A bonus for the free workers of Marfino was that summaries of set texts were not expected on this occasion; those already written would keep till next Monday.
There was a further inducement to attend; the lecturer was no common or garden propagandist but Rakhmankul Shamsetdinov, who was on the staff of the Oblast Party Committee. Stepanov had gone around the laboratories before lunch to warn them that the lecturer was supposed to be hot stuff. (What Stepanov did not know was that the lecturer was a close friend of Mamulov. Not the Mamulov in Beria’s secretariat but his brother, commandant of the camp attached to the Khovrin munitions factory. This Mamulov kept for his personal enjoyment a serf theater, in which prisoners who had once been Moscow artistes entertained him and his dinner guests, together with girls handpicked from the Krasnaya Presnya transit prison. Because he was so close to the Mamulovs, the Moscow Oblast Committee of the Party held the lecturer in such esteem that he felt free to soar on the wings of inspiration instead of reading from a prepared text.)
But in spite of the painstaking advance publicity for the lecture, the free employees of Marfino seemed resistant to its magnetic pull and found pretexts for lingering in their laboratories. One free worker was supposed to stay behind in every department—prisoners could not be left unsupervised—so the head of the Vacuum Laboratory, who never did anything, suddenly announced that urgent business required his presence there and sent his two girls, Tamara and Klara, to the lecture. Roitman’s deputy in the Acoustics Laboratory did the same—stayed behind himself and ordered the girl on duty, Simochka, to go and listen. Major Shikin also failed to turn up, but his activities were so shrouded in secrecy that not even the Party could check up on him.
Those who did come arrived late and, out of a misguided sense of self-preservation, tried to find seats in the back rows.
A special room in the institute was reserved for meetings and lectures. A large number of chairs had been installed, irremovably nailed onto poles, eight at a time. (How else could the commandant deter people from carrying chairs around the whole site?) It was not a large room, so there was little space between rows, and knees were painfully jammed against the pole of the row in front. Those who arrived early tried to move their rows back to make more room for their legs. This provoked resistance, jokes, and laughter among the younger people sitting in neighboring rows. Thanks to the exertions of Stepanov and his whippers-in, all the rows were filled by 6:15 except the second and third, where no one could sit, because they were wedged tightly together and jammed against the front row.
“Comrades! Comrades! This is disgraceful!” Stepanov’s glasses had a leaden glint as he urged on the laggards. “You are keeping an Oblast Committee lecturer waiting!” (The lecturer, so as not to lose face, waited in Stepanov’s office.)
Roitman was the next to last to enter the lecture room. Finding nowhere else to sit—the whole place was occupied by green tunics, with here and there a bright dress—he walked all the way to the front row and sat down on the extreme left, with his knees almost touching the platform. Stepanov then went to get Yakonov; he was not a Party member, but it was only right for him to be present at such an important lecture, and anyway it should interest him. Yakonov squeezed his way forward close to the wall, bending double to squeeze his bulk past people who for the moment were not his subordinates but the Party and Komsomol collective. Finding no vacant place farther back, he sat down on the extreme right of the front row, so that he and Roitman were on opposite sides yet again!
This done, Stepanov led in the lecturer. He was a big man with broad shoulders, a large head, and an unruly mane of black hair flecked with gray. He was completely relaxed, as though he had come into the room simply to drink a mug of beer with Stepanov. He was wearing a light-colored worsted suit, somewhat creased, and a variegated tie with a knot as big as a fist. There were no exercise books or prompt sheets in his hands, and he got straight down to business.
“Comrades! Each and every one of us is interested in the nature of the world about us.”
Looming massively over his audience from behind the red-calico-covered desk on the platform, he fell silent, and they all pricked up their ears. There was a general feeling that he was about to explain it in a few words: the true nature of the world about us. But the lecturer rocked back on his heels, as though he had been given a whiff of smelling salts, and exclaimed indignantly: “Many philosophers have endeavored to answer that question! But before Marx no one was able to do so! Because metaphysics does not recognize qualitative change! Of course, it is not easy”—with two fingers he plucked a gold watch from his pocket—“not easy to make it all clear to you in an hour and a half but”—putting away his watch—“I shall try.”
Stepanov, who had installed himself at the butt end of the lecturer’s desk, interrupted: “Take longer if you like. Feel free!”
Some of the girls were in a hurry to get to the movies. Their hearts sank.
But the lecturer, spreading his arms in a dignified gesture, acknowledged that he, too, was subject to higher authority.
“Let’s stick to the time limit!” he said, putting Stepanov in his place. “What enabled Marx and Engels to give a correct picture of nature and society? The inspired philosophical system they devised, subsequently further developed by Lenin and Stalin, and known as dialectical materialism. The first major component of dialectical materialism is the materialist dialectic. I shall briefly describe its basic theses. The Prussian philosopher Hegel is usually said to have been the first to formulate the basic features of the dialectic. But that, Comrades, is radically—yes, radically—wrong! Hegel’s dialectic was standing on its head—yes, on its head—that’s indisputable! Marx and Engels set it on its feet, extracted its rational kernel, and threw away the idealistic husk! The Marxist dialectical method—that is the enemy! The enemy of all that is stagnant, all metaphysics, all superstition! And we distinguish, in all, four features of the dialectic. The first feature is . . . is that which . . . is interconnection! Interconnection, not an accumulation of isolated objects. Nature and society are not—how can I put it? Not a furniture store, where lots of things are on display, lots and lots of things, with no connection between them. In nature, everything is connected, everything—just make a note of that, and it will be a great help to you in your scientific investigations!”
Those who had not grudged an extra ten minutes but arrived early were sitting at the back in a particularly advantageous position. The stern gleam of Stepanov’s spectacles could not reach them. There, a tall lieutenant, smart as a guardsman, wrote a note and passed it to Tonya, a Tatar girl from the Acoustics Lab, also a lieutenant but wearing a bright red knitted pullover, imported, over her dark dress. Tonya hid behind the man sitting in front and unfolded the note on her knees. Her black forelock slipped and hung down, making her more attractive than ever. She read the note, blushed slightly, and began asking her neighbors for a pencil or fountain pen.
“. . . And the number of examples could be multiplied. . . . The second feature of the dialectic is that all things are in motion. All things move, nothing is or ever was at rest, and that is a fact! Science must study all things in motion, in their development, but at the same time we must get it firmly into our heads that motion does not take place in a closed circle; otherwise, the higher form of life we have today would not have emerged. Movement goes up a spiral staircase; that is self-evident, ever upward, ever upward, like this. . . .”
He showed them how, with a fluid wave of his hand; the lecturer’s movements were as free and easy as his choice of words. Scattering the superfluous chairs on the platform, he cleared a space of some three meters square near the table, paced to and fro stamping his feet, and rocked backward and forward, leaning on the back of a chair that threatened to collapse under the pressure of his sturdy frame. “Indubitably” and “it goes without saying” rang out with special emphasis, challenging contradiction, as if he were standing on the captain’s bridge, quelling a mutiny; and he pronoun
ced these words not randomly but where arguments neat enough to begin with called for still further reinforcement.
“The third feature of the dialectic is the transition of quantity into quality. This very important feature helps us to understand what development is. You must not think that development simply means enlargement. Here we must point the finger at Darwin, above all. Engels explains this feature with examples from science. Take water, the water in this carafe, say; its temperature is eighteen degrees, and it is just water. But suppose you heat it. Heat it to thirty degrees, and it will still be water. Heat it to eighty degrees, still water. But what if you heat it to one hundred? What will it be then? Steam!”
The lecturer’s cry of triumph made some of his listeners jump.
“Steam! But you can also make ice! So, then. That’s what is meant by the transition of quantity into quality! Read the Dialectics of Nature by Engels; it’s full of other instructive examples, which will throw light on your day-to-day difficulties. And now, we are told, our Soviet science has discovered that air, too, can be liquefied. For some reason, nobody had even thought of that a hundred years ago! Why? Because they didn’t know the law of transition of quantity into quality. And so it is in all things, Comrades! I will give you some examples from the development of society. . . .”
Adam Roitman did not need, had never needed, a lecturer to tell him that diamat is as important to a scientist as air, that without it no one can make sense of life’s phenomena. But at meetings, seminars, and lectures like this one, Roitman felt as if his brain were slowly turning, twisted out of true. He tried to resist but found himself succumbing to this hypnotic spin as an exhausted man surrenders to sleep. He tried to shake off his drowsiness. He could have spoken up and cited amazing examples from the structure of the atom, from wave mechanics. But he would never presume to interrupt or upstage a comrade from the Oblast Committee. His almond eyes simply stared reproachfully through his anastigmatic spectacles as the lecturer’s gesticulating arms narrowly missed his head.
The lecturer’s voice boomed on. “So, then, the transition of quantity into quality may happen explosively, and it may happen e-vol-ution-ar-ily; that is a fact! Development does not of necessity and everywhere require an explosion. Our socialist society is developing and will go on developing without explosions; that is indisputable! But social renegades, social traitors, right-wing socialists of every stripe shamelessly try to deceive the people, telling them that the transition from capitalism to socialism is possible without an explosion. Meaning what? Meaning without revolution? Without smashing the state machine? By the parliamentary path? Let them tell their fairy tales to little children, not to grown-up Marxists! Lenin taught us, and another theoretician of genius, Comrade Stalin, teaches us that the bourgeoisie will never give up power without armed struggle!”
The lecturer’s shaggy locks jiggled when he tossed his head. He blew his nose into a big azure-bordered handkerchief and looked at his watch, not with the imploring gaze of a lecturer running out of time but doubtfully, uncomprehendingly, after which he held it to his ear.
“The fourth feature of the dialectic,” he shouted, loudly enough to startle people all over again, “is that, which . . . is contradictions! Antitheses! The moribund and the new, negative and positive! It’s . . . it’s everywhere, Comrades; it’s no secret! One can give scientific examples—electricity, say! If you rub glass on silk, that will be positive; but pitch against fur, that’s negative! But only their unity, their synthesis gives energy for our industry. And you don’t have to look far for examples, Comrade; they are here, there, and everywhere. Heat is positive, while cold is negative, and in society we see the same irreconcilable conflict between positive and negative. As you see, diamat has absorbed all the best achievements of every branch of science. The hidden internal contradictions of development laid bare by the Founding Fathers of Marxism not only were found in dead nature but were seen to be the fundamental motive force of all social formations from primitive communism to the imperialism now rotting before our very eyes! And only in our classless society is the moving force inarguably not internal contradictions but criticism and self-criticism without respect of persons.”
The lecturer yawned and did not cover his mouth in time. Suddenly, he looked dejected; vertical lines appeared in his face; his lower jaw trembled in a suppressed convulsion. Struggling to remain on his feet, he spoke now in different, utterly weary tones.
“Oppositionists and defeatists of the Bukharinist persuasion grossly slandered us, claiming that we had class contradictions here . . . but. . . .”
Fatigue felled him. He blinked, slumped onto his chair, and finished his sentence in a feeble whisper: “. . . but they met with a crushing defeat at the hands of our Central Committee.”
He went on to read the whole middle part of his lecture in the same manner. It was as if an insidious disease had suddenly sapped his strength, or as if he had lost all hope that this accursed ninety minutes of lecturing would ever end. He was a man lost in a maze, despairing of ever finding a way out.
“Matter alone is absolute, while all the laws of science are relative. . . . Only matter is absolute, while every particular form of matter is relative. . . . Noth-thing is absolute except matter, and motion is its eternal attribute. . . . Motion is absolute; repose is relative. There are no absolute truths; all truths are relative. . . . The idea of beauty is relative. Ideas of good and evil are relative. . . .”
Whether Stepanov was listening or not, his whole demeanor—sitting bolt upright, flashing glances at the auditorium—expressed his awareness that a political occasion of great moment was in progress and his modest pride that such an event should take place within the walls of Marfino.
Yakonov and Roitman were forced to listen to the lecturer because they were sitting so near. And one girl in the fourth row, wearing a cheap cotton dress, listened on the edge of her seat and was slightly flushed. She wanted to show off by asking the lecturer something but couldn’t think what.
Klykachev was also watching the lecturer closely, his long, narrow head protruding from the uniformed throng. But he, too, was not listening. He conducted political education classes himself, could have given an even better lecture, and knew very well what teaching aids had provided the material for today’s performance. Klykachev was studying the lecturer out of sheer boredom, calculating how much he was paid per month, then trying to determine his age and lifestyle. He was possibly about forty, but his ashen complexion, his hollow cheeks, and his spongy, purple nose made him look over fifty—or perhaps he was getting a good deal out of life, and life was taking its revenge.
The rest of them did not even pretend to be listening. Tonya and the handsome lieutenant had used up four pages of their scribbling pads in an exchange of notes, while another lieutenant was playing an absorbing game with Tamara: He would take her first by one finger, then by another, then by her whole hand; she would give him a little slap with her other hand and free herself; and then it began all over again. They were absorbed in their game; but, like crafty schoolchildren, they did their best to look serious—their faces were all Stepanov could see of them. The head of Fourth Group was making a sketch (on his knees, where Stepanov could not see it) for the head of First Group of an extension he thought of making to a circuit, already in operation.
Still, the lecturer’s voice reached all of them in snatches. But Klara Makarygina, in a bright blue dress, had boldly planted her elbows on the back of the chair in front of her and, deaf and blind to all that was happening in that room, was wandering in that rose pink haze that is sometimes seen behind tight-shut eyelids. Mixed feelings of joy, embarrassment, and sadness had haunted her ever since Rostislav had kissed her. It was all such a hopeless tangle. Why had Erik entered her life? How could she slight him? How could she possibly “not wait” for Ruska now? But how could she “wait” for him? And how could she remain in the same group with him, meet his gaze, and go on talking where they had left off? Should sh
e transfer to another group? Perhaps the engineer colonel had decided to transfer Rostislav? It was two hours since he had been summoned, and he had still not returned. She had hurried off to the politics class, glad that she could put off their meeting. As he left the room, he had turned around in the doorway and given her an unbearably reproachful look. It must indeed have looked like a shabby trick, making promises yesterday, then today. . . .
(She did not know that they were never to meet again. Ruska had been arrested and taken away to a tight little box of a cell in the prison headquarters. While back in the Vacuum Laboratory, in the presence of its head, Major Shikin was at that very moment breaking into and searching Ruska’s desk.)
The lecturer had revived. He rose to his feet and, brandishing his big fist, demolished with ease the gimcrack formal logic created by Aristotle and the medieval scholastics, which now felt the full force of Marxist dialectic.
Marfino, by exception, received current American journals, and Rubin had recently translated for the Acoustics Laboratory at large an article that Roitman and several other officers had read on the new science of cybernetics. It was based on precisely those thrice-obsolete procedures of formal logic: “Yes” means yes, “no” means no, and Tertium non datur. (John Bull’s Two-Digit Algebraic Logic had appeared in the same year as the Communist Manifesto, only nobody had noticed it.)
“The second main section of dialectical materialism is philosophical materialism,” the lecturer thundered. “Materialism grew up in the struggle with the reactionary philosophy of idealism, of which Plato was the founder, and its most typical representatives subsequently were Bishop Berkeley, Mach, Avenarius, Yushkevich, and Valentinov.”
In the First Circle Page 85
