Free Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich Page B

machine. A bureaucratic machine. They rarely hired people who’d studied the humanities, the Party hadn’t trusted them since Lenin’s times. Of the intellectual class, Lenin wrote, “It’s not the brains of the nation—it’s the shit.” There weren’t many other people like me there—philologists, that is. The cadres were culled from the ranks of engineers and livestock specialists—experts in machinery, meat and grain, not humanities. The feeder schools for the Party administration were agricultural institutes. They needed the children of workers and peasants. People from the people. It reached absurd extremes: A veterinarian was more likely to work for the Party than a physician. I never met a single lyricist or physicist. What else? Subordination like in the army…The rise to the top was slow, rung by rung: you began as the lecturer of the district Party office, then it was the head administrator of the Party office…the instructor…the third secretary…the second secretary…It took me ten years to get to the top. Today, junior research associates and lab administrators run the country; the collective farm deputy or electrician can become president. Instead of running the collective farm, it’s straight to the head of state! This kind of thing only happens during a revolution…[ A rhetorical question addressed either to me or herself. ] I don’t know what to call what happened in 1991…

    Was it a revolution or counterrevolution? Nobody even attempts to explain what country we’re living in. What is our national idea now, besides salami? What exactly are we building? We advance toward the victory of capitalism. Is that it? For one hundred years, we castigated capitalism: It’s a monster, a fiend…Now we’re proud that we’re going to be like everyone else. But if we become like everyone else, who will care about us anymore? The “God-bearing” people…the hope of all of progressive humanity…[ Sarcastically. ] Everyone thinks of capitalism the same way that they—until very recently—had thought of communism. They’re dreaming! They’re passing judgment on Marx…blaming the idea…A murderous idea! I, for one, blame the executors. What we had was Stalinism, not communism. And now it’s neither socialism nor capitalism. Neither the Eastern model nor the Western. Neither empire nor a republic. We’re dangling like…I won’t say it…Stalin! Stalin! They’re burying him, all right…Or at least they’re trying to…But they can never quite get him all the way under the ground. I don’t know how it is in Moscow, but around here, people put portraits of him on their dashboards. On buses. Long-distance truckers tend to be particularly fond of him. In the generalissimo uniform…The people! The people! What about them? The people said, “Make us a truncheon and an icon.” Both. Like you would out of wood…Whatever you carve, that’s what you’ll end up with…Our lives reel between barracks and bedlam. Right now, the pendulum is in the middle. Half of the country is waiting for a new Stalin to come and put things in order. [ She is silent again. ] We…of course…At the district Party committee, we too had our share of conversations about Stalin. The Party mythology, passed down from generation to generation. Everyone loved talking about how things had been during the Master’s reign…Stalin-era practices included, for instance: The heads of Central Committee sectors would be served tea and sandwiches, while the lecturers were only served tea. Then they introduced the position of deputy sector administrator. What to do? They decided to serve them tea without sandwiches but on a white napkin. So they’d be distinguished…They’d gotten to the top of Mount Olympus, they were among the gods and heroes, now all that was left was to squeeze into a spot at the feeding trough…That’s how it’s always been—from Caesar’s court to Peter the Great’s. And that’s how it always