discovered that all their prayers were worthless and that everything they did at the altar, and everything they told people from the pulpit, was a fraud?
The discovery of that terrible truth would strike them down with a blow worse than a father’s death or the last glimpse of his lifeless body. People had always been comforted by their belief in God, and they usually died before their children. Such was the law of nature. Their only consolation was the knowledge that, after their death, God would guide their children through their lives on this earth, just as the children found their only solace in the thought that God would greet their parents beyond the grave. God was always in people’s minds, even when He Himself was too busy to listen to their prayers and keep track of their accumulated days of indulgence.
Eventually Gavrila’s lessons filled me with a new confidence. In this world there were realistic ways of promoting goodness, and there were people who had dedicated their whole lives to it. These were the Communist Party members. They were selected from the whole population and given special training, set particular tasks to perform. They were prepared to endure hardship, even death, if the cause of the working people required it. The Party members stood at that social summit from which human actions could be seen not as meaningless jumbles, but as part of a definite pattern. The Party could see farther than the best sniper. That was why every member of the Party not only knew the meaning of events, but also shaped them and directed them toward new aims. That was why no Party member was ever surprised at anything. The Party was to the working people what the engine is to a train. It led others toward the best goals, it pointed out shortcuts to an improvement of their lives. And Stalin was the engineer at the throttle of this engine.
Gavrila always returned hoarse and exhausted from Party meetings which were long and tempestuous. The Party members evaluated each other at these frequent meetings; each of them would criticize the others and himself, give praise where due, or point out shortcomings. They were particularly aware of events around them, and they always endeavored to forestall the harmful activities of people under the influence of priests and landlords. Through their constant watchfulness the members of the Party became tempered like steel. Among the Party members there were young and old, officers and enlisted men. The strength of the Party, as Gavrila explained, lay in its ability to rid itself of those who, like a jammed or crooked wheel on a cart, impeded progress. This self-purging was done at the meetings. It was there that members acquired the necessary toughness.
There was about it something immensely captivating. One looked at a man dressed like everyone else, working and fighting as they all did. He seemed to be just another soldier in a great army. But he might be a member of the Party; in a pocket of his uniform, over his heart, he might be carrying his Party card. Then he changed in my eyes as did sensitized paper in the darkroom of the regimental photographer. He became one of the best, one of the chosen, one of those who knew more than the others. His judgment carried more force than a box of explosives. Others grew silent when he spoke, or spoke more carefully when he listened.
In the Soviet world a man was rated according to others’ opinion of him, not according to his own. Only the group, which they called “the collective,” was qualified to determine a man’s worth and importance. The group decided what could make him more useful and what could reduce his usefulness to others. He himself became the composite of everything others said about him. Learning to know a man’s inner character was a never-ending process, Gavrila said. There was no way of knowing that at its bottom, as in a deep well, there might not lurk an enemy of the working people, an agent of the landlords. That is why a man had to be continually watched by those around him, by his friends and enemies alike.
In Gavrila’s world the individual seemed to have many faces; one of them might be slapped while another was being kissed, and yet another went temporarily unnoticed. At every moment he was measured by yardsticks of professional proficiency, family origin, collective or Party success, and compared with other men who might replace him at any time or who might be replaced by him. The Party looked at a man simultaneously through lenses of different focus, but unvarying precision; no one knew what final image would emerge.
To be a Party member was indeed the goal. The path to that summit was not easy, and the more I learned about the life of the regiment the more I realized the complexity of the world in which Gavrila moved.
It seemed that to reach the pinnacle a man must climb simultaneously many ladders. He might have been already halfway up on the professional ladder while just starting out on the political one. He might have been ascending one and descending the other. Thus his chances of reaching the summit altered, and the peak, as Gavrila said, was often one step forward and two steps back. Besides, even after reaching this peak, one might easily fall and have to start the climb all over again.
Because a person’s rating depended in part on one’s social origin, one’s family background counted even if one’s parents were not living. A man had a better chance of ascending the political ladder if his parents were industrial workers rather than peasants or office clerks. This shadow of their family trailed people relentlessly, just as the concept of original sin hounded even the best Catholic.
I was filled with apprehension. Though I could not remember my father’s exact occupation, I recalled the presence of cook, maid, and nurse, who would surely be classified as victims of exploitation. I also knew that neither my father nor my mother had been a worker. Would it mean that, just as my black hair and eyes were held against me by the peasants, my social origin could handicap my new life with the Soviets?
On the military ladder one’s position was determined by rank and function in the regiment. A veteran Party member had to obey explicitly the orders of his commander, who might not even be a Party member. Later at a Party meeting he could criticize this same commander’s activities and, if his charges were supported by other Party members, he might cause the transfer of the commander to a lower post. Sometimes the reverse was true. A commander might punish an officer who belonged to the Party, and the Party might further demote the officer in its hierarchy.
I felt lost in this maze. In the world into which Gavrila was initiating me, human aspirations and expectations were entangled with each other like the roots and branches of great trees in a thick forest, each tree struggling for more moisture from the soil and more sunshine from the sky.
I was worried. What would happen to me when I grew up? How would I look when seen through the many eyes of the Party? What was my deepest core: a healthy core like that of a fresh apple, or a rotten one like the maggoty stone of a withered plum?
What would happen if the others, the collective, decided that I was best suited for deep-water diving, for example? Would it matter that I was terrified of water because every plunge reminded me of my near-drowning under the ice? The group might think that it had been a valuable experience, qualifying me to train for diving. Instead of becoming an inventor of fuses I would have to spend the rest of my life as a diver, hating the very sight of water, panic-stricken before each dive. What would happen in that case? How can an individual, Gavrila asked, presume to put his judgment ahead of that of the many?
I absorbed Gavrila’s every word, writing questions which I wanted answered on the slate he had given me. I listened to the soldiers’ conversations before and after the meetings; I eavesdropped on the meetings through the canvas walls of the tent.
The life of these Soviet grownups was not very easy. Maybe it was just as hard as wandering from one village to the next, and being taken for a Gypsy. A man had many paths from which to choose, many roads and highways across the country of life. Some were dead ends, others led to swamps, to dangerous traps and snares. In Gavrila’s world only the Party knew the right paths and the right destination.
I tried to memorize Gavrila’s teaching, not to lose a single word. He maintained that to be happy and useful one should join the march of the working people, keeping in step with the others in the place assigned in the column. Pushing too close to the head of the column was as bad as lagging behind. It could mean loss of contact with the masses, and would lead to decadence and degeneracy. Every stumble could slow down the whole column, and those who fell risked being trampled on by the others . . .
17
In the late afternoon crowds of peasants came from the villages. They brought fruit and vegetables in exchange for the rich canned pork sent to the Red Army all the way from America, for shoes, or for a piece of tent canvas suitable for making into a pair of trousers or a jacket.
As the soldiers were finishing their afternoon duties, one heard accordion music and singing here and there. The peasants listened intently to the songs, barely understanding their words. Some of the peasants joined boldly and loudly in the song. Others appeared alarmed, suspiciously watching the faces of their neighbors who displayed
