by Teffi
“Nowadays we don’t need theatre. Nor do we need music. We don’t need any articles about art or culture of any sort. The only way we can connect with the masses is by publishing diaries written by workers. Your much-touted Lvov gives us nothing but ministerial gossip. He is quite surplus to requirements.”
Poor Rumyantsev. He had been so proud to have lured Klyachko-Lvov, the king of reporters, to his paper.
Klyachko was an extraordinary reporter. His exploits were legendary. Once, apparently, he had sat under the table in the office of the Home Secretary during a closed meeting. The next day, an account of this meeting appeared in Klyachko’s paper in the section called “Rumours”. It caused panic among those at the top. How could the reporter have found all this out? Who had let the information slip? Or had a bribe of several thousand changed hands? But then, that was a monstrous suggestion! For some time, people tried to identify the guilty party—and they, of course, got nowhere. The guilty party was the footman, who had received a hefty tip from Klyachko for hiding him under the green baize.
According to another story, Klyachko had once interviewed a certain dignitary who was preparing an important state project. The man refused to tell Klyachko anything at all definite. He restricted himself to very general comments, all the time stroking a manuscript that lay in front of him on the table. The dignitary was in a hurry to get to a meeting and Klyachko obligingly offered to take him there. As he was leaving, Klyachko suddenly realized he had left his briefcase behind in the office. The dignitary was already seated in the carriage, and Klyachko had his foot on the step when, with a sudden start, he said, “My briefcase! Goodness! I’ve left my briefcase behind!”
And off he dashed, back into the house.
In full view of the startled doorman, he burst into the study, and grabbed not only his briefcase but also the manuscript that was lying on the table.
An hour later, after he had had a quick look through the manuscript, he went back to the statesman’s house and said to the doorman, “Your master said I was to put these papers on his table myself.”
The next day the statesman was astonished to see a general outline of his project in the papers: “I gave very evasive answers to all that reporter’s questions. He must have the most extraordinary nose for a story.”
And Lenin was proposing to dismiss this king of reporters, Klyachko-Lvov, sought after by every paper. To replace him with what? With Yefim and his Plehves and Slaves.
“Might I ask?” I said to Lenin. “Is the entire literary section surplus to requirements, in your opinion?”
“Speaking quite frankly, yes. But wait a bit. Carry on as you are, and we’ll soon reorganize everything.”
The reorganization began at once. It began with the premises. Carpenters appeared, carrying lengths of wood, and began to divide each room into several compartments.
The result was a cross between a beehive and a menagerie: a maze of dark corners, cages and stables. Some cubicles were the size of stalls meant for a single horse, while others were still more cramped, like cages for smaller animals—foxes, for instance. And the partitions were so close that, had there been bars, visitors might have poked the animals with their umbrellas, or perhaps even plucked up the courage to stroke them. In some of these cubicles there was neither a desk nor a chair, only a bare light bulb on a wire.
A great number of new people appeared. All of them unknown to us and all of them alike. The ones who stood out were Martyn Mandelstam, who was interesting and intelligent, Alexander Bogdanov, who was a little dull but generally highly thought of, and Lev Kamenev who was fond of literature, or who, at any rate, acknowledged its right to exist. But these men hardly ever came into the editorial office; they were, I think, exclusively occupied with Party business. All the others would congregate in little groups in the stables with their heads facing one another, like sheep in a snowstorm. At the centre of every group there was always a piece of paper held in somebody’s hand. Everybody would be stabbing at it with their fingers and muttering under their breath. Either they were struggling to get to the bottom of something, or they were all keeping tabs on one another.
A strange office indeed.
The only room untouched was the large room used for editorial meetings.
The way these meetings were conducted was also somewhat absurd. People who had nothing to do with the newspaper would come along and stand between the chairs and the wall, shrugging their shoulders and making ironical long faces, even when the question under discussion was perfectly simple and there was nothing to be ironical about: should we, for instance, print the names of deceased people in small print, or in regular type?
At one of these meetings we were told that a certain Faresov (a Populist, apparently) had just appeared. He would like to work for the newspaper.
“Anyone have any objections to Faresov?” asked Lenin.
Nobody did.
“Well, I can’t say I like him myself,” I said. “But that, of course, is neither here nor there.”
“I see,” said Lenin. “Well, since Nadezhda Alexandrovna doesn’t like him for some reason, I suggest we forget about him. Tell him we’re busy now.”
My goodness, what a gentleman! Who would have thought it?
“See how important your opinion is to him!” K.P said to me in a whisper.
“I think this is just an excuse to get rid of Faresov,” I said.
Lenin, who was sitting next to me, squinted at me out of his narrow, crafty eyes and laughed.
•
Meanwhile, life in the city went on as usual.
Young journalists courted young female revolutionaries who had just returned from abroad.
There was one woman (I think she was called Gradusova, though I don’t remember for sure) who carried grenades around in her muff. The staff of the bourgeois Stock Exchange Gazette were captivated by her.
“She dresses elegantly, she goes to the hairdresser, and all the time she’s carrying bombs wrapped up in her muff. Well, say what you like, but she’s certainly an original! And always so calm and natural, with a smile on her face—she’s an absolute darling!”
There were collections to raise money for weapons.
Absolute and original darlings like this Gradusova made the rounds of newspaper offices and high-class theatres asking coquettishly for donations towards the purchase of weapons.
One rich actress reacted to an appeal of this sort in a very businesslike fashion. She donated twenty roubles, but asked for a receipt: “If revolutionaries come to rob my apartment, I can show them I did my bit for their cause. Then they’ll leave me in peace.”
Gusev came to see me, but I refused to collect money myself. I have no understanding of that sort of thing and no idea how to go about it. It so happened that an English journalist from The Times was visiting me just then. This journalist laughed, and gave Gusev a ten-rouble gold coin. Gusev put the loot in a large paper bag which had once held biscuits from the Chuev Bakers. So far he’d collected a grand total of three one-rouble notes and a twenty kopeck coin.
Not long after this, I had another amusing encounter with this same Gusev.
My bourgeois friends took me out one evening for an after-theatre dinner, in an expensive restaurant with music and a cabaret. The clientele was wealthy—everyone was drinking champagne.
And suddenly, not far away from us, I saw a young girl who looked completely out of place there. Her face was covered in thick white make-up and she was gaudily dressed—she could have been Sonia Marmeladova on her way back from the Haymarket.[27] And next to her, behind a silver ice bucket with a bottle of champagne in it, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. It peeped out for a moment, then disappeared. I didn’t even manage to make out who it was, but one of my companions said, “There’s a man over there who’s very interested in you. Third table along. He keeps sneaking looks at you.”
I turned round suddenly and found myself looking right at Gusev. It was he who’d been hiding from me
behind the bottle. He tried to hide again but, realizing that I had spotted him, decided to take the initiative. He came over to our table, red in the face, perspiring and embarrassed: “You see, this is the sort of den of iniquity I have to hide out in from time to time . . .”
“You poor thing,” I sighed. “I understand you only too well. We’ve all taken the decision to hide out here, too. To think what we’re forced to endure. Music, ballet, Neapolitan songs. It’s unbearable.”
He blushed an even deeper red, made a snuffling noise, and left.
•
A piece of literary criticism by “Anton the Extreme” (Zinaida Gippius) was not published. And a review of a new play also failed to appear.
Why?
“Lenin says it’s of no interest to the working-class reader,” we were told. “The working-class reader has no interest in literature and does not go to the theatre.”
I asked Lenin about this.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Now is not the time.”
“But workers aren’t the only readers of our paper.”
“Maybe so, but they’re the only readers we’re interested in.”
“But don’t you think that, if you get rid of the entire literature section, the paper will lose a lot of subscribers? And then you’ll lose money. Anyway, if you turn the paper into some Party rag, you’ll be shut down before you know it. So long as big literary names continue to appear, the censors won’t look at the paper too closely: these literary names are your camouflage. But if you lose them, everybody will be able to see that the paper is simply a Party rag: you’ll be shut down in no time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lenin. “If this scheme fails, we’ll just think up something else.”
“I see—so no theatre, then, and no music!”
Meanwhile Gukovsky, who was also present, kept nodding his agreement with Lenin.
I went to talk to Rumyantsev.
“Pyotr Petrovich,” I said, “your paper will be shut down.”
“Well you must try and get him to see sense. After all, we have responsibilities to our literary staff. We have a contract. The official authorization for the paper is in Minsky’s name. We can’t oust Minsky from the editorial committee. There’d be the most appalling literary scandal.”
As I was coming out of the editorial office, I saw Gukovsky. He was going through the post.
“Excellent,” he said. “Tickets for the opera. My wife adores music. We’ll definitely go.”
I stopped him. “No no, my friend, you won’t be going anywhere. That would be absolutely incompatible with the iron resolve now required of you. If there are no theatre reviews in the paper, the staff have no right to enjoy free theatre tickets. You did, after all, agree with Vladimir Ilyich just now when he said that we don’t need music or literature any more. You’ve got to be more consistent. So—what you and I must jointly do is to take these vile inducements to unprincipled time-wasting and simply tear them up.”
I put the tickets one on top of the other and calmly ripped them in half and then in half again. Only half an hour later, needless to say, I felt cross with myself for treating him so meanly. Why shouldn’t the man have gone to the opera with his wife to see Eugene Onegin? It might have done him good. Of course he was in awe of Lenin. Of course he was afraid of Lenin and felt he had to agree with Lenin’s every word—but he was still a human being! He wanted to listen to music. And he loved his wife. Why had I been so spiteful? Really I should get him some tickets and send them to him anonymously, with a little note: “I hear you’re fond of music.” But no, that would only scare him: he would wonder what was going on and what people were saying about him. A man like him should, of course, have nothing whatever to do with the opera! That wouldn’t be a Bolshevik step forward—it would be two whole steps back . . .[28] Still, all in all, the episode left a bad taste in my mouth. If they sent us any more tickets, I thought, I would definitely slip them into Gukovsky’s stable.
•
Lenin was living in Petersburg illegally. He was, of course, under official surveillance. There was no doubt about that. Nevertheless, he would come into the office, quite freely, day after day, simply turning up the collar of his coat when he left so as not to be recognized. And not one of the gumshoes on duty ever asked any questions about this character who was so keen to cover up his chin.
The mood of those days was bucolic; the lion lay down with the lamb.
When I became aware of the relationship between Lenin and his fellow Party-members, I began to pay closer attention to him.
His appearance was unprepossessing. Slightly balding, rather short, untidily dressed, he could have been a minor official from some remote local council. There was nothing about him to suggest a future dictator. There was no suggestion of passionate fervour. He spoke and gave orders just as if he were simply going about his job like anyone else, as if he himself found it boring—but then, that was life.
He was very simple in his manner. He didn’t pose. People generally pose because they want others to like them, because they yearn for beauty. Lenin had no feeling for beauty whatsoever, in anything. Lunacharsky acted the part of a “squire” and a poet. Rumyantsev fancied himself as an eagle. The whisperers were all Robespierres and Marats, even though they would all tuck their tails between their legs in the presence of Lenin.
They were all posing.
Lenin always spoke to these Marats in a friendly, good-natured way, carefully explaining anything they were slow to understand. And they would thank him warmly for enlightening them: “What on earth were we thinking of ? It’s so simple. Thank you!”
And in this way, acting the part of a good-natured comrade, Lenin gradually took everyone in hand and led them along his straight and narrow line—always the shortest distance between two points. And not one of these people was close or dear to him. They were no more than the material from which he pulled out threads for his own cloth.
People referred to Lenin simply as “he”:
“Is he here?”
“Is he still coming? Didn’t he ask you about it?”
Everybody else was “they”.
He didn’t single out anybody in particular. He just kept a keen watch, with his narrow, Mongolian eyes, to see who could be used, and how.
One man might be good at slipping across borders on a fake passport—he would be sent on a mission abroad. Another might be good at public speaking—he would be sent to speak at political rallies. A third was good at deciphering letters, while a fourth was good at exciting a crowd—he knew how to shout loudly and wave his arms about. And there were others who were good at putting together little articles based on the thoughts of Vladimir Ilyich.
As an orator, Lenin did not carry the crowd with him; he did not set a crowd on fire, or whip it up into a frenzy. He was not like Kerensky, who could make a crowd fall in love with him and shed tears of ecstasy; I myself witnessed such tears in the eyes of soldiers and workers as they showered Kerensky’s car with flowers on Marinsky Square. Lenin simply battered away with a blunt instrument at the darkest corner of people’s souls, where greed, spite and cruelty lay hidden. He would batter away and get the answer he wanted:
“Yes, we’ll loot and pillage—and murder too!”
Naturally, he had no friends and no favourites. He didn’t see anybody as a human being. And he had a fairly low opinion of human nature. As far as I could see, he considered everyone to be capable of treachery for the sake of personal gain. A man was good only insofar as he was necessary to the cause. And if he wasn’t necessary—to hell with him. Anyone harmful or even just inconvenient could be done away with—and this would be carried out calmly and sensibly, without malice. Even amicably. Lenin didn’t even seem to look on himself as a human being—he was merely a servant of a political idea. Possessed maniacs of this kind are truly terrifying.
But, as they say, history’s victors are never judged. Or, as somebody once said in response to these words, “Th
ey may not be judged, but they do often get strung up without a trial.”
•
It was rumoured that the Black Hundreds[29] from the “Tearoom of the Russian People”[30] were planning a pogrom[31] against New Life. Apparently they had made a list of all the paper’s staff and found out their addresses. They had already decided on the night when they would do the rounds of our apartments and finish off the lot of us.
Everybody had decided not to go home that night. I had been issued with strict instructions to go somewhere else. But, as it turned out, I went to the theatre that evening, and then went on to dine with friends. I didn’t get home until about five o’clock in the morning.
I decided that if the Black Hundreds were planning to kill me, they’d had all night for it—and it wasn’t the kind of thing one did in the morning. I asked the doorman if anyone had called. No, no one at all. And that was that. The next day it turned out that none of the staff had had any trouble.
Nevertheless, for quite other reasons, there was a general sense of anxiety in our office.
Rumyantsev told us that Lenin was demanding we break our contract with Minsky, take over the paper entirely and make it into a Party organ. Rumyantsev thought this would be wrong and was not agreeing to it. It was Minsky who had been granted permission for the paper and it was he who was the chief editor. What on earth would the literary world think of us?
“I don’t give a damn about your literary circles,” said Lenin. “The thrones of tsars are toppling—and your only concern seems to be the propriety of our conduct towards a few writers.”
“But it was me who signed the contract,” protested Rumyantsev.
“And it’ll be me who tears it up,” said Lenin.
But before tearing up that ill-fated contract, he wrote an article in New Life that terrified us all. As far as I remember, it was something about the nationalization of land.[32] Minsky was given an official reprimand. He came into the office very shaken indeed.
