And Quiet Flows the Don

by Mikhail Sholokhov

  ‘All right to wake him up?’

  ‘Go ahead. We’ll have a game of chess.’

  Bunchuk stroked the rain from his heavy brows with his index finger, examined the finger attentively, and called quietly:

  ‘Eugene Nikolaivitch!’

  ‘Well?’ Listnitsky raised himself on his elbow.

  ‘Have a game of chess?’

  Eugene dropped his legs from the bed, and rubbed hard with his soft white palm at his chest.

  As the first game was nearing its end two officers of the fifth company, captain Kalmikov and subaltern Chubov, entered.

  ‘News!’ Kalmikov cried as he crossed the threshold. ‘The regiment will probably be withdrawn.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ the grey-haired officer, lieutenant Merkulov, smiled disbelievingly.

  ‘The commander of the battery has just informed us over the telephone. How did he know? Well, he only returned from the divisional staff yesterday.’

  ‘It would be great to have a bath,’ Chubov said, with a note of ecstasy in his voice.

  ‘You’re damp in here, gentlemen, very damp,’ Kalmikov grumbled, looking around the log-timbered walls and the squelching earthen floor.

  ‘We’ve got the marsh right at our side,’ Merkulov said apologetically.

  ‘Thank the Almighty that here in the marsh you’re as comfortable as if you were in Abraham’s bosom!’ Bunchuk intervened. ‘In other districts they’re attacking, but here we fire one round a week.’

  ‘Better to be attacking than rotting in this hole.’

  ‘They don’t keep the cossacks to get them wiped out in attacks. You ought to know better, lieutenant Merkulov,’ Bunchuk observed.

  ‘Then what are we kept for, in your opinion?’

  ‘At the right moment the government will play its old game of maintaining itself on the backs of the cossacks.’

  ‘Now you’re talking heresy,’ Kalmikov waved his hand.

  ‘How is it heresy? You can’t deny the truth!’

  ‘How is it the truth?’

  ‘Why, everybody knows it’s the truth. Why don’t you admit it too?’

  ‘Attention, gentlemen!’ Chubov shouted, and bowing theatrically, pointed to Bunchuk. ‘Cornet Bunchuk will now begin to interpret the Social-Democratic dream-book!’

  ‘You don’t like the Social Democrats, do you?’ Bunchuk laughed as he caught Chubov’s eye. ‘I tell you that as soon as the trench warfare began the cossack regiments were distributed in sheltered spots, and are being kept quietly until the right moment arrives.’

  ‘And then?’ Listnitsky asked as he gathered up the chessmen.

  ‘And then, when unrest sets in at the front – and that is inevitable; the soldiers are beginning to get fed up with the war, the growth of desertion shows that – then the cossacks will be called upon to suppress the revolts. The government holds the cossacks like a stone in its hand. At the right moment it will attempt to break the head of the revolution with that stone.’

  ‘Your assumptions are rather shaky,’ Listnitsky objected. ‘To begin with, it is impossible to predict the course of events. How do you know about the coming unrest and so on? But put this case: supposing the allies shatter the Germans and the war ends brilliantly, then what role will you assign to the cossacks?’

  Bunchuk smiled drily. ‘Something not at all like an end, but all the more brilliant …’

  ‘When did you get back from leave?’ Kalmikov asked.

  ‘Two days ago,’ Bunchuk replied.

  ‘Where did you spend it?’

  ‘In Petersburg.’

  ‘And what is the situation like there? Ah, what the devil wouldn’t I give to spend just one short week in Petersburg!’

  ‘You’d find little to comfort you,’ Bunchuk said, weighing his words carefully. ‘There’s a shortage of food. In the workers’ districts there is hunger, discontent, and seething unrest.’

  ‘We shan’t come happily out of this war. What do you think, gentlemen?’ Merkulov looked interrogatively around.

  ‘The Russo-Japanese war gave birth to the revolution of 1905. This war will end with a new revolution, and not only revolution, but civil war,’ Bunchuk replied.

  Listnitsky made an indefinite gesture as though about to interrupt him, then rose and paced up and down the dugout, frowning. With restrained anger in his voice he said:

  ‘I’m astonished to find such men as he among us officers,’ he pointed to Bunchuk. ‘I’m astonished, because to this very day I cannot clearly gather what is his attitude to his country, and to the war. The other day he spoke very vaguely, yet sufficiently clearly to let us understand that he wants to see us defeated. Did I understand you aright, Bunchuk?’

  ‘I am in favour of our being defeated.’

  ‘But why? In my view, no matter what your political opinions may be, to wish the defeat of your own country is state treason. It is dishonourable to any decent man.’

  ‘Do you remember that the Social-Democratic members of the Duma agitated against the government, and so have conduced to the country’s defeat?’ Merkulov intervened.

  ‘Do you share their views, Bunchuk?’ Listnitsky asked.

  ‘If I say I am in favour of our being defeated it is obvious that I do, and it would be absurd for me, a member of the Social-Democratic Bolshevik Party, not to share the view of my fellow party-members in the Duma. I am very surprised that you, Eugene Nikolaivitch, with your intelligence, are so ignorant politically.’

  ‘First and foremost I am a soldier devoted to the monarchy. I am revolted by the very sight of “socialist comrades”,’ Listnitsky declared.

  ‘First and foremost you are a blockhead, and after that a self-satisfied military brute,’ Bunchuk thought, and the smile faded from his face.

  ‘We officers have been placed in an exceptional situation,’ Merkulov said as though apologizing. ‘We have all held ourselves apart from politics, we live on the outskirts of the village, so to speak.’

  Captain Kalmikov sat stroking his drooping whiskers, his burning Mongolian eyes gleaming. Chubov lay on a bed, staring at a drawing by Merkulov fastened to the wall. It represented a half-naked woman with the face of a Magdalene, languorously and depravedly smiling as she gazed at her bare breasts. With two fingers of her left hand she was drawing aside one nipple, and the little finger was cocked back cautiously. Under her half-closed eyelids lay a shadow and the warm gleam of her translucent pupils. One slightly raised shoulder held up her slipping chemise, and a soft shade of light fell into the hollows below her collarbones. There was so much natural grace and real truth in her pose, so unexpectedly beautiful were the soft tones, that Chubov involuntarily smiled, delighting in the masterly sketch, and not following the drift of the conversation at all.

  ‘That’s fine!’ he exclaimed, tearing his eyes away. His remark came at a very inopportune moment, for Bunchuk had just said:

  ‘Tsarism will be destroyed, you can rest assured.’

  Rolling a cigarette, and smiling caustically, Listnitsky stared first at Bunchuk, then at Chubov.

  ‘Merkulov, you’re a real artist!’ Chubov winked.

  ‘It’s only the merest sketch …’

  ‘We may lose a few hundred thousand soldiers, but it is the duty of everyone whom this country has nurtured to defend his fatherland from enslavement.’ Listnitsky puffed at his cigarette and removed his pince-nez to clean the glasses, staring the while at Bunchuk with his shortsighted eyes.

  ‘The workers have no fatherland,’ Bunchuk stamped the words out. ‘There is the deepest of truth in those words of Marx. We never have had, and we still have no fatherland. This accursed country gave you your food and drink, but we workers grow like the wormwood on the steppe … We and you can’t flourish together.’

  He drew a large packet of papers from his pocket and rummaged among them, standing with his back to Listnitsky. Then, going to the table he spread open a newspaper yellow with age.

  ‘Would you like to list
en?’ he turned to Eugene.

  ‘What to?’

  ‘This is an article on the war. I’ll read an extract. I’m not very well educated, as you know, and it puts it much better than I could:

  The bourgeoisie is deluding the masses by cloaking the imperialist spoliation with the old ideology of a “national” war. The working class exposes this deception, raising the cry of transforming the imperialist into civil war. Of course, such a transformation is not easy and cannot be accomplished “at the wish” of individual parties. But that is the transformation which lies in the objective conditions of capitalism, and of the period of the end of capitalism in particular. And in this direction, and this direction alone, must the Socialists carry on their activities. No votes for war credits, no support of the chauvinism of “their own” country, no restriction to legal forms of struggle when a crisis has arisen and the bourgeoisie has itself repealed the legality it itself created: that is the line of activity which leads to civil war, and which will lead to it sooner or later in the European conflagration.

  The war is no accident, it is not a “sin”, as the Christian parsons think, preaching patriotism, humanity and peace no worse than the opportunists, but an inevitable stage of capitalism, just as natural a form of capitalist life as is peace. The war of our times is a war of peoples. But from that truth it follows not that we must swim with the “popular” current of chauvinism, but that in wartime, and in the war, and in war-like fashion the class contradictions rending the peoples continue to exist and will manifest themselves. Refusal of military service, striking against the war and such like are simple stupidity, a poor and cowardly dream of unarmed struggle against the armed bourgeoisie, a sighing after the destruction of capitalism without a desperate civil war or series of wars. The duty of the socialist is the propaganda of class struggle even in the war; activity directed to the transformation of the people’s war into civil war is the only work for socialists in the period of the imperialist armed clash of the bourgeoisie of all nations. Down with the sanctimonious, sentimental and stupid sighs for “peace at any price”! Raise the banner of civil war! Imperialism has put the destiny of European culture to the hazard; after the present war, if it is not followed by a series of successful revolutions, will quickly come further wars; the legend of the “last war” is an empty, dangerous legend, a petty suburban myth …’

  Bunchuk had read slowly and quietly, but as he came to the last sentences he raised the heavy, iron ring of his voice, and ended:

  If not today, then tomorrow; if not during the present war, then after it; if not during this war, then in the next that follows, the proletarian banner of civil war will gather round it not only the hundreds of thousands of class-conscious workers, but the millions of semi-proletariat now deluded with chauvinism, and the petty bourgeoisie whom the horrors of war will not only terrify and crush, but will educate, teach, awaken, organize, temper and prepare for the war against the bourgeoisie both of ‘their own’ country and of ‘alien countries’.

  When he had finished there was a long silence. Then Merkulov asked:

  ‘That wasn’t printed in Russia, was it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘In Geneva. It appeared in the thirty-third number of the Social-Democrat for 1914.’

  ‘And who wrote the article?’

  ‘Lenin.’

  ‘He’s the leader of the Bolsheviks, isn’t he?’

  Bunchuk did not reply. He carefully folded up the paper, his fingers trembling a little. Merkulov let loose the impending storm, by remarking:

  ‘He has a great gift of persuasion … Damn it, there’s a lot to think about in what he says.’

  Obviously greatly agitated, Listnitsky buttoned up the collar of his shirt, and pacing swiftly up and down from corner to corner, poured out a fine hail of words.

  ‘That article is a pitiful attempt on the part of a man flung out of his native country to influence the course of history. In our age of reality prophecy does not enjoy much success, still less when it is of that sort. The true Russian passes by these hysterical babblings with contempt. “The transformation of the war of peoples into civil war!” Damn it, what contemptible rot!’

  Listnitsky stared with knitted brows at Bunchuk, who was still bent over his packet of papers. Eugene spoke fierily, but his low, thin voice made no impression.

  ‘Bunchuk!’ Kalmikov exclaimed. ‘One moment, Listnitsky! Bunchuk, listen! Let us admit that this war will be transformed into a civil war. But then what? You’ll overthrow the monarchy. But what sort of government do you propose to set up in its place?’

  ‘The government of the working class.’

  ‘A Parliament, do you mean?’

  ‘Hardly!’ Bunchuk smiled.

  ‘Well, what then?’

  ‘A workers’ dictatorship.’

  ‘Now we’ve got it! But the intelligentsia, the peasantry? What part will they play?’

  ‘The peasantry will follow us, and part of the intelligentsia also. The others … this is what we shall do with the others.’ With a swift movement he screwed up a paper in his hand, and threw it away, saying through his teeth: ‘That’s what we’ll do with them!’

  ‘What the devil did you volunteer for the front, and even reached officer’s rank for? How can you reconcile that with your views? Here’s a man against the war, against the destruction of his class brothers, and he’s an officer!’ Kalmikov slapped his hands against the legs of his boots and laughed out loud.

  ‘How many German workers have you slaughtered with your machine-guns?’ Listnitsky inquired.

  Bunchuk rapidly turned over his packet of papers, and, still bent over the table, replied:

  ‘How many German workers have I shot? That’s … a question. I came voluntarily because I’d have had to come in any case. I think the knowledge I have gained here in the trenches will be of some service later on. Listen:

  Take the modern army. It is one of the splendid examples of organization. And that organization is good only because it is flexible, and because it simultaneously knows how to give millions of men a single will. Today those millions of men are sitting at home in various parts of the country. Tomorrow the mobilization order is issued, and they are assembled at the appointed centres. Today they lie in the trenches, and lie for sometimes months on end. Tomorrow they go into the attack. Today they perform miracles, hiding from bullets and shrapnel. Tomorrow they perform miracles in open battle. Today their leading detachments lay mines under the earth. Tomorrow they march for miles at the direction of aeroplanes flying above the earth. That is what is called organization, when in the name of a single purpose, inspired by a single will, millions of men change the forms of their social life and their activity, change the place and the methods of their activity, change their weapons and arms in accordance with the modified circumstances and demands of the struggle. The same thing applies to the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Today a revolutionary situation is not present …’

  ‘But what do you mean by “situation”?’ Chubov interrupted.

  Bunchuk stared at him as though he had only just been awakened from sleep, and rubbed his brow with his finger, trying to grasp the question.

  ‘I asked, what do you mean by “situation”?’

  ‘I understood all right, but it’s difficult for me to explain.’ Bunchuk smiled a simple, childlike smile. It was strange to see it on his big, moody face. It was as though a ray of sunlight had danced across an autumnal, rain-swept field. ‘A situation is a position, a combination of circumstances. That’s clear, isn’t it?’

  Listnitsky waved his hand vaguely. ‘Read on,’ he said.

  ‘Today a revolutionary situation is not present, there are not the conditions for ferment among the masses, for an intensification of their activity. Today they hand you a ballot paper – take it. Know how to organize yourselves in order to strike your enemies with it, and not in order to introduce into parliament, in
to the comfortable jobs, men who grip their chairs in fear of prison. Tomorrow they have deprived you of your electoral rights, and have given you arms and a quick-firing gun splendidly equipped in accordance with all the latest developments of technique. Take this weapon of death and destruction, don’t listen to the sentimental vapourings of those afraid of war. There is still too much left in the world that has to be destroyed with fire and sword for the sake of the emancipation of the working class; and if indignation and despair increase in the masses, if a revolutionary situation develops, prepare to create new organizations and to put into motion such serviceable weapons of death and destruction against your government and your bourgeoisie …’

  Bunchuk was interrupted by a knock and the entry of the sergeant-major of the fifth company.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ he turned to Kalmikov, ‘an orderly from the regimental staff.’

  Kalmikov and Chubov threw on their greatcoats and went out. Merkulov sat down to draw. Listnitsky continued his pacing up and down the dugout, fingering his moustaches and deep in thought. Shortly afterwards Bunchuk also took his departure. He made his way through the slippery mud of the trenches, his left hand holding the edges of his collar together, his right keeping down his greatcoat. The wind streamed along the narrow trench, clinging to the ledges, whistling and eddying. His face wore a sad smile. When he reached his dugout he was again wet through with the rain, and smelling of decaying alder-leaves. The commander of the machine-gun detachment was asleep, his face still showing the traces of three sleepless nights spent at cards. Bunchuk rummaged in the kitbag he had kept since the days of his service as a private soldier, arranged a pile of papers close to the door, and set fire to them. He put two tins of meat and some handfuls of revolver bullets into his pocket, and went out again. The wind caught at the momentarily opened door, sent the grey ash of the burnt papers flying, and blew out the smoking lamp.

  After Bunchuk’s departure Listnitsky strode up and down for some time in silence, then went across to the table. Merkulov was still drawing, and from under his pencil-point the face of Bunchuk, wearing his customary thin smile, was beginning to stare from the white square of paper.