The first priority is to beat every scrap of good sense from people’s heads as early as possible. In preschool, or in the first grades at the very latest. Comrade Molotov himself explained this to me. Yes, yes, the Iron Ass, Stalin’s right hand. When I met him in Moscow, he was some eighty years old. I was running from one high office to another and fighting for my dissertation, while he had come by to pay his Party dues.
He paid his Party dues regularly, even though he had long ago been shouldered out of the Communist Party. But the Iron Ass will most certainly be returned to the ranks of honor! At least after he dies. If Comrade Molotov isn’t returned to the ranks within the next five years, I’ll go into shock.
I have no fear that he’ll die too soon. I suspect that the Iron Ass will live to be at least a hundred and twenty.
Incidentally, the Iron Ass told me a sacred phrase:
“You Lithuanians never did understand anything!”
VV has his human ideal—the great ideologue Suslov. My eternal love is the Iron Ass.
On that occasion, he was suddenly overcome with sentiment for Lithuanians. When he found out that I was a Lithuanian, he took me home with him.
I must emphasize that in this respect the Iron Ass differs from the majority of Russians. He knew what Lithuania is, and didn’t confuse Lithuanians with Latvians. The majority of Russians don’t bother distinguishing Lithuanians from Latvians or Estonians. The name of their concocted generalization for all of them is pribalt, the people by the Baltic. In the minds of the majority of Russians, even Lithuanians themselves don’t particularly distinguish who they are—Estonians or Latvians. The Russians always like to combine everything. Besides “pribalt,” they’ve come up with other new races, for example, “caucasites.”
The Iron Ass stated right away that inaccuracies of that sort irritate him. And then he added one more sacred phrase:
“You Lithuanians always got terribly in the way of the inevitable progress of history.”
I’ll explain for those who don’t know what “the inevitable progress of history” is. That means the annexation of Lithuania and then the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia—in short, freeing up the land for those who are more worthy of it. The Iron Ass didn’t doubt in the least that this process was only temporarily halted.
I’ll never understand why he took me to his home. Maybe the Iron Ass is assembling a collection too, one analogous to mine? He was extremely interested in pedagogy. I myself can bring home a shabby, grizzled bum, even though I’ll have to disinfect all the furniture afterwards. It makes no difference to me, as long as the bum adds to my collection.
I didn’t recognize him at first. Nasty suspicions arose when I saw a militiaman, who jumped up and saluted the master of the house, in the entrance lobby of the building on Granovsky Street. It slowly started dawning on me. When I took a better look, I could have bet it was Molotov. True, not for a lot of money.
The Iron Ass lived in a five- or maybe six- or seven-room apartment, entirely by himself. Apparently he was bored out of his skull. His lower lip sometimes sagged, but overall he was fairly energetic and reasoned perfectly logically. Lord knows, even now he would embellish the ROF. However, at that moment he no longer belonged to the ROF. The Iron Ass was a fallen idol.
He immediately grabbed the bull by the horns.
“Twenty-five years ago I used to know this Lithuanian who didn’t understand anything, either,” he stated hoarsely. “Your breed interests me a great deal. You are unique in your failure to understand the inevitable progress of history.”
Never in my life—neither before, nor after—have I heard such perfect newspeak. There wasn’t a single human word in its usual sense in his speech. This Molotov was the ideal new man—the type you don’t even need to explain, just showing a good photograph is enough. No comment needed afterwards. I vividly pictured him saying, “There are no Red Army prisoners, there are only traitors.” I could just see him with Ribbentrop chopping up the map of Europe: von Ribbentrop a bit agitated, breathing in quick gasps, and the Iron Ass with the cosmic indifference of a perfect automaton. He was terrible in his inhumanity. Everything human was foreign to him.
“He was called, uh . . . Krėva,” he declared, never offering me a seat. “Do you know him?”
He had Krėvė-Mickevičius in mind.
“I finally let him into my office . . . yes, that was twenty-five years ago. Where is he now, that, uh, Krėva?”
“He emigrated to the U.S.” I was startled to hear my voice sounding entirely natural.
The Iron Ass, dissatisfied, shook his head:
“He tried to escape the surge of the inevitable progress of history. A few individuals still can. For the time being.”
It’s a pity I can’t recreate all the nuances of his newspeak lexicon. No matter how much I’d try, the Lithuanian language just isn’t suited for it.
“I explained to that emissary of yours that the historical process is inevitable. That Lithuania can only exist as part of Russia. I showed him maps printed a year earlier, in which Lithuania was already a part of Russia. I explained that a great war would soon start, after which at least half of Europe would belong to us. That, uh . . . Krėva’s historical task was to avoid bloodshed, if he wanted that breed of his to survive a while longer . . . A Bolshevik demands voluntary obedience first. Yes, almost always . . . We’re humane. We got Lithuania back without spilling any blood . . .”
But he hadn’t brought me home to listen to his memories. He wasn’t in the least interested in the past. His gaze was turned towards the future. Moscow, the third Rome, was victoriously marching through the world: towards the Indian Ocean, towards the Dardanelles, through Africa. But I was much more shocked by the theory of the New Man, since it concerned children directly.
The Iron Ass was firmly convinced that children are their, that is, the iron asses’, future. Listening to him, it suddenly occurred to me that all the principles of raising and educating children crawled out into the world from this room. I realized what boundless foolishness I had been full of until then.
I had quite sincerely supposed that my dissertation would open people’s eyes, that everyone had merely been mistaken, and now they would willingly and quickly correct their unfortunate mistakes.
I really did think that way. Word of honor.
I thought this world needed intelligent people.
But the Iron Ass convincingly explained that you need to destroy even the most pathetic shoots of good sense, starting in infancy. He was programmed that way. That day I asked myself for the first time: who programmed these people? That is the only societal question a decent person must be concerned about: who programmed all of this? Who really rules the ROF?
Not even once did he say “the new man,” certainly he didn’t say “Soviet man,” he simply constantly repeated “man.”
The trouble is, he explained, man is born with a real muddle in his head. He called the intellect, or at least its rudiments, a “muddle.” This muddle must be rigorously corrected. Children’s preschools, schools, and universities are designed to do just that. The first steps in this direction should be taken while the child is still in nursery school. A child must absorb the correct ideology and the scale of values on the level of a reflex—like a trained puppy. The conditional reflex must become unconditional. To never pity a class enemy, to sincerely love the wise Party, to gladly execute the international responsibility of freeing nations—these must be neither thought out nor learned. They must lie at the level of a reflex; they should appear naturally and unavoidably, like saliva when a hungry person sees a cooked piece of meat.
Technology that allowed the dissemination of information irritated him to no end. He was preparing to entirely block the ether, leaving only a cable system that broadcast a single, solitary program.
He was similarly plagued by the problem of mathematics and computers. Abstract mathematics made him physically ill, because it was ideologically indifferent. But the most
pressing problem was how to eliminate computers.
“Koba was entirely correct,” he repeated, sighing, “to prohibit all of those cyberneticians. We’ve reached the point where they say a computer can verify the correctness of Marxism-Leninism. Of course, we won’t allow it to do that.”
I’m quoting him exactly. He did not say, “prohibit cybernetics,” he said, “prohibit cyberneticians.” That wasn’t a casual mistake, but rather the expression of an inner concept. He was to speak again, and more than once, of the prohibition of people, entire nations, and even states.
“It was time to prohibit the Lithuanians a long time ago,” he declared to me.
By no means did the Iron Ass think of himself as a tyrant, or as an advocate of a complete dumbing-down. He went by the Michurinian slogan: “We won’t wait for blessings from nature, we’ll modify it ourselves!” It’s just that he was aiming to change humans, not a strain of apples. All of Judeo-Christian morality, love of one’s neighbor, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” became obsolete a long time ago, he explained. It suited the old society, but hampered the new. That’s why it’s crucial to fundamentally change children while they were still in infancy. “Love,” “brotherhood,” “courage,” must signify something entirely different than they had previously. In a friendly way, he suggested I take up an interest in precisely these things, that is, in the creation of newspeak and its implantation from infancy on. He vision was profound.
Newspeak isn’t just some ordinary system of lies; it’s a powerful weapon. All those Molotovs understood they wouldn’t succeed in forbidding words. So they didn’t forbid them; they did something much more clever—they stole or deformed the real meaning of words. They left the old words, but gave them their own meaning. A devilish invention: you can talk any way you want, but your words won’t mean what they ought to anymore.
Clever Molotovs!
But I was particularly charmed by love for the wise Party on the level of a reflex.
From my collection:
A certain Marius Škėma graduated in history with honors. He was the Komsomol Secretary; he joined the Communist Party while he was still studying. When he finished his studies, regardless of his tender age, he was assigned the job of assistant to the director of the Revolution Museum. His work was thorough; the museum’s collections and expositions constantly grew and improved. Marius Škėma was already approved for the directorship, but he suddenly disappeared. A letter was found in his apartment, in which Škėma vaguely explained that he had grasped the meaning of life and had left to carry out his great mission. It was also discovered that the museum women had seen him after work hours associating, in a singularly intimate way, with various images of Lenin.
Digging deeper, it slowly became clear that Marius Škėma had fallen in love with Lenin some time before. A union-wide search was quickly declared. His traces were found in Uljanovsk, Shushenskaya, and other Leninist places. Witnesses told of him explaining that he had to acquaint himself with every minor detail of the bearer of cosmic harmony. An absolute knowledge would eventually meld the seeker with the one sought; crudely speaking, Marius Škėma would turn into Lenin.
All that is known precisely is that Marius Škėma was captured and confined in a psychiatric hospital. Everything else I can only call a legend, even though all of this was sworn to by this old KGB agent named Mackus, a Narutis drunk, who never lied.
Mackus tried to convince us that Marius Škėma entered the Lenin Mausoleum along with the general public and tried to become completely one with the exhibit, considerably damaging the mummy in the process.
It’s an incontestable fact that precisely at that time the Mausoleum was quite unexpectedly closed down for a long time.
Probably there’s no need to relate what else the Iron Ass said. At the time it seemed horrifying to me; now it’s simply boring.
Just one more interesting detail: he was completely convinced that only the Russian language suited the true teaching and upbringing.
“You Lithuanians, clinging to your flawed language, are perilously blocking progress,” he said.
“We don’t need Lithuanians, we need Lithuania. For the good of the Empire we must teach them only on the basis of the Russian language.”
This is what General Muravyov, the famous Hangman Muravyov, the most horrible character in school history textbooks, wrote in a report to the Tsar. Two hundred people, I believe, were hung at his command. Any single colonel in the NKVD, even the most inconsequential, destroyed the same number.
And I’m not talking about Colonel Banys.
Someone could get the idea that I really don’t like Russians. That’s ridiculous. There’s quite a number of Russians living in Moscow and Leningrad whom I consider my friends. I believe they consider me a friend too. They proved to me that Russian culture is alive, just that it’s not to be found in official art spheres. They honor that culture, they cherish it. Why should I dislike them? I envy them.
It’s simply that there are Russians, and then there are Russians. I’ve already described the one, and as for the other . . . They dragged themselves into Lithuania after the war, frequently on foot, with bundles on their backs, hungry and rude, not even very well aware that this country is called Lithuania. Another category of this gang arrived in Party automobiles, still another—in tanks. These Russians don’t honor or cherish anything; they just spit phlegm on the sidewalks and pretend not to understand Lithuanian. The bad part is, they’re constantly showing their ass, while the others, the real ones, live far away. So, you get furious with the Russians, and then you get underground books from the others, the real ones, and fume as you read only in Russian, because Lithuanians don’t have those kinds of books. Only Teodoras Žilys organized underground exhibits in his studio. But he burned up alive. Underground concerts, whatever their merits, were organized only by Gediminas Riauba. But Lolita drowned him. I’ve never held a single underground Lithuanian novel in my hand; I’ve never heard of any. Undoubtedly there’s no shortage of graphomaniacs and other ignoramuses—I’m talking about a real novel.
The Lithuanian artist inevitably sells out and submits. He swears, moans, drinks vodka by the bucketful, or a three-liter jar at a minimum, but sure enough, he submits and sells out to the ROF.
This is a fundamental characteristic of homo lithuanicus.
I respect the Russians just because that characteristic isn’t universal among them. But once more, I repeat: there are Russians, and then there are Russians. Worse yet, the first kind are constantly in your face, while the others are far away and busy with their own matters.
Maybe they’re simply two different nations?
I’ve gone on way too much about myself. Mea culpa; however, without the Iron Ass my mlog would lose its skeleton. There simply must be something made of iron in it.
That’s all, that’s all, that’s all. So, VV fell in love with Lolita. It looked ridiculous. There is no sight more hideous than mature people who are like teenagers in love. You want to vomit when you see them. Lord knows, it’s sickening, seeing them holding each other’s little hands and gazing into each other’s eyes like calves.
Thank God, at least VV and Lolita didn’t sigh, drivel, or hang around on park benches. On the surface, they behaved normally, naïvely thinking no one noticed their love.
As if you really needed to see it.
You’d notice the smell of that love from ten steps away. You’d handle that love when you shook VV’s hand. You’d hear their marvelous words of love even though they were silent. The tastiest food would turn bitter in your mouth as soon as they sat down next to you. I suppose from envy.
The women in our office were terribly jealous of them. VV was showered with anonymous letters denouncing Lolita as a paid prostitute and an all-around syphilitic. I suppose every woman in our office secretly dreamed of sleeping with VV. However, that luck fell only to Stefanija.
Stefanija was VV’s good fairy. Self-sacrificing women s
urrounded him all his life. Most men only dream of this, but VV had it without lifting a finger. Maybe he didn’t even imagine it could be otherwise. Self-sacrificing women created the illusion of a better life for him—each as best they could. Irena, his former wife, managed to outfit a deserted island in the middle of glum Vilnius, where just the two of them lived. It seemed to me she herself didn’t live at all; she would serve him up a piece of herself every day, without being in the least concerned about what would come later. VV swallowed her whole.
VV always was a cannibal. He was almost devoured by the Ass of the Universe himself—perhaps he was simply trying to recover his lost flesh. He devoured everyone, even me, sucking up my thoughts like a sponge.
But I could retreat at any moment, whereas Irena had long since become part of him, his organ, his third hand. The more submissively she crawled at his feet, the more VV scorned her and tortured her in refined ways.
Villain! Fiend! Pervert! I’d scream something stronger still, but an mlog is not the proper place for emotions. Only the facts are necessary.
Inside VV, two famous aristocrats were constantly at war: the Marquis de Sade and Baron von Sacher-Masoch. He was deathly afraid that Irena was secretly deceiving him. He was more jealous than Othello. But he would offer his wife to any man who came along. Whenever he went out of town, he would force some friend to look after Irena, and then he would plague her with his suspicions.
I find it unpleasant to go into this. He pushed and shoved Irena into the arms of a man who coveted her. This guy was called Justinas. VV hated him with all his heart, but that was exactly who he fixed Irena up with. I couldn’t even say Irena was aware of what she was doing. Speaking picturesquely, VV himself undressed her, got her drunk, and shoved her into that Justinas’s arms. The poor thing didn’t even grasp what was going on; he forced Irena to make love to that guy practically in front of his eyes. Then he would call her a traitor, a pervert, his ruin, and the next day he again . . .
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