Victor Serge, Stalin, and Robespierre Walk Into a Bar

The Soviet Union was bleak. Water is wet. Never has there been two sentences more self-evident.  I assume that when people think of the Soviet Union they think about breadlines, the Cold War, the Red Army marching through Red Square, and competitive Olympic teams.  One thing that probably doesn’t get enough recognition is how utterly and completely boring Communism is.  Discussion about grain production, economic plans, agronomy, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Marxist-Lenin theory, Marxist-Lenin-Stalinist theory, and myriad other permutations.

Amid theorizing about how to best produce a worker’s paradise there was also death, and lots of it. An obscene amount of death. Between the years 1929-1953, it is estimated that almost 20 million people died in the Soviet Union from disease, the inhuman conditions of the gulag, mass famine, and execution for political crimes.   This number doesn’t even include the Soviet Union’s death toll in their fight against the Nazis which killed an estimated 27 million.  These numbers are staggering to comprehend.   How can so many people just disappear or in the parlance of the time, become an “unperson”?

Many Soviet dissidents became famous for their works which presented a less than flattering view of the Motherland.  Works like Bulgakov’s Master and the Margarita, Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, and Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago all were published in samizdat before being published in the West.  The God That Failed (1949) also featured persuasive essays from former Communists, like Andre Gide, that provided the details that caused them to turn away from the cause. These works were a valuable propaganda source for the anti-communist movement around the world.

This brings us to the unique dissidence of Victor Serge. Serge was an adherent to Leon Trotsky and Trotsky’s views on so-called “permanent revolution.”  Like Trotsky, Serge believed that Stalin had abandoned the revolution much like Robespierre abandoned the original spirit of the French Revolution.  Serge was born to a Russian emigrant family in Brussels and upon his entrance into the Soviet Union he participated in the Third International, and joined an anti-Stalin opposition party which caused him to be expelled from the Communist Party in 1928.  After several migrations throughout Europe, Serge ended up in the exiled homeland of his former ally in Mexico City.  Serge would live in Mexico City until his death in 1947.  While Serge spent the last part of his life revising his opinions on communism and arguing with Trotsky on the finer points of revolution, he remained a committed Marxist (perhaps this is why he is a somewhat forgotten author).

Stalin and Trotsky: Two bad dudes who just couldn't quit each other.

Serge’s second, and possibly most famous novel, The Case of Comrade Tulayev, was published in France in 1949 and in the United States in 1967.  It set out to portray the total madness that had engulfed the Communist Party under the leadership of Stalin. 

The novel opens with Kostia saving his rubles so that he can buy a new pair of comfortable leather shoes.  Occasionally, Kostia goes to the shop to look at the shoes that he is only weeks away from being able to buy.  One day, he inexplicably and impulsively buys a framed photograph of a smiling couple that catches his eye, thus spending all the money he had been saving.  Kostia returns to his collective house and seeks out his neighbor Romachkin to show him the frame. Kostia and Romachkin share a single room that has been partitioned off by a flimsy wall running through the center of their shared fireplace.  Romachkin is a clerk in the Moscow Clothing Trust and is not in the highest of spirits himself.  Working in the wages department, he is sensitive to how much the newspapers are lying about how the wages being paid to workers. One day, Romachkin purchases an illegal revolver and hides it in his apartment.   That night while walking the streets, Romachkin happens upon Stalin coming out of a government building and considers shooting him. Feeling guilty for the action he almost took, he gives the revolver to Kostia, who expressed an interest in it.  On a midnight stroll, Kostia accidentally shots the eponymous comrade Tulayev when he is about to enter his apartment.

The shooting death of Tulayev by Kostia is not exactly a spoiler as it occurs in the first 40 pages of the novel.  In fact, the whole point of the novel is that the reader knows that Kostia is guilty.  Kostia’s crime sets off a chain reaction that will reverberate throughout the Central Committee (C.C.) of the Party.  Never one to miss an opportunity, Stalin and the C.C. use Tulayev’s murder as the pretext to the beginnings of a murderous purge (as an aside: Some have theorized that Tulayev is modeled on the popular Bolshevik, Sergei Kirov.  Kirov was killed in 1934 and some believed Stalin used this as the basis for his Great Purge. Some even believe that Stalin personally ordered the killing).

The remainder of the novel introduces us to the poor bastards who have been identified by the C.C. to take the fall for the “murder plot” against Tulayev.  The first is Erchov, a High Commissioner whose lack of progress in solving the Tulayev case puts him under suspicion by an already suspicious group of people.  It does not help that Erchov has an ambitious assistant who seems to be a step ahead of him in terms of what the Party wants. In the end, Erchov is placed into custody and his deputy takes his job from underneath him. 

The next patsy is the old Bolshevik historian Rublev.  Rublev clearly sees the lost opportunity of the revolution and sees that the Party is an insatiable monster.  Xenia, the daughter of a high ranked official named Popov, comes to visit Rublev to let him know she will be staying in Paris for a few months.  In their discussion she naively expresses her full-throated admiration for the Party, while Rublev remains stoic.  Before leaving the apartment, she alludes to the fact that her father has stated that many people are under suspicion in the plot against Tulayev and that Erchov has been arrested.  Rublev becomes resigned to the fact that his time might be up and a few days later a Party official requests his presence at the Kremlin.  Once there, Rublev is told he is charged with a crime, and he watches the snow fall on Moscow as he is taken to prison.

Makeyev is the next domino to fall.  He was born a peasant but rises through the ranks to become a solider and then Regional Party Secretary for Kugransk.  Makeyev has risen quickly through the Party ranks, but he recognizes that on several occasions he has had to stop himself from taking credit for actions that must be attributed to the Party. He also abuses his wife and has grand designs that cities in his territory will one day be named after him.  Under the guise of a meeting of the regional secretaries, Makeyev is invited to Moscw.  When he inquires about some of his old friends he is alarmed to find out that they have either been exiled or executed.  To calm his nerves, he decides to take in the opera.  While there, he is enchanted with the appearance of the show’s star.  A soldier comes to Makeyev’s box and lets him know that a private audience could be arranged after the performance.  At the end of the show Makeyev enters a dressing room and is told not to make a scene. He is under arrest.  

A reenactment of Makeyev entering the dressing room and realizing he is being arrested.

Ivan Kondratiev, an agitator helping the communist forces in Spain is the next one marked for death.  Kondratiev is a seasoned intelligence man and has been sent to Spain to check on the Soviet investment in the Civil War currently raging there.  Kondratiev is disgusted by what he sees when he arrives.  The soldiers are not prepared, the equipment is not good, and the Spanish don’t seem to know Karl Marx from Richard Marx.  When Kondratiev returns to Moscow, he is surprised to be invited to a meeting with Stalin.  It is obvious that Stalin and Kondratiev are old friends as they use each other’s first names in conversation and appear genuinely warm with each other.  Stalin asks for an honest appraisal of the situation in Spain and laments that no one tells him the truth anymore. He implies that he respects Kondratiev as a friend and wants honesty out of him.   Big mistake. Kondratiev tells Stalin his unvarnished feelings about the situation and even implies the communist side will lose.  Stalin thanks him for his honesty and recommends he takes some time off in the Caucuses to refresh himself.  He is arrested shortly thereafter.

Before introducing the last character in the “plot,” the Party officials talk to the arrested men and let them know their guilt or innocence is immaterial.  They must be guilty for the sake of the party.  They must sacrifice their lives so that the Party can go on.  When some of the men say they are innocent, they are coldly reminded that while they might be innocent of this crime, they are not innocent.  They are asked to remember how many times they have been on the other side of the table.  How many forced confessions have they extracted?  How many guilty men have they knowingly sent to death?  The condemned men realize that their bones are the food by which the machine must feed to keep moving towards perfect socialism. 

The Party officials need one more person to wrap up the Tulayev case.  They decide they need to add a political element and conclude they need a political prisoner in on the plot. Enter the deportee Ryzhik.  Ryzhik is no stranger to being on the wrong side of the Party and has previously been deported to the “brink of nowhere.” The description of his home makes it clear that, while he is living in a hellish landscape, he is enjoying it.  One day the soldier assigned to guard him tells him they are going back to Moscow due to a change in Ryzhik’s status.  Upon arrival in Moscow, Ryzhik is shuttled between prisons and comes face to face with many of the old inquisitors from his past.  Seeing how this will play out, Ryzhik goes on a hunger strike and dies in his jail cell. Ryzhik’s death upsets the state prosecutor since he will now have to tell Stalin they will have to start over and tie the Tulayev murder to another political prisoner.

Meanwhile, Popov’s daughter Xenia is in Paris and is a little homesick for Russia (good god, why!).  One day she reads in the paper about the men who have been arrested in association with Tulayev’s murder.  She recognizes Rublev’s name and becomes hysterical.  She contacts everyone in Paris she can think of to try to stop the execution, going so far as to ask a member of the Moscow Academy of Sciences living in Paris to intercede with Stalin on her behalf.  A Soviet official comes to Xenia and informs her that her father wants her to return home to Moscow immediately.  Once the train crosses into Soviet soil, she is placed under arrest.  Xenia’s parents are subsequently placed under house arrest due to their daughter’s activities.

In the final bleak chapter of this saga, we learn that Kostia, the real killer of Tulayev, felt so much anguish from his crime that he ran away to live on an agricultural commune. Upon his return to Moscow, he informs Romachkin that he is the one responsible for killing Tulayev and has written a letter to the Party officials alerting them of that fact.  The book ends with a Party functionary burning Kostia’s letter while stating that the case has been closed and the culprits have been brought to justice and executed.  

So ends The Case of Comrade Tulayev.  It is sobering to think that this story takes place in the mid-to late-1930s and that these purges left the Soviet Union vulnerable to the German invasion.  It is also alarming to think these purges would continue, though on a smaller scale, up until 1953, the year Stalin died.

A common question often posed is “how could the Holocaust happen in Germany?”  However, you almost never hear “how could the Great Purge and other atrocities happen in a place like Russia?”  I think the key difference is a matter of perception.  People held Germany and German culture in high regard.  Germany was seen as a leader in the arts, science, and philosophy.  Soviet (and especially Russian) society on the other hand was viewed as being behind the times and backwards.   At its largest extent, the Soviet Union covered 8.6 million square miles.  This was equivalent to 1/6th of the Earth’s surface.  In a country almost 62 times the size of Germany, they can be forgiven for having parts of it stuck in the previous century (looking at you Southern USA!).  

Another potential reason for not questioning why this could happen in Russia/Soviet Union is that most of the Soviet Union was located in Asia.  While often described as “Eurasian” much of the land making up the Soviet Union was squarely in Asia.  Stalin, who was born in Georgia, considered himself Asiatic and not European.  I think this European/Asian divide played a big role in the West being unable to understand the goals of the Soviet empire.  This continues to this day.  In a meeting with then Vice-President Joe Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin told him “Just because we are both white, does not mean we think the same way.”  Truer words were never spoken, comrade Putin.