November 1916

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  “No second course for me, Masha. I think I’ll have a bit of a nap now.”

  His poor head tried to work out how long he could afford to sleep. Two hours, say. Maybe two and a half. They won’t be ready any earlier. I’ll go as soon as you wake me up. Later on in the evening I’ll send the leaflets for your district, and you can hand them out as people come for them. That young man who was here … you can give him … let’s see … yes, a quarter of what I send.”

  He left his hosts to finish their meal and drink their tea—economizing on sugar for them—stepped back through the flowery curtain, and collapsed on the bed.

  You’ve gone around all day with a head as heavy as lead, with one thought relentlessly nagging: Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the wrong thing? What will come of it? So belly-flop onto the bed, bury all your troubles in the pillow, lie there for a couple of hours like a log … What luxury!

  But all at once he was wide awake again! Damn! They were still at the table, he could hear the teacups rattling. The turmoil inside him had called him back from the brink, wouldn’t let him sleep. Hey, look alive! Get on with it! There’s a lockout, remember! You started this—now finish it! Mama, mama.

  Mother of mine, Khionia Nikolaevna, let your little boy sleep, let him stay in bed a while, he’s so warm and cozy! Don’t get me up yet, it’s too early to go to the factory. Too early to go to work, I’m too little, the four of us are only little, we’ll get our fair share of work when the time comes, bending our backs from dawn to dusk for a few kopecks. Daddy got drowned, with only me there to see, the others don’t remember, but anyway it’s too soon for us to be going to work, the woods and the pond are the places for us. We’re lining up beside you, crossing ourselves with two fingers in front of the true old-style icons, chanting “The prophets had prophesied for a thousand years” and other psalms we knew by heart in our quavering voices.

  At school the scripture teacher punishes me for the true faith, every church holiday he makes me kneel for two hours and go hungry till the evening, all because I don’t go to their unclean church. But God’s truth is ours alone, there is no other truth in this world. So many martyrs remembered in the Lives of Saints were gladly martyred for it, so many were burned to death, like your Belenin forebears, or frozen to death in icy water, or thrown into dungeons, so many had their ribs broken with tongs, and we, your little children, will as we grow up endure all kinds of torments for our faith and proclaim it even on the pyre, even on the cross, if that is God’s will. But now I’m so warm and cozy, Mama dear, let me linger a while, let me sleep a little longer.

  No. I can’t sleep and leave something started by me unfinished.

  No, Comrade Belenin, you mustn’t sleep, this is no time for it. The proletariat has no right to give in to sleep, that would be too incautious and indeed criminal.

  Of course, of course. To ruin things would be a crime … But where has this devil’s advocate come from, to attack me on the very first day?

  You, Comrade Belenin, failed on your first visit to establish the firm links we need. And that is how we will measure the success of your second journey—by the number of connections established. Furthermore, Comrade Belenin, you have failed to arrange a reliable means of exchanging conspiratorial letters, and that is a great nuisance to us. Nor have you collected in Petersburg the money the CC needs.

  “With the hiss of the conveyor belts in our ears we reach out our muscular hands to you.”

  Another thing—you mustn’t keep absenting yourself so often, traveling to Denmark, Norway, England, America … Stockholm is where you are most needed. Until you organize transport and communications with Russia … security … meeting places … Comrade Kollontai can easily join you in a village near Stockholm.

  Whatever you do, Yurka, don’t ever quit your workbench for Party business. Or else our Party will just be …

  Make a round trip to two or three Party Centers, establish links, return to Sweden immediately, and pass on all your contacts to us so that we can discuss further developments with you … Make the trip a quick one, and bring us all the contacts—that’s your objective! After that you can go back to Russia again.

  And there you were, tongue-tied, with your head like a lump of lead, paralyzed, incapable of explaining that it wasn’t quite so simple, that you have to walk until there are bleeding blisters on your feet, that on the frontier the ice is likely to …

  Yes, you need reliable documents to show at the frontier. Do you have any? You must obtain them. I have no doubt that there is still a reliable stratum of workers who follow the Pravda line in Russia, there’s the Central Committee Bureau, you could even reestablish the Central Committee itself. And even bring one or two influential comrades back with you to Sweden, to establish firmer ties with us. To make sure we are singing the same tunes.

  Yes, but, Comrade Lenin, when you’re crossing the frontier the ice is always likely to give way … and even if you’re holding on to a rope … and if the ice is melting you’re in this dugout canoe and it’s …

  Don’t exaggerate the difficulties, Comrade Belenin. And don’t underrate the importance of ideological uniformity … that is a tendency of yours, you mustn’t mind my mentioning it, but you always do underestimate it! Believe me, it really is absolutely essential to our work at such a difficult time.

  Yes, but … you hear the ice cracking, you grab the piers of the bridge with both hands. (Lucky you have the use of your hands at least … your head is a dead weight, paralyzed, but your hands are free.) Your feet slip and slide farther and farther apart as the crack in the ice widens …

  Yes, of course, you must take care of yourself. You are in great danger in Russia, and you can best further the cause by making a quick round of a few Russian centers and returning to Sweden to consolidate contacts with us. And then we can exchange letters. In general I would be interested to learn what questions are uppermost in Russia now. Who is asking them? At what level?

  “Comrade Lenin, I’ve had this idea for quite a while. I wrote to you about it. Why don’t you and Grigori move to Sweden? You’d be so much nearer to Russia, and it would speed everything up … I can arrange everything for you at this end through Branting …”

  Branting? But he’s a social patriot. Don’t do any deals with him. You can make use of him, though, as an official person with an address of his own … and to protect our interest … and to raise loans …

  “What I mean is …” (My tongue won’t obey me and my head’s a dead weight.) “What I mean is, you’ve been so far away these last two years, why couldn’t you yourself move a bit nearer here? I’ll arrange absolutely everything here … and right off you’ll have all the contacts.”

  No, no, Comrade Belenin! That would be very imprudent. Getting there would cost too much, and the cost of living there is too high … and mainly, you can’t be sure about the police, they can be troublesome in Sweden. And what if the Swedes suddenly decided to join in the war? No, such a change of place would be premature.

  “But, Comrade Lenin …”

  “No, Comrade Belenin!!”

  But all the same … What if the sledge driver lets me down? What if I wake up tomorrow and find the horse gone … snow, forest, northern lights … stare at the lights till your eyes pop out … Wait—maybe they’ve killed me? … They must have, cracked me over the head with an ax … or why can’t I raise my head?

  You, Aleksandr, must avoid groundless optimism! Above all, beware of the intrigues of liquidators! Beware of social chauvinists! Don’t trust revolutionary chauvinists like Kerensky either, our paths are not the same! You are too trusting.

  Yes, Vladimir Ilyich, but he had such an honest face. I never thought for a moment … The Finns too are all against Tsarism, how could I suspect that … They must simply have hacked me to death in my bed … in my sleep …

  Your nerves seem to be getting the better of you. I sent you the Kienthal materials quite a while ago. I’ve written to you three times and got
no answer. You are very stingy with your letters. Aleksandra Mikhailovna—please tell Aleksandr that he’s very stingy with his letters, and it just isn’t good enough! We can’t keep in step if we go on like that!

  What am I to do now? What’s going to happen with the lockout? What a fiasco—if they’d killed me just a little bit later. We could have won this strike … Instead of cutting me off halfway …

  What’s wrong, Aleksandr? Have I offended you? You have my warmest best wishes! I wrote you a big, fat letter! And got no reply. Please let me have your criticisms of my draft manifesto.

  Vladimir Ilyich! Inasmuch as I have been murdered … I beg to report that … This business of the lockout … I don’t know whether I have acted correctly or not, there was nobody I could consult … And nothing of the sort has ever happened before … But abandoning those revolutionary sailors, when they risked being sentenced to death, or so I was told … But on the other hand we must not squander the forces of the proletariat prematurely … I can see now, all right, that I did make a mistake …

  Aleksandr, if you have taken offense I am ready to make any apology you like. My dear friend! My dear friend! My dear friend! You aren’t angry with me anymore, are you? I’m very grateful to you! A thousand best wishes!

  Yes, I’ve made a mistake … That was my weakness when I was alive, being too ready to believe in success. Taking risks I couldn’t afford … But now I can’t put it right … it was so unexpected, you see … it was obviously the blunt end of an ax. Or maybe they used a pistol … a bullet in the back of my head …

  With your permission I am sending you my theses, and I await your reaction with interest. On the question of self-determination—which Radek and Pyatakov have made such a wretched, stupid, filthy, driveling mess of—I hope you’re on my side. It is very important to me to know whether Belenin and I differ on this subject and if so how. And how we can eliminate this difference before the lovers of faction—those foul Kautskyites, and all the opportunist scum—get hold of it. I hope that you will be as tactful as possible when you frame your questions to Bukharin.

  So you’d better send somebody else urgently, Vladimir Ilyich … Because there’s nobody here worth mentioning. Molotov simply isn’t … well, you know what he’s like … And the rest just squat in their holes. Who can you send, though? There’s nobody there either … Here, you have to be able to fight off the sleuths and keep running around the gardens all night if necessary, at temperatures below zero.

  I really am very anxious to know what questions are coming up in Russia. Who is raising them? And in what precise conditions? In what circumstances?

  Should I perhaps try to lift my head? If I don’t no one will do it for me. All right … here goes.

  The “Japanese” have overdone it, you know, with this investigation of Kesküla, they’ve only succeeded in scaring left socialist circles. They shouldn’t have been so tactless!

  It’s not a head, it’s a Finnish boulder. I’m too weak for anything. My body wriggles like a lizard on a rock … on those warm rocks at Larvik … Sashenka … Sashenka … A bumpkin you called yourself? I never saw a more beautiful woman than you! I’m the bumpkin … I’m the one who’s made a mess of things … Sashenka, I’m coming back to you! I’m coming, give me your hand. Come on now! Pull!

  Oo-oo-oo-oof!

  Still alive?

  The blood had gone to my head. My head had slipped off the bed and the blood rushed to it …

  On the other side of the curtain the lamp had been extinguished in the dining room, but there was a faint light from the third room. From time to time he heard a pleasant humming and rustling.

  Manya using her sewing machine and straightening the material.

  That was the only sound.

  She wasn’t ready to awaken him. It was still too early.

  He had saved his head from bursting, but his body felt bruised and battered. And his head was no fresher, in fact it felt heavier. Sleep was all he wanted now—twenty hours of it.

  But no one will lift that boulder for you.

  You must go and raise it.

  Raise all Petersburg.

  Only first you must get out of bed somehow or other. And don’t sink back onto it, get over to the washbasin. Washing in cold water always makes you feel better. Then … Go part of the way by steam tram. Then two ordinary trams. Then a long haul on foot. The sleuths haven’t spotted you yet. But all these detours are essential, just make sure, when your goal is the headquarters of the Bureau of the Central Committee, where Maria Grigorievna keeps the official seal and certain papers. So you’ll have to hang around for another half hour on the Vyborg side.

  I’m shattered, though. Can’t get my watch out of my pocket to look at the time.

  She still hasn’t called me, though. So I can lie here a little longer.

  I’ve simply got to hold out! If I die now or end up behind bars the whole thing will collapse, and that’s a fact. The yoke would snap, one basket would fall on this side, one on the other side, there would be no communication, no clandestine mail, the Central Committee abroad would be on its own, at loggerheads with the International, and Russia, or rather every single city in Russia, would be isolated. And all the stuff we write in our leaflets, all the threats we make, would be just empty boasting, with nothing behind it.

  Must make the effort to rise … But will the whole city rise? Will half a million workers follow the lead of half a hundred Bolsheviks at odds with each other?

  If this doesn’t come off, it’s all over, for a long time to come.

  Suddenly, though no one had knocked on the outside door, he heard steps in the anteroom to the studio—rapid, firm, masculine steps! Not the master of the house, he felt sure! It could be one of them!

  Quick! On your feet. Boots? No time. A weapon? Grab the pressing iron! If he’s alone—hit him. If there are three of them—jump out the window! Whatever happens, don’t give yourself up. Not at a moment like this!

  “Where is he, Manya?”

  A voice he knew. Whose? His head wasn’t working. Would you believe it—Mitka Pavlov! In person? Had it misfired? Were the others under arrest?

  He pulled the curtain aside—and there he was—cold, dusted with snow, but cheerful.

  “Gavrilovich! We’ve won!”

  Then he was embracing Shlyapnikov, kissing him, though the bundles under his arm got in their way.

  As did the pressing iron. Shlyapnikov put it down on a stool.

  “What? Won? How?” Unshod, in his socks (the European socks he wore instead of foot rags).

  “The owners have given in! And the government!” Mitya roared in a voice too loud for the room. “The lockout is off! The call-up is off!”

  “What are you telling me?” So weak he staggered back against the lintel, and got tangled in the curtain. “When did you hear, and how?”

  Pavlov wouldn’t be diverted. “So I decided not to distribute the leaflets just yet. Was that right? I sent the men away till morning: told them we’d most likely be calling the general strike off. Is that right?”

  Mitya Pavlov was one of those who didn’t like striking: he was much too fond of his pattern maker’s job at the Russo-Baltic factory. And of his engineer boss, Sikorski—they were building Ilya-Muromets tanks.

  He was thrusting his bundle into Shlyapnikov’s hands as he spoke.

  “Yes, of course … Only why did you …” Shlyapnikov gave a weak laugh. “You could have made the decision yourself. Why make the men turn out twice?”

  Mitya was insistent. He had to take the parcel.

  “What’s in it?”

  “Pies.”

  Sure enough. He could smell them now.

  “Why?”

  “Still warm. Masha’s sent them for you.”

  “Why ever …?”

  “She just did …”

  “What’s in them?”

  “Take a bite and you’ll see.”

  “Oh, but there are two bundles here. What’s in the o
ther one?”

  “The leaflets, of course! I’ve brought a batch of leaflets to show you. We printed them at the Evening Times. A beautiful job! It’s a terrible pity to waste work like that!”

  “Manya, call Iosif! These pies are still warm! What’s in them, onion? How did you get them here?”

  They relit the lamp. He ate standing in his stocking feet on the strip of coarse matting. One of the leaflets lay on the table. Coarse, yellow wartime paper, but the printing was superb, clear-cut, with no smudges, no irregularities. He gazed at it admiringly, and even ran the back of his hand over it (his fingers were greasy by now). He read out a few passages.

  “ ‘The way in which your strike has spread … to draw in about 120,000 workers … has shown all those who are waiting hopefully for a salutary upheaval how closely linked are the revolutionary army and the revolutionary people. Is this why we are turned out of our factories? The government has treacherously signed … To send the young and turbulent to the front? Turn the factory into a barracks? Are we meekly to give our lives under this iron heel so that a handful of parasites may prosper?’”

  “A great job of writing, Gavrilovich. Whose is it?”

  “I’ve got a young man worth his weight in gold. Nice pies, how did you manage to carry them? … So then, the ruling classes are making the job of overthrowing them so much the easier! ‘In reply to the closing of the factories we call upon … while all those who have been thrown into the street … will … to the last man …’”

  A pity, yes, it was a good leaflet. But we’ll be writing and printing plenty of others.

  “Oh, yes. They’re shitting themselves! Shit-scared, the whole crooked gang of them! Let’s be honest about it, boys, we’re putting the pressure on—but the whole caboodle is collapsing anyway!”

  You see two men at a beer stall on the street corner, they plant their elbows on the counter, grip each other’s hands, and each tries to bend the other’s wrist, to see which hand will touch the counter first—and suddenly there’s no contest: one of the hands has gone down without a struggle: Too weak? Owner too drunk? Wrist broken? …