'If such perfection has already been attained at factories of military importance,' said Sokolov, 'then it will clearly eventually be attained throughout the whole of industry.'

'No!' said Madyarov. 'There are two distinct principles. Stalin doesn't build what people need – he builds what the State needs. It's the State, not the people, that needs heavy industry. And as for the White Sea canal – that's no use to anyone. The needs of the State are one pole; people's needs are the other pole. These two poles are irreconcilable.'

'You're right,' said Artelev. 'And outside these special factories there's total chaos. People here in Kazan need a certain product, but according to the plan I have to deliver it to Chita – and from there it's sent back to Kazan. I need fitters, but haven't used up the funds allocated for children's nurseries – so what do I do? I put my fitters down in the books as child-minders. We're stifled by centralism! Some inventor suggested a method for producing fifteen hundred articles where we now produce two hundred. The director simply threw him out: the plan's calculated according to the total weight of what we produce – it's easier just to let things be. And if the whole factory comes to a standstill because of a shortage of some material that can be bought for thirty roubles, then he'll close the factory and lose two million roubles. He won't risk paying thirty roubles on the black market.'

Artelev looked round at his listeners and, as though afraid they wouldn't let him finish, went on hurriedly:

'A worker gets very little, but he does get paid according to his labour. Whereas an engineer gets almost nothing – you can earn five times as much selling fizzy water on the street. And the factory directors and commissariats just go on repeating: "The plan! The plan!" It doesn't matter if you're dying of hunger – you must fulfil the plan. We had a director called Shmatkov who was always shouting: "The factory's more important than your own mother. Even if you work yourself to death – you must fulfil the plan! And if you don't – I'll work you to death myself." And then one fine day we hear that Shmatkov is being transferred to Voskresensk. "Afanasy Lukich," I asked him, "how can you leave us like this? We're behind with the plan!" He just said quite straightforwardly, "Well, we've got children living in Moscow and Voskresensk is much closer. And then we've been offered a good flat – with a garden. My wife's always getting ill and she needs some fresh air." I'm amazed the State can trust people like that, while workers – and famous scientists, if they're not Party members – have to beg for their bread.'

'It's quite simple really,' said Madyarov. 'These people have been entrusted with something far more important than factories and institutes. These people have been entrusted with the holy of holies, the heart, the life-force, of Soviet bureaucracy.'

'I can truly say,' Artelev continued, without acknowledging Madyarov's joke, 'that I love my workshop. And I work hard – I don't spare myself. But I lack the most important quality – I don't know how to work human beings to death. I can work myself to death, but not the workers.'

Everything Madyarov had said made sense; and yet, without understanding why, Viktor still felt a need to contradict him.

'There's something twisted in your reasoning,' he said. 'How can you deny that today the interests of the individual not only coincide with, but are one and the same as, the interests of the State? The State has built up the armaments industry. Surely each one of us needs the guns, tanks and aeroplanes with which our sons and brothers have been armed?'

'Absolutely!' said Sokolov.

64

Marya Ivanovna poured out the tea. The discussion turned to literature.

'Dostoyevsky's been forgotten,' said Madyarov. 'He never gets reprinted and the libraries try not to lend out his books.'

'Because he's a reactionary,' said Viktor.

'That's true,' said Sokolov. 'He shouldn't have written The Devils.'

'Are you sure, Pyotr Lavrentyevich, that he shouldn't have written The Devils?' enquired Viktor. 'Perhaps it's The Diary of a Writer he shouldn't have written?'

'You can't shave the edges off genius,' said Madyarov. 'Dostoyev-sky simply doesn't fit into our ideology. Not like Mayakovsky – who Stalin called the finest and most talented of our poets… Mayakovsky is the personification of the State even in his emotionality. While Dostoyevsky, even in his cult of the State, is humanity itself.'

'If you're going to talk like that,' said Sokolov, 'there'll be no room in the official canon for any of the literature of the last century.'

'Far from it,' said Madyarov. 'What about Tolstoy? He made poetry out of the idea of a people's war. And the State has just proclaimed a people's war. Tolstoy's idea coincides with the interests of the State. And so – as Karimov would say – the magic carpet is whisked in. Now we have Tolstoy on the radio, we have literary evenings devoted to Tolstoy, his works are constantly being reprinted; he even gets quoted by our leaders.'

'Chekhov's done best of all. He was recognized both by the last epoch and by our own,' said Sokolov.

'You've hit the nail on the head!' exclaimed Madyarov, slapping his hand on the table. 'But if we do recognize Chekhov, it's because we don't understand him. The same as Zoshchenko, who is in some ways his disciple.'

'I don't understand,' objected Sokolov. 'Chekhov's a realist. It's the decadents that we criticize.'

'You don't understand?' asked Madyarov. 'Well then, I'll explain.'

'Don't you dare say anything against Chekhov!' said Marya Ivanovna. 'He's my favourite writer.'

'And you're quite right, my dear Masha,' said Madyarov. 'Now I suppose you, Pyotr Lavrentyevich, look to the decadents for an expression of humanity?'

Sokolov, by now quite angry, gave a dismissive wave of the hand. Madyarov paid no attention. He needed Sokolov to look to the decadents for humanity. Otherwise he couldn't finish his train of thought.

'Individualism is not the same as humanity,' he explained. 'Like everyone else, you confuse the two. You think the decadents are much criticized now? Nonsense! They're not subversive of the State, simply irrelevant to it. I am certain that there is no divide between Socialist Realism and the decadent movement. People have argued over the definition of Socialist Realism. It's a mirror: when the Party and the Government ask, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" it replies, "You – Party, You – Government, You – State, you're the fairest of them all!" While the decadents' answer to this question is, "Me, Me, Me, I'm the fairest of them all." Not so very different. Socialist Realism is the affirmation of the uniqueness and superiority of the State; the decadent movement is the affirmation of the uniqueness and superiority of the individual. The form may be different, but the essence is one and the same – ecstatic wonder at one's own superiority. The perfect State has no time for any others that differ from it. And the decadent personality is profoundly indifferent to all other personalities except two; with one of these it makes refined conversation, with the other it exchanges kisses and caresses. It may seem that the decadents with their individualism are fighting on behalf of man. Not a bit of it. The decadent are indifferent to man – and so is the State. Where's the divide?'

Sokolov was listening with his eyes half-closed. Sensing that Madyarov was about to infringe still more serious taboos, he interrupted:

'Excuse me, but what's all this got to do with Chekhov?'

'I'm just coming to that. Between him and the present day lies a veritable abyss. Chekhov took Russian democracy on his shoulders, the still unrealized Russian democracy. Chekhov's path is the path of Russia 's freedom. We took a different path – as Lenin said. Just try and remember all Chekhov's different heroes! Probably only Balzac has ever brought such a mass of different people into the consciousness of society. No – not even Balzac. Just think! Doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, lecturers, landlords, shopkeepers, industrialists, nannies, lackeys, students, civil servants of every rank, cattle-dealers, tram-conductors, marriage-brokers, sextons, bishops, peasants, workers, cobblers, artists' models, horticulturalists, zoologists, innkeepers, gamekeepers, prostitutes, fishermen, lieutenants, corporals, artists, cooks, writers, janitors, nuns, soldiers, midwives, prisoners on the Sakhalin Islands…'