TO: Ludwig von Mises

For it so falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,

Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,

Why, then we rack the value; then we find

The virtue that possession would not show us,

Whiles it was ours.

—William Shakespeare

PREFACE

I

If capitalism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it—and its discovery would be rightly regarded as one of the great triumphs of the human mind. This is the theme of Time Will Run Back. But as “capitalism” is merely a name for freedom in the economic sphere, the theme of my novel might be stated more broadly: The will to freedom can never be permanently stamped out.

Chapter 1

PETER ULDANOV had been waiting half an hour. He walked to the window and looked down to the streets thirty stories below, and then his glance wandered higher to the drab buildings opposite, and out over the city, until everything melted into a misty horizon.

It was a picture of unrelieved shabbiness.

So this was Moscow! This was the capital of Won world!

Chapter 2

THE wind was blowing upswirls of dust, cigarette butts and X tattered newspapers. Peter bent forward against it, constantly turning his head to protect his eyes and throat from the grit.

If Moscow looked shabby from thirty stories up, it was squalid from the pavement. The buildings were in every stage of disrepair and decay. The only relief to this drabness—if it was relief—was the omnipresent posters, displaying either enormous faces of Stalenin or exhortations to Work! Production! Loyalty! and warnings against Wreckers and Spies.

Chapter 3

IT was growing dark. He found himself in a workers’ section. From up the street came the sound of marching in cadence. A column of men and women approached, four abreast. Every once in a while it would halt at a command, then start again. It came almost opposite. A hard faced woman was in charge. “Halt!... Numbers T349, T35o, and L184!” The column stopped; two men and a woman stepped forth, saluted, and marched past him into neighboring houses. The column moved again.

Peter stopped a passer-by. “Is this a parade, comrade?”

Chapter 4

HE was awakened by a reveille bugle blast coming from a radio speaker built into the wall. There was no way of turning it off.

The strains of the International followed. Then a throaty voice began shouting commands for setting-up exercises. Five minutes later a more suave voice broadcast the news. Production of paper boxes was now running 16 per cent higher than in the preceding year. In the output of straw mattresses there had been evidence of sabotage, but the guilty ones would soon be rounded up....

Chapter 5

WHEN they had got up and brushed the dust from their trousers, Peter turned to Edith. “What are you doing now?” “I join my ORP, of course.” “ORP?”

“My Organized Recreation Platoon. Ours forms in ten minutes at Engels Square.” “May I walk over with you?” “If you wish. But haven’t you been assigned to any ORP of your own?”

“No—that is—not yet.”

At Engels Square a number of platoons were already forming.

“How long will this take?” asked Peter.

“Till four o’clock.”

“Does the platoon come back here?”

“Yes.”

Chapter 6

STALENIN, pipe in hand, walked slowly back and forth, “I’m going to tell you something, Peter, that is known to nobody on earth except my personal physician and my private secretary.... About six weeks ago I had a stroke...”

“Oh!”

Chapter 7

SO!” said Bolshekov. He looked Peter up and down. “You know absolutely no history, absolutely none?”

Peter nodded.

Chapter 8

STALENIN took up a pad of paper and signed his name on it. He shoved it toward Peter.

“Imitate that.”

Peter did his best.

“Try again.”

Peter tried.

“That’s a little better.”

Stalenin took a clean sheet and signed his name half a dozen times. “Take this. Don’t let anyone know you have it. But keep perfecting my signature.”

“But what’s the purpose of—”