Вил Мирзаянов - State Secrets - An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

Salikh was standing in front of me, quiet and somehow drained, but he tried to prove that he was still afloat.

“Tell me,” he whispered, moving the rolled cigarette of cheap tobacco and newspaper scrap with the tip of his tongue, from one corner of his mouth to the other. “What will you do with your science?”

I explained that I would invent or develop something new.

“And you will be a scientist?!” Salikh blurted out with indignation. I agreed, because it was very close to the truth. (Although I had and still have a different opinion because, according the Russian notion, “scientist” is a high title. It is an acknowledgement of your real place in science, rather than your profession, as is the case, for example, in the United States). The face of my village interrogator trembled and he shouted at me, making no attempt to restrain himself.

“What? You again? Damn you! What did we need this revolution for? We uprooted you! We did, and after this you will be on the top again, while our children will remain where they are! Tell me, Ishan’s bastard, am I right?”

I couldn’t think of anything better to do than to remain philosophical and to beat a silent retreat – followed by torrents of foul language vomited up by my relative.

God creates us unequally, but unfortunately many people perceive this as malicious intent on the part of the so-called elite.

Not everything is so simple. Even in my small village, there was enough to alienate people from their former way of life. My fellow villagers who thought about their lives were looking for ways to change them for the better.

Over the last few years, we got accustomed to idealizing our former life and denying everything connected with overthrowing autocracy and the revolution of 1917 in Russia. I suppose it would be a serious mistake to think that everything happened solely due to the evil will of Bolsheviks. If only it were that simple! Many people believed in the changes that were coming, and did everything to make it happen as quickly as possible. Neither my father, nor my Uncle Mirkasim could cope with some of the old savage village customs, and they followed those who promised to “change the world”, especially since outrageous events took place in the village, which encouraged some young people to take resolute actions.

Terrible hunger broke out in Russia in 1921, which was connected, to a large extent, with the activities of the Bolsheviks. There were millions of victims of hunger, and cases of cannibalism were not rare. [4] For more on the civil war and famine, Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime (New York: Vintage Books of Random House, 1994); Fisher, H. H., The Famine in Soviet Russia (1919-1923): The Operation of the American Relief Administration (New York: MacMillan, 1927). Famine laid its hand upon my village as well, and it was combined with the cruelty of the prevalent village customs of that era.

A neighbor of my mother, a woman named Ak-ebi, couldn’t endure her suffering from hunger any longer. She caught someone else’s unlucky goose, which had strayed into her garden, killed it, and made soup. This misdemeanor couldn’t pass unnoticed in the village. When the poor woman came to herself, she tried to redeem her fault by giving her neighbor everything of value she possessed, including a cashmere shawl, which is expensive even now. The neighbor didn’t refuse this treasure, but at the same time he decided to act in keeping with most savage village customs. He and a few other aggressive men quickly organized mob law over the poor old woman. They tied the victim up with a thick rope and paraded her along all the village streets. Every living person had to hit her with a whip or a stick. No one could refuse to participate in this terrible execution, because anyone could be tied to the same rope for avoiding his or her responsibility to “Sharia”.

The poor frightened Ak-ebi was moving slowly, barefoot and dressed in her ragged white homespun dress. Her long hair was loose and dirty, and her face was black from soot, which she had deliberately smeared herself with from immeasurable grief. She was too exhausted to utter a single word. Only occasionally did she raise her drooping head, in the desperate hope that someone would have pity on her and not hit her so ruthlessly. However, mercy was not to be expected. That was the cruel custom.

The next morning Ak-ebi died without regaining consciousness, on the cold floor of the small and unheated village jail house, built especially for this kind of thing.

The crowd was over-excited by the mob law and also ruthlessly punished her fourteen year old son. The boy tried to barricade himself into a relative’s house, by locking the door from the inside, but furious men dragged the silly little boy through the window with hooks. By daybreak nobody had picked up the ruthlessly disfigured orphan. We only know that he disappeared and no one ever saw him again. All this happened in the early spring, when the snow hadn’t completely left the streets and yards of my native Stary Kangysh.

Another drama took place that same year, in the hot summer of 1921, when hunger was rampant.

A widow with three sons lived near my mother’s home. Two of her sons were grown-up. They ploughed, sowed, and did all the usual peasants’ work, but the third one was much younger, only twelve years old. This family was starving like many others, and every morning the mother made a large pot of soup, which was mainly a mixture of herbs, goose-foot, and a little bran. The family ate a little of this broth and then the mother and her adult sons went to make hay or do other fieldwork. They strictly ordered the younger boy not to touch the precious food. Every day the younger brother patiently waited for the adults to come home to satisfy the hunger that tortured him. During the daytime he never even looked at the incredibly tempting “soup”. However, on one agonizing day the hungry boy couldn’t stand it any more, and he decided to swallow at least a little bit of the life-saving food. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop until he finished up the whole pot of soup.

When the brothers came back in the evening, they first looked into the pot and literally howled with despair, which soon prompted them to ruthlessly punish their own younger brother. First they hit him with their fists, and then they practically turned into beasts and started hitting him with everything within reach. They only stopped after they buried the boy, who was still alive though no longer breathing, at the end of their kitchen garden, under the manure. Then they fell on the ground exhausted, near the grave of their victim.

There was no one in the village to stop this insanity. Only the children from the neighboring houses cried loudly, watching this horrible spectacle.

Some time later a representative of the Soviet administration appeared in the village and told the elder brother to report to him, at the Djirtjuli Volost (Township) center, which he did.

He returned from Djirtjuli in a good mood. He said that the head of customs there didn’t say anything bad to him, and even asked him to deliver a package to the canton (regional district) center in Borai, which is thirty kilometers from Stary Kangysh. Not long after that, the brother went on this errand, but we don’t know what happened to him, because no one ever saw him again.

It seems to me that my father loved my mother, Vaziga, a young and beautiful girl, when he married her. At that time she was only a little more than 17 years old. Possibly, it was also a good match, because she came from a family of common peasants, and had lost both her parents. This was evidence that she belonged to the class of poor people which the new regime allegedly supported. When her father Minkamal was conscripted to the front in 1914, my mother hadn’t been born yet, and her older brother was seventeen year old. My grandmother had six children to take care of, and we can only imagine what ordeals they had to suffer through.