Time Will Run Back

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!”

“I recovered in four days. It seemed to leave no mark. But my doctor warns me that I may have another, more serious. It may affect my heart, my brain—paralyze me—carry me off. That’s primarily why I brought you from Bermuda two weeks ago.... 1 don’t know whether your mother ever made clear to you the real reason for our breakup.”

“You said, Your Supremacy, that she objected to the Great Purge that carried away her brother—” “Yes, yes. But our real split came earlier. It was ideological, like all real splits. She accused me of betraying the revolution! Me! She insisted that the kind of communism I had put into effect was not Marxian-Leninism! It was, of course, the essence of Marxism and Leninism. If I had had her liquidated then and there, as I first thought of doing, she would have gone to her death convinced that she was right. I was determined to force her to change her mind, and really change it, before she died. And that was why I kept her alive, guarded and isolated, on that island. I was going to show her, when the job was done, the great classless society that I could bring into being. I was going to lead her through a world flowing with milk and honey. Her accusation was a monstrous lie! I was going to prove even to her that it was a lie! So far from betraying the revolution, it has been my supreme mission to carry the revolution to its destined fulfillment!”

His pace quickened and his excitement grew as he spoke. Suddenly he put his hand to his heart, and Peter saw that he was making a deliberate effort to calm himself. After a pause he went on:

“Time was not on my side.... She died too soon. And now, perhaps, I am going to die too soon.... And that is why I sent for you.”

He walked slowly to his desk and shook the ashes out of his pipe. “Since your mother insisted that I was not creating true communism, maybe you can. I’m going to let you try.”

Peter was staggered. “But, Your Supremacy, I know nothing—”

“If you know nothing, it’s because you were taught nothing. You were educated precisely in accordance with your mother’s views. I chose the best teachers in Wonworld to teach you the subjects that she wanted you taught. And she didn’t want you to be taught anything about politics or economics or history because, she claimed, you would only be indoctrinated with corrupted views. Well, let’s see what you can do with the views she taught you!”

“But, Your Supremacy, I wouldn’t have the remotest idea of where to begin! You wouldn’t want me to wreck Wonworld, but that is precisely what I would probably do. I don’t even know what my mother’s principal objection was to your regime. She never spoke to me about it.”

Stalenin looked astonished. “She never spoke to you about it?” “She seldom talked about the world outside. She seldom mentioned your name.” Stalenin was taken aback. He walked up and down as if trying to absorb this.

An intercom buzzed on his desk. “Yes. I’ll see him right away.”

He turned to Peter. “It’s Bolshekov. Go out through this back door. The guard at the end of the corridor will show you the way down. Be back here promptly at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

The next day Peter found his father in an altered mood.

“Even if nothing had happened to your mother, I would soon have faced a decision about you. Obviously you couldn’t have been kept isolated on that island all your life. As soon as I passed on, you would have been automatically assassinated.”

“Why?”

“First, for being my son. And second for being miseducated, and hence an ideological menace.... Your life is in the greatest danger.”

He sank into a chair. “I can trust no one.”

Peter was amazed. “Not even Bolshekov?” He remembered how many times Stalenin had publicly lauded the “loyalty” and “devotion” of Bolshekov. Hadn’t he given a renewed expression of his confidence on May Day?

“I trust Bolshekov least of all,” said Stalenin. “He is the greatest menace to my regime, to my life. And to yours.”

“But why?”

“There was a time when I did trust Bolshekov completely. Perhaps his own ambition had not yet become overvaulting. He is tremendously able, shrewd, fearless—and a complete fanatic. There was a time when, though I was known as No. 1, the twelve members of the Politburo had no numbers. Bolshekov exposed a plot within the Politburo to assassinate me. He extorted confessions from the three members involved, and they were liquidated. I should have known that those confessions were meaningless. You can make anybody confess to anything. But I was away addressing the Wonworld Congress of Scientists at Paris when all this occurred. When I got back there was no version but Bolshekov’s for me to hear. He convinced me that this plot was the result of the absence of any clear line of succession to my power. Such plots were apt to recur, he pointed out, so long as anybody in the Politburo thought he could seize power with me out of the way. I asked his suggestion for the cure. He recommended that everybody in the Politburo be given a public number so that the resort to violent methods for succession to power would be impossible. I agreed to this. And, still more unfortunately, out of gratitude I named him No. 2. Not till I had done this did I realize what should have been obvious to me from the first—that in naming him No. 2, I had in effect publicly named him as my titular successor. Now all he had to do was to get rid of me. And that, I have found, is precisely what he is planning to do.”

“But wouldn’t it be a simple matter, Your Supremacy, to give him a lower number?”

Stalenin waved his pipe impatiently. “A man in Bolshekov’s position cannot be demoted. Suppose I named him No. 3 or 4 or 5? This public evidence of my distrust would mean that no one would ever know whether to obey him or not. Everyone would shun him. He could not hold even minor power. He himself would know that he was doomed, and have me killed, if he had the chance, before I had him killed. No, the only thing is to arrest him, force a confession out of him, and then kill him.”

“But—”

“You are wondering,” continued Stalenin, “why I could not simply have him shot and then blame the shooting on enemies of the State. I have thought of that. There are one or two things to be said in its favor. For example, I could accuse others, whom I suspect of being ambitious, of having engineered the assassination. I could have confessions wrung from them, so diverting all suspicion from myself and killing several birds with one stone. You may be sure that Bolshekov has thought of doing the same thing in my case—having me assassinated, staging simultaneously a fake attempt on his own life, having other members of the Politburo—especially Adams—arrested, extorting confessions from them, and so on.”

His pipe had gone out again. He walked over to his desk and refilled it.

“These things take considerable arranging,” he went on. “I have increased my own bodyguard, and have agents watching Bolshekov. No doubt he has taken similar measures in my case. He must already know about your presence in Moscow. The bushy-browed comrade who has been following you around for the last two weeks, by the way, is one of my own agents—to protect you. He has sent me daily reports. The long-armed fellow is undoubtedly a spy for Bolshekov. But I shall pretend to know nothing about the matter. Bolshekov and I must act against each other without rousing each other’s suspicions. Action on either side may come any day.”

Everybody in Wonworld lived in fear. Peter now realized that the Dictator himself lived in as great fear as anyone else. He had to rule by fear because he was himself ruled by fear.

“As to my public expressions of trust in Bolshekov, which seem to be puzzling you,” Stalenin continued, “you must understand that these are, of course, necessary for my own protection. The more faith I show in Bolshekov in public, the more impossible it is for him to plot against me openly—and the harder it would go with him if it were ever found out that he was acting against me in secret. I keep promoting him, as you know. This not only conceals my own suspicions from him; it also encourages him to think that he can gain his ambitions without violence or treachery. My May Day speech had still another purpose. I may have a paralyzing stroke at any moment and then it would be impossible for me to show myself in public, and Bolshekov would either finish me off or take power without even bothering to finish me off. So why not announce, while I still seem to be in the prime of health, that I am making no more public appearances? Then if I make no public appearances, no ugly rumors will start—or if they start, they will not be believed. Further, I have removed at least one source of the drain on my energies and postponed a second stroke by just that much.... And remember, though I seemed to be placing a lot of power in Bolshekov’s hands, I made it clear that he holds all this power only as my deputy, and that nothing can be done except in my name.”

He smoked for a while in silence, and once more walked about the room. “You are probably wondering where you fit into all this. I don’t mind telling you that your mother’s accusation has rankled in me all these years. You may have gathered as much from what I said yesterday. She charged that I betrayed the revolution! She said that this, this Won world, is not real communism, not what Marx and Lenin and the great Stalin intended! But it is exactly that! It is the consummation of all that they worked for.... Or at least it would be, if it were not for the lazy and the slovenly and the wreckers and the spies! But she blamed me for all that! She said that Marx called for a classless society and promised that when socialism had been perfected the State would ‘wither away.’ Haven’t I brought a classless society? There are no differences in classes; there are only differences in functions. Somebody has to direct. But how can the State wither away? Under socialism, and by the very concept of socialism, the State owns everything, controls everything, plans everything. How the hell can it wither away?” His questions were directed challengingly at Peter, as if it were he who had made the accusation against him. “Or maybe it could wither away, when we have killed off all the traitors. But there is no end to treason; there is no end—”

Peter saw that his father was making another conscious effort, as on the day before, to get control of himself.

“You are probably wondering,” Stalenin now resumed very calmly, “as I said before, where you fit into all this.... During these years, as your mother’s accusation has festered in me, I have thought that my life might be terminated before I could prove to her that she was wrong. And it has occurred to me that it might be at least some satisfaction to select you as my successor, you who have been brought up according to her ideas of what an education should be, and defy you to try to create true communism—since I wasn’t supposed to be doing it.”

“But, Your Supremacy, as I told you yesterday, I am completely unequipped—”

“Of course you are. The idea, as I originally conceived it, had no sense. It was merely an emotional daydream of revenge. It began to evaporate, in fact, the moment I first saw you two weeks ago.”

“I realize, Your Supremacy, that I am quite untrained for politics; but that doesn’t mean that I am not equipped for other-”

“That has nothing to do with why I changed my mind. I had always thought of you as her son. But at my first glance at you as a man instead of a child, I suddenly realized that you are my son. And now I want you to succeed me, when I pass on, for a better reason, a real reason. And that is why, if you prove equal to it, I’m going to give you a chance to become the next Dictator. I’d like to think of the flesh and blood of Stalenin carrying on. I can understand how the old kings felt—”

“Your Supremacy—”

“When we are alone you may call me ‘father.’ “

“Father.... I don’t want to succeed you as Wonworld Dictator. I know that sounds amazing, but... I have no reason to suppose that I would have any particular aptitude for it. I have no training for it.... I have no heart for it. I’d like to devote myself to music—”

Stalenin cut in with another impatient wave of his pipe. “Music may be all right as a hobby, but it’s not a full-time occupation for a serious man. Besides, I’ve already told you—your life is in imminent danger. Do you imagine for a moment that, if anything happened to me, whoever took my place would let you live? Let you become a potential rallying point for a plot against him? You have only one choice: succeed me as Dictator or be annihilated.”

Peter was silent. He said at last: “What do you want me to do, father?”

“The first thing I intend to do is to introduce you to the Politburo at tomorrow’s meeting. Your presence in Moscow is bound to be known soon. Bolshekov already knows of it, though he still may not know just who you are. The best way to lull suspicion is to appear to be perfectly frank and introduce you as my son.... But I shall treat you with a certain contempt. That is one reason why I have given you the status of a Proletarian. Anyway, you ought to know what it’s like to be a Proletarian. The next thing for me to do is to see that you get a real communist education. You shall get the best. I will put your education directly in charge of Bolshekov himself.”

“Wouldn’t that give him even more opportunity—?”

“It will lull his suspicions. He has already been spying on you. Now it will not be necessary. But you can watch him, with a perfect excuse. By the way, I had almost forgotten to tell you: every member of the Politburo must be addressed as ‘Your Highness.’... Any further questions?”

Peter had none. “The meeting of the Politburo is at four o’clock. You will be here ten minutes before then.”

At five minutes after four the next day Peter followed Stalenin through a short corridor leading from his office to another room of the same size—and found himself in the presence of the Politburo.

Eleven men in black, and one in the red coat of an army officer, were seated along a large oblong table, half a dozen on each side. At the moment of Stalenin’s appearance they stood up.

“Comrades,” said Stalenin, “I have a surprise for you. Let me introduce my son, Peter Uldanov!”

He took Peter around the table and introduced him to each member individually, beginning with His Highness No. 2, Bolshekov. It was only the second time that Peter had even seen Bolshekov. He was tall and gaunt—about two inches taller than Peter himself. Even more striking than his high cheekbones and prominent nose were his eyes. They were a distinct green.

Next came His Highness No. 3, Adams, a shrewd-looking Yankee below average height, thin and wispy. But there were humor and good-nature in his wizened face, and Peter liked him immediately. There was also something vaguely reminiscent about Adams that Peter could not quite identify.

He followed his father around the table.... No. 4, Marshal Zakachetsky, head of the Army.... No. 5, André Giraud, Commissar of Provinces.... No. 6, Ivan Orlov, Commissar of Propaganda and editor of the New Truth.... No. 7, Nickolas Petrov, “our oldest member.”... No. 8, Vladimir Kilashov, Commissar of State Security, and head of the secret police.... Peter began to lose track of the names.

He did keep track of the Soviet Republic from which each member originated. Adding his father’s identifications, he counted eight Russians, one American, one Frenchman, one German, one Englishman and one Argentinean.

Stalenin took his seat at the top of the table, and waved Peter to a chair at the bottom. All sat down.

The Dictator filled his pipe and began to tell the Politburo the story of his son’s life. He concealed few outward facts, but his tone was now heavily derisive.

“And so,” he concluded, “when his mother died a year ago, I had to decide his fate. Should he be kept on the island for the remainder of his life, a burden to himself and an ideological menace to Wonworld?? Or should he be exterminated? Or should we try, belatedly, to turn him into a Marx-fearing Communist and a useful member of society?”

A dozen pairs of eyes turned on Peter as if he were some strange, newly discovered kind of animal.

“I decided on the last, and have brought him here. I am wondering, Your Highness”—Stalenin was addressing Bolshekov—“whether I can place him in your care? Would you be able to give him a little of your own time for a while, to make sure that he gets started right? Later we could hand him over to the right teachers and have him report to both of us regularly, so that we can watch his progress—or lack of progress.”

“When do you want me to begin, Your Supremacy?”

“As soon as possible.”

Bolshekov turned to Peter. “Report to my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” “One thing more,” continued Stalenin. “I don’t want this young man to get any favors whatever simply because he happens to be my son. Whatever he gets or doesn’t get is to depend solely on himself. You will notice that I have given him simply the status of a Proletarian. However, it might be embarrassing, during the period of his education, to have a Proletarian wandering in and out of the Kremlin offices, where he would be constantly stopped by the guards. So beginning tomorrow morning, No. 2, before he gets to your office I will see that he gets the temporary status and uniform of a Deputy.”

He looked sternly at Peter. “It will depend on how rapidly you learn, whether you will be allowed to keep that status.”