The Thinking Reed

Writing honestly about Lenin meant speaking up about the tragedy of Bolshevism; meant judging, on Lenin’s behalf, those who declared themselves his loyal successors. The performance ended with the words: ‘No one in the world can compromise the Communists unless the Communists compromise themselves. No one in the world can prevent the victory of Communism unless the Communists themselves prevent it.’7 Shatrov’s tragedy, however, was quite different from Lenin’s and the point here is not that the author, in trying to re-establish the truth, has constantly to add in his work at least a little of the official falsehood, for unless he did that he would not have been allowed to say anything. What is more important is that the author, when he wrote those lines just quoted, and the critic Stroeva, when she reproduced them for readers of Literaturnaya Gazeta, could not be unaware that Communism has indeed already been compromised, that the realization of Lenin’s hopes has already been prevented. It remained only to dream that new generations will be able to distinguish between the historical truth and the official lie — although the shadow of that lie falls upon those who try to re-establish the truth.

The history of Bolshevism is a question that is currently relevant in the highest degree for the fate of our society. Understanding it means finding the key to present-day reality, finding the method for interpreting it. In his plays Shatrov tried to understand the past through the present and the present through the past. He is not the only one working in thst direction. Of even greater importance are the plays of A. Gel'man, which are set in the present day.

German made his debut in the theatrical world as the author of ‘plays about production’. That sort of work was strongly fostered by the authorities, who saw in it a ‘healthy alternative’ to the problem plays of Rozov and other playwrights of the sixties. What was wanted was to take up problems of production rather than spiritual problems. But as things got worse in the economy, the sphere of production exhibited more and more those general social and psychological conflicts that were typical of the country as a whole. It became harder and harder to cover them up. The myth of the ‘socialist’ character of labour in the USSR collapsed in ruins. German, himself a ‘production writer’, showed that the economy is a field of fierce conflict of interests — between departments, between branches of industry and between classes.

A number of writers before German had already tried to deal with the ‘production theme’ from this standpoint. Very interesting in this connection was Shatrov’s play The Weather for Tomorrow, staged at the Contemporary Theatre. The economic discussion in the sixties revealed to the Soviet intelligentsia as a whole new problems and new ideas which had previously been the property of a narrow circle of people only. This discussion not only influenced the development of political thought among Soviet Marxists, it also had a certain cultural importance. This made itself felt in the ‘production’ writings of the seventies. Shatrov’s The Weather for Tomorrow was a sort of technocratic utopia, and interesting from that standpoint.

The play’s ideas are close to those of wide circles of the Soviet intelligentsia and middle strata who, although no longer satisfied with the system, at the same time lack the strength to break with it. Along with the idea of ‘true Leninism’, technocratic utopianism constitutes a definite ideological complex — albeit a very contradictory one, for Lenin’s thought constantly revolts against attempts to interpret it from the position of technocratic pragmatism or even Shatrov’s ‘technocratic humanism’.

The Limits of Technocracy

The expression ‘technocratic humanism’ sounds so unusual that it calls for examination. In The Weather for Tomorrow we see depicted one day in the life of a Volga motorcar factory. Before us are up-to-date production methods, Western technology. The heroes of the play are ideally Europeanized technocrats. They are shown with great sympathy, but for some reason they all seem the same. If what interests you is individual characterization, you will not find it in this play.