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CHAPTER FOUR

MARXISM, OR SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM, AS MARX HIMSELF referred to it, was very much a child, albeit a radical one, of the Western tradition. Therefore the Marxist critical dialectic expressed a dynamic of change that was analytic, precise, intellectual, and moral. And just as the conservative Western tradition of governance had transferred sanctity from traditional divinity to secular constitution and law (even if these were only bourgeois legalisms), so, too, for supremely secular Leninist-Stalinist bolshevism, constitution and law were of paramount importance. Consequently, as bolshevism developed into lethal terror, Soviet law remained essential and became even more progressive.

No Bolshevik law had proven more effective than Article 58. Colonel Shwartzman, like all NKVD officers, felt a great fondness for all 140 articles of the Criminal Code of 1926, the great literary work of the revolution. Every opus has its special chapter, story, poem, psalm, or song that captures the human spirit and in so doing transforms its capacity to create and to respond to beauty. The golden moment of this particular revolutionary epic was Article 58. Colonel Shwartzman treasured it with a special affection. Since the Lubyanka possessed no heart whatsoever, the secret police responded with an alternate human faculty, the imagination. There was ample room for this, since like all great literary works, the Criminal Code of 1926 permitted various readings. No other article so captured his NKVD fantasy, challenging him to invent, to devise, to contrive, and to fabricate.

Article 58 recalled happier, more hopeful days, but Colonel Shwartzman’s feelings went beyond sentiment. In great art a man can discover himself; he can develop in response to its liberating vision. Article 58 was his teacher; Article 58 had made him the fine Chekist that he was. With appreciation and devotion, the colonel performed as one of its finest explicators. So with an understandable pride, he warmed to the task. His exhilaration was suffused with a calm that came from confidence and from the very nature of the art form itself, which demanded precision and control. To the untrained eye, Article 58 with its fourteen sections seemed a drab, restricted piece of the Criminal Code concerned with crimes against the state. To the initiated, however, Article 58 was a sonnet awaiting the muses to grace its fourteen sections, wherein could be discovered the line, stanza, rhythm, and rhyme of counterrevolution.

Colonel Shwartzman turned to Section 1, on actions that weaken the power of the state. At once Grisha—for Grisha was the more artistic side of Colonel Shwartzman—saw the obvious interpretation of the prisoner’s actions. Hadn’t he raped the general secretary? Ah, but Stalin, it might be argued, had been smiling. That could be explained or even deleted, but the colonel (Grisha) was an artist; he sought the particular that illuminates.

“Dmitri, you have given us the broad outlines of your activities, but we will need details.” He tapped his pistol. “When you were with the general secretary, did you in any way harm him? It might even have been a gesture or a look.”

“Yes, I did, Citizen Colonel. Yes, I did,” the prisoner said in quick repetition.

“Good, let’s hear about it.”

“It was an awful thing.” The prisoner looked away. His eyes found the pistol and remained fixed upon its sheltering metal gleam, but his lips moved and his voice throbbed with his mortifying, stimulating story. “It will shock you, as well it should; night after night, it shocked me. In the moment of my greatest excitement, I lost all self-control, and I would reach down and squeeze Stalin’s balls . . . and as I squeezed, he pissed blood.”

The prisoner dropped his head in shame, but Colonel Shwartzman could barely keep from clapping his hands in joy. This was perfect. Under the recent revisions of 1934, Section 1b declared that any damage to the motherland’s might was punishable by death. The sonnet was a subtle, complex form: the general secretary’s inferior position suggested the motherland, but his balls and blood were pure masculine power.

It was even better than he had supposed at first glance: the colonel had worried that Section 2, armed rebellion, might elude him. Now it was inspired, the way everything was coming together. Section 2 defined armed rebellion as “seizure of power” and “dismembering any part of the USSR.” What greater seizure of power could there be than seizing Stalin’s balls? What greater dismemberment of Russia than dismembering the Defender of the Peoples himself? Thank heavens, Stalin had two balls—the traitor Trotsky was rumored to have only one!—the prisoner would be indicted (and confess, of course) under Section 1b for the right ball, since that carried the death sentence, and under Section 2 for the left. As for the actual dismemberment, that was no problem, for Article 58 was part of a greater work and was enriched by the entire opus. Article 19 explicitly stated that intent was sufficient grounds for conviction; indeed there was no difference between intent and commission of the crime itself. In any event, Stalin’s pissing blood could be interpreted as dismembering part of Russia. What could be a more essential part of Russia than the Beloved Leader’s lifeblood?

Section 3 would have daunted lesser talents. Since the USSR was not in a declared state of war, it was difficult to imagine in what way the prisoner aided or abetted by any means whatsoever the foreign enemy state. Article 58, however, was itself a gift of the imagination and inspired the daring. The colonel had fought in the Civil War against the forces of Britain, France, the United States, and other minions of world capitalism. The noble Red Army had driven them out of the motherland, but they had never surrendered. If the world’s only socialist republic were not at war with world capitalism, then the word war had no meaning. As for the prisoner’s assistance to a foreign power, that was clear. He had confessed to knowing Polish, English, French, and German and was in charge of foreign collections at the library.

“Dmitri, do you encourage people to read your books?”

“Oh, yes, I love the books. They were my life until—”

“And many of these—say the English ones, for example, were printed in New York or London?”

“Yes.”

“And the French in Paris.”

“Yes.”

“And you guided people to them and encouraged Soviet citizens to read them?”

“Yes.”

“And soldiers, too?” the colonel asked.

“I don’t exactly remember, but I must have,” Dmitri answered.

“Among all the people you helped in the great Lenin Library, don’t you think there were members of the glorious Red Army among them?” the colonel asked incredulously.

“If you put it that way, I am sure there certainly must have been,” the prisoner agreed.

“I should hope so,” the colonel concurred as he wrote, “Disseminating the vile propaganda of foreign powers at war with the beloved motherland among loyal members of the glorious Red Army.”

He had considered asking the prisoner to confirm his contacts with foreign operatives, but artistic sense weighed against it. Any mention of foreign embassies and their operatives would confuse the weak-minded as to the existing state of war.

Section 4, succor to the international bourgeoisie, posed no problem. In this case, Section 3 could be interpreted as including Section 4—and its incumbent punishment, of course. To do that, however, would be cutting corners, and in a work of art one did not cut corners; one embellished them.

“Dmitri, as an intellectual you must have friends like yourself,” the Colonel suggested.

“I never had as many friends as I would have liked,” the prisoner responded.

“Few of us do, but among the intellectuals there was always a heavy representation of Mensheviks. There aren’t so many Mensheviks as there used to be, but I’m sure you remember some,” he coaxed.

“Mensheviks? At first everyone was a Bolshevik or Menshevik, weren’t they?” Dmitri asked.

“You see, you must have known them well!”

“I suppose so. My landlord was one, I think, but he’s a very good citizen,” Dmitri stressed.

“Everyone thought you were a good citizen, too, didn’t they?” the colonel reminded him.

The prisoner nodded.

“It is only for the state security to decide who is a good citizen. Only we know.”

Again Dmitri Cherbyshev nodded.

“Good, what is his name? It’s a mere formality,” the colonel added.

“Ivan Molchanov,” the prisoner said hesitantly.

“Does the name Sergei Gasparov mean anything to you?”

“No, I don’t think so. Should it?” the prisoner inquired apologetically.

“I just thought it might. You might have heard it and don’t remember it,” the interrogator suggested casually.

“That could be. I’m not very good at people’s names unless they have written books.”

“I should hope so,” the colonel agreed, entering “Coconspirators Ivan Molchanov and Sergei Gasparov, agents of the international Menshevik bourgeoisie,” in the file.

As he wrote the name of his antagonist of the morning, he felt the warm satisfaction of tying loose ends together. True Chekist economy! It was just as well that he had been so lenient in not sending Gasparov to a punishment cell.

Colonel Shwartzman’s spirits flagged slightly as he approached Section 5, “Inciting a foreign state to declare war against the USSR.” Then suddenly he saw it! Just because the foreign capitalist states were at war with the USSR in Section 3 didn’t mean that they had declared war. If they had, then Section 5, the declaring of war, should have preceded Section 3. And it most certainly did not. Why not? Because of cases like this, when the USSR was involved in an undeclared war and an anti-Soviet agent like Dmitri Cherbyshev was working to invite a declaration of war in order to mobilize additional imperialist powers to fight against the USSR.