No, it wasn't Bukharin, Rykov and Zinoviev who were the heirs of Lenin. Nor Trotsky. They were all mistaken. None of them had been chosen to continue Lenin's work. But even Lenin himself had failed to understand this.

Nearly two decades had passed since that day, since the body of Lenin – the man who had determined the fate of Russia, of Europe, of Asia, of humanity itself – had been drawn through the snow on a creaking sledge.

Krymov couldn't stop thinking about those days. He remembered the bonfires blazing in the night, the frost-covered walls of the Kremlin, the hundreds of thousands of weeping people, the heartrending howl of factory hooters, Yevdokimov's stentorian voice as he stood on a platform and read an appeal to the workers of the world, the small group who had carried the coffin into the hastily-built wooden mausoleum.

Krymov had climbed the carpeted steps of the House of Unions and walked past the mirrors draped in black and red ribbons; the warm air had been scented with pine-needles and full of mournful music. He had gone into the hall and seen the bowed heads of the men he was used to seeing on the tribune at the Smolny or at Staraya Ploshchad. In 1937 he had seen the same bowed heads in the same building. As they listened to the sonorous, inhuman tones of Prosecutor Vyshinsky, the accused had probably remembered how they had walked behind the sledge and stood beside Lenin's coffin, listening to that mournful music.

Why, on this anniversary of the Revolution, had he suddenly remembered that distant January? Dozens of men who had helped Lenin to create the Bolshevik Party had proved to be foreign spies and provocateurs; and someone who had never occupied a central position in the Party, who had never been highly thought of as a theoretician, had proved to be the saviour of the Party's cause, the bearer of its truth. Why had they all confessed?

Questions like these were best forgotten. But tonight Krymov was unable to forget them… Why did they all confess? And why do I keep silent? Why have I never found the strength to say: 'I really don't believe that Bukharin was a saboteur, provocateur and assassin.' I even raised my hand to vote. I signed. I gave a speech and wrote an article. And I still believe that my zeal was genuine. But where were my doubts then? Where was all my confusion? What is it that I'm trying to say? That I am a man with two consciences? Or that I am two men, each with his own conscience? But then that's how it's always been -for all kinds of people, not just for me.

Grekov had merely given voice to what many people felt without admitting it. He had put into words the thoughts that most worried Krymov, that sometimes most attracted him. But Krymov had at once been overwhelmed with hatred and anger. He had wanted to make Grekov lick his boots; he had wanted to break him. If it had come to it, he would have shot him without hesitation.

Pryakhin's words were spoken in the cold language of officialdom. He had talked, in the name of the State, about grain procurements, workers' obligations and percentages of the plan. Krymov had always disliked the soulless speeches delivered by soulless bureaucrats – but these soulless bureaucrats were his oldest comrades, the men he had marched in step with. The work of Lenin was the work of Stalin; it had become embodied in these men, in this State. And Krymov wouldn't hesitate to give his life for the glory of this work.

What about Mostovskoy? He too was an Old Bolshevik. But not once had he spoken out, even in defence of people whose revolutionary honour he had never questioned. He too had kept silent. Why?

And Koloskov, that kind, upright young fellow who'd attended Krymov's courses in journalism. Coming from a village in the country, he'd had a lot to say about collectivization. He'd told Krymov about the scoundrels who included someone's name on a list of kulaks simply because they had their eye on his house or garden, or because they were personal enemies. He'd told Krymov about the terrible hunger, about the ruthlessness with which the peasants' last grain of corn had been confiscated. He'd begun to cry as he talked about one wonderful old man who'd given his life to save his wife and granddaughter… Not long afterwards, Krymov had read an article by Koloskov on the wall-newspaper: apparently the kulaks felt a violent hatred for everything new and were burying their grain in the ground.

Why, after crying his heart out, had Koloskov written such things? Why had Mostovskoy never said anything? Out of cowardice? Krymov had said things that went against his deepest feelings. But he had always believed what he said in his speeches and articles; he was still convinced that his words were a true reflection of his beliefs. Though there had been times when he'd said: 'What else can I do? It's for the sake of the Revolution.'

Yes, yes… Krymov had indeed failed to defend friends whose innocence he had felt sure of. Sometimes he had said nothing, sometimes he had mumbled incoherently, sometimes he had done still worse. There were occasions when he had been summoned by the Party Committee, the District Committee, the City Committee or the Oblast Committee – by the security organs themselves. They had asked his opinion about people he knew, people who were members of the Party. He had never said anything bad about his friends, he had never slandered them, he had never written denunciations…

What about Grekov? But Grekov was an enemy. Where enemies were concerned, Krymov had never felt a trace of pity. He had never worn kid gloves in dealing with them.

But why had he had nothing more to do with the families of comrades who had been arrested? He had stopped phoning or visiting them. Of course, if he had met them by chance, he had always said hello; he had never crossed over to the other side of the street.

But then there were some people – usually old women, lower-middle-class housewives – who would help you send parcels to someone in camp. You could arrange for someone in camp to write to you at their address. And for some reason they were quite unafraid. These same old women, these superstitious domestics and illiterate nannies, would even take in children whose mothers and fathers had been arrested, saving them from orphanages and reception-centres. Members of the Party, on the other hand, avoided these children like the plague. Were these old women braver and more honourable than Old Bolsheviks like Mostovskoy and Krymov?

People are able to overcome fear: children pluck up their courage and enter a dark room, soldiers go into battle, a young man can leap into an abyss with only a parachute to save him. But what about this other fear, this fear that millions of people find insuperable, this fear written up in crimson letters over the leaden sky of Moscow – this terrible fear of the State…?

No, no! Fear alone cannot achieve all this. It was the revolutionary cause itself that freed people from morality in the name of morality, that justified today's pharisees, hypocrites and writers of denunciations in the name of the future, that explained why it was right to elbow the innocent into the ditch in the name of the happiness of the people. This was what enabled you to turn away from children whose parents had been sent to camps. This was why it was right for a woman

– because she had failed to denounce an innocent husband – to be torn away from her children and sent for ten years to a concentration camp.

The magic of the Revolution had joined with people's fear of death, their horror of torture, their anguish when the first breath of the camps blew on their faces.

Once, if you took up the cause of the Revolution, you could expect prison, forced labour, years of homelessness, the scaffold… But now

– and this was the most terrible thing of all – the Revolution paid those who were still faithful to its great ideal with supplementary rations, with dinners in the Kremlin canteen, with special food parcels, with private cars, trips to holiday resorts and tickets for first-class coaches.