Red Star

by Loren R. Graham

  In the third year of the Project a new factor entered into the relations between Menni and the workers. By that time trade unions had been formed under the influence of urban proletarians who had brought their organizational habits and demands to their new places of work. At first, of course, only a minority of workers joined the unions, but gradually the unorganized ones followed their example and willingly granted the former the leading role in all negotiations with the engineers. Most of the engineers were for their part not opposed to dealing with the delegates of the unions. On one of his trips to Thaumasia Menni was officially approached by representatives of the Excavators’ union, whose navvies were employed on the Nectar Canal. The problem was that several thousand workers were digging through a particularly compact and rocky subsoil. They were on a piecework system based on cubic measures of excavated earth, which meant that many started receiving considerably less than average earnings. The union proposed establishing a minimum daily wage. Menni listened quietly and attentively as usual and then asked the delegates who had elected them.

  “The Excavators’ Union,” they replied.

  “Does everyone involved in excavation belong to your union?”

  “No, not everyone.”

  “In that case, I cannot discuss the matter with you. Employment contracts have been concluded not with the union, but with each navvy individually. The union therefore lacks the authority to alter the terms of the contracts.”

  “But it’s impossible for each navvy to conduct his own individual negotiations.”

  “Of course. I am not refusing to talk to the real representatives of all the workers affected by the matter, but I am refusing to recognize you as having such a mandate. You were elected not by the workers, but by an organization which may be pursuing goals alien to them and acting according to norms which they had no voice in formulating. If the workers wish, they can tell me what they need through delegates whom they have freely and directly elected.”

  “But now even many capitalists think it is possible to conduct negotiations with the unions. And it was in fact Maro who referred us to you.”

  “The capitalists can do what they think is best for them—that is no concern of mine. Not wishing to decide the matter himself, Maro was quite correct in advising you to come to me. Now you know my point of view.”

  The workers left, exasperated by Menni’s formalism. They informed their comrades of his answer. All the navvies then elected delegates, and the wage system was adjusted. After this incident, however, the most conscious workers began agitating against Menni, accusing him of wanting to deprive the workers of their freedom of organization. This was doubtless an exaggeration, but it was understandable. The agitation also influenced the mass of the workers who were not organized but did not wish to relinquish their right to join the unions, and distrust of Menni grew.

  Part of the bourgeois press—the largest newspapers, controlled by the Council of Syndicates—entered the fray and did their best to exacerbate the conflict. They showered Menni with backhanded compliments on his “firmness” and “resolution,” sometimes taking advantage of the opportunity to add that perhaps his attitude toward the unions was just a little too severe and categorical, but that on the other hand, at times there was no harm in going to this other extreme, as most employers were entirely too meek and soft on this vital question. Here appropriate mention was usually made of Menni’s feudal extraction, and he was praised as “a knight of iron who had preserved the best traits of his ancestors, the mighty dukes of Thaumasia.”

  The reactionary press, owned by the former landlords, suddenly adopted a radically different tone when they spoke of Menni. “The Republic stole him from the old aristocracy; the Republic raised him to betray his great heritage,” wrote one of their publicists, “but these sacred principles are now taking their revenge. The entire personality and behavior of Ormen Aldo have unmasked the lie of democracy, which has proved unable completely to corrupt his ancient blood.” The journalist argued quite persuasively that the accomplishment of any truly grandiose mission demands a leader, a strong authority that is in essence monarchical, whatever men might choose to call him. “Could Menni’s heroic father, who sacrificed his life for the honor and glory of the house of Aldo, even dream of acquiring the power actually possessed by his republican engineer son?” For their part the socialists unmasked the “dictator,” while the democrats were at a loss for what to say. Public opinion wavered and gradually swung against Menni.

  Soon Menni was confronted by a new and very serious problem. The construction of the Ambrosia Canal had reached the point from which it would continue for two hundred kilometers across an extremely unhealthy region known among the Thaumasians as the Rotten Bogs. The clay subsoil of a vast area there rose in many places to the very surface, forming innumerable shallow depressions that were impossible to drain. These collected stagnant rainwater and were also fed by the streams descending from the nearby mountains, which the canals would subsequently have to cut through. The region was almost uninhabited; the vegetation was luxuriant, consisting only of swamp plants, and the bogs were teeming with disease. Three hundred thousand workers, often laboring up to their waists in water, were to be employed in this area for a period of about two years. Illness was rampant; thousands died each month, and muffled discontent began fermenting among the workers. The unions conferred but were at first unable to arrive at any generally acceptable solution.

  Whenever possible, Maro began sending workers who had fallen ill to work instead on the Nectar Canal, from which he transferred fresh men to replace them. As a result the discontent and agitation spread to that project as well, and the atmosphere became even more tense. A movement was beginning to take form, but it still lacked an articulate battle cry. Such a banner was being sought, however, and it was obvious that unless something happened to reverse the situation, it would soon be found.

  Menni had to an extent foreseen such complications. He had been especially careful to furnish a detailed justification for the course of the Ambrosia Canal in his plan. He had himself shown that, considering the relief of the area, it would be easier to move the line of the canal a few dozen kilometers to the east and take advantage of the deep valley lying at the foot of a low chain of hills running inland from the sea. In this way the Rotten Bogs would be bypassed entirely. If this route were followed, however, it would mean that a long segment of the canal would run along one of the tectonic lines in the crust of the planet, that is, near a fault, where major earthquakes could be expected. True, no serious disturbances had been recorded there for nearly two and a half centuries, but the risk was still inadmissible. The entire canal with the cities constructed along it and the irrigation system fed by it could be destroyed in a matter of minutes, and hundreds of thousands of human lives would be lost as a result of someone else’s mistake. For the sake of humanity as a whole, therefore, it was necessary consciously to opt instead for the sacrifice of thousands, much in the same way that nations knowingly allowed for even greater losses to serve their interests in the wars of the past.

  In further support of his argument Menni pointed out that constructing the canal through the Rotten Bogs would provide an outlet for the water collected there. Thus the swamp would quickly be drained and at the same time a vast province capable of supporting two to three million colonists would be opened up to cultivation.

  At this point an anonymous brochure mysteriously appeared in a mass edition that was circulated among the agitated and resentful workers. It argued that the workers on the Ambrosia project were being sent to an altogether unnecessary death. The author took advantage of the fact that they could not read Menni’s huge and specialized book, boldly quoting its figures and data to show that the best technical solution would have been to dig the canal in a different direction so as to bypass the bogs. A few words were devoted to Menni’s “obviously unfounded remark on the danger of earthquakes that had ceased centuries ago,” whence it was concluded that “the
chief engineer, since he cannot be unaware of all this, must have personal reasons for wanting to exterminate the workers, whose unions he loathes so fiercely; the fate of the Project is obviously of no concern to him.” The brochure had been composed by a talented writer in racy and an easily accessible language, and its impact proved enormous.

  The movement had found its battle cry.

  Menni was in the capital at the time, 7,000 kilometers from the theater of operations. Some time before, he had introduced a bill in Parliament providing pensions for the families of workers on the Great Project who had died or destroyed their health as a result of diseases caused by local or occupational conditions. Up until then the laws covered only “accidents.” The bill had to be passed as soon as possible in order to alleviate the situation in Thaumasia. A majority of delegates were evidently prepared to vote for it, but formalistic tangles arose in committee due to continuous demands for new information, challenges to estimates on the cost of the measure, and so on, and the matter dragged on indefinitely. Menni decided to mobilize all available means to solve the problem. First of all he had to reach an agreement with the Prime Minister, the first such official ever to have enjoyed his full confidence. He was the former Minister of Public Works to whom Menni had suggested the Libyan canal project.

  An hour before his meeting with the Prime Minister, Menni received by special delivery from Maro a report and a copy of the anonymous brochure. The Prime Minister had already been informed about the matter, and was holding the same brochure in his hand when he greeted Menni.

  “An extraordinarily skillful move!” he said.

  “By whom?” asked Menni.

  “Ultimately, of course, Feli Rao. However, although he is a sharp operator on the stock exchange and behind the scenes in Parliament, I still do not think that this particular idea belongs to his usual arsenal. I suspect Maro.”

  Menni shuddered as if from an unexpected blow and turned somewhat pale.

  “Why do you suspect him?”

  “Has Maro ever told you about his secret meeting with a certain mechanic by the name of Arri, who is also the leader of the Thaumasian Federation of Labor?”

  “No. Are you absolutely sure that it took place?”

  “Together with this brochure I also received a message the other day from an agent I had sent there on a special mission. He is intelligent, reliable, and devoted to me personally.”

  “And how is the pension bill coming along?”

  “It’s almost hopeless. They will be able to procrastinate for another two or three months, and now things are happening fast. They have already referred it to the discussion of next year’s budget, and you know how it is with the budget . . .”

  “But how could you allow this to happen? You have a majority.”

  “Only formally. It is already clear that we are bound to fail.”

  “But your party alone constitutes over half the chamber, does it not?”

  “It used to, but the Council of Syndicates has a lot of money. I cannot actually prove it, but I know for a fact that fifty new millionaires have appeared in the ranks of our ‘radicals.’”

  “What? Are they that generous?”

  “You are worth much more than these millions to them. The budget of the Great Project is already nearly four billion a year. With a well organized system of embezzlement, one or two billion can be raked off annually.”

  “Well, what are you going to do, then—try to stay in power?”

  “On the contrary, I am going to try to force them to topple our ministry immediately. It won’t be easy, however, because it is very advantageous for them to let us stay in power as long as things are so desperate.”

  “Do you think the situation is absolutely hopeless?”

  “At the moment, yes. The workers are aroused to the breaking point. They no longer trust us, and this business with the pension bill is direct evidence against us. You will not be able to convince them either, because they are not about to listen to you. Your attitude toward the unions has thoroughly undermined any possibility of mutual understanding. I have never agreed with your viewpoint—you know what I think of the need for compromise in the interest of preserving the social peace—but there is no sense in arguing about principles now. The situation is clear. The workers are demanding that construction in the Rotten Bogs cease at all costs, and that the course of the canal be altered. Can you agree to these conditions?”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “I agree. To give in would be tantamount to admitting to an uncommitted crime and at the same time committing a real one. The only result would be to delay insignificantly a no less inevitable but more shameful failure. In other words, there are going to be strikes, then an uprising, suppression by the troops . . .”

  “If that is necessary . . .”

  “But what’s the use! When you and I have bathed in their blood then our cause will truly have perished once and for all. That will be the end of our popularity, and it will be child’s play for Feli Rao to pull down a ministry that is distasteful to the masses. They will rid themselves of you even more efficiently: it will not be hard to incite some naïve and fanatical worker to commit the deed, and your visits to the construction sites will provide any number of opportunities. Sooner or later they are bound to succeed.”

  “Do you hope to resign soon?”

  “We need an excuse, so we must be voted down on some important issue. There is a ministers’ meeting this evening. With the support of my colleagues, tomorrow I intend to move that Parliament immediately detach the pension bill from the budget and hold a special vote on it. This might spoil their game. The fifty bribed delegates will vote with the opposition, and that will be that. Then all we have to do is wait.”

  “I have never believed that there is any such thing in the life of man as a completely hopeless situation.”

  “They exist. Listen to me when I say that there are certain things I know better than you do. You do not like history, and there you are making a mistake. I, on the other hand, have studied the subject, and this is one of the things I have learned: Society is a strange animal; from time to time it needs to indulge in a senseless waste of resources. What could be more absurd than war? And yet how often war has served to regenerate nations! Now we have no wars, so society has discovered other means. The epic of Feli Rao’s financial imperialism is beginning, and it is going to cost mankind more than a good war. In other words, this is what history needs. I do not know whether it will always be like this, but I am certain that this is what is about to happen now.”

  3. The Showdown

  Within the week Menni was in Thaumasia. He received a telegram on the way informing him of the fall of the ministry. Work on both of the Thaumasian canals had already come to a halt as over 600,000 men went on strike. Maro came to meet him. They conferred in the Project Administration Building in the new city located at the mouth of the Nectar Canal. The chief engineer listened attentively to his assistant’s report on the events of the past few days and then asked him point-blank:

  “What was the object of your negotiations with this labor leader, Arri?”

  Maro’s face twitched slightly, but in a second he had recovered his previous impenetrable composure.

  “I admit that it was not entirely right of me not to inform you of this attempt at conciliation, which I took on my own private initiative and responsibility. Knowing your attitude toward the unions, I was unable to have any official relations with their representatives. I was convinced, however, that in this particular instance a great deal, if not all, depended on them. The exceptional nature of the situation forced me to use other than the usual channels.”

  “Would you like to tell me about the content of your conversation?”

  “I explained to him that, due to technical and scientific considerations which you can judge more competently than anyone else, the plan of the project cannot under any circumstances be altered, and that intractability on the part of the workers
will only lead to forceful suppression. I urged him to use his enormous influence with the workers to bring about a conciliation. I pointed out that the adoption of the pension bill by Parliament can only be impeded and delayed by disturbances, because for reasons of their own prestige the authorities must avoid anything that looks like a concession to illegal pressure.”

  “You are very perspicacious, Maro,” Menni remarked with irony. “You were speaking with Arri about the impossibility of changing the plan several days before the publication of the anonymous brochure, before the workers had even advanced any such demand. It is useless to continue this comedy. We are alone here. What does the Council of Syndicates—or rather Feli Rao—want?”

  Maro blanched somewhat, thought for a moment, and then quickly making up his mind said:

  “You are right. The course events are taking is beginning to emerge clearly, and I can speak with you frankly. The Council of Syndicates wants to take over the administrative and financial end of the Project. It would be happy to leave the technical sphere, which is doubtless the most important one to you, under your supervision. The council considers itself to be entitled to compensation for the enormous losses it has already suffered due to the Great Project, which has greatly increased the demand for manpower and the claims advanced by the workers.”

  “And,” interjected Menni, “has also provided the syndicates with colossal orders at good prices and has given them fantastic profits. I think we had better leave justice out of this—the question under discussion is one of strength. How does the Council of Syndicates propose to achieve its wish?”