Russian Novels Still Get Written

“Fear” by Anatoli Rybakov, 1990

This book, unlike any other, takes you into the heart of the purge trials of the 1930s in the USSR after the assassination of Kirov.  It does not contain descriptions of camps or mass deportations or killings, but a personal story of those involved in the trials, as well as the civilians affected by the atmosphere of death and uncertainty.  The purges ultimately went far beyond the public trials themselves and insinuated themselves into every facet of social life.  It is a sequel to Rybakov’s Children of the Arbat.  It is about fear – of the government, of your neighbor, of your family, of yourself.  Rybakov’s analysis is that Stalin had Kirov assassinated, and used that as an excuse to purge opponents and rivals.  It is written as a semi-fictional account of the period, interposing the lives of the fictional characters with descriptions of real events and people.

The Sequel

The book continues the story of Sasha Pankratov, a student who is exiled to Siberia for 3 years for making a comment in a school newspaper that is seen as ‘politically subversive’ by the NKVD.  The book is centered in Moscow, and includes many references to the streets and squares of that city.  The fictional characters include an art critic who becomes an informer, even on people he has known since childhood like his barber.  An operative in the NKVD who does interrogations and gets confessions out of ‘suspects,’ but has secrets of his own.  Sasha’s mother and a young woman, Varya, who both worry and pine after Sasha. Working class exiles who can no longer live in Moscow or Leningrad.  An old census taker and family friend who finds that many people are missing in the census.  A high school teacher who is expelled from the Party, fired, then arrested.  A loyal Communist who suddenly realizes she is a target and escapes to Vladivostok upon the urgings of her sister.   A woman who marries a rich foreigner and leaves for Paris.  Relentless thugs working for the NKVD.  Arguments within families over being arrested or suspected of being a subversive for any slip of the tongue or association.  Pro-German spies working for the NKVD’s foreign section.  Doctors who see their fellow doctors disappearing, and CP leaders and workers disappearing.

These ‘fictional’ stories are interspersed with chapters dominated by Stalin as he plans the show trials for Kamenev, Zinoviev, Radek, Bukharin, Tukachevsky and others.  Rybakov paints a pretty accurate psychological portrait of Stalin embedded in real  historical detail.  Every fabricated confession – through threats to family, various forms of torture, lying promises that the confessor will not be shot – is based on a conspiracy theory.  It is that the ‘Trotskyites’ are at the head of a vast ‘fascist’ conspiracy to undermine ‘the Party.’  In this, the “party” has replaced socialism, the working class or revolution as the most important thing in the USSR.  That ‘party’ has actually devolved to control by Stalin and a few of his closest allies.  Many of the real CPers voting to execute their real comrades are also later killed.  Even the Cheka and NKVD are purged, to make way for new cadres controlled by Stalin and the apparatus of fear.  Stalin calls this ‘the cadre revolution.’

Other Cover

From this book, it seems Rybakov is not hostile to socialism or Lenin.  Many of the comments are couched in a defense of the “Old Bolsheviks” who led the revolution and had been in the party since the beginning.  These are the people Stalin had to remove through any method he could, as well as anyone who showed some opposition, no matter how trivial.  Some Communists shot themselves rather then continue, which is a measure of the cruel nature of the purges.

This is a powerful and long book that takes you inside a situation you never want to be in.  Many respected cultural figures were forced to applaud the purges.  Ultimately to avoid imprisonment or poverty or death, it makes cowards of everyone, even Sasha Pankratov.  He serves his sentence only to return from exile into a country where nearly everyone is afraid, and so conforms and follows orders. That is the ultimate goal of fear.

Addendum:  For the few people I know who are still nostalgic for Stalin.   Nearly all were recruited through Maoism in the 1960s and 1970s, which had Stalin in its pantheon.  At the time, China was a revolutionary beacon, which was quickly extinguished, especially after the block with the U.S.  After Che, Cuba has been unable to export its revolution and stays frozen in time defying capitalism.  Vietnam thankfully won its war and now peacefully manages its mixed economy.  The USSR and the workers’ states in central and eastern Europe are no more, as counter-revolution triumphed.  So the major ‘material’ bases for the past credibility of Stalinism as some kind of alternative has mostly collapsed, though not everywhere.  This ignores, of course, any separate political or economic or historical facts, which I won’t get into here.  Because of this disappearing history, young radicals the world over will not be drawn into Stalinism in any numbers.

And I got it at the Library!

Red Frog

April 26, 2018