“Well, what keeps the molecules of chemical agents on the filter after all?” he repeated his question.
Something enlightened me at that moment and I solemnly and slowly uttered, “Cohesion forces”.
The colonel jumped up with joy, and he almost kissed me. He was beside himself with happiness, because a student had remembered his favorite phrase. He even forgave all the other unlucky students and announced that everyone had passed his test.
Every year, our studies at the Military Department became more and more difficult. We had to study numerous machines for degassing military equipment and military uniforms, including clothes and gas masks. It was downright impossible to remember their characteristics. These machines were absolutely useless because the uniforms were completely spoiled after the neutralization treatment. In the military camps we made sure many times that this was so.
In the summer after our second year, we were taken to the military camps in Florichi, which is not far from Nizhny Novgorod (the city was called Gorky then). This place was very swampy and sandy with a pine forest. We lived in tents – one unit in each. We were dressed in terribly uncomfortable soldier uniforms and had tarpaulin boots, our feet being covered in fabric foot wraps. Sometimes it was more than 35 degrees Celsius, and our feet became swollen.
Young soldiers, who had just finished the regimental school that trained sergeants and lance corporals, gave us the orders. Marshal Zhukov was then the Soviet Minister of Defense. He was notorious for his cruelty and his loud mouth. Soldiers were punished for the smallest offence. Then they were put into the guardhouse, or even sent to the penal battalion. The time that a soldier spent in these “establishments” wasn’t included in his term of military service. If he lost some piece of his uniform or equipment, or if it was stolen, he had to pay for that loss. It was his own business where he would find the money. Usually the soldier who was robbed made up for the loss by stealing from others, especially from the rookies.
Soon I experienced firsthand the consequences of this kind of discipline in the glorious Soviet Army.
I entered the soldier’s toilet where 8-10 people were doing what they had to at the same time. I took off my belt, hung it on the nail on the wall, and squatted. When I raised my head, I saw that my belt was no longer on the nail. The situation was terrible and I immediately reported the incident to my unit commander, a guy with a vacant herpetic face and foolish blue eyes. He ordered me to pay and promised to give me the new belt after that. I had just enough money for this fine and for a whole month I had no money left to buy cigarettes or any sweets. In the cafeteria, we received only two tiny pieces of sugar for tea.
This kind of discipline was applied to us, the students, with special refinement. The sergeants didn’t hide their hatred for those who opted for higher education, and whenever the opportunity arose they demonstrated savage cruelty, so that the students would always remember their pettiness. We were marched to the cafeteria, singing a compulsory song. As soon as we sat down at the table, Sergeant Korytko ordered, “Finish-sh!” For some reason, he pronounced the “sh” sound with a wheeze. I thought I could eat very fast, but I didn’t even have time to deal with the soup. Feverishly, and already on the move, I swallowed my millet porridge with a piece of fat pork. The moment we sat down at the table we stuffed two pieces of black bread into our pockets, and this saved us from constant hunger, which we felt as soon as we left the cafeteria.
Thanks to the commander of our unit, one more shocking memory was added to my inventory of impressions of my experience with our “glorious and invincible” army.
Near our tents, there were other tents housing former soldiers who were summoned for re-training. Again, the sergeant made us march near those tents. “Sing!” he ordered. We didn’t want to sing. Then he ordered, “Double quick march!” We ran for some time turning back and forth on command. “Quick march!” the next command followed. Then, this dumb-faced commander ordered again, “Sing!” One of the soldiers who had been observing us from his tent, couldn’t control himself and said bluntly, “Son of a bitch!” I don’t know how this happened, but I reacted automatically, “Even more than that!”
We sighed and at that very instant, a frantic yell startled us, “Stop!!!” The man was pale, and his face quivered with indescribable rage. He didn’t dismiss us but rushed to the officers’ quarters to complain. We all understood what could follow, but no one sympathized with me. Everyone was glad that it hadn’t happen to him.
Soon the commander of the platoon, a young lieutenant, came out. He called me solemnly in front of the line and announced an “emergency event”, which had never happened before in their glorious unit. He explained that an insult to a Soviet Army commander might entail up to two years of penalty work. However, he said that taking into consideration the young age and insufficient political and moral awareness of student Mirzayanov, the commander of the battalion decided to limit my punishment to an extra detail in the cafeteria and to washing the floors in the Lenin Room.
Of course, I did all of this without asking any questions. But that was only the beginning. When it was boiling hot, more than 35 degrees Celsius outside, we were ordered to put on rubber overalls, boots, and gas masks. We had to deactivate “the site” contaminated with mustard gas. In order to do this, we had to dig up and turn over the ground, then mix it with bleach, and there was a time limit for all of this. We did everything ahead of schedule, and with satisfied faces we overturned our boots to pour out the sweat. They thanked everybody, but then I heard, “Mirzayanov, go to the commander!”
I ran until I reached the commander’s center to see the head of our military department, General Khandozhko. He was sent to MITKhT from the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army, where he had received his “training”. He was an aide to Lev Mekhlis who, together with Lavrentii Beria exterminated more Red generals than the whole fascist army.
The man was short, with a round face and a black moustache, and somehow he reminded us of our “dear” Iosif Stalin. He openly imitated the leader’s manner of putting on an air of importance and majesty. He even spoke with a slight Caucasian accent, though he was Russian.
In a harsh voice, Khandozhko started speaking about the blemish on all students, which presumably was created by my error, and he threatened me with a military tribunal, dismissal from the institute, and other penalties. Oddly, for some reason I felt no fear.
Not everyone found our life in camp so hard. Some guys even liked the meaningless drills, and by the end of our stay there they became aides to platoon commanders, and gave us orders like the sergeants. Later, after graduating from the institute, they soon rose to the top of the administrative ranks.
There was nothing remarkable about my second tour of duty in the military camp, right after my graduation from the institute. In the summer of 1958, we were sent to the chemical battalion in Jykhvi, Estonia. Hardly anyone took any interest in us, and we spent our time paying cards or chess, and missing Moscow.
Another monster that gobbled up students’ precious academic time at MITKhT was our exhaustive study of Marxism-Leninism. Lectures were given by former party bosses and “scientists”, and this was a very lucrative occupation at that time. Those classes were incredibly boring. We could miss lectures in other subjects without any serious punishment, but the attendance was taken strictly in those classes. Skipping three lectures for an “invalid” reason could result in dismissal from the institute. So, fooling around with party matters was extremely dangerous. There was nothing left but to learn everything by heart, all the dates of endless Bolshevik congresses and conferences, their agendas, Lenin’s speeches, and how he struggled with the hateful Mensheviks, etc. There was no guarantee that you wouldn’t get confused by all this heresy, so students prepared simple crib sheets.