at least, know how to draw conclusions from what I’ve seen. And so, what I think is—this is the end!

  But whatever the end might be, those alive have to go on living. (And you have a second son who’s growing up. Isn’t that music for your soul? Now you have to live! And go on living for a long time!)

  And so we floundered around through five years of perestroika. We tackled our problems through the “trial and error” method, as experimenters call it. And we had to do it ourselves, working far away from those who ruled over us, without making a nod toward Moscow. By the end of the eighties all the lines of communication among the industrial enterprises of the USSR had so deteriorated that you could no longer rely on your suppliers. And the giant Tezar was looking for ways to manufacture as many of its supplies as possible on its own.

  But we still hadn’t felt the full misery of it all. Then we found out that they had driven out the party. Yes! I can say that I was the first one to dislike these beetle-browed people at the very top, despite all the orders I wear on my chest, despite my gold stars, despite the many times I spoke in the former Central Committee. Just think of me as a humble man, a simple professor of cybernetics. Still, the party was our rudder. It was our pillar of support. And they knocked it out from under us.

  And so we rushed into the Great Reform, just as the old fisherman said as he sat by his hole in the ice: we’ll drop in a line and see what happens.

  This was how it came to Tezar. Exactly three weeks after the brainy fellows began the reform, on an overcast day in late January, Yemtsov was given a telegram from the Ministry of Defense: “Cease dispatch of production number so-and-so and number so-and-so due to lack of funds.”

  Alone in his large office but seated in his same old chair, Yemtsov looked at the telegram and felt the goosebumps rise on his scalp.

  It was as if some evil spirit or demon had flown over, just brushing his head.

  Or it was as if some enormous bridge, a marvel of engineering spanning a river broader than the Volga, had collapsed in an instant, leaving only a cloud of concrete dust slowly settling over the ruins.

  For forty-one years, from the time in the St. George Hall, Yemtsov had been an industrial manager. For thirty-two years, since Francis Gary Powers, he had been manager of Tezar. And this telegram proclaimed: it was all over . . .

  If the Ministry of Defense, three weeks after the start of the “reform,” had no money left for something like that, then they had no future. A wise man has to be able to see through everything, right through to the last wall at the back. This really was the end of it all. And the most unwise thing to do would be to flounder about trying to save yourself, to send off imploring telegrams, to deceive even yourself, to delay the final resolution. The telegram said only to “cease dispatch,” not to “cease production,” and there was still capacity in the shops and warehouses to go on producing for a time.

  But no. Best to cut it off at once. Don’t prolong the death throes.

  Had he sat there for a whole hour? He hadn’t turned on the light, and now his office was almost dark.

  He switched on his desk lamp. He called in his three senior managers. In an aloof, emotionless voice, as if speaking of something unrelated to him, he told them that as of such-and-such a date, no further supplies were to be issued to the factory shops.

  In other words, the Great Impetus was over.

  ~ * ~

  During those weeks, ninety-five of every hundred managers of defense plants rushed to Moscow to argue: “We will lose our technological expertise! Give us some government contracts, and in the meantime we will go on producing for the warehouse!” They all feared one thing: that they would be excluded from the system of supplying the military: “Don’t cast me aside to be privatized.” The word “privatize” was as frightening as a sea monster.

  Yemtsov saw it as clearly as if he were at absolute zero, -273 degrees: our electronics industry is finished. Our advanced technologies will die because sectors or factories cannot be maintained independently; there will always be some element missing fr
om the whole complex. The system as a whole will deteriorate. Our advanced military technology will begin to collapse, and when that happens, no one will be able to restore it for decades.

  Yet the whole reform led by Gaidar, Yeltsin, and Chubais was correct and brilliant! There were none of Gorbachev’s half-measures: the whole thing had to be destroyed, all of it, right to the last bit! And then, sometime in the future, Carthage will be rebuilt, though not by us, and it will certainly not be done in our fashion.

  But when Yemtsov announced to an anxious and tight-knit band of managers who were all supplying the state that he was going to privatize his factory, these defense contractors erupted with rage: “Have you lost your mind? How can you even imagine privatizing the things that we do? There’ll be no privatization as long as we’re alive!”

  “Really?” Yemtsov smiled with his usual air of assurance, though his smile was a bitter one. “Fine, let’s discuss it so I can crush your arguments. If I’ve understood you correctly, you think that despite all this, our metallurgical industry, for example, will continue to grow. Do you think we can go on churning out low-grade steel when the market for special steels has disappeared? You’re all thinking of the past. But you’d better forget it. There’ll no longer be any head office for the defense industries, and there’ll no longer be any employees in the defense industries. And before long, we’ll be unable to match the level of our current production.”