Free Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt

memories the whole of bourgeois composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Haydn! And of course the pianists remembered all the piano music; and so on.”
    “I am not surprised to learn that,” said Peter; “but what could have been done about it?”
    “They could have wiped out the melodies by wiping out everyone who remembered the melodies! They could at least have forbidden anyone to play or sing or hum them, on penalty of death, and gradually the memory would have died out.... But on this one point our communist ancestors were lax and weak. They compromised. They allowed people to rewrite the old scores, and even the tunes of the old songs, provided the words were left out or proletarian words substituted. They provided merely that none of these things could ever be played except by chosen members of the Steel Frame in the hearing only of other members of the Steel Frame.”
    “Oh, that’s why His Supremacy allowed me to learn Mozart! And that’s why I couldn’t get at the scores in the library without a special card and key!”
    “His Supremacy can never do anything wrong.” Bolshekov made the sign of the S on his breast, and then looked significantly into space.
    “Well, to continue. The biggest split in the Politburo itself came on the question of science. Bourgeois biology was nonsense. Bourgeois astronomy was unnecessary, except for navigation. But bourgeois medicine had cured even communists.... And bourgeois physics and chemistry and mathematics had helped to direct artillery fire and were necessary for the industry and engineering that are necessary for wars.... Moreover, all the important discoveries of so-called bourgeois science or mathematics had in any case been made by Russians—”
    “I’ve often wondered,” said Peter, “who discovered the differential calculus.”
    “I’ve forgotten myself,” said Bolshekov, “whether it was Tchaikovsky or Lenin.... In any case, there was lengthy debate about the whole matter, and our ancestors finally decided on a selective purge of the sciences. They burned all the old books, but not until they had copied what they wanted out of them and rewritten them from a Marxist point of view.”
    “Supposing somebody did not turn in all his books for the bonfires when they were demanded?”
    “Our ancestors simply prescribed the death penalty for anyone in whose possession any of these books was found. If they were found in any house, every member of the family in that house—and everybody in the house on either side of it—was sentenced to death. This naturally made everyone alert to see that all the books were destroyed.”
    “People were encouraged to spy on each other and to betray each other?”
    “How else could a really thorough job have been done?”
    Peter was silent. His thoughts went back to the peasant family in the May Day parade. “But what happened,” he resumed, “when people had memorized poetry as they had music—or parts in plays—or stories or novels or old sayings?”
    “Ah,” answered Bolshekov, “here we come to the most brilliant stroke of our communist ancestors—the invention of Marxanto!”
    “Didn’t people always speak Marxanto?” 5
    “Not until after the former capitalist world had been wholly conquered! Our ancestors saw precisely the problem you have just raised. They saw that people might remember these stories and verses and pass them down from generation to generation word of mouth. And then they thought of a device that solved not one, but nearly all of their problems at a single stroke!”
    Bolshekov paused dramatically.
    “They invented a new language—Marxanto, and forced everybody to learn it!
    “Can’t you see how many problems that solved?” he went on, smiling. “The language we think in determines the very way we think. The words we use come already loaded with the meanings that decide our conclusions. Now all the ancient languages—all of them now dead and fortunately