by Victor Serge
“Not too badly. And you? How’s your health?”
“Nothing to boast about. I’m overworked. And the devil take the Anthropological Institute for not yet having invented a way to make us young again!”
They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled cordially. Together they sat down at the textile workers’ big table. Chairs were cheerfully shifted. Some of the women wore insignia, there were several charming faces with broad cheekbones and big eyes, welcoming faces. A young woman immediately asked for their opinion: “Decide between us, comrades, we are discussing the production index. I was saying that the new rationalization has not been pushed far enough …” She was so full of what she had to say that she raised both hands and blushed, and since she had a very fair complexion, full lips, eyes that were the gray green of leaves in frosty weather, and a red kerchief over her hair, she became almost beautiful, though she was only commonplace, a daughter of the soil transformed into a daughter of the factory with a passion for machines and figures … “I am listening, comrade,” said Kondratiev, rather amused, but at the same time pleased. “Don’t pay any attention to her,” interrupted another woman, who had a thin stern face under tightly rolled dark hair. “Efremovna, you always exaggerate, the quota was more than met — to the extent of 104 per cent, but we had twenty-seven loom breakdowns, that is what really set us back …” Old working-women, wearing decorations, became excited: No, no, no, that was not it either! Popov’s hands, earthy as an old peasant’s, called for silence and he explained that old Party members … mmm … were not qualified in matters of the textile industry, hum, mmm, it is you young people who are qualified, with the engineers, however, mmm, the Plan directives demand good will, mmm, I was saying, resolution, mmm, we must be a country of iron, with a will of iron … mmm. “Right! Right!” said old and young voices, and there was a murmured chorus: “Will of iron, will of iron …” Kondratiev looked at their faces one after the other, estimating how much of what they said was official, how much sincere, certainly the greater part of it was sincere, and a conventional phrase is sincere too, basically. A will of iron, yes. His face hardened as he looked at Popov’s gray profile. We shall see!
A moment later Popov and Kondratiev found themselves alone, sitting in deep leather armchairs in an office. “Let’s talk a little, Kondratiev, shall we?” — “Certainly …” The conversation drifted on. Kondratiev became suspicious. What did the old man have in mind? What was he trying to get at with his puerilities? He is in the Political Bureau’s confidence, he performs certain duties … Was it really by chance that we met here? Finally, after discussing Paris, the French C.P., and the agent who directed it — not up to snuff, mmm, I believe he will be replaced — Popov asked:
“… and what impression … mmm … would you say the trials produced abroad? Mmmmm …”
“Ah,” thought Kondratiev, “so that’s what you’ve been getting at?” He felt as well, as calm, as he had that morning in his cool, dawn-flooded room, when he had held the Browning a foot from an available, vigorous, courageous brain, while the pink light outshone the last stars, the brightest stars, reduced to white points absorbed by the sky. A strange question, which was never asked, a dangerous question. You ask it, brother? Perhaps you were waiting here just to ask me that question? And now you’re going to make your report, eh, old rat? And it is my head that I stake when I answer you? Very well, I’m on.
“The impression? Deplorable, couldn’t be more demoralizing. Nobody could make head or tail of them. No one believed in them … Not even the best paid of our paid agents believed in them …”
Popov’s little eyes looked terrified. “Shh, speak lower … No, it is impossible …”
“It is the truth, brother. Reports that tell you otherwise lie abominably, idiotically … I’d like to send the General Secretariat a memorandum on the subject … to supplement the one I prepared on some stupid crimes committed in Spain …”
Have you got what you wanted, old Popov? Now you know what I think. Not me — you can’t make anything out of me — that is, you can always make a corpse out of me, but that’s all. Nothing doing, I’m not budging, the dossier can go where it pleases, I’m not budging, that’s settled.
He had only thought it, but Popov understood it perfectly, thanks to Kondratiev’s tone, his firm jaw, his unflinching eyes. Popov rubbed his hands softly and studied the floor:
“Well, then … mmmm … It’s very important, what you’ve just told me … Don’t write that memorandum — no, better not … I … mmm … I’ll bring it up … mmm …” Pause. “You’re being sent to Serpukhov, for a celebration?”
“For a celebration, yes.”
The answer had been made with such sarcastic sternness that Popov suppressed a grimace. “I wish I could go myself … mmm. This damned rheumatism …” He fled.
Better than any of the other insiders, Popov knew the secret journeyings of the Kondratiev dossier, enlarged during the last few days by several embarrassing documents: Report of the doctor attached to the Odessa secret service concerning the death of prisoner N. (picture attached) on board the Kuban, the day before the freighter docked: cerebral hemorrhage apparently due to a constitutional weakness and overstrained nerves, and perhaps accelerated by emotion. Other documents disclosed the identity of prisoner N., which had been twice dissembled, with the result that you began to doubt whether he really was the Trotskyist Stefan Stern, though the fact was attested by two agents home from Barcelona, but their testimony might be doubted because they were obviously frightened and had denounced each other. Stefan Stern disappeared in these dubious documents as completely as he had disappeared at the secret service morgue in Odessa, when an official at the military hospital ordered the preparation for export of “a male skeleton in perfect condition, delivered by the autopsy service under the number A4-27.” What idiot had included even that document in the K. dossier? The report from an agent of Hungarian origin (suspect because he had known Bela Kun) contradicted the information in the Yuvanov report on the Trotskyist conspiracy in Barcelona, the role of Stefan Stern, and the possibility that K. was a traitor, since it revealed the identity of an air-force captain with whom Stefan Stern was supposed to have had two secret meetings and whom the Yuvanov documents confused with “Rudin” (K.). An attached document, included by mistake, but extremely useful, showed that Agent Yuvanov had been taken ill on board, had misused his authority to leave the ship at Marseilles, and was now marking time in a hospital at Aix-en-Provence … Kondratiev’s memorandum, directed against Yuvanov, thus became incriminating — which was perhaps the meaning of a blue-pencil mark beside a discreet note by Gordeyev, which opened the door to two accusations, one of which excluded the other … In any case, the original minutes showed beyond doubt that it was not true that Kondratiev had voted for the Opposition in 1927 as member of the Foreign Commerce party cell; on this point the Archives secret service had made a gross error by confusing Kondratenko, Appollon Nicolayevich, an enemy of the people executed in 1936, with Kondratiev, Ivan Nicolayevich! Attached: a note dictated by the Chief demanding a severe inquiry into “this criminal confusion of names” … The implication was that the Chief …? The Chief said nothing when he handed the dossier to Popov, he did not commit himself, his brow was dark, deeply lined, his eyes expressionless; he appeared not to have made up his mind, but he probably wanted a good trial demonstrating the connection between Tulayev’s assassins and the Trotskyists in Spain, a trial the reports of which could be translated into several languages with fine prefaces written by some of those foreign jurists who will prove anything for you, sometimes even for little or no compensation. Through these documents, which were like a series of nets, ran the life line of Ivan Kondratiev, a strong line which neither prison in Orel nor exile to Yakutia nor a jail term in Berlin for possessing explosives had snapped, a line which seemed to vanish, on the eve of the Revolution, in the swamp of private life, somewhere in Central Siberia, where, having married, Kondratiev the agronomi
st allowed himself to be forgotten, although he kept up an occasional correspondence with the regional Committee. “No revolutionist without a revolution,” he would say in those days, cheerfully shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps we shall amount to nothing, and I shall end my life testing seeds and publishing little monographs on fodder parasites! But if the Revolution comes, you’ll see whether I have settled down or not!” They did see — when he transformed himself into a cavalryman, put himself at the head of the Middle Yenisei partisans, and, with old fowling pieces for armament and plow horses for mounts, swept down as far as Turkestan in pursuit of the national and imperial bandits, made his way back to Baikal, attacked a train bearing the flags of three Powers, capturing Japanese, British, and Czech officers, checkmated them on several occasions, almost cut off Admiral Kolchak’s retreat…
Popov said:
“I ran across an old magazine the other day and reread your recollections …”
“What recollections? I’ve never written anything.”
“Yes, you have. The case of the archdeacon, in ’19 or ’20 …”
“Of course. Those numbers of the Party Historical Review have obviously been withdrawn from circulation?”
“Obviously.”
He was giving blow for blow! It must mean that he was either boiling with rage inside or had made a disconcerting decision … The case of Archdeacon Arkhangelsky, in ’19 or ’20: Taken prisoner during the rout of the Whites, whom he blessed before battle. A hale old man, bearded and hairy, with a healthy complexion, at once a mystic and a charlatan, who carried in his knapsack a packet of obscene postcards, a copy of the Gospels with the pages yellowed by his tobacco-stained fingers, and the Apocalypse annotated in the margins with symbols and exclamations: God forgive us! May the hurricane cleanse this infamous world! I have sinned, I have sinned, miserable slave that I am, criminal a thousand times damned! Lord, save me! Before a village Soviet, Kondratiev opposed shooting him: “They are all the same … In this part of the country everyone is a good Christian … We don’t want to exasperate them … We need hostages for exchanges …” He took him onto a barge with seventy partisans, of whom ten were women. And so they set off down a river which flowed between deep forests, from which, at dawn or twilight, rifles fired devastatingly accurate bullets at the men who were above decks maneuvering the craft. They had to travel at night and, by day, moor their craft against some small island or anchor in shallow water. The wounded lay in rows below decks, they never stopped groaning and bleeding, cursing and praying, they were hungry, the men chewed the leather of their belts which had been cut in pieces and boiled, the nightly fishing yielded only a small catch which had to be divided among the weakest, who devoured them raw, guts and all, under the avid eyes of the stronger men … They were nearing the rapids, they had to fight, they could not fight; through the long days they felt as if they were in a stinking coffin, not a head dared show itself above deck, Kondratiev watched the banks through peepholes, the implacable forest rose above purple or copper-red or golden-yellow rocks, the sky was white, the water white and cold, it was a mortally hostile universe. Night brought respite, fresh air, the stars, but climbing the ladder had become more and more tiring. Then the secret counsels began, and Kondratiev knew what was said at them: Surrender is the only thing left, we must hand over the Bolshevik — let them shoot him, it’s only one man, and what does one man more or less matter? Surrender or we will all end up like the three astern there, who don’t groan any more … The next to the last night, before they reached the rapids, a revolver shot like a whipcrack was heard on deck, then the sound of a heavy body falling into the water, which at that point was shallow. No one moved. Kondratiev came down the ladder, lighted a torch, and said: “Comrades, come this way, all of you … I declare the meeting open …” Tottering specters gathered around him, death’s-heads, shaggy manes of hair, with eye sockets in which a dull spark still gleamed. They let themselves slowly down onto the boards against which the lapping of the black, cold water could be heard. “Comrades, tomorrow at dawn, we fight our last battle … Innokentievka is four versts away, in Innokentievka there are bread and cattle …” — “What, fight now?” someone growled. “Fool! Can’t you see that we’re no better than corpses?” Kondratiev was sheer dizzy nausea, chattering teeth, resolve. He pretended not to have heard; slowly brought out the most terrible oath he knew, his mouth foaming. Then: “In the name of the risen People, I have shot that vermin in a cassock, that libertine, that bearded Satan, may his black soul go straight to his master …” The dying men instantly understood that there was no forgiveness for them now. A silence like the tomb held them for several seconds, then moans drowned a murmur of curses, and Kondratiev saw a troop of mad ghosts coming toward him, he thought that they would crush him, but a tall, tottering body fell weakly on him, feverish eyes glittered close to his own, skeleton arms that were strangely strong embraced him fraternally, a warm cadaverous breath whispered into his face: “You did right, brother, right! Dirty dogs all of them, I say, all of them!” Kondratiev summoned the leaders of the detachments to a “general staff counsel,” to prepare the next morning’s operation. From under his mattress he brought out the last sack of dry black bread, and himself divided the surprise ration. He had hidden this last reserve for the moment of supreme effort. Each man received two pieces which he could hold in the palm of his hand. Dying men demanded their share — wasted rations. While the leaders deliberated in the torchlight, the only sound was crusts crumbling under the attack of sore jaws … Of this episode from a distant past, the two men had at the moment only a documentary memory. They continued to measure each other, as it were gropingly …
Kondratiev said:
“I have almost forgotten about it … I never suspected then that the value of human life would fall so low among us twenty years after our victory.”
It was not an aggressive remark, but Popov knew very well that it was the most cogent comment possible. Kondratiev smiled.
“Yes … At dawn we marched for a long time over wet sand … It was a green, silent dawn … We felt monstrously strong — as strong as dead men, I thought. And we did not have to fight; day broke on bitter foliage which we chewed as we marched on — forward with wild joy … Yes, old man.”
“Now that you are over fifty,” Popov thought, “how much of that strength can you have left?”
Afterwards Kondratiev was in charge of river transport, when abandoned barges rotted along the banks; he harangued crafty and discouraged fishermen in forgotten settlements, got together teams of young men, appointed captains seventeen years old, whom he put in command of rafts, created a School of River Navigation which principally taught political economy, became the chief organizer of a district, quarreled with the Plan Commission, asked to be put in charge of the Far Northern Fur Depots, was sent to China on a mission to the Red Dragons of Szechwan … Not a man to flinch, Popov thought; psychologically a soldier rather than an ideologist. Ideologists, being susceptible to the supple and complex dialectics of our period, give in more easily; whereas seven times out of ten, the only thing to do with a soldier, once things get started, is to shoot him and say nothing. Even if he finally promises that he will behave before the judges and the audience, you’re never sure, and what’s to be done then? Experiences, secret investigations, closed trials, trials that might be opened, memories, dossiers — these things and many more, formless, jumbled, instantly clear when clarity was needed, lived for a moment in Popov’s brain while he considered imponderables … Kondratiev had forgotten his own life for the moment, but he almost divined all the rest, and he wore a hard half-smile that was like an insult, he sat straight and massive in his chair. Popov sensed a great aggressiveness in him. Nothing could be got from him, it was most annoying. Ryzhik’s death had scuttled 50 per cent of the trial; Kondratiev, the ideal defendant, was scuttling the other 50 per cent — what was he to say to the Chief? Something had to be said … Could he wriggle out of it, leave the job to
the Prosecutor, Rachevsky? A donkey, Rachevsky, with nothing in his head but dragging off one cartload of culprits after another … He would pile blunder on blunder — and to kill him afterwards, like the stupid beast he was, would help nothing … Popov, feeling that he had been silent a few seconds too long, raised his head just in time to receive a blow straight from the shoulder.
“Have I made myself clear?” Kondratiev asked, without raising his voice. “I have told you a great deal in a few words, I believe … And, as you know, I never go back on what I have said …”