The Coming American Revolution

[p025] The Coming American Revolution William F. Warde (This is the third and last part of William F. Warde’s article. The first and second parts were published in Nos. 1 and 2 of Labour Review.) THE previous section of this article showed how the law of uneven and combined development enables the Marxist to unravel the twisted course of the Russian revolution. Every socialist today recognises the supreme importance of arriving at a satisfactory explanation of the degeneration of the Soviet Union and so of reliably estimating the significance of the conflict between the progressive character of nationalized property in the USSR and the reactionary bureaucracy which rules that country. Second in importance only to the Russian ques- tion for the international socialist movement is an un- derstanding of the dialectics of the development of the socialist movement in the United States of America, the most highly developed and most powerful capitalist country in the world. How, in essence, has the law of uneven and combined development shown itself in the principal stages in the history of the USA? How does an understanding of this law help us to forecast the pos- sible future course of the socialist movement in America? There can be few subjects of more vital concern to the Labour movement in Britain and in the rest of the world. If we are to avoid making over-simplified analogies between the Labour movements of the two countries, if we want to understand concretely how the two Labour movements in Britain and the USA impinge upon, react upon and help each other, we shall need to make a de- tailed analysis of American revolutionary forces — not merely express ‘fervent hopes’ and offer our ‘superior’ advice as that of the ‘elder brother’. The law of uneven and combined development will be found to be an indis- pensable tool for making this analysis of the American socialist movement. 85 The ‘War of Independence’ Prior to breaking loose from British rule, the North American colonies of Britain were certainly under- developed in many respects—compared, that is to say, with the mother countries of Western Europe, parti- cularly with Britain herself. The first American revo- lution, which we in this country usually call the ‘American War of Independence’, was a mighty effort on the part of the Colonies to come abreast of the Old World. In preparing, organizing and conducting the War of Independence, the American Patriot Party profited abundantly from the ‘privileges of backwardness’. Its merchant leaders had acquired wealth and power by developing the latest techniques of shipbuilding and the practices of world trade. The people acquired freedom and democracy by taking over those forms of party or- ganization (Whigs and Tories) and governmental forms of legislative representation and local government which had been worked out in England and brought over by the Colonists. To justify their demands, the Colonists found ready-made theories of natural law in the writ- ings of ideologists of the English revolution of the seventeenth century like Milton, Harrington and John Locke. In addition the Colonists created a new tech- nique of warfare, uniting their experiences of hunting in the wilds of the North American plains and moun- tains with the potentialities of the musket. These new tactical methods were important in helping the Colonists to defeat the British Redcoats of George III. As a result of its victory America not only caught up with the Old World but, politically, surpassed it. This was the first victorious colonial revolution of modern times and it established what was then the most progressive democracy in the world. However the American revolution of the eighteenth

[p026] century, like the Russian revolution of the twentieth century, could not draw upon unlimited resources. The political progressiveness of the Yankee republic became combined with economic backwardness. For example, the War of Independence did not, and could not, uproot slavery or curb the power of the slaveowners. The back- wardness of the USA in this decisive sphere took its re- venge upon the American of the nineteenth century. The American people had for some time to endure the rule of the Southern slaveowners, who later became so reactionary and insolent that they not only prevented further progress of the country but even en- dangered the democracy and unity achieved by the first revolution. Fortunately a new combination of social forces had been created in the meantime, and this new combined formation proved strong enough to meet and overthrow the slaveholders’ counter-revolution. Historically considered, this second American re- volution (7.e. the Civil War) represented, on the one hand, the price paid by the American nation for the economic backwardness which it had inherited from its colonial youth. On the other hand, the impetus provided by the Yankee victory in the Civil War jet-propelled the USA once again into becoming the leading nation of the world. After all the pre-capitalist forces and forma- tions, from the barbarism of the Red Indian tribes to the slavery of the Southern States, had been disposed of, American capitalism was able to leap forward with mighty strides, so making the USA today the model and most advanced capitalist nation and the paramount world power. However, this dominant position was not accom- plished all at once but in two revolutionary leaps separated by an interval of gradual progress and political reaction. Major sources of unevenness in American life What are the major penalties of progressiveness and the privileges of backwardness to be found in the USA today? American technical know-how is the most advanced and American industry and agriculture the most productive in the world. This not only enriches the capitalist monopolists but showers many benefits upon the American people—ranging from an abundance and wide variety of foodstuffs to a plethora of television sets, refrigerators, motor-cars and other ‘luxuries’. This is one side of the picture. On the other side, the American capitalists are the most efficient of all the capitalists in the world in exploiting both their own working people and the rest of the toilers of the world. While the American worker enjoys the highest standard of living of any worker in the world, he is also the most heavily exploited. This tremendously productive work- ing class gets back for its own consumption a smaller part of its output and hands over in the form of profit to the capitalist owners of the instruments of production a greater part of its output than does either the English or the French working class. The greatest unevenness of America’s social de- velopment is this: its economy is so advanced that it is fully ripe for collective ownership and planned produc- tion (that is, it is ripe for socialism) and yet this eco- nomy remains encased in a strait-jacket of capitalist and nationalist restrictions. This contradiction is the main 86 source of the social insecurity of our age and of the main social evil of our time, not only in the USA but also throughout the whole world. The high productivity of the American economy, along with the privileges of the dominating position of American capitalism in world economy, is primarily responsible for another phenomenon of American life, and one which always impresses foreign observers—the extraordinary backwardness of American politics in general and the backwardness of the political ideology of organized labour in particular. In this field, it may be said, a colonial cottage is standing upon foundations suitable for skyscrapers. The workers and even the farmers of Britain, or even for that matter the peasants of China, are today influenced and, to some extent, guided by socialist ideas while the working people of America remain captive to the crudest bourgeois ideas and organizations. This is the second outstanding feature of uneven- ness in the social structure of the USA. The political life of America lags far behind that of most of the rest of the world and even further behind the economic and social development of the country itself. This lag is, ironically enough, part of the price America is’ paying for the successes of its two previous revolutions and for its resulting outstanding achievements in industry and agriculture. The third American revolution, the social- ist revolution, is being retarded precisely because its forerunners accomplished so much. Unevenness also prevails in other sections of the American social consciousness. The ideology of the American ruling class is one of the most highly de- veloped in capitalist history. This ruling class not only has a militant, positive philosophy to justify its privi- leges, a philosophy which it assiduously disseminates inside the USA and internationally, but also is simul- taneously engaged in an unceasing offensive against the ideas of communism and socialism, even though Marxist ideas have spread amongst the people of America to the most limited degree. This anti-com- munist, anti-socialist crusading zeal, together with its acute class sensitivity and consciousness of the class struggle, expresses the American ruling class’s fore- bodings about its own future. But in contrast to this class consciousness of the capitalists the American working class has not yet reached the level of generaliz- ing its own particular class interests even in the form of the most elementary social-reformist notions. This in- difference to socialist ideology is one of the most pro- nounced peculiarities of the American worker. This is not to say that the American worker is devoid of class feeling and initiative. On the contrary, he has asserted himself time and time again as an independent fighting force, especially in the industrial field — often with brilliant results. But these experiences have not led to the establishment of a conscious and permanent chal- lenge to the capitalist order, i.e. to a mass socialist movement. The hyper-development in America of bourgeois ideology and the corresponding under-development of working-class consciousness are the inseparable pro- ducts of the same historical conditions. They are inter- dependent aspects of the present stage of social and political development in the USA. Today the political complexion of the whole world reflects the major unevennesses of American society—

[p027] one in the domain of production, another in political organization and a third in social consciousness. The gap between the economy’s ripeness for socialization and its capitalist-monopolist ownership and administration, and the gap between the high level of labour’s trade union organization and its political and ideological immaturity, are the most striking peculiarities of American life. This situation sets the most difficult theoretical and practical problems to all socialists, especially to those who have to operate in such an environment. To the whole world of labour these gaps in American social life sometimes look like bottomless pits into which the peoples of the whole world must be dragged to their nuclear destruction. Sometimes it seems impossible to imagine that forces could ever come into existence to fill up or bridge the abyss. Prospects of American development But will things in the USA remain like this for ever or even for the remainder of this century? Will the con- tradictions in America’s social life persist indefinitely without essential changes? Will the gaps between the level of American economic development and the forms of ownership, between the present weakness and the potential power of the American working class, remain as they are today? The capitalists, the reformists, the Fabians, the liberals, the pragmatists and pseudo- Marxists of all kinds not only think they will but try also to induce everyone else to share their convictions. But all these people, like their brethren in Britain, reckon without the movement of world history, a move- ment which has been considerably speeded up in our time. They reckon without the contradictions of the capitalist system on a world scale. These contradictions will, in time, generate new and more devastating crises. They reckon without the development of the class con- flicts in our own time and above all they underestimate the creative capacities of the American working class. Again, not being Marxists, they leave out of their cal- culations the operation and effects of the law of uneven and combined development. Let us see how the law of uneven and combined development can help us to penetrate below the surface and to expose the kernel of present realities. As we have seen, this is certainly not the first time in the his- tory of America, nor is America the only place in the world in the twentieth century, where economic rela- tions, political structures and social ideas have lagged far behind the development of the forces of production. The undeniable facts of history are that, in the past, the only way in which similar disparities have been re- solved, and unevenness eliminated, has been through revolutionary upheavals whose function, on each oc- casion, has been to place new progressive forces at the head of the nation. In our time only the working class can perform once more this historically necessary func- tion. There is no adequate reason for believing that, whatever else intervenes, the extreme contradictions in American life can be resolved in any other way. At this point an astute critic may object: ‘Accord- ing to the law of uneven and combined development, and this exposition of it, events do not necessarily re- produce themselves in the same way even within the same social system, but, under a different set of circum- stances, the course of events may take a different line of 87 development. Why then does the USA have to follow the same revolutionary path in the twentieth century as it did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Why must the USA necessarily follow the course taken by the backward countries like Russia and China in our own time? Is it not possible for America to make a detour around the socialist revolution and by easy and gradual stages arrive at a higher form of social organisation and a better life?’ In a somewhat different way and under different conditions this same question has been posed many times here in Britain. It will help us to solve our own British problems more effectively if we follow through the answers which need to be given to this important question in its American setting. For it is certainly a legitimate question that has to be squarely faced and realistically answered. There is perhaps no more crucial question in the international socialist movement today, because upon the answer depends one’s view of the right direction for the struggle for a socialist America and world peace itself. Now it is certainly true that no historical precedent, however superficially apposite, can properly replace the direct analysis of the real concrete situation; precedents can only guide and supplement the specific investiga- tion. Of course, it would be more advantageous for the peoples of the whole world if the transition from capi- talism to socialism in America (or, indeed, in Britain or anywhere else) could be effected by mutual agreement between the classes. Marxists have never denied this nor desired otherwise. But this pious wish, unfortunately, does not dispose of the problem. The question then arises: is this ideal and desirable prospect a realistic one? Should it be made the basis for practical socialist politics—here in’ Britain or in the USA? This same question has. once more been raised in the British and American Communist Parties in the ‘great debate’ which has followed the Twentieth Congress. The ‘peaceful’ road of development to socialism in America presupposes that American capitalism can proceed without further devastating economic convul- sions, social crises and world wars, and that if these do occur the rulers, discredited by these catastrophes, would step aside and voluntarily relinquish their power, property and privileges, in answer to the demands (and perhaps votes) of an aroused people. Can it be realistically expected that the most pro- found social conflict in all history, the conflict which involves the final abolition of exploitation of man by man, will, in the advanced capitalist countries of “West- ern democracy’, be resolved through diplomatic nego- tiations between the classes backed up by peaceful forms of mass pressure and by the counting of votes? Incidentally, there are no precedents for such ‘revolu- tions’ in British, French, German or American history. It can, however, be easily shown that the most power- ful reasons exist indicating why the capitalist monopol- ists of today, in the USA and elsewhere, are even less likely to relinquish voluntarily their ruling position, to act against their basic material interests and to commit ‘social suicide’ than were the Courts of Charles I, George III and Louis XVI, the slaveholders of the Southern states of the USA and, for that matter, the Court of Tsar Nicholas II, in their day. The powerful financial and industrial magnates who rule America today have long been accustomed not only

[p028] to rule but to believe in the rightness and eternity of their rule. Moreover they realise that they would not merely be relinquishing their own supremacy but also that of capitalism on a world scale. For should the American workers assume State power in the next de- cade or so, this would not be just a minor shift of power within a single social system. It would repre- sent the decisive act in the most fundamental and far- reaching of all the transformations of society. Nothing less would be involved than the world-wide historical coup de grace of capitalism and the passing of decisive sections of mankind to a higher social system, to social- ism. Fundamentally the fate of two world historical systems, capitalism and socialism, are at issue in the struggle between the American capitalists and the American working class. The recognition of this key position of the American working class is of funda- mental importance for the socialist movement in every country of the world, including Britain. With so much at stake, the reflex action of the American capitalists to the threat of displacement by the working class would most likely be, as McCarthyism indicated, a sharp turn towards military dictatorship or fascism. In any event, it would be unrealistic and irres- ponsible for a serious Marxist to count only upon the ‘most favourable line of development and to ignore the probability that, instead of facilitating the transition to socialism, the representatives of capitalism will try to throw up new barriers against socialist advance and to fight to retain their sovereignty, however illegal and ‘undemocratic’ their resistance might be. However, if this last stronghold of world capitalism, the USA, is the least likely of all countries to escape the necessity for revolutionary struggle on its road to socialism, this certainly does not mean that the pattern of this struggle will duplicate precisely the path taken in other countries, say, for example, Russia. It is an elementary proposition of Marxism, which to suit their own temporary aims the Stalinists are now busy ‘re- discovering’, that the revolutionary class in each coun- try will proceed in its own peculiar way in achieving State power and in building socialism. After decades of the most discouraging and de- moralizing delay, the American workers obtained their industrial organization in one mighty leap during the thirties through the CIO. They compressed several stages of development in this leap. The American motor-car workers did not proceed through craft unionism to in- dustrial unionism, but went at one bound from a state of non-organization to the highest form of industrial organization, skipping the intervening craft stage which industrial workers in Britain found it necessary to pass through. ‘The contrast of American and British Labour Similar spectacular leaps will most probably be repeated in the forthcoming political development of the American working class. The value of the law of uneven and combined development consists in helping us to anticipate such leaps. When Britain lost its para- mount position on the world market around the begin- ning of the twentieth century, the most progressive ele- ments of British labour began to draw the necessary political deductions by turning away from the Liberal Party and establishing their own class party around a programme of social teform—albeit social reform sup- plementing and expressing itself through a quasi- socialist ideology. American labour has yet to reach the point reached by the British workers over half a century ago. The American trade union movement still remains politically attached to the Democratic Party, the American equivalent of the old and now obsolete Liberal Party in Britain. How are the American working class likely to re- spond to radical changes in their economic and political conditions? Can they be expected to follow in the foot- steps of the British workers? A Marxist, dialectical The American worker will follow the British worker but only in the most general way. He will certainly find it imperative to cut loose from the capitalist parties and to create an independent class outlook and organiza- tion, just as the workers of Britain have done. But the specific forms, the special features and the rate of political development of the American workers not only need not, but most certainly will not, simply duplicate the features of British development, because the world historical conditions under which they will set up their class political party will be vastly different from those under which the British Labour Party was created. When the British working class launched itself into independent politics at the turn of the century world capitalism was still ascending and no country had yet overthrown capitalist rule. Today capitalism on a world scale is on the defensive, while the anti-capitalist powers and the socialist and colonial movements have become a mighty reality. Nor is the America of today, internally, anything like the Britain of the first half of the twentieth century. Today America is the last stronghold of capitalism and, unlike the British capitalists of Edwardian days, the US capitalists have little room for strategic retreat. These ditferences will ensure that there will be great differences between the British Labour Party and the American Party of Labour which still remains to be created. Accordingly, the American working class will enter this new chapter of American political events in a mood very different from that of their British predecessors. In the USA it will take a severe acute crisis to jerk labour loose from the old moorings, rather than’ the sort of chronic long-drawn-out crisis which was the case in Britain. The impact of these social shocks will run up against the stunted political development of the USA working class at a time when capitalism is on the de- fensive and the anti-capitalist forces on the offensive in the rest of the world. The offensive of the working class will not only collide with intensified resistance from the capitalists, but also with the inertia and short-sighted- ness of the trade union bureaucracies—as it has already done in Britain. But the American reactionary trade union bureaucracies will also have to operate under far different conditions from those which obtain in Britain. The critical situation will, on the one hand, dictate the most radical measures. On the other hand, the bureau- crats will be challenged for the leadership of the mili- tant workers by a strong and solid revolutionary socialist grouping.

[p029] ‘Explosive expansion’ Such a combination of a strongly organized, highly cultured and newly radicalized working class with a leadership equipped with the most advanced theory and far-seeing policies as is in process of gestation in the USA today will have extraordinary explosive power. There has already been a small anticipation of this in a small colonial country like Ceylon, but this combination will manifest its full potentialities only in the land of the American titan. At such a juncture in world history, the penalties of backwardness from which the American socialist movement now suffers will be certain to show their other, more hopeful side. The American workers will be receptive to the boldest revolutionary prospects and will be prepared to assimilate them readily and to act upon them. New species, it was noted earlier, have experienced ‘explosive expansion’ when they have broken into virgin territories under favourable conditions. An analogous acceleration in development can be expected when the American workers enter the field of independent class political action and take possession of the ideas of scien- tific socialism and the methods of Marxism. In these days of grave social crisis this amalgamation of a pre- viously politically backward but potentially powerful working class with the science of society and of political action, i.e. with Marxism, can effect the greatest leap forward any society has yet achieved—-greater than any leap forward in American history—and, by this single act, raise the whole of humanity by a head. We have, for various reasons, illustrated this law of uneven and combined development by dealing in some SHORT STORY Private THE young engineer’s arrogant stubbornness irritated Minayev and yet at the same time attracted him. Olkhovsky, would not agree to any of his requests. Every now and then he would grasp the lid of the inkstand on Minayev’s desk and shift it about over the glass top of the desk with his thin, nervous fingers. The unpleasant, penetrating squeak this made merged with the unpleasant meaning of Olkhovsky’s words, and the impression left by his article, which was just as un- pleasantly sharp. To tell the truth it was the undeniable cor- rectness of the article that had proved most irritating. Olkhov- sky had shown convincingly that the new motors designed by Academician Stroyev were uneconomic. Minayev could not allow an article like that to appear. It was useless to try and explain to this youngster that criticism of Academician Stroyev was bound to give rise to many complications both in the work of the Institute and for Minayev himself; he had not yet been confirmed in his appointment as director. ‘I advise you, as a friend, to cut out everything that relates to Stroyev,’ he said gently. ‘And the critical part of the article should be played down a bit, to make it easier to publish.’ Olkhovsky started up, his pale face pink and his small hands clenched into fists. ‘But what will my article be about if that’s done? No- thing!’ he exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. ‘Don’t you under- stand, this will mean the wasting of thousands of tons of oil? How can you suggest . . .?’ His level brows shot up in bewilder- detail with the problems of socialist advance in Russia and the USA. There is clearly now a need to apply the law in ‘investigating the many special problems of the Labour and socialist movement in Britain. We hope that such an investigation will soon be carried out and made available to British socialists. Conclusion In this article we have tried to elaborate and illus- trate a universal law of historical development—the law of uneven and combined development. By indicat- ing a method of analyzing the concrete facts of the poli- tical scene this law helps scientific socialists to forecast, to anticipate, the main lines of social and political de- velopment. This anticipation of the trends of develop- ment in political life enables us to make the necessary preparations for future battles and so to ensure their favourable outcome. Consequently this law is no mere descriptive law; it is not a simple extrapolation of past tendencies of academic interest only to scholars and to passive students of history. Above all, it is a scientific law which represents an instrument for the use of men and women devoted to political action—a tool for the use of political organizers and working-class militants. As an integral part of Marxist theory it serves to illuminate the road ahead, so helping to bring the in- escapable clash of social forces to rapid and fruitful conclusions. The socialist theory embodied in this law of uneven and combined development should be used as a guide to the work of all scientific socialists—and in sO using it socialists will find that its truth is verified, a hundred times each day, by living practice. Opinion 89 by D. GRANIN ment. ‘No. No cuts at all. Not at any price. It would be contrary to principle.’ _ _ ‘Good lad!’ Minayev thought. There was something amaz- ingly familiar about Olkhovsky’s reaction.... And all of a sudden Minayev found himself recalling a long forgotten episode when he, too, had clenched his fists and shouted in a ringing, strained voice.... There had been a time when his hair was as tousled, and on the lapel of his shabby jacket, too, there used to be a Komsomol badge. The remembrance moved him but found no expression at all in his extinguished eyes wearily half closed by heavy eyelids. The lips of his large energetic face firmly preserved in their corners that non-com- mittal expression which anybody might interpret as he wished. _ ‘You like to make a clatter with that word “principle”, Minayev said, coldly. “You just try to put it into practice. Earn the right and the means to put it into practice! Yes, Comrade Olkhovsky,’ he repeated with malicious satisfaction, ‘put it into practice, don’t just proclaim it. And to do that means sacrificing a thing or two. Olkhovsky bent over the table. His black eyes peered at Minayev contemptuously from under his mop of hair. “What about you, Vladimir Pakhomo- vich, have you earned the right to stick to principle?’ The childish impudence of the question angered Mina- yev. He put on his smile, that benign, amiable smile which always come in so useful-at difficult moments, and said con- descendingly: ‘Careful, you'll upset the ink. Olkhovsky

[p030] blushed and moved back a little. “You see,’ Minayev went on, ‘it’s important to check yourself in time.’ A VENOMOUS REPLY The conversation left a painful impression on Minayev. Ah well, he thought, the most important thing now was the order confirming his appointment. After that had come through, he could help Olkhovsky. Even Stroyev wouldn’t be so fearsome then. He could hold his own with anybody then. It’s not enough to have an opinion, one must be in a suitable position as well.... Thoughts like these smoothed everything over pleasantly; they appeared, obligingly, each time that a disagreeable turn had to be made. It was not long before a letter arrived, inquiring about Olkhovsky’s article. This was signed by one of the instructors of the City Committee of the Party, Loktev. Enclosed was a letter from Olkhovsky to Loktev. When he read the letters Minayev became angry. ‘... Minayev’s cowardly policy streng- thens Stroyev’s Arakcheyevism!.... Isn’t it high time for a man holding a post like this to allow himself the “luxury” of maintaining his own opinion? ...’ The whippersnapper! The impudent brat! The smart-Alec! Minayev wrote the answer himself. It was laconic, polite and at the same time deadly venomous. He exploited to the full Loktev’s suspiciousness, which was very well known to him. Olkhovsky emerged as a slanderer and troublemaker who robbed other people of their time with all these importunities of his; and his work as likewise absurd and slanderous in character. In places the letter merely asserted things, but Minayev knew that the more asser- tions there were, the more convincing the letter would seem. In signing the letter he scratched the paper awkwardly with his pen, and the sound of it made him wince.... After all he just couldn’t risk losing everything on account of this boy’s stub- bornness, at the very moment when his dreams were about to come true. It was Olkhovsky himself who had obliged him to write such a letter. And after all it was all the same, wasn’t it? The time would come when everything could be put right. He added Olkhovsky’s personal file to the stack of papers in his tray. * * *% Minayev had a profound respect for Petrishchev, the Deputy Minister, and that perhaps was why he did not feel particularly glad that Petrishchev was visiting the Institute. In the Deputy Minister’s presence, Minayev always experienced a strange, timid feeling of guilt. True, this burdensome feeling never prevented Minayev from smiling and making jokes, and at times he was quite surprised at the way his facial muscles, his voice, and his hands behaved as was required without any effort on his part. Minayev showed Petrishchev over the laboratories, ac- quainted him with the subjects they were working on and lis- tened to the observations made by the Deputy Minister. Although these observations did not differ from those which Minayev himself had made to his subordinates, he nevertheless asked an assistant to take a note of everything that was said; he thought such attentiveness would gratify Petrishchev. In one of the laboratories, while he was. showing the De- puty Minister a vibrator, Minayev saw Olkhovsky pushing his way towards them. The young man was paler even than usual. His pointed chin was trembling. His dark eyes, wide-open, gazed at the Deputy Minister with hope and fear. Every mo- ment that he had to wait sapped Olkhovsky’s resolution; seeing this, Minayev switched on the apparatus. A wailing noise shot up like a fountain towards the ceiling, to fall and fill the room with a dense drone. Minayev threw a menacing glance at Olk- hovsky in an attempt to stop him by showing that he had chosen a most unsuitable moment to bother the Deputy Min- ister with his complaint. After all, there was only a week to wait. Olkhovsky’s egoism angered him, but when at last the young man began to speak, Minayev calmed down. ROARS OF LAUGHTER Instead of setting forth the essential points of his case right at the start, Olkhovsky began by talking about the roots of conservatism, the-system of responsibilities, and so on, get- ting confused among the long phrases he had prepared in ad- vance. Nobody could make out what he was after. Minayev 1Rigid and brutal dictatorship, named after ‘Arakcheyev, minister to Tsar Alexander I.—Trans. : Seiten RFs cae NM Fs caught the twinkle of sympathetic attention in the Deputy Minister’s eyes and suddenly felt ashamed of Olkhovsky. ‘Why is he dragging it out like this? Silly little snotty-nosed theoreti- cian,’ Minayev thought angrily. “What a muddlehead he is! Any moment now Petrishchev will interrupt him.’ ‘Excuse me,’ said Petrishchev, ‘but what is it, exactly, that you want?’ Olkhovsky fell into embarrassed silence, his dry lips continuing to work, but soundlessly. Minayev lowered: his eyes. God, what a clumsy brat! Olkhovsky plunged his hand into his pocket, pulled out with a jerk a manuscript that was frayed at the folds, and thrust it at Petrishchev. The Deputy Minister opened out the folded manuscript; within lay a crumpled one-rouble note, amid shreds of tobacco. Somebody burst out laughing, and the Deputy Minister, unable to re- strain himself, began to laugh too, as he held out the one- rouble note to Olkhovsky. Then at once everybody standing around roared with laughter. There was nothing offensive in ‘this laughter; in such a situation one should laugh with the rest and make a joke of it, but instead Olkhovsky blushed with agonizing embarrassment. An absurd, shy smile crossed his face and he seemed about to burst into tears on the spot. ‘Please examine it yourself,’ Olkhovsky began gabbling, in that state of desperation in which it seems not to matter what one, does; only a moment was left and everything had to be said. ‘Or else you'll send it. ... Viadimir Pakhomovich here....’ ‘Of course we'll examine it,’ the Deputy Minister replied, in a markedly calm and unhurried manner. When they were back in Minayev’s office, Petrishchev asked what the manuscript was that the young engineer had given him. It would have been stupid to reveal his fears regarding Stroyev, so Minayev began like this: ‘The manuscript...” Then came a pause. ‘Well, if you. don’t mind, the head of the department where Olkhovsky works can tell you about it better than I” ‘I can do no other,’ he thought, justifying himself, as he imagined in advance all that was going to happen. Olkhov- sky’s departmental chief mentioned the interesting methods of computation which the young man had worked out, but at once made a reservation about him—-what was needed was a careful follow-up, without all intrigues, rows, complaints, let- ters and what not.... He was trying to avoid giving offence to Minayev while at the same time maintaining an objective attitude towards Olkhovsky. ‘So it must have been a surprise to everyone that he made such a nuisance of himself today?’ said Petrishchev, in astonishment. ‘I was at college with him,’ said Minayev’s assistant. ‘He’s always been like that... .’ The assistant turned his forefinger round and round pointing to his temple. Minayev appreciated that his assistant was saying this because he thought Minayev wanted him to, but all the same it was going too far. A HARMFUL ECCENTRIC ‘There are such people amongst us, _ certainly,’ said the Deputy Minister. ‘They scribble protests, demand investigating commissions, adopt battering-ram tactics. Later on it turns out to be a lot of demented raving. But there are people whom people call demented....’ He frowned, evi- “dently remembering something from his own career. ‘How- ever that may be, the problem itself is worth attending to,’ said Minayev hastily, in that rather bluff, independent way that Petrishchev liked. Petrishchev agreed and handed over the manuscript for him to deal with. Although this confidence shown in him by the Deputy Minister was pleasant to Mina- yev it also gave him a vague sense of guilt. Minayev reassured himself; he had no moral duty towards Petrishchev, for the latter had no alternative but to agree with him. He could not but show confidence in the man whom he was going to con- firm.as Director. There’s no help for it, you impose your will on such circumstances, but they also impose themselves on you, when you encounter them. Now that the question had been settled, he at once began to feel sorry for Olkhovsky. At bottom, Petrishchev had been convinced that Olkhovsky was a troublemaker, and a harmful eccentric. That was bad. Ruining a fellow just because he had shown himself so awkward at presenting his- case. One can’t do such things. What pleasure it would have given him to fling aside all his calculations and speculations and say what he thought. But his life remained shut; seated in his office chair he listened to what the Deputy Minister was saying, his gloomy face ex- pressing imperturbable attention to the matter in hand. When he became Director, Minayev forgot about Olkhov-

[p031] sky amid his mass of new responsibilities, and it took an in- quiry from the Central Administration of the industry to remind him of that affair. As before, a letter from Olkhovsky was enclosed with the inquiry. Bitterly, clumsily, the young man was continuing his hopeless fight. In his artless way, Olkhovsky despised such things as typewriters and so these letters of his, written in a round childish hand on pages torn from a school exercise book made a poor first impression on their readers. The first few paragraphs were written with care, but after that the handwriting became more and more slanting and the lines hastened to turn down at the ends. Minayev was con- fident that nobody but himself had read this letter right through. Olkhovsky was attacking, with naive. fury, the system under which scientific works were published. ‘A pernicious “one-sided responsibility” reigns here,’ he had written. “What is the use of. publishing a sharp or controversial article on a scientific subject—you can get into trouble for it, be made to answer for it, whereas if you decide not to publish the article, nobody will bother you.... ‘Correctly observed,’ thought Minayev. It looked as though the youngster was trying to get to the root of the matter. Olk- hovsky was no longer concerned so much about the fate of his own work as about the nature of the tough, impenetrable obstacle against which he had bumped for the first time in his life. Anger had given maturity and depth to his ideas. With a feeling of repentance, Minayev discerned a note of embitterment and even at times of desperation in what Olk- hovsky had written. He did not reply at once to the Central Administration; he would try at leisure to think of some way of helping Olkhovsky. The sense of tact which he had deve- loped over the years held him back from making a premature onslaught on Stroyev. He must consolidate his position... these arguments of his amazed Minayev—he had become Director at last, but it turned out that nothing had changed.... PLANTING THE KNIFE At a Party meeting Olkhovsky launched a criticism against Loktev, the instructor from the town Party Commit- tee, for utter failure to understand the nature of scientific work, for ‘corpse-like indifference to living thought...’ Olk- hovsky’s foolhardiness alarmed Minayev. Everything that the young man was saying was true, but Olkhovsky did not take into account that just because Loktev was such a mediocrity he never left unpunished a single attack upon himself. Sooner or later he found a suitable moment to plant a knife—whis- pering, spreading rumours, disdaining no means that offered to get his revenge. As he listened to Olkhovsky fearlessly attacking an adver- sary so obviously stronger than himself, Minayev felt pity and sympathy for him. He even gave a groan of vexation. What a pity it was—but there was nothing to be done about it. Olk- hovsky had gone too far in his struggle, and to back him up would mean coming into conflict with a lot of influential peo- ple. In the depths of his heart Minayev felt acutely envious of Olkhovsky’s reckless freedom of behaviour—it was nothing to him what he lost; prudence probably seemed to him the same thing as faintheartedness and patience the same as weakness. On the day after the meeting Minayev placed the inquiry and Olkhovsky’s letter in a folder and marked it: ‘To my assistant, for reply.’ That evening his assistant, a smooth- haired young man, with a pale yellow face, wearing spectacles with frames of the same pale yellow colour, came into Mina- yev’s office, treading noiselessly on thick rubber soles, and gave him for signature a letter typed on paper bearing the red seal of the Institute. The vaguely benevolent style of the reply could give no offence to anyone, and preserved the right to delay a decision indefinitely. Minayev gazed with curiosity from under his weary half- closed lids into his assistant’s impassive face. ‘What do you think of Olkhovsky? He’s a capable lad, isn’t he?’ “Yes,’ answered the assistant, inclining his smooth head, ‘he is capable.’ ‘And what would you have written, my polite friend, if you were sitting in my chair?’ Minayev wanted to ask. But he knew how to get inside people’s minds and so what he actually said was, retaining his interrogative tone: ‘It’s a simple matter for you now, but if you were in Academician Stroyev’s place...’ For the first time Minayev saw his assistant come to life and in a youthfully brisk way pass his hand through his hair, spoiling his wonderful parting. ‘Vladimir Pakhomovich, I just typed without thinking... You know, such a saving of fuel— ‘Why then do you think up answers like this to my ques- tions?’ Minayev asked him sharply. ‘Answers that don’t coin- cide with your real opinions? Why do you act the Molchalin?”! ‘I WRITE AS YOU WISH’ hai The assistant slowly and firmly smoothed down his ruffled air. ‘I write as you wish me to write, so that one day I may be able to write as I think best,’ he said, staring hard into Minayev’s eyes. ‘Oh indeed! And you hope that will happen one day?’ said Minayev, with a thoughtful grin. Lifting a blue pencil from the glass pencil holder he affixed a bold signature to the letter his assistant had drafted. Olkhovsky never again appealed to Minayev. Several times their paths crossed in the corridors of the Institute; Olkhovsky passed him by, his head sullenly lowered and his long arms dangling as though they belonged to somebody else. Minayev longed to stop him and have a heart-to-heart talk, give him advice, tell him to have patience; he, Minayev, would soon be visiting the Ministry, and would find an opportunity to have a talk with somebody there.... But he sensed that Olkhovsky would not believe him, and that was disagreeable; Minayev wanted to show him that he was not guilty, that it was not to any great extent his responsibility. The day before his visit to the Ministry, Minayev was summoned to the Town Party Committee. He knew that Lok- tev was trying to get Olkhovsky dismissed. But, after all, who was Loktev? A mere instructor for the Town Party Committee ...'What right has he to interfere in my affairs? If it had been necessary to get rid of Olkhovsky, I myself would have done it. By what rule am I obliged to indulge the petty, wounded self-love of this functionary? No; and that’s that. Loktev’s not my boss, and it’s not for him to give me orders. It would be different if it were the Secretary of the Town Party Committee—but this instructor fellow. ... I’m not a child any longer, Comrade Loktev, nor is my position...’ That’s what he would say: ‘nor is my position...’ That would make things quite clear. He mentally repeated that last phrase, very significantly, with a faint smile. Approaching the build- ing of the Town Party Committee he mechanically passed his hand over his smoothly-shaven chin, and straightened his tie, and as he did so he thought that this habitual gesture of his was not becoming to him. Enough, the time had come when he could allow himself some independence; he was as good as any of the other directors. On this occasion especially he could and must unmask Loktev. Ascending the wide staircase of the Party headquarters, walking down the long spacious cor- ridor, Minayev held his head high, and his heavy features expressed, instead of his usual secretiveness, a harsh resolution. * * * He left the Party headquarters within the hour. It had begun to rain. Little drops pattered on the gleaming asphalt. Minayev stood for a long time beside his car. Innumerable small wet patches covered the grey surface of the road. The drops fell on Minayed’s summer overcoat; he could feel their faint drumming on his shoulders. ‘Please get in, Vladimir Pakhomovich,’ said his driver. Minayev raised his head and stared at him with a sur- prised air. “You go on,’ he said, and slammed the car door. The Zim drove off, leaving the space it had occupied neatly outlined on the asphalt. Minayev watched the raindrops spotting the light-coloured dry rectangle. “You go on,’ he said again, listening to his own voice. He began walking straight ahead. Wherever it might lead, it was ahead. He could go to the Square, or he could turn down to the Embankment. The only thing he could not do was to turn back to the Party headquarters. Whatever he might \Hypocritical time-server in Griboyedov’s play, ‘The Misfor- tune of Being Clever’.—Trans.

[p032] tell himself, however he tried to persuade himself .. . the occasions in his life when he had had to take a look at him- self had been rare. No, that was not true. He had thought about himself enough, he had tried to foresee every one of his actions, to think before he spoke; but he had never be- fore thought why he acted in a particular way and not other- wise. DANGEROUS THOUGHTS A painful sort of psychologizing had set in...the dex- terity acquired by long training, with which even now he turned away from dangerous thoughts, amused him. “But what was it that happened at the Party headquarters?’ he asked himself, suddenly and point-blank. Loktev had pro- posed with brutal frankness that Olkhovsky be transferred to the experimental station at Nikolayev. As he listened to Lok- tev, Minayev had asked himself by what right this dreary smatterer, this dull official, with the dead, somewhat stale- looking face, who had never created anything and was in- capable of doing so, was sitting and deciding the fate of men like Olkhovsky. And Loktev didn’t even ask, for form’s sake, about Stroyev’s motors, which constituted the heart of the matter under consideration—he didn’t care a damn about that! He had been firmly convinced that Minayev would do as he, Loktev, wished. From where did he get that vile certainty of his? The river was still thick with the last of the ice. In places it was entirely white, as though frozen over. The icefloes drifted against the granite piers of the bridge, and gently- cracking angular fragments circled round and _ disappeared under the spans. Leaning over the parapet of the bridge, Minayev looked down. It was as though the icefloes were stationary and the bridge was moving. Cold air came off the dark water, long, sparkling crystals of ice tinkled as they broke against the granite, and, shimmering, disappeared be- neath the water. Taking a grip on himself, Minayev turned away from the parapet. His chest hurt, and suddenly he felt lost. He removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeves. The cold raindrops seemed to scorch his hot skin. He felt old and weary of life. Suddenly he saw himself as though from outside—a bald, flabby man with a puffy face, walking across a bridge clutching his hat in his hand. God, how quickly he had aged. When had it happened. He, Vol- odya Minayev, had sung in the school choir, had been secre- tary of the Party cell in his faculty.... Suddenly he felt frightened by the thought; was he really an old man already? With terrifying distinctness there arose before him Vol- odya Minayev, a. bright-eyed lad with a thin neck like a chicken’s, just as he had been when he arrived at Selkhoz- mash.1 ‘Do you remember that affair with the suspension engine? Perhaps we could begin with that?’ He remembered it. The workshop manager had said to him: ‘It’s early days yet for you to be sticking your neck out, Minayev. Where do you think you'll get with your little efforts against the Chief Designer? He’ll block your whole future. What are you? A foreman. People like you have to swallow whatever comes, without chewing it over.’ He remembered the humiliated helplessness he had felt when the chief designer, sipping his tea, after listening to his passionate speech, had replied, in- tentionally getting his name wrong: ‘Now listen, Linayev, if you push yourself forward once more with this nonsense, I'll kick you out of the factory. Be off with you.’ DEBTS TO THE FUTURE Together with some friends he had gone on trying to resist, rushing about and arguing with people. It had all been in vain. One could waste three, five, ten years in hopeless struggle like that without getting anywhere. There had been three of them. First one was dismissed from the factory, then another. It was Minayev’s turn next. Then he had pretended to submit. He consoled himself by thinking that he was only playing for time. It was necessary to take a roundabout way, first of all achieving independence and authority—then he would give these bureaucrats what for. Gritting his teeth, he pressed on towards his goal. He was appointed assistant man- ager of the workshop. He taught himself to be patient and hold his tongue, for the sake of the day when he would be able to do what ought to be done. He made himself swear to 1A great agricultural machinery works built under the first five-year plan.—Trans. 3 endure everything. He became a yes-man to the stupidest ignoramuses. He voted ‘for’ when his conscience told him to vote ‘against’. He spoke words which he did not believe. He praised what he should have cursed. When things grew un- bearable, he held his tongue. Silence is the most comfortable form of lying. It knows how to live on good terms with con- science, it leaves one the covert right to hold one’s private opinion, and perhaps one day to express it. But not now. Not while workshop manager and not while head of the technical section, and not while chief engineer of the factory either. Nor in one’s degree thesis. Too soon. Each time it had been too soon! And the list of his debts to the future had grown ever longer. Life had thrown up new ideas and had come up against new obstacles. How many men like Olkhovsky had he left behind him.... Tireless as an ant, he had raised up the edifice of his own position, striving to make it ever stronger. Why? What had he achieved? The higher he climbed, the less he was himself. The harder it was for him to take risks. What prevented him? Why could others do it?... Why could Petrishchev, who had been unjustly punished, demoted, dis- missed, yet had always broken through, pushed on and triumphed. No, nothing prevented him, Minayev, it was just easier for him to behave like that: He admitted that it was easier. And when Loktev, brandishing a copy of Minayev’s reply to the inquiry from the Party Committee, reproached him with duplicity—‘You write one thing and say another; what is it you really want to tell the Secretary?’—he had realized that there was no reason why he should be afraid of Loktev. He had the right to be frank and should go for him this time, as it would be easy to do. Everything Loktev had proposed was base, base through and through, but what startled Minayev was something differ- ent—Loktev at least said what he meant. Loktev and Olkhov- sky. All the others involved in this business thought one thing and said another. All of them, beginning with Minayev himself, and ending with his assistant. Each one of them played the hypocrite and lied in his own way, and probably that was why Loktev did not need to lie. MUTUAL SUPPORT ‘What a scoundrel he is!’ Minayev had thought with hatred as he gazed into Loktev’s prominent eyes. ‘He ought to be thrown out of the Party Committee on his neck! And not merely out of the Committee but out of the Party. A spiteful nonentity, that’s what he is. Why, if they threw him out he wouldn’t get a job even as a shop manager.’ The more strongly he hated and despised Loktev, the more calmly he dissuaded him, and when Loktev began to insist and threaten, he asked him to postpone dealing with the question for a few days. Soberly estimating the total amount of unpleasantness that Loktev was able to cause him, he was hoping to enlist support in Moscow. ‘All right, but don’t drag the thing out,’ said Loktev, when parting from him. ‘You yourself have put it on record that Olkhovsky is a troublemaker. The Institute needs a clean- up, the atmosphere needs ventilating.’ ‘What a rotter he is,’ thought Minayev, as he firmly shook Loktev’s hand. In Moscow, at the Ministry, the Institute was blamed for non-fulfilment of its plan, and although in the majority of instances this was the fault of the Ministry itself there was no point in making that objection, since Minayev was re- garded as a new man, and all such reproaches would be put down not to him but to the previous leadership of the Insti- tute. Thanks to following these tactics, Minayev managed to get in an application for equipment which was in short sup- ply. Academician Stroyev supported the Institute in this tick- — lish matter; after which Minayev found: it inconvenient to bring up the Olkhovsky affair. The preoccupations of his trip to Moscow pushed that affair to the back of his mind; here in Moscow it seemed somehow petty, and it returned to the surface of his memory only in the train, when Minayev found himself in his compartment of a half-empty sleeping car. It was probably the rain that was responsible. It began imper- ceptibly and soon covered the window with slanting glittering streaks. Tiny drops made their way in zigzags down the pane, absorbing the drizzle that fell, merging with other drops and gliding jerkily, faster and faster, to the bottom. Remember- ing the promise he had given to Loktev, Minayev sighed; probably he would storm and swear, but there was no help

[p033] for it, he’d have to transfer Olkhovsky to Nikolayev. Just temporarily, of course, until tempers cooled down. THE THREE MINAYEVS Against the background of the night’s dense darkness, the double window mirrored a heavy figure in striped pyjamas, with a puffy face with a cigarette in the corner of a firmly- shut mouth; and another, less distinct, figure made up of sparkling drops of rain. The cigarette smoke, drifting against the cold glass, formed clinging blue tendrils. Through them, out of the black depths of the window, from somewhere out- side the carriage, that young man gazed at Minayev wearing the sodden cap and shabby jacket of his student days. Streams of water ran down his pale cheeks, down his chicken-thin neck. ‘There, you see, you’ve put it off again; you’re just a trifler, that’s all. It makes me sick to look at you.’ ‘One has to take real circumstances into account; it’s easy to indulge in fantasies when you don’t know what life is like, but I’ve studied it.’ “You promised that you would remain yourself. All right, you said, wait till I’m made director, Ill be strong then, but now...’ ‘What a naive lad you are! As though a director were God. Now, if I worked at the Ministry I — wouldn’t be dependent on Loktev. I’d be able...’ ‘Just think, you could ignore Loktev’s threats and go to the secretary of the City Party Committee, or even to the Central Committee.’ ‘I have behaved honourably, and am doing all I can. Every- thing will be all right with Olkhovsky, too; Ill look after that.’ ‘No, you’ve betrayed me, your youth. How can I have any confidence in you?’ ‘Fine-sounding, those words; I’ve no time for that sort of thing. If I am yielding now, it’s only so as to be able to help not just Olkhovsky alone. I’m res- ponsible for a great Institute, and there I can help dozens of fellows like Olkhovsky...’ And there was yet a third Minayev who listened to the old one reassuring the young one, confidently demonstrating that all that had happened was inevitable, promising that he would help Olkhovsky as soon as the necessary circumstances existed; and this one knew that it would never be so. He would always deceive himself, carrying on this endless game, unable to find the strength to tear himself out of the prison- house of his own duplicity. He would always be able to justify himself. He would always be trying to be an honest man tomorrow... The blue threads of smoke clouded over the wet face out- side the window, and it floated away into the darkness of the night, together with the past. Where had his past life gone? The only thing that was left was his feeling of expectation; it seemed that all his years had been filled with unceasing expectation. Next morning Minayev’s assistant met him at the station. Dressing slowly, Minayev listened to the news from the Institute. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he asked, ‘did Loktev phone, from Town Party Committee?’ ‘He phoned several times.’ ‘I see,’ said Minayev. They moved slowly through the crowd along the plat- form, past the carriage in which Minayev had arrived. He looked at the window of his compartment. The dusty glass reflected nothing, and through it, in the half-darkness, could be seen a rumpled bed and a dirty ashtray, full of cigarette stubs. the (Translated by Leonard Hussey from Novy Mir (Moscow), No. 8 (August) of 1956. A novel by Daniel Granin, entitled ‘Those Who Seek,’ has been published in this country by the Russia Today Book Club.) F