Caroline Walton - Smashed in the USSR

“After the war I went home to the Kuban and everything would’ve been fine if my mother hadn’t had to show off to the women at the well. Her neighbours were boasting of their sons’ exploits so she produced a picture of me with my chest covered in medals. Someone noticed these were fascist decorations. I had borrowed a regimental dress for the photograph; I could hardly pose with a broom and bucket of horse shit. So I was denounced and given ten years for collaboration.

“Since then I’ve been in more camps than I can count. The truth is I don’t care much for life on the outside, what with residence permits, housing queues and trade union meetings. After a month I’m ready to see the inside of barbed wire again.”

Early one morning a huge turd appears in the snow near the accounts office where officers’ wives work. It is about twelve centimetres in diameter. Beside it lies crumpled newspaper and a pile of dog-ends. A group gathers around the monstrosity. It could only have been produced by a giant — yet normal-sized footsteps lead to the spot.

Vassya appears to be more affronted than anyone else. “Citizen lieutenant,” he says to the officer who has come to inspect the offending object. “This is disgraceful hooliganism, especially in the presence of women. I propose that everyone’s orifice be measured in order to find out who is capable of such an outrage.”

I have my own suspicions, for that week I noticed Vassya collecting something in a plastic bag which he kept carefully hidden away. After the fuss dies down he confesses his deed to a group of confidants. He says he learned the trick in a camp at Komi.

In the work zone we make shell-timers for a Kuibyshev arms plant. Many zeks throw themselves into the job as a distraction from deadly boredom, but none of them gets remission. The only guarantee of early release is membership of the SVP. Some zeks think: ‘Okay I’ll put on the armband but I won’t inform on anyone.’ But it doesn’t work like that: a zek betrays his fellow inmates as soon as he dons that armband. In a day or two he is racing the other SVPs to the guardhouse to sing for a two-rouble bonus. Weakness of character turns people into informers, and once they have crossed that line there’s no turning back.

We are a friendly brigade. When someone nears his release date we give him a hand so that he can save some extra money. Although the work isn’t too heavy we depend on chefir [25] Chefir was extremely strong tea. to meet our targets. Tea is smuggled in by civilian workers and by the prisoner who goes to the village post office for our mail. Zlodian Kitten is the only prisoner allowed out without a guard. He is an artist who paints pictures of kittens on glass to sell in the village. His kittens are all different, with bows and balls and so on. As the local shop only sells portraits of Lenin, there’s a huge demand for his work. Zlodian never returns without loose tea slipped in between the pages of newspapers.

After I’ve been in Spiridonovka for a year the authorities finally realise that the fight against chefirists is not only useless but counterproductive. A prisoner high on chefir works like a robot. No tea means no target, so the rule is relaxed and production plans are filled.

My co-chefirist is a drug addict known as VV. More of a dabbler than a hardened addict, VV takes any tablet he can lay his hands on. He is particularly fond of teophedrin, a mixture of codeine and ephedrine.

“I was a good Komsomolist before I did my military service, but the army changed that. It wasn’t so much the bullying that got me down, though that was bad enough. No, it was being surrounded by so many idiots who felt important for the first time in their lives. Now I spit on everything.

“It was my mother who sent me here. She didn’t like the company I fell into after I left the army. It wasn’t what she had in mind for her only son.”

VV and I share our tobacco and vodka, most of which comes into the camp in hot-water bottles thrown over the fence. Almost everyone who is freed from the LTP remembers his mates this way.

I grow tired of dormitory conversations about who drank how much and who slept with whom. To relieve the boredom I devise a joke. I write a letter purporting to be from ‘Sima,’ the wife of ‘Fedya.’ When letters are given out all the Fyodors in the barrack come forward but none recognises the handwriting. There is no return address on the envelope. Then by collective decision the letter is opened and read aloud. It could have been written to any one of us: Divisional Inspector Paramon often drops by… this was interrupted by a roar of knowing laughter… At last I have dried out the mattress… the reader continues as 300 voices jeer at the unknown Fedya for wetting his bed… I salted the cucumbers and yesterday in the herring queue Paramon’s wife Agafya slapped my face…

In the morning all the Fedyas in the camp come forward to prove their wives are not called Sima. One of them, who happens to be married to a Serafima, brings a collection of letters to show that her handwriting is not that of ‘Sima.’ A week later another letter arrives from Sima. The contents reveal that she has had a reply from her Fedya. The whole zone sets out to uncover the mysterious man. Only after a third or fourth letter do people start to guess that I am the author. They clamour for more: “We want something to cheer us up after work.”

A wave of prison riots breaks out all over the country. Discontent also grows in our camp. A new Godfather arrives and begins a campaign of intimidation. Our letters are torn open before they reach us and visitors are roughly searched, especially women. When a prisoner from the neighbouring criminal zone goes on the run they start to torment us with endless counts and recounts. A guard marches through our barrack with a slavering Alsatian on a slackened chain. It lunges at us; a couple of men who protest are taken out to the punishment cells.

They say you can divide people into cat lovers and dog lovers, but I’d add a third category: Alsatian lovers.

That night we gather to discuss what to do. Someone suggests writing a letter to Brezhnev, another says we should kill a dog. Suddenly, unexpectedly even to myself, I leap onto a bunk and shout at them: “Tossers! Cowards! All this talk is useless!”

The protestors turn to me, some try to knock me off the bunk. Others ask: “Well, what do you suggest then?”

“A strike! We stay in bed tomorrow and refuse to go to work until our demands are read by higher authorities. We’ll write a list of complaints and smuggle a copy out to the newspapers. If the authorities refuse to give way we’ll go on hunger strike.”

“Idealist!” mutters an older prisoner, but most of the men agree to my proposal. We choose a committee of four volunteers and I write out a list of complaints.

The next morning no one leaves their bunks except the cook and the man who stokes the boiler. Not everyone is happy to strike, especially those nearing the end of their sentences, but they don’t want to oppose the collective will. The Godfather arrives, stomping through the barrack, at first abusing us and then trying persuasion. Four men hand him our list of demands and he goes off to phone his superiors.

A week passes and then an MVD commission arrives. To our amazement, half our demands are met. Weapons are removed from the zone, we are allowed to wear sweaters and warm underwear, the food improves, visitors’ rooms are enlarged, they promise to put a TV in the rec. room. and to supply any books we request. I immediately compile a list and they bring in all the books I have ordered, even ones that are forbidden on the outside such as Schiller-Mikhailov’s History of the Anabaptists . I expect they can afford to be generous because their libraries are overflowing with confiscated books.