November 1916

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  But what most surprised hosts and guests alike was the correspondent! Yes, a real live reporter from the Ekaterinodar newspaper! Nobody had expected him, nobody had thought of inviting him, he just happened to be in Armavir and had got wind of the conference (or rather scented a feed on the scale usual among steppe farmers) and had come down by train, walking from the station. He had a white face (perhaps the only one in the Kuban) and was so thin you’d think he had worms.

  Roman saw at once how useful he could be. Just what he needed—why hadn’t he thought of it himself? He was very polite and attentive to the man, and assigned him a place next to his own at the great table, which was covered with a blue cloth for the conference.

  The other steppe farmers were ill at ease with him. How did you behave with someone like that watching? He’d write it all down! Best not to open your mouth at all.

  They went on talking at a safe distance, but fell silent the moment he approached. The subject of conversation was Rostov’s mills, which had always processed Kuban grain, but now the steppe farmers had been ordered not to take it there, so some mills were idle and others had started hulling coarse grains. While in the Kuban grain was spoiling. “Yes,” somebody said, “and a man came down from Petersburg and reckoned there’s nothing at all to eat there.” “But if we could get the grain to Rostov, would they give us a decent price? Might as well feed it to the cattle for free, make more of a profit that way.” “Binder twine always used to be four and a half rubles a pood, now it’s fifteen.” “Never mind twine, what about shoe leather?” “What about the cost of labor, then? One time you could hire a good all-around worker for the whole summer for fifty rubles, now he wants two hundred!” “That’s nothing, come harvest time a woman would work from sunup to sundown for seventy kopecks and think herself lucky. Now you’re lucky if it isn’t three rubles.” “Wouldn’t be so bad if anybody did an honest day’s work, but they’re just after the money, they aren’t there to work. Say you pay what they ask, all the good workers have been mopped up, there’s only cripples left, all those fit to serve have been taken. Yet down in Rostov every little farting engine has a draftee working it. They might at least give us enough prisoners, but they even begrudge us prisoners. And those they do send are barbers or bookkeepers, because prisoners’ve got their own specialties, see. And it wouldn’t be so bad if we could keep the ones they did send, but when the harvest is at its busiest they pull them in and whisk them off the Lord knows where.”

  There was some truth in their complaints, but they were leading nowhere, they were a distraction from Roman’s report, and they could spoil everything. Dark and dapper, he moved swiftly about the hall, urging his father and the other older men to get the proceedings started.

  But how? How did you go about “holding a conference”? They went to the big table with the blue cloth, and even the Mordorenko brothers, even Yakov, with the platinum teeth, were reluctant to occupy the best places. They hung back, showing unprecedented deference, not fighting as they usually did over who should occupy the limelight, but contesting who should hide behind the others.

  And all the time keeping a wary eye on the correspondent.

  Roman’s father, as host, made an introductory speech of sorts: here we all are, then, so let’s talk things over, let’s hear what everybody thinks about it all … But he did not propose electing a chairman. Roman was waiting for him to say, “My son here has a report for you!” But he didn’t.

  Oh well, he’d have to do it himself. The two dozen uncouth, fat-faced, red- or copper-complexioned clodhoppers sitting around the spacious table, on chairs you could lose yourself in, with no glasses or playing cards to hold, didn’t know what to do with their hands, but were careful not to paw the blue cloth. They looked merely vacant, but they felt embarrassed. There was not a single scrap of paper on the spacious blue oval. Nothing at all except a large ledger in front of Roman, and a notepad in front of the correspondent. But these were enough to put them on their guard, and they stole apprehensive glances at Roman. He rose without further ado, surveyed the assembly and said, “Gentlemen, to make our conference a fruitful one, would you perhaps find it convenient if I present a report analyzing the main problems confronting us, and suggesting practical steps to be taken, after which you might like to express your own views?”

  They were all flabbergasted: they had no idea that such a fine talker had been raised in their midst! The words he used! The Stundist with the little black beard, sitting in the far corner there, might know them, but nobody else did.

  There was no need for a chairman after all. A confused murmur of assent, followed by silence, left the way clear for Roman’s address. He opened his ledger, and occasionally, but not too frequently, glancing at it, he spoke firmly and fluently, looking to his right and to his left in turn.

  “First group of problems—prices for our produce, and above all, of course, for grain.”

  Rustling the pages of his book now and then, underlining or circling something there in pencil, he spoke to the steppe farmers about cereals and maize and wool—telling them what they knew already, but could not have put together so quickly and neatly to save their lives. (And who would have the patience to write it all down!) Roman spoke indignantly of low fixed prices but reminded them that prices for requisitioned cattle had been fixed too low to begin with, then raised at the farmers’ insistence, so that the state began paying four or five hundred rubles for a yoke of oxen.

  The reporter began taking notes.

  Irina contented herself with occasional peeks through the half-closed door of the dining room.

  “Second group of problems—the prices of manufactured goods.”

  He read out the current prices for plows, threshing machines, shovels … They were so incensed by these prices that Chepurnykh burst out in his thundering bass: “And the towns want everything for free! They ought to try working like we have to!”

  Others chipped in: “If the factories didn’t keep striking, prices would be all right.”

  Most of them just listened. Some of the listeners turned up their noses, but were disarmed by the sight of those not quite birds, not quite humans flying over them. Roman himself was amazed by their attentiveness and the success of his first venture into public life. He became more fluent and self-consciously superior.

  “Third group of problems—laborers. As you know, the situation was catastrophic before, but now they’re calling up category 2 militiamen under forty. In a couple of months production on our farms will come to a standstill.”

  The Molokans with the prominent cheekbones batted their eyelids: he was right!

  Fedos Mordorenko called out, “They’ll ruin us farmers completely!”

  “And let’s not forget how it corrupts the workforce. The workers know they’re in demand, so they don’t work as hard as they did before the war. They know they can always quit and find themselves a higher wage.”

  The correspondent was getting it all down. (And whenever the door to the dining room opened slightly he tried to hear what was happening in there. He really was remarkably thin, in contrast to the steppe farmers present.)

  They listened without the usual babel of contradictions. Roman had always been conscious of his superiority to the locals, but was surprised to find how effective his speech was proving. Taking care not to let their attention wander, he cited instances and figures, but not too many, then passed on to further problems: the government’s failure to give agricultural producers credit, so that they either had to stop producing or accept whatever prices the market offered, even if it ruined them completely, because they could not afford to wait for better ones.

  Here there were many shouts of approval, and Roman, more and more confident that he was now their acknowledged advocate, concluded as follows: “Only medium and large-scale agriculture is advantageous to the state: there is a larger return on capital, and labor input is more effective. The peasants lack the means to improve their farming methods. Nor are gentry
estates run as well as they might be: the landowning gentry themselves are work-shy, they are poor businessmen, and their bailiffs rob them right and left and have no proprietorial interest in the estates. Only the big commercial farms like ours represent the highest type of modern agricultural enterprise. The state ought to realize that—and we mustn’t forget it ourselves. The time, therefore, has come for us to adopt a different tone with the powers that be. Instead of waiting for blessings to descend upon us, instead of begging, we must start demanding. Remind them what we mean to the state, how much we produce—and demand.”

  Yes, yes, the meeting was won over, he could feel it, by his proud self-confidence and his unspoken offer to do the demanding for them. They held their heads higher (some curled their lips haughtily) when they were told for the first time in their lives that they could … make demands on the authorities?! Treat them like we treat our clerks?!

  Roman then spelled out a number of proposals. They should adopt a resolution, elect a representative with full powers to connect with other groups of farmers, and then enter into negotiations with the authorities and offer terms on behalf of all of them. If there were not enough prisoners of war to go around, workers should be brought in from the east or the north, the government should be able to do that, but if not, let it think of something else. Let the government make credits available to the steppe farmers, at less than the eight percent charged by the robbers at the Volga-Kama Bank. If the official prices for cereals were unfavorable, the steppe farmers had the option not to sow grain crops at all, or to reduce the sown area, at once, that autumn, and switch their capital and labor to something more profitable. It went without saying that they should have nothing to do with beloturka and girka, cereal crops for which the government did not offer a worthwhile price.

  It had been an undoubted success. When they elected a “plenipotentiary,” as he had suggested, he was sure to be their man. And it would be reported in the newspaper. Modestly, he resumed his seat. Took a cigarette from the golden case, Irina’s gift, and lit it. Glanced at a few faces.

  They had been so absorbed in Roman’s trenchant speech that when he concluded, closed his heavy ledger, and sat down they seemed to be waiting for him to say something more, to make it easier for others.

  For one thing, the chairs were too comfortable, they swallowed five- or six-pood bodies, sucked them into the depths, so that with the tabletop almost touching his chin a man couldn’t say much even if he wanted to. And getting to his feet would be even more difficult.

  Gloomy little Tretyak placed his palms on the table and pushed, straightening his elbows, preparing to prop himself up while he spoke—but the effort was too much for him and he remained seated.

  Yakov Mordorenko clicked his platinum teeth.

  Someone sighed. Someone else cleared his throat.

  The Myasnyankins knit their brows importantly and exchanged glances, but said nothing.

  Surely someone else ought to say something? What did people do at these meetings? Nobody seemed to be coming forward.

  Roman was so pleased with himself that the one person he had lost sight of was his father. And anyway, the old man was sitting on the same side of the table, two places away, and Roman would have found it awkward to screw his head around in that direction.

  Nor was anyone expecting the senior Tomchak to speak. They assumed that he and his son had concerted their ideas in advance.

  Zakhar Fyodorovich had sat through Roman’s speech in silence. And when, supporting himself on both armrests, he now rose, they still supposed that he meant only to attend to some domestic matter, perhaps check preparations for dinner. But no. He remained standing, a sturdy figure, unbowed by age, but pressing his knuckles against the solid oak beneath the blue cloth to steady himself.

  And if it resembled a conference at all it was only because Zakhar Fyodorovich had taken it into his head to stand while the others, though no grander than himself, remained seated. He began in a subdued, unemphatic voice, more quietly indeed than he usually spoke. It was quite unlike Roman’s address.

  “So there it is, masters … We can switch to wool and cattle and clover and sunflowers, and get by that way for a couple of years. We’d make a profit all right. And by then, maybe, this pesky war will be over, it can’t go on till the Second Coming. But can anybody tell me here and now how the war will end? Maybe the Germans will get to Armavir? Supposing we all agree now not to sow wheat—what is our army going to stuff in its mouth this coming year?”

  He wasn’t just quiet, pensive was the only word for it, as he had been for some days past. Could this be the Zakhar Fyodorovich who was so good at barking and flourishing his cane? Could this man ever have hurtled over the steppe, whipping his horses to a gallop? He was silent for some time, as if he had said all that he meant to say. But he remained on his feet, and they all waited. Then he began again, still speaking quietly, in tones that sounded almost affectionate and were seldom heard in the family circle.

  “Yes, things are going badly. This last year has been ruinous. And the one that’s coming will be just the same. But whoever we send to talk to the government and whatever they manage to think up there—maybe they’re all fools anyway—we’ve got to do some thinking for ourselves, that’s why we’re all here.”

  He paused as he reached the most difficult part, in no hurry to stick his neck out.

  “Maybe just for a year or two we ought to forget that damned word ‘profit.’ Pretend we haven’t known all our lives what it means. Never mind if more flows out than in next year, just as long as the work gets done, men! Just as long as the wheat gets grown and people get to eat it. No credit bank is going to give us money for that. And we’re not going to ask them! Just as long as I’ve got a scrap of fatback and a whole loaf a day to eat … I can go all through Lent eating nothing, you might say. My belly might cave in a bit, but I’ll live, and from Easter to Trinity I can grow it again, and a bit extra. Same for all of us—a couple of years’ work and we’ll all be back where we were. The land’s saved us before and it will again. Don’t forget—money didn’t make us, we made money! If we let a bit slip through our fingers now we’ll get it all back again after the war.”

  Roman was horrified. What nonsense was his father talking? What kind of mischief was this? Should have spoken to him beforehand—if only I’d known. But who’d have expected anything like this from the old man!

  What a pity Darya wasn’t there! She’d have answered Zakhar with her walking stick. Then all those Mordorenkos—instead of getting flour for their laborers from their own mill, with its forty-two pairs of grindstones, they’d set up a little steam engine on the farm to grind middlings—surely they wouldn’t stand for Zakhar’s “no profit” talk? Or Tretyak—true, he didn’t begrudge his workers a lamb or two, but if there were a few sardines left in a can when guests left he’d have it put away for next time. What would he make of this “never mind if more flows out than in”?

  Still, no one interrupted the madman, and he had something to add: “Nobody’s going to bring us workers. We have to find them ourselves. And that means we have to pay. If it costs two hundred for the season, that’s it—two hundred. On top of selling our grain at a loss we’ve got to pay laborers more, and bear the loss. Because they’ve got to live through this war as well, it’s no easier for them than for you or me. Or for my seventy-two draft oxen, if there’s nobody to look after them.”

  He spoke with affection. For his oxen.

  By now Roman could see that a storm was about to break. Across the table they were baring their teeth, every one of them except the Stundist, who was too timid to get involved. Evstignei Mordorenko, the horsey one, looked as if he’d dislocated his jaw. All Yakov’s platinum was displayed in a savage grin. The Myasnyankins had turned purple. Tretyak again placed his puny little hands on the table as if he meant to draw his legs up after them and scramble across it on all fours.

  [62]

  (THE PROGRESSIVE BLOC)

&nbs
p; Of all the warring countries Russia alone refrained from thinking about the food supply beforehand, or even when the war began. Russia’s average annual grain harvest was 4 billion poods. It reached 5 billion in 1913, was 200 million poods above the average in 1914 itself, was normal in 1915, and even in 1916 was only 200 million poods lower. Russia exported 600 to 700 million poods of grain annually—more than any other country in the world. Export of grain was suspended when war broke out, and with a cumulative surplus of half a billion poods a year in prospect there was less reason than ever to fear a shortage. In 1914 orders from the War Office amounted to less than half of the surplus. The country’s cup was running over. Demand for many other products—sugar, for instance—also fell far short of increasing output. As late as 1916 the number of cattle, sheep, and pigs had not decreased, and the War Office’s horse census showed that there were 87 percent more foals than in 1912, before mobilization began. The area of arable land, including that not presently cultivated, exceeded the country’s requirements by half as much again.

  Germany made coarse grinding, and the addition of potato meal to flour, compulsory from October 1914, and introduced rationing—225 grams of flour per person—in February 1915. In the summer of 1915 the whole crop, once it was harvested, was requisitioned by the state. In every European country bread was baked with additives. The Western Allies were supplied with grain by America. Only Russia did not feel the pinch and no one there—neither her benighted rulers nor the enlightened Duma economists—supposed that she ever would. They could not even be bothered to take stock of the country’s reserves.

  The first surprise came early in 1915, when suddenly there were no oats. There were hundreds of cavalry regiments galloping away or champing at the bit, the whole artillery was lugged around by horses, all our supply wagons and transports were horse-drawn—and suddenly, for reasons unknown, there were no oats. There was fodder enough for the army that year, but Petrograd and Moscow couldn’t get it at any price.