Execution by Hunger (12 page)

This was the culmination of a rather amusing incident. I had witnessed the seemingly insignificant event that had led to this case, and I feel it is worthwhile to relate it in all its details.

There is a proverb that might best explain the mishap—“What the sober man retains—the drunkard reveals.” Being drunk, the defendants just spoke what they had thought, and what they thought was not in accordance with the Party line.

Since the start of collectivization, the necessities of life had almost completely disappeared from the shelves of the village store. Kerosene, matches, salt, and other common goods had become scarce. It had been announced one Sunday that a supply of herrings had arrived at the store, and that each person would be allotted one pound. Therefore, on that Sunday, a long line stretched along the square in front of the store. Petro Zinchenko, one of the defendants, wanted to buy his ration of herring. He was an honest and hard-working man, but he had the reputation of being a Sunday drunkard. Aside from this one weakness, he was a likeable and intelligent man. This Sunday, like every Sunday, he was drunk.

“Listen, Kitty,” he said to a young woman standing in the line close to the store door, “if you let me stand ahead of you, our wedding will be held right after we buy our herring.”

The young lady dissented.

“Well, I understand,” Petro continued. “You don't want to marry me without the Church's blessing.” He pointed toward the ruined church cupolas. “We'll be married there, in the church…under the portrait of our dear and wise leader and teacher, Comrade—”

“Shut up, you ass!” she shouted. And, of course, she did not let him take the place in front of her.

But Petro was not discouraged. He changed his tone and disguised his voice so cleverly that it sounded like that of Comrade Cherepin.

“Hey, you—enemy of the people!” he said to the young woman, “Who gave you the right to stand in the herring line ahead of a hero and invalid of the Revolution, and a member of the Komnezam?”

Her answer was still no.

The situation became embarrassing. Petro's joking used to evoke laughter from the people. He was more witty than ever now. His imitation of Comrade Cherepin was expert. However, this time no one dared to laugh. He was openly ridiculing the Soviet regime, and everyone feared the presence of secret agents.

“Comrade enemy,” he continued, addressing the same lady, “in the name of our beloved Communist Party and dear government, I arrest you for refusing to cooperate with a hero of the proletarian revolution in his quest for a quick purchase of his ration of herring granted him by this same beloved Party and government.”

The woman did not cooperate with him. But Petro, still in a joking mood, shifted his attention to another woman, an older one.

“Look, Granny, did you see that?” he asked, pointing at the younger woman. “I helped build this Communist paradise complete with its annual herring sale, and she—she won't even let me buy the herring before she does; may I stay in front of you?”

But Petro had no better luck. The older woman was not exactly in a joking mood either.

“You've got your paradise. Away with you!” she mumbled.

“What?” shouted the surprised Petro.

“I meant,” shouted the woman, “that as long as you wanted this paradise, you've got it. Enjoy it! The end of the line is back there.”

Petro jumped closer to the older woman.

“My dear,” he exclaimed, “for years I've been looking for an angel in this paradise, and I've finally found her, in the herring line of all places!”

As the older woman struggled against Petro's attempt to kiss her, another drunkard weaved his way toward the line, swinging his arms and singing loudly.

He was middle-aged, and like Petro, was known for his wit. His name was Antin. He had been a Communist partisan during the Civil War. He also had the reputation of being an educated man; we all knew that he could read and write.

Petro left the old lady and went to meet Antin.

“Ah,” he shouted to Antin, “birds of a feather flock together! Long live the drunkards of paradise!”

“Hurrah!” shouted Antin, embracing his friend Petro.

“Long live the herring eaters!” Petro responded with a long hurrah.

“Listen, Comrade-Sir,” started Antin, “you are a bourgeois-capitalist-counterrevolutionary-imperialist shark…”

“Thanks,” replied Petro. “Thanks for the honor.”

“You want to buy a herring, don't you?” continued Antin. “And isn't that a counterrevolutionary desire?”

Petro laughed and then took his turn.

“You're an old, skinny, dirty pig, Antin. You are even more than a pig; you are an enemy of the people. The worst and skinniest enemy I ever saw in my whole long drunken life!”

“The honor is mine,” answered Antin.

“How dare you come to the annual herring sale like this?” Petro continued, gesturing toward Antin. “How could you come to the public place with such dirty trousers on your socialist legs?”

The old man smilingly fingered the holes in his trousers.

“I ask you, is it permissible in the socialist paradise, under the leadership of our dear and beloved, our wise and almighty, our teacher and leader, great Comrade…”

“Shut up, you stinking rat! I feel like vomiting!” shouted Antin.

“That's exactly what I mean, continued Petro. You feel like vomiting when I speak about our dear and beloved…”

“I'll kill you!” Antin raved.

Petro wished to mention this leader by name, modified by the adjectives which the propagandists used for Stalin. A vigorous protest from Antin did not stop him.

“You'd better give me a direct answer about your trousers,” Petro demanded. “How is it possible for you to expose your socialist bony knees to the public, as if you were a peasant of a capitalist country?”

“You are wrong, Comrade Red Partisan,”
¹⁷
Antin said. “My trousers are neither dirty nor torn. It's a new fashion.”

“Aren't they lovely?” Petro continued. “And you mean those holes aren't holes?”

“That's right, comrade-sir, they aren't holes,” Antin answered. “They are just delicate openings for ventilation.”

Petro sighed. “Do the creators of this fashion have this kind of ventilation also?” he asked.

“I'm not sure about their trousers, only their heads.”

The two men, weary of their dialogue, returned their attention to the herring line. Petro, again imitating Comrade Cherepin, shouted:

“Comrades, my compatriots! From now on, comrades, you are entitled to receive an annual ration of one whole herring! We'll call it the Red Herring, for those of you, comrades, who won't be able to consume the ration yourself will be urged to deliver the surplus to our dear Party and government, which will then distribute them among the starving laboring people of the capitalist countries. Comrades, join our socialist competition for the collecting of surplus herrings for the laboring classes of the capitalist world.”

There was no laughter in the crowd during or after his herring speech. The people, aware of the danger, turned their backs on Petro.

Seeing that his humor no longer had any effect on the people, Petro enlisted Antin in a new mode of entertainment, dancing and singing.

They sang the new anti-Communist folksongs created by the villagers themselves during collectivization. They sang a few more of them before realizing their failure to cheer the people, and finally elbowed their way through the line singing:

It was at this point that someone turned them in; now they were the defendants, attended by militiamen, standing before the kolhosp court.

I had no knowledge at that time of either the judicial system or of the procedures of law; nevertheless, this court struck me as a tragicomic parody of justice. After reading the indictment in which there was no mention of their specific crimes, Judge Sydir started the interrogation. He read the questions with a trembling voice.

“Your name?” he asked Petro, without raising his head from the piece of paper which he held close to his eyes. The question came as a complete surprise to Petro.

“What?” he retorted, open-mouthed with astonishment. (It so happened that Petro and Sydir had been neighbors and friends for as long as they had lived.) “Don't you know me anymore?”

Sydir was painfully embarrassed, and seemed at a loss what to do next. He turned to Comrade Cherepin. From then on, Cherepin conducted the court proceedings almost single-handedly. Other voices spoke only when Comrade Cherepin asked questions.

“You heard the judge,” Comrade Cherepin angrily hissed at Petro, looking at him as if he were a troublesome insect. “Your family name, given name, and patronymic.”

“But he knows my name! All know…” started Petro.

“Your name!” repeated Comrade Cherepin, raising his voice.

Petro first looked helplessly around as if trying to find out what was happening, then obediently answered. A stream of other questions followed.

“Date and place of birth?”

“Occupation and place of work?”

“Nationality?”

“Membership in the Communist Party?”

“Name of parents?”

“Their social status before the Revolution?”

“Did they have hired hands?”

This was the beginning of a long and exhaustive interrogation. Petro had to relate a detailed biography, from infancy to the present day. Comrade Cherepin was especially interested in what Petro's parents, grandparents, relatives, as well as his wife's parents, grandparents, and relatives did before and during the Revolution and Civil War. Were they civil or military servants under the tsarist regime? Were they rich or poor? Did they exploit hired hands? Did they oppose the October Revolution?

To us villagers, this kind of interrogation was a strange and frightful phenomenon. Not many of us knew our exact date of birth, nor the birthdays of our relatives. The deceased grandparents and other family members were dearly remembered, but probably not one of us knew whether they had had hired hands or not. So at first we couldn't understand what Petro's ancestors had to do with this trial. But, as the interrogation progressed, it struck us with staggering clarity that we had to answer now for what our ancestors had done.

Petro knew approximately how old he was, but he did not know when he was born for the simple reason that his birth had not been recorded.

Comrade Cherepin interpreted this as contempt of court. Then Petro could not give a detailed account of his whereabouts and activities before and during the October Revolution and Civil War. This was interpreted as an attempt by Petro to hide his counterrevolutionary activities. As the interrogator delved deeper into Petro's personal life, it was revealed that his father was a noncommissioned officer in the tsarist army during World War I. No one in the village, including Petro himself, knew exactly what rank his father had held, but he was considered a sort of hero by the villagers for not many farmers could attain even this kind of rank in the tsarist army. However, he had been killed in action on the front lines and forgotten in the village. Even Petro thought there was nothing special in having rank, whatever it had been, to make a fuss about. But Comrade Cherepin was of another opinion.

“So, so…your father was a noncommissioned officer in the tsarist army, eh…?” he deliberately emphasized the word “officer.” At that time it was anathema. “Tell me,” he continued, after a pause, “how many poor farmers were noncommissioned officers in the tsarist army?”

“How should I know?” Petro responded.

“Not many,” Cherepin said, staring at Petro. “Only those farmers could get promotions who loyally served the tsar and his regime. Isn't that true?”

“My father was—” Petro wanted to say something.

“You were not invited to talk!” Comrade Cherepin cut him short. “We know your kind; we still remember that time. Your father was promoted because he was loyal to the tsar; and having been promoted, he was that army slave driver we all hated. If he hadn't been killed, he would have become a counterrevolutionary; an enemy of the people.”

“But—” Petro tried to speak again.

“Shut up!” Comrade Cherepin shouted angrily.

“But, he was killed three years before the Revolution,” Petro managed to shout.

Comrade Cherepin did not take time to interrupt him. Now he sat staring at Petro in disgust. After a moment of silence, he leaned toward Sydir, the judge, and whispered something. The latter promptly ordered Petro to sit down.

Then he called the defendant Antin. Antin also had to answer a multitude of questions, but his interrogation did not last long. Soon Comrade Cherepin turned to the judge who automatically ordered Antin to sit down, and announced that Comrade Cherepin was to speak. This was supposed to be the prosecutor's charge, but in reality it was another political speech filled with stilted phrases. From that speech we understood the charges against Petro and Antin were accusations of agitation against the Communist Party and the Soviet government and of spreading Ukrainian nationalism. Of course, they were labeled counterrevolutionaries and enemies of the people. He singled out Petro as a son of a former tsarist noncommissioned officer and someone who could become a saboteur at any time. Thus he recommended that their case be submitted to the People's Court and to the state security organs.

When Comrade Cherepin finished speaking, somebody started to applaud, and others followed. After all, we had received a thorough lesson in applauding. Then it became quiet, as in a church.

“What crimes did they commit?” somebody shouted from the rear of the room.