Back in the U.S.S.R.

Part Two of a Memoir

By: Yuri Tuvim - Feb 06, 2007

     The sign on one of the doors attracted my attention. It said: "The Department of Graphic Agitation and Propaganda".  I entered and said to the receptionist that I would like to see the head of the department.

-        Do you have an appointment?

-        No, I am here for other business but I would like to talk to your boss about other very important issues.

      She disappeared behind the heavily padded door and in a few seconds I was invited into a small office where I introduced myself to the round-faced man in his late thirties with a Moscow University lapel pin.

 -  I'm Yuri Tuvim, senior scientist at the Institute of Metrology of The State Committee of    Standards. I'm here for another purpose but I saw the sign of your department and I would like to use my opportunity of being here to address one issue which I consider to be of the prime importance.

-        I am all attention.

-        Do you know the restaurant Sofia on the

?

-        Sure I do.

-        Do you know what is on the roof of it?

-        I don't recallÂ…

-        There is a big slogan on the whole length of the building. It says: "Let us to turn Moscow into the Exemplary Communist City!"

-        Yes, yes, certainly. So what?

-        This is the problem!

-        Pardon me, please, but I don't follow you. Where is the problem?

-        The problem is in the slogan. It gives the ground to anti-soviet jokes, spreads criticism. This slogan furthers maliciousness. You have to fix it.

-        What are you talking about?

-        Yes, I'll explain. You see, it says "Exemplary Communist City ". That means that there might be also ordinary "Communist Cities". Two different grades of communist cities, yes? Moscow didn't reach an Exemplary state yet but is in the Communist stage already. And if Moscow already reached the first grade why potatoes in food stores are all rotten?  I think this slogan is very counterproductive. It does not reflect the current moment.

    The head of the department was looking at me with half open mouth in silence. I continued.

-        You see, this would be very easy to fix. The only thing which is needed is a comma. You have to put a comma after "Exemplary" and the slogan would acquire precise concrete meaning. "Exemplary" would mean "Communist", i.e. clarification according to the rules of the grammar. And this would put the end to the anti-soviet jokes.

"I understand", - said the department head and started to look for something in the drawers of his desk. After a long search he produced a thick book, leafed through pages, raised his head and said with  utter doom:

-        Nothing could be done.

-        Why nothing? This is a two hour job; even the words don't need to be spread apart.

-        That is not the case. This slogan as such is written in The Program of the KPSU.

-        I am sorry to hear that, -  I said and departed. 

     Comrade Smirnova was in her office. A nice looking blond lady with a university lapel pin on a voluptuous bosom. I apologized for being several minutes late explaining this by visiting The Department of Graphic Agitation and Propaganda. Madam Smirnova ears perked up. With great pleasure I informed her about the anti-soviet influence created by the absence of a comma and begged for her help. I told her that inept bureaucrats refused to create an initiative fixing the obvious typo in The Program of the Party. 

   - They are Talmudists and Pedants, as comrade Stalin said many years ago. They must be pinned            

      to the pillory!

   -  Not Stalin but Lenin, -said the madam.

   -  I bet that was Stalin's formula. Do you have his book "Questions of Leninism"? Give it to me,  I'll show you the place where it is written.

    Smirnova looked at me exactly the same way as the head of the department. Even her mouth opened to the same 10 millimeters. But that lasted a tenth of a second. In a twinkling of an eye she regained her composure and said:

-        We were distracted a little.

-        Yes, -I said, - when persecuting a man expelling him from the union, everybody voted unanimously, but when legality is at stake nobody would help. I hoped you would help me. I paid my dues always on time and there was no law to expel a person if he wanted to live with his aunt.

-        Yes, but you wanted to go to Israel.

-        So what? There are trade unions there as well, I would join them immediately.

-        These are the Israeli unions; we have no relations with them.

-        I am sure you have relations with our trade unions. So, help me please. You need to restore legitimacy. I was expelled unlawfully. I did not violate any rules.

-        Our trade unions are independent. The party can not correct their actions. You have to appeal to the Headquarter of All-Soviet Trade Unions.

-        But why have  you invited me to come?

-        We responded to your letter.

-        You should have sent me to the headquarters to start with. I am wasting my time. You can't even fix a grammatical error. The comma is an insurmountable obstacle to you! Totally useless organization!

    Thus ended my second visit to the center of USSR power.  The first encounter was several years before and for completely different reasons.   It happened because we used to rent a summer house 60 miles from Moscow. The farther from Moscow the worse the road. The last ten miles it was something unimaginable: solidified waves of six feet high. In dry weather it was interesting – you rose and fell as if on a swing but after a rain you would need a tank to reach the village.

      One summer the big road construction started, straight cut across the bog. Dump tracks were hauling in mountains of sand and asphalt; I watched the construction with great anticipation. In August the road was finished and I sped on the smooth surface. The joy lasted a mile. A police car with blasting siren stopped me and I was ordered to make a u-turn and proceed on the old road. The next week I was returning from Moscow. At the fork in the road was a freshly installed sign – "Do Not Enter". I stopped, looked around, nobody was in sight. I lifted the sign from the post, threw it into the bog and took the asphalt road. Approaching a hunting lodge which was a mile from the village I was stopped. My documents were thoroughly checked and a ticket was issued for a grave violation – entering a restricted road. I argued vehemently finally convincing the policeman to follow me back to the fork. You should have seen his face when he did not find the sign on the post!! He had no choice but to permit me to drive to the village on the asphalt. However, next week the sign was back on the post. I tried my trick again but it was welded and with nothing to do I took the old road.

    At the village store I struck up a conversation with a trapper from the hunting lodge. He told me that the big Party bosses started to come hunting there. He also said that Brezhnev treated everybody with coffee, but Kosigin only needed to glance at an aide and the aide would produce a bottle of vodka.

     So, I sat and wrote a letter to Department of the People's Control at the Central Committee of the KPSU. I don't recall it verbally but something like the following: "Dear comrades, an unhealthy situation has developed recently. A road was built for the authorities using people's money. Common folk are not permitted to use the road and continue to get carsick vomiting inside the busses. One woman even had a miscarriage, cars and busses break, efficiency of labor is going down, anti-party feelings are on rise and anti-soviet jokes are proliferatingÂ…."

   I had lots of fun writing this. The invitation for a talk came very quickly.  I was received by an old man decorated with a multitude of medal ribbons. I expounded the whole story exaggerating the anti-soviet effect of the new road. The man did not interrupt me and when I ran out of steam he asked me a question:

 - Where is the village located?

 - In Yaroslav region.

 - In that case you have to bring your complaint to the authorities of that area because our Department is taking care only of the All-Union problems.

The old apparatchik knew how to deflect complaints which he could not resolve. This was the end of my first encounter with the pinnacle of the soviet power structure.

    After expulsion from the trade union I continued to work but the atmosphere around me changed

drastically. From being the darling of the administration because I successfully ran a very important project I became a pariah. My friends would talk to me only when known stool pigeons and tattletales were out of sight. My project suddenly lost its significance but I could not be fired because I was elected by a Science Council of the Institute to my position of  Senior Scientist. The authorities found the perfect legal way to deal with me. The whole structure of the Institute was changed. All scientists were asked to submit the necessary papers for participation in a contest. A new voting procedure was organized with utmost precaution. The ballot box was so small that ballot forms could not spread inside the box and were piling on the top of each other. The election committee was composed of the most trusted people who were watching the voting members of the Council like hawks. Naturally, my friends could not vote "For" and I was blackballed. Legitimacy was preserved and the next day I was laid off.

    The loss of 250 rubles per month was a very serious thing but as the Russian proverb says: - "Net khuda bez dobra", meaning "There are no bad things without good".  Lidiya Chukovskaya asked me to be her chauffer and the most exciting life started without delay. I met Chukovskaya a few years before. She was a fragile old lady with an iron will. Her husband a brilliant physicist Bronstein was arrested and shot during the Era of Terror. She was a friend of Andrei Sakharov and was greatly respected by the Moscow liberal dissident intelligentsia. I earned her appreciation when I fixed the inscription on the gravestone of her father writer Korneii Chukovskii. A few bronze characters were lost, so I asked my friend who was working in a military aviation plant to cast them. That was done and I cemented the letters back onto the stone. Needless to say no money was involved. That's how we used to help each other back then.

     Chukovskaya was giving me  her books to read which she was writing "in the desk", meaning that they could not be published under Soviet rule. Her articles were circulating in Samizdat and Solzhenitsyn sometimes stayed in her house. I never met him but I got acquainted with many remarkable people,  la crème de la crème  of  Moscow's intelligentsia. Those days from the expulsion from work until my departure were the most interesting of my life.

    I had at my disposal two cars, plenty of free time and many friends. One car, however, presented a problem. I have to admit that I never bought a single liter of gas from a gas station. The steering wheel of my small car could not be turned to the direction of a gas station. When I needed gas I would stop the car, put a canister from the trunk behind the car and wait. The waiting was not long. A truck or a dump truck would stop and in a few minutes my canisters would be filled for three or four times less money that at a gas station. Unfortunately, Lidiya Chukovskaya did not feel comfortable with my enterprising or that I was experiencing pangs of conscience by enriching the state instead of supporting hardworking truck drivers.