It was already late evening when the owner came into our chamber and, glancing sideways at the curtain, said in a low voice,
“There’s a shamus hanging around outside.”
“What shamus?” said Stanishevskii.
“One from Criminal Investigation. You have to get out into the courtyard as slick as you can through the back door. From the courtyard there’s a passage to Kudriavskii Boulevard.”
We attached no particular importance to the owner’s words, but all the same, we went out through the back door into the dark, stinking courtyard. Past the trash bins and the wooden sheds, bending low so as not to snag our heads on the clotheslines, we made our way out to Kudriavskii Boulevard. No one was coming after us.
We came out through a passageway onto the dimly lit sidewalk. There, waiting for us, stood a stooped man wearing a derby.
“Good evening!” he said in an ominous voice and raised his derby. “Have you had a nice party, young gentlemen?”
Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry
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We didn’t answer and set off up Kudriavskii Boulevard. The man in the derby started after us.
“Mothers’ milk not dry on their lips yet,” he said with malice, “and they’re crawling around back alleys!”
Stanishevskii stopped. The man in the derby also stopped and stuck his hand into the pocket of his long jacket.
“What do you want?” asked Stanishevskii. “You can go straight to hell!”
“Grubbing around in taverns,” the man in the derby began, “and you— pupils of the Imperial Gimnazium! The penalty for visiting taverns is a citation for political unreliability, a wolf“s passport.1 Did you know that?”
“Let’s go,” Stanishevskii said to us. “He’s an idiot and this is boring.”
We started off. The man in the derby moved after us.
“I’m not the idiot,” he said. “You’re the idiots. I went to gimnazium myself.”
“Oh, we can see that,” said Schmuckler.
“See what?” the man yelled hysterically. “I was thrown out of the gimnaz-ium for drinking and got a wolf’s passport. And am I going to pardon your drinking party? No! I’m going to get even. I’m not going to rest until they hand you a wolf’s passport apiece. Too bad about your exams. You’re going to get a big nothing, not a university education. Were you talking against the government in the tavern? You were! Were you mocking the tsar’s family? You were! I can put you away, easier than spit. I don’t advise you to fool with me. I’ll have you in front of the secret police.”
We turned off down empty streets towards Sviatoslavskii Ravine. We thought the detective would be afraid to follow us into the dead-end ravine. But he stubbornly followed along.
“Surely the five of us can deal with him?” Stanishevskii asked quietly.
We stopped. The detective pulled a revolver out of his pocket. He showed it to us and gave a muffled laugh.
We led him around the streets for a long time, avoiding the intersections where there were police. Fitsovskii suggested splitting off one at a time and disappearing. In that case the detective would always follow the larger group—first four, then three, then two, then finally one. Instead of five, he could catch only one. But none of us agreed with Fitsovskii. It wouldn’t have been comradely.
We jeered at the detective. Each of us made up a biography for him and recounted it loudly. The biographies were monstrous and offensive. The detective was wheezing with rage. He was clearly getting tired, but came dawdling along behind us with the persistence of a madman.
The east was beginning to pale. It was time to act. We agreed on a plan and, circling through alleys, came to the building where Stanishevskii lived.
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The building was shielded from the street by a stone wall about half again as high as a man. A ledge ran along its base. At a single command we jumped on the ledge and whipped ourselves up over the wall. The gymnastics classes had done us some good.
A heap of broken bricks lay in a fenced flowerbed behind the wall. A hail of bricks rained down on the detective, left behind on the other side of the wall. He shrieked, jumped back to the middle of the street, and fired. A bullet whined inanely through the air.
We hurled ourselves through the flower bed and through the passageway to the second courtyard, ran up to the fourth floor into Stanishevskii’s apartment, and in a few minutes were all lying around on the couches and hassocks in our shirtsleeves and intensely listening to the action out on the street. Stan-ishevskii’s father, a bristly gray-haired lawyer, was pacing the rooms in his dressing-gown. He was in just as militant a mood as we were, but he implored us to lie calmly, and not jump up and go to the windows.
At first we could hear someone furiously shaking the gates and cursing at the porter. Then in the courtyard we heard the voices of the shamus and other policemen. To our good luck, the courtyard of Stanishevskii’s house had a second outlet. The porter was assuring them that the schoolboys must have beat it out the back way. After making some noise, the detective and the police went away.
We fell asleep, slept like the dead, and didn’t wake up until noon. We sent spies out into the street—Stanishevskii’s sisters. There was nothing suspicious, and we dispersed to our own homes.
As strange as it may seem now, we had been saved from great danger: inevitable expulsion and a citation of political unreliability just two days before graduating. It would have been the ruin of our lives.
Finally came the marvelous day in the auditorium when the director stood at the large table covered in green felt, handed out diplomas and congratulated each of us on our graduation.
The next day there was the traditional graduation ball. All the girls who had taken the Russian literature exam with us had been invited. The school was brightly lit. Colored lanterns hung in the garden. An orchestra was playing.
Before the ball, Suboch made a speech to us:
“In your fourth year I merely endured you. In the fifth I began to nurture you, although there wasn’t much chance of making real human beings of you. In the sixth year I became friendly with you. In the seventh I came to love you, and in the eighth I even began to be proud of you. I’m an unlucky father. I have too many children, no less than forty. Besides that, every few years my children change. Some go away, others arrive. Conclusion: forty times more grief falls to my share than to the share of ordinary parents. And forty times
Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry109
more trouble. Therefore I may not always have been equally attentive to all. I’m sad to part with you. I have striven to make good people of you. You in your turn have given meaning to my life. I have become younger with you. I forgive you, now and forever, all your stupid tricks and even your fights with the police. I forgive you everything. There is, of course, no magnanimity in this. But I summon you to magnanimity. Heine once said that there are more fools on earth than people. Of course, he was exaggerating. But what does that mean, nevertheless? It means that every day we meet people whose existence brings neither them nor those around them any joy or benefit. Be afraid to be useless. No matter what you might become, remember this wise advice: Not a single day without writing a line! Work hard! What is talent? Merely effort multiplied by three or by four. Love hard work, and may you always regret to part with it. Have a good journey! Don’t think ill of your instructors, who have grown gray in their battles with you!”
We rushed to him, and he kissed each of us farewell.
“And now,” said Suboch, “a few words in Latin!” He waved his arms and began singing: “Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus!”
We all joined in our first university song.
Then the ball began. Stanishevskii was master of ceremonies. He directed the schoolboy-saviors to invite for the waltz the schoolgirls they had saved. He introduced me to a thin girl with joyful eyes—Olia Bogushevich. She was wearing a white dress. Her eyes lowered, she thanked me for my h
elp and turned pale with embarrassment. I answered that it was nothing at all. We danced. Then I brought her ice cream from the buffet.
After the ball we saw the girls home. Olia Bogushevich lived in Lipki. I walked with her at night under the warm foliage of the trees. Her white dress seemed too exquisite even for this June night. We parted friends.
I went to Fitsovskii’s, where our little circle was spending what was left of the night. We had pooled our resources for a supper with wine and invited Suboch, Selikhanovich and Ioganson. Ioganson sang Schubert songs. Suboch played a virtuoso accompaniment for him on the bottles.
We made a great deal of noise and parted after the sun had risen but when there were still long, cool shadows on the streets. We embraced each other hard in farewell and each went his way with a strange feeling of sadness and good cheer.
NOTE
1. Such a document excluded the bearer from admission to university or from holding most government service positions.
Part Two
Instability and Dislocation: 1914–1929
It is difficult to imagine a nation that underwent the degree of instability and dislocation that Russia did in these years (1914–1929). When it entered World War I in 1914 along with the other major European powers, it was not only difficult, but inconceivable, to imagine that the result would have a world-wide effect for the rest of the century. Put another way, it was impossible to see Stalin and Soviet totalitarianism on the horizon of 1914.
Though World War I was devastating for all the European powers, it was doubly so for Russia. The staggering losses incurred at the front quickly began to strain the support systems “at home.” The nation had increasing problems in maintaining the commitment to the war since the domestic economy could not meet obligations as basic as those of food supply. Furthermore, the government of the last tsar, Nicholas II, was not only perceived to be inept, but proving to be so. It is not an accident that the Zemstvo Union, the Union of Towns, and the War Industry Committee were more effective in aiding the army and the war effort than was the government itself. The government’s continuous effort to bypass the Duma whenever possible, even in the face of such a national crisis, was extremely telling.
The monarchy fell in March 1917. It was not merely a question of Nicholas’s abdication. The February Revolution (February 23–26, old style) was a popular revolt. Large numbers of street demonstrations, protesting lack of bread among other things, were joined by the troops and police sent against them. With the collapse of all authority, a new government was formed on March 12, 1917. Unfortunately, its very weakness was suggested in its name, the Provisional Government. It was to last only to November 7, 1917. Beset by an inability to rule, confronted with the continuation of the war, and increasingly challenged by the parallel power structure of the Petrograd Soviet,
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as well as the rapid radicalization of politics, the Provisional Government could not last.
Lenin, who had returned from European exile in April 1917, masterfully helped to engineer the great Russian Revolution of November 1917. The Russian Revolution has drawn vast attention. In recent years, leading historians such as Richard Pipes, Orlando Figes, and Rex Wade have written major studies on the Revolution and its effects. Points of interpretation aside, the inescapable conclusion remained there for the world to see. Russia became the first communist nation with all that would entail.
This did not come easily. Russia underwent a devastating Civil War (1918– 1920) aggravating the destruction and dislocation of World War I. Lenin, ably aided especially by Trotsky, quickly moved to consolidate power in this period, frequently referred to as “war communism.” The nature of the Soviet system was clearly marked and imposed. The very first months of the new reign saw the formation of the Cheka, the implementation of the “Red Terror,” the creation of ravaging “food battalions,” and the removal of individual rights as well as those of freedom of the press. In 1919, the first decree creating concentration camps was issued. The capacity of the world to fully comprehend the extremes of the new dictatorial model is still open to debate.
Lenin, the pragmatist, was never to be underestimated. With the nation reeling from the effects of World War I, the Civil War, and government decrees (Trotsky had openly stated that Russia was in a state of collapse unprecedented in history), Lenin proclaimed the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the spring of 1921. This substantially lowered economic restrictions and allowed the nation to recover rapidly. Though seen as a retreat from communist ideology, NEP proved to be necessary in saving the country.
This period, 1921–1927, also set the stage for the creation of the Soviet State. It was the political and organizational incubation for Stalin who used the years craftily to create his personal power base. This was accomplished through his detailed work in building the party structure and the attendant levels of personal loyalty. Painstaking and laborious, this was an organizational effort which more flamboyant leaders did not have the comprehension or tenacity to undertake. When Lenin died in 1924, with technically no formal heir, Stalin’s political base, coupled with an ability for intrigue, proved a major determinant in his successful drive for supreme authority.
Nickolas Lupinin
Chapter Eleven
Georgii Altaev, How I Became a Cub Scout
This short piece tells a boy’s story of the early years of the Russian Scouts organization. The creation of Russian scouting belongs to Oleg Pantiukhov who formed the first group in Tsarskoe Selo in 1909. Other units were soon organized in the larger cities. From them, the movement spread to smaller towns and outlying regions. A primary motive of scouting was patriotism. This was reflected in the motto of the scouts: “Be prepared—for Russia.” With the vast Russian diaspora following the Revolution, organizations of scouts established themselves in practically every country which Russians inhabited. Taken from Georgii Altaev, “Kak ia stal volchonkom” [How I Became a Cub Scout] in Sbornik, San Francisco: Nats. Org. Russkikh Skautov, 1969.
The year 1917 brought many new things to us, the boys of Gomel. The revolution took place in February. Suddenly everything was permitted: freedom. “Free-ee-dam.” But in March, after a short exchange of rifle fire, Gomel was taken by German troops. The garrison was small and the Germans hardly interfered in the routine of the town.
The life of the civilian population went on as usual, but it was a totally different kind of life. Everything had gone off the tracks. Even we, children, felt this. Almost every one of our fathers and elder brothers was gone. Some were slain in the war, others were wasting away as prisoners, and those still in the army were cut off from us by the war security zone. Values and customs were quickly crumbling everywhere. Even we, first-year gimnazium students, were visited by an upperclassman, a huge lanky fellow with a budding mustache, who conducted elections for the gimnazium “committee” and then gave a long speech of which we understood nothing and only remembered the word
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“freedom.” The teachers became far less demanding and even the inspector, a terror to the underclassmen, went soft and the golden buttons on his uniform lost their luster. With the coming of spring we would simply walk out of the afternoon classes and avoid going to [mandatory] church services altogether. It was such fun to use this freedom and slip away to the river Sozh, skip stones on the water and clamber up hawsers into empty barges.
The street began to rule our lives, and with the street, gang leaders appeared, rough boys with a devil-may-care attitude. They were ready for trouble anywhere and at any time. They would break windows in houses, especially if no one lived there; injure dogs with a well-aimed stone; tie a can to a cat’s tail and chase the terrified animal with shrieks and yelps. When adults appealed to our conscience we had one answer for them: “It’s our freedom, too.” Gradually all adults, except for immediate family, became our adversaries and even enemies.
I
was eight years old. I came, as it was said back then, from a good family. My father, who worked in private business, was drafted into the army and wounded in the shoulder. At his request he was placed in a military hospital near Gomel for recuperation. My mother had to take care of me and my two brothers, aged two and four. I was bored with their company and constantly listened for the summoning whistle of our chief, Stepka K. [diminutive of Stepan/Stephen]. He was a twelve-year-old hoodlum who had subjugated the wills and aspirations of all the kids on our street. Stepka was covered in scrapes and bloody bruises. He had a freckled face, pug nose, and steely gray eyes. With him at our head we fearlessly attacked gangs from neighboring streets. Stepka’s father and older brother were killed in the war and his mother was struck down by paralysis. Perhaps this was why in Stepka’s speech, movements, and habits there was a constant challenge, a desire for revenge, to force his pain on others. He stopped going to school, paid scant attention to his mother, who lived on a minuscule pension, and spent all his days in the street where he was the true boss. I knew that it was wrong to be in Stepka’s gang, but there was such compelling power in his stare and in his body, that none of us had any control over ourselves. I would tell mother that I was going to my school chum’s to do homework, but then, once with Stepka, I’d always be on the lookout for her.
Stepka was always thinking up new capers, but they did not always work out and some of the boys felt burdened by his doings. One fine day toward evening at the end of May 1917 Petka T., who had lived on our street, ran up to us shouting with excitement that young men were being rounded up on the town square and that they were to be sent to the front. Petka’s excitement was so evident and the news so staggering that we all sprinted for the town square which was on the high right bank of the Sozh. It was true. On the green quad-
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