Welcome to Stories of Communism, the podcast where we
review and discuss the firsthand testimony of those who lived through the
horrors of Communism over the past century.
This is Erik Seligman, your co-host, along with Manuel Castaneda,
recording from the suburbs of Portland, Oregon.
After listening to the last two
episodes, you might have started to find this topic a bit depressing. So to shift gears today, we’ll be looking at
something a bit more lighthearted. One
of the ironies of Communist literature is that despite the system’s total
stifling of the human spirit, there is quite a bit of humor to be found. Naturally, it is a rather dark humor, in the
vein of Kafka or Camus. But in such
systems, this humor formed an important safety valve, a kind of coping
mechanism in many cases. Living in
such a world of bizarre double-speak and daily hypocrisy, it’s hard not to find
oddities that, under more pleasant circumstances, would be easy to laugh at. Today, we are going to discuss one classic
embodiment of this form of humor, the samizdat novel “Nobody, or The Disgospel
According to Maria Dementnaya”.
“Nobody”
is an example of what is known as “samizdat” literature. This means it is a non-Stateapproved
writing, which was passed around the Soviet Union and illegally retyped or
recopied.
It’s actually pretty amazing that such works existed— in
the time period from the 1960s to
1980s, although things weren’t
quite as bad as in the Stalin years, being caught with antiCommunist literature
or illegally using a photocopier could still cost you your home, your
livelihood, and your freedom. Yet
Soviet dissidents risked all this to create and share literature that defied
the authorities.
Nobody, our focus for today, was apparently written around 1966,
and smuggled out of the Soviet Union.
An anonymous French translation then made it into the hands of English
translator April FitzLyon, who rendered it into English for us. Its original author is unclear. It appears that there was only a
single English-language edition published of this book. I happened to pick up my copy at random when
browsing in a used bookstore— otherwise I probably would have never heard of
it. There is surprisingly little
further information online; I found one review at Goodreads, and a few used
copies can be bought at Amazon, but not much more. Not even a Wikipedia page, though there is a
brief mention on the page of its translator, FitzLyon. But that’s a shame, because this is great
book. As the blurb on the cover
states, it’s “a deeply tragic novel which also succeeds in being extremely
funny.”
The novel centers around a former
academic named Petatorov, who couldn’t take the hypocrisy of continuing to
build his life around loyalty to the Communist party, and long ago left his job
and his wife. Now he wanders around
Moscow living from day to day, begging and doing odd jobs to earn just enough
to eat. He prefers this physical poverty
to the mental torture of supporting the Communist system. Here’s how he describes his decision to a
surprised friend, who is working as a journalist:
“The
toady is dead. Long live the
madman! I’m as free as a bird. Consequently— I’m a pauper… it’s amazing! I read my favorite books and drink
port. I am sailing on an ice-flow,
shouting to the people left behind:
“Greetings, rats and mice! Ha
Ha!’ And you’re one of them too. Oh Lord!
Stop soiling lavatory paper with words, give it back to the people—
clean!”
My favorite part of the book,
though, is the description of the new husband, Brandov, who Petatorov’s ex-wife has married. His is a rather unintelligent and bland man,
but a caring and successful provider for his family. He works for the government, in the Applause
Section, where his job is to attend official speeches and loudly clap. A slight exaggeration of the offices that
existed in real life, but a spot-on spoof of the many useless and unproductive
government positions that are created for loyal bureaucrats. Here’s how Brandov thinks about his job:
“Brandov
loved being at work: people treated him with warmth and respect, behind his
back they would say, “He’s one of us, a real clapper!” Brandov gave a cursory glance at his beloved
wall-newspaper ‘For All Out Clapping’, to which he contributed, and to which he
sent in cartoons. For that issue too he
had drawn a caricature of Pendyulin who, at a meeting, had missed a foreman’s
signal and had started to applaud later than was indicated in the scenario. Pendyulin was represented with huge ears and
little tiny hands. The inscription under
the drawing read, ‘You must clap with your hands, not with your ears.’… On the walls hung diagrams and placards, aids
to improve applauding skill: disembodied hands, clapping at a certain angle and
at a certain force; incorrect, erroneous ways of clapping, crossed out with a
red cross.”
Later it’s revealed that Brandov
has to take down this cartoon, because his caricatured coworker has just earned
a Ph.D. in applause. Not as much of an
exaggeration as we would hope— academia
in Communist countries is totally subordinated to the nation’s political
goals. Aside from the quality of his
clapping, Brandov is also preoccupied with his department’s rivalry with the
Public Criers, a nearby department whose work is sometimes seen as more
important than his. But one of the
highlights of the book comes when Brandov reveals a new initiative, one that
will drive his career to a new pinnacle:
“The
organization of our work has not been sufficiently thought out. In response to the leadership’s appeals, I
have joined in the fight to economize state funds. In order to improve our work I propose the
following: to use apes as applauders,
but especially— for exclamations of approval…
I am convinced that the apes will carry out with credit the work
entrusted to them. The training and
purchase of a fresh batch of apes will soon pay for itself.”
In order to get this new project
started, Brandov invites his family to join him on a trip to the zoo. Petatorov also happens to be there, observing
many ironic metaphors for aspects of Soviet society among the animals on
display. But of course, Brandov is
focused on his task, closely studying the primates to find those best suited
for this project.
“‘Those
wouldn’t do”’ he muttered. ‘They’re too
small, it would be too obvious… but they
don’t shout badly, you can hear a ring of triumph. No, no, we must have chimpanzees, or
ourangoutangs— bigger ones. It will be
easy to make them up… But their arses,
their arses are good! If one were to
clap on them, one monkey could do the work of five…’ The man began slapping his buttocks. ‘Splendid!…
A lot of work will have to be put into them,’ the welldressed visitor was saying to
himself. ‘They’re not well-grounded in
ideology. We’ll manage it, we’ll give
them ideological education, we’ve managed harder cases then that. Ah, what splendid arses! Pity it’s unethical— just imagine, if a
delegate suddenly started jumping up and slapping his arse. What would our dear foreign guests think!
… I’ll put them in little suits—
Pavlov’s Reflexes— I’ll go out and get some advice— we’ll work it all out, and
full steam ahead in the name of the radiant future. You’ll be promoted to senior clapper,
Brandov!”
Sadly, the book doesn’t get
around to describing the final result of Brandov’s experiments.
[Closing conversation]
As you can see, while still
reflecting many of the tragedies of living in the Soviet Union, this novel can
be quite hilarious at times. If you’re
interested in learning more about Communism but need a break from heavy-handed
exposes like those we discussed in the last two episodes, we think you’ll
really enjoy the samizdat novel Nobody.
This concludes your Story of
Communism for today.
References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_FitzLyon
- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3047762-nobody
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat
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