“Thety-rant shall fall and thepeo-ple shallrise, Sublime, al-mighty, unchai-ai-ai-ned! ...”
“Lord Jesus Christ! I bet the newspaper’s grown fast to my skin. Ever use newspapers to keep your feet warm, comrade? Under the socks?”
“Makes your feet stink.”
“Cover your mouth when you yawn like that, comrade.”
“Damn those demonstrations! Who the hell was he, anyway?”
“Yougave a-a-all youhad fo-o-or thepeople you loved ...”
The Field of Victims of the Revolution was a huge square in the heart of the city, on the shore of the Neva, a vast, white desert, stretching for half a mile, like a bald spot on the scalp of Petrograd. The iron lances of the Summer Garden fence stood on guard at one side of the Field, and behind them lay the white desolation of a park with bare trees that seemed made of black iron like the lances.
Before the revolution, it had been called the Field of Mars and long ranks of gray uniforms had crossed it in military drills. The revolution had erected a small square of rose granite slabs, a little island lost in the center of the Field. Under the slabs were buried the first victims fallen in the streets of Petrograd in February of 1917. The days since February of 1917 had added more granite slabs to the little island. The names carved on the granite had belonged to those whose death had been the occasion for a demonstration, whose last reward had been the honor of the title of “The Revolution’s Victim.”
Pavel Syerov mounted a block of red granite over a red coffin. His slender figure in a tight, new leather jacket and breeches and tall military boots stood sharply, proudly against the gray sky, his blond hair waved in the wind, and his arms rose solemnly, in blessing and exhortation, over a motionless sea of heads and banners.
“Comrades!” Pavel Syerov’s voice thundered over the solemn silence of thousands. “We are here, united by a common sorrow, by the common duty of paying a last tribute to a fallen hero. We have lost a great man. We have lost a great fighter. Perhaps, I may be permitted to say that I feel the loss more keenly than many who join me in honoring his death, but who knew him not while he lived. I was one of his closest friends — and it was a privilege which I must share with all of you. Andrei Taganov was not a famous man, but he bore, proudly and gallantly, one title: that of a Communist. He came from the toilers’ ranks. His childhood was spent at the proletarian work bench. He and I, we grew up together, and together we shared the long years of toil in the Putilovsky factory. We joined the Party together, long before the Revolution, in those dark days when a Party card was a ticket to Siberia or a mark for the Czar’s hangman’s noose. Side by side, Comrade Taganov and I fought in the streets of this city in the glorious days of October, 1917. Side by side, we fought in the ranks of the Red Army. And in the years of peace and reconstruction that followed our victory, the years which are harder and, perhaps, more heroic than any warfare, he did more than his share of the silent, modest, self-sacrificing work which your Party carries on for you, toilers of the U.S.S.R.! He fell as a victim to that work. But our sorrow at his death shall also be joy at his achievement. He is dead, but his work, our work, goes on. The individual may fall, but the Collective lives forever. Under the guidance of the Soviets, under the leadership of the great All-Union Communist Party, we are marching into a radiant tomorrow when the honest toil of free toilers will rule the world! Then labor will no longer be slavery, as it is in capitalistic countries, but a free and happy duty to that which is greater than our petty concerns, greater than our petty sorrows, greater than our very lives — the eternal Collective of a Proletarian Society! Our glorious dead shall be remembered forever, but we are marching on. Andrei Taganov is dead, but we remain. Life and victory are ours. Ours is the future!”
The applause rolled like a dull thunder to the houses of the city far away, to the snow of the Summer Garden, and red banners waved in the roar of clapping hands, rising to the gray sky. When the hands dropped and the heads turned their eyes to the red granite slab, Comrade Syerov was gone — and against the gray sky stood the trim, proud, resolute figure of Victor Dunaev, black curls waving in the wind, eyes sparkling, mouth open wide over lustrous white teeth, throwing into the silence the clear, ringing notes of a young, powerful voice:
“Comrade workers! Thousands of us are gathered here to honor one man. But one man means nothing in the face of the mighty Proletarian Collective, no matter how worthy his achievements. We would not be here, if that man were not more than a single individual, if he were not a symbol of something greater, which we are gathered here to honor. This is not a funeral, comrades, but a birthday party! We are not celebrating the death of a comrade, but the birth of a new humanity. Of that new humanity, he was one of the first, but not the last. The Soviets, comrades, are creating a new race of men. That new race terrifies the old world, for it brings death to all its outworn standards. What, then, are the standards of our new humanity? The first and basic one is that we have lost a word from our language, the most dangerous, the most insidious, the most evil of human words: the word ‘I.’ We have outgrown it. ‘We’ is the slogan of the future. The Collective stands in our hearts where the old monster — ‘self ’ — had stood. We have risen beyond the worship of the pocketbook, of personal power and personal vanity. We do not long for gold coins and gold medals. Our only badge of honor is the honor of serving the Collective. Our only aim is the honest toil which profits not one, but all. What is the lesson we are to learn here today and to teach our enemies beyond the borders? The lesson of a Party comrade dying for the Collective. The lesson of a Party that rules but to sacrifice itself to those it rules. Look at the world around you, comrades! Look at the fat, slobbering ministers of the capitalistic countries, who fight and stab one another in the back in their bloody scramble for power! Then look at those who rule you, who consecrate their lives to the unselfish service of the Collective, who carry the tremendous responsibility of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! If you do, you will understand me when I say that the All-Union Communistic Party is the only honest, fearless, idealistic body of men in the politics of the world today!”
The applause thundered as if the old cannons of the Peter-Paul Fortress across the river had been fired all at once. And it thundered again when Victor’s black curls disappeared in the crowd, and the straight, stubby mane of Comrade Sonia waved high in the air, while she roared with all the power of her broad chest about the new duties of the new woman of the Proletariat. Then another face rose over the crowd, a thin, consumptive, unshaved face that wore glasses and opened a pale mouth wide, coughing words which no one could hear. Then another mouth spoke, and it could be heard far beyond the crowd, a mouth that bellowed sonorously through a thick, black beard. A freckled boy from the Communist Union of Youth spoke, stuttering, scratching his head. A tall spinster in a crumpled, old-fashioned hat spoke ferociously, opening her small mouth as if she were at the dentist’s, shaking her thin finger at the crowd as at a school-room of disobedient pupils. A tall sailor spoke, his fists on his hips, and those in the back rows laughed occasionally when they heard the front rows laughing, even though the words did not reach them.
Thousands stood, fidgeting nervously, knocking their heels together to keep them warm, burying their hands in their armpits, in their sleeves, in their fur lapels, breathing little wet icicles on the old scarfs high under their noses. They took turns in holding the red banners, and those who held them pressed the poles tightly to their sides with their elbows, blowing on their frozen fingers. A few sneaked away, hurrying furtively down side streets.