David Weber - In Enemy Hands

"Don't play games with me, Citizen Admiral." Ransom's voice was colder still, and she smiled thinly. "Loyalty to one's subordinates is an admirable quality, but you know what I mean. This Harrington is scarcely an ordinary prisoner of war, and you and Tourville both know it. Her capture is a political factor of the first importance. As such, her disposition is a political, not a military, decision!"

"But, Citizen Secretary," Theisman tried, "under the Deneb Accords—"

"I'm not interested in the Deneb Accords!" Ransom snapped. She leaned forward and glared at Theisman. "The Deneb Accords were signed by the Legislaturalists, not the representatives of the People, and the People aren't bound by archaic remnants of the plutocratic past—not when they're locked in a fight to the death with other plutocratic elitists! This is a war of ideologies, and there can be no compromise between them. Why can't military officers realize that? This isn't another one of your 'warrior' clique's wars against 'honorable enemies' or 'fellow officers,' Citizen Admiral! It's a class war, a revolutionary struggle in which the sole acceptable outcome is not just the defeat but the annihilation of our enemies, because if we fail to wipe them out this time, they'll surely crush us and reimpose their exploitative rule once more. The one thing—the only thing—that matters is winning, and only people who have the political vision and willpower to admit that offer any chance of survival. Well, the Committee of Public Safety has that vision, and we refuse to throw away any tool or option which can help us win just because of some useless scrap of paper we never signed!"

Thomas Theisman wondered if the inhaler had actually worked after all, for her fervor sounded completely genuine. But that was ridiculous... wasn't it? What she'd just said was entirely in line with the Republic's official propaganda line, yet surely the woman responsible for presenting that line had to know better than to believe it herself!

"I can't disagree in theory, Citizen Secretary," he said carefully, "but I feel there are some practical consequences—tactical ones, not matters of fundamental principle—which must also be considered."

Ransom's mouth tightened ominously, but she didn't interrupt, and he kneaded his throbbing temple with one hand and went on even more cautiously.

"Specifically, Ma'am, it seems to me that the rank and file of the Manticoran Navy actually believe in the system for which they're fighting, and they see the Deneb Accords as an important part of that system. If we violate—"

"Nonsense!" Ransom broke in impatiently. "Oh, no doubt many of the enemy's prewar professionals do believe that drivel. After all, they're mercenaries who were stupid enough—or brainwashed or greedy enough—to volunteer to serve their imperialist exploiters for pay! But since the war started, their navy's been forced to recruit from the masses of the People. As the fighting goes on, more and more of their total manpower will have to be conscripted, just as ours is, and the conscripts won't believe the elitists' lies. They'll realize they're being sacrificed in a war against their own kind for the profit of their natural enemies, and when they do, they'll turn on their overlords just as we turned on ours!"

Theisman flinched. He couldn't help himself, for he'd just discovered a terrifying secret: Cordelia Ransom actually believed her own propaganda.

He sat very still, wishing he'd picked any other night to get drunk, and made himself draw a deep mental breath. She can't really believe it , he argued with himself. Or can she? Is it really possible that she actually believes what she tells the Proles?

No, he decided. She was a master at manipulating the Mob, and she'd shifted ground too quickly in the early days, changed course too rapidly in response to the Mob's unformed, changeful urges and desires. She'd been too successful at running in front of it, trying to anticipate its next lunge, to be a true ideologue.

But that only tells you what she was, Thomas. She's had years since then—years to put her own imprint on what the Mob wants. She's not really anticipating its direction anymore; she's shaping that direction.

His roiled stomach clenched at that thought, yet there was a fundamental conflict between the images of the cynical manipulator he was certain she was and the passionate ideologist who could believe the line she'd just spouted. The woman who dragged bodyguards everywhere to prove how important she was and whose propaganda ministry shaped and forged its lies to support any claim the Committee cared to make made an even more unlikely paladin of the proletariat than Thomas Theisman did. She had to know she was lying, or she couldn't have done it so consistently and well.

But there was another possibility, one almost as frightening as it was probable. After so long in a position of unchecked power, after so many years of being able to make the official truth over into whatever image she pleased, could it be that she'd lost the ability to recognize the actual truth? Theisman had known officers from powerful Legislaturalist families who'd fallen prey to a similar blindness. They'd known the situations described in their reports to the Admiralty bore only casual relationships to the truth, yet given their family positions, no one had dared to challenge those reports. And over the years, they'd come to operate on two separate levels: one in which they lied to their superiors to protect their private little empires, and another in which they genuinely believed they could make something true simply by saying that it was so.

Who in the People's Republic could tell Cordelia Ransom she was wrong? She had no peers, aside from Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just, and the whole suppressive force of the Office of State Security stood behind her. It was high treason to question the gospel as preached by Public Information, for God's sake!

The madness went even deeper than he'd suspected, he thought shakenly. At least one member of the triumvirate which ruled his star nation had come to see its enemies through the distorting prisms of her own invention, and she was actually making decisions—decisions which could mean the life or death of the Republic—on that basis!

"I can't speak for every officer in the Navy, Citizen Secretary," he said after a pause he hoped hadn't stretched dangerously long, "but I can speak for myself when I say that I've never doubted that military policy must be subject to civilian control."

He chose his words with exquisite care. He had never been in more danger in his life, and he knew it. But somehow someone had to shake Ransom back into accepting a policy which contained some vestige of reason, and he seemed to be the only spokesman available. His nausea and pounding head didn't help, and his palms felt clammy, yet fear gave his thoughts a razor sharpness as he continued.

"My concern with the observance of the Deneb Accords stems from my own reading of the attitude of the Solarian League's inspectors and, if you'll pardon my saying so, of the relevant political direction I have, in fact received." All of which, he reflected, was true enough, although not in the way Ransom had in mind.

"What 'relevant political direction'?" Ransom demanded suspiciously.

"Public Information's official statements have always emphasized that the PRH will treat its prisoners 'properly,' a definition which most star nations apply to actions in keeping with the provisions of the Deneb Accords. It was never specifically stated that we would act within those limitations, but that certainly appeared to be implied, and I do know that several Solarian League representatives with whom I've spoken attached that interpretation to our statements. And while I realize disinformation has a critical role to play in wartime, I've received no directives to suggest our intention in this case was to mislead. Under the circumstances, the only conclusion I felt I could draw was that I was, indeed, to consider the Accords binding upon my actions and those of my subordinates. I certainly wasn't prepared to risk conflicts with the Committee's apparent intentions by instructing my officers to adopt any other position."