Marvin Kalb - The Year I Was Peter the Great - 1956 - Khrushchev, Stalin's Ghost, and a Young American in Russia

“I feel terrible about what happened,” Sasha started. “Please understand: I spend very little time in a pivnoy zal . I don’t really know these people. I am as much a foreigner to them as you are.”

“Sasha, please don’t apologize. We both learned something today. I learned more about Russia in the last five minutes than I would have if I spent another week in the libraries. I should thank you. Today I met the Russian proletariat, and what’s especially interesting is, I think today you met him too.” Sasha nodded in agreement.

We decided to walk back to the Astoria. It was a long walk, but we had much to say to each other. Among other things: Sasha explained why he had not married the woman he loved (he was an intellectual, a teacher, of only modest means, and she was the daughter of a general, who insisted that she marry up, not down), and he also explained his feelings about communism pre-Hungary and post-Hungary. Pre-Hungary, communism was a “wonderful, idealistic idea, hardly perfect but certainly acceptable,” he said. Post-Hungary, communism became “my private nightmare, a dream filled with hope, shattered by an ideology lacking hope.”

Why, I wondered, had he not confided this change to me, when we discussed Hungary a few nights before? “I didn’t trust you,” he answered. “Just that simple.”

We also discussed music and books, and as we approached the Astoria, I told him about my “negotiation” with the uchenyi sekretar . He was amazed. “You must be a good diplomat,” he said, smiling. “Good luck. I hope tomorrow actually means tomorrow, and you get your microfilm.”

“I hope so too,” I said, a prayer hidden in my voice.

The following morning, at 11:00 a.m., I met with a young historian from Leningrad University whom I had first met a week earlier. He had assured me at that time that he knew a way to gain access to the Uvarov archives. “The Central Historical Archives,” he whispered, as if he was conveying a big secret. “They’re on Decembrist Square, near the statue of the Bronze Horseman.”

I told him I appreciated his help, but the archives were under the control of the KGB, and any effort by a foreigner to gain access was an invitation to frustration and ultimately to failure. “I tried once in Moscow,” I explained. “It didn’t work then, and probably won’t now.”

The young historian exploded in anger. “This I cannot understand! What difference would it make to anyone if you saw Uvarov’s personal papers? What difference at all? Certainly Uvarov’s papers would reveal no state secrets.” He lit a cigarette with shaky hands. “Sometimes I get so angry!”

After an awkward few moments, we swung the discussion to matters of Western historiography on Russia. I told him that in a number of American universities scholars were digging into the works of many prerevolutionary Russian conservatives—the Slavophiles, Nikolai Karamzin, Count Sergey Witte, Pyotr Stolypin. My study of Uvarov was only one of many, and far from the most important.

“This is what we need to do too,” the historian interjected. “We need real scholarship. We must be alert to all trends in history. Sticking only to Marxism cuts us off from the historical truth, which is made up of many different and even conflicting tendencies and trends.”

My surprise at his blunt critique must have appeared on my face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you surprised to hear me say these things? Are you surprised to hear me say what I think and feel? If so, you should attend some of the student meetings I have been at recently. Many times, such a tumult is raised that the professors must end the meetings, because they simply cannot control them anymore.”

I had heard the student tumult in Moscow, and it was gratifying to hear a young historian speak of similar eruptions in Leningrad.

Sasha called, and we agreed to meet at a small café on the Nevsky called the Seagull, named no doubt after Chekhov’s play. Up to this point, with few exceptions, we had talked mostly about literary matters, but on this occasion Sasha also wanted to talk about politics.

“We may never see each other again,” he began, startling me, “and I want to say I shall never forget you. You are the first American I ever met, the first one with whom I have spoken at length. You are so different from what I expected.”

“What did you expect?” I asked. “I mean, did you believe what you read in your papers?”

“Well, not everything, but I do believe that certain circles rule your government and determine American policy.”

“Who are these circles, Sasha. Describe them to me.”

“Everyone knows that certain circles of capitalists are interested only in making enormous profits and finding these profits in the manufacture of military weapons and guns. These circles are on Wall Street, and they run Congress.”

Sasha’s entire frame of reference was Marxist. He saw everything through the prism of Marxism: large crowds of workers, growing larger but getting poorer, dominated by a small class of monopolists, growing smaller and getting richer. There was no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties—both reflected only capitalist interests. Corruption and misery—everywhere. Slums for the workers, Park Avenue for the capitalists, and no road between the two worlds.

He summarized his views. “Your country is technically very powerful, very productive economically. We know that your workers live better than ours. That is because you have a higher technology. We believed that if communism took over in America, there would be a real paradise on earth there, because you have such an advanced technology.”

Average American workers, I explained, were not socialists, and certainly not communists. They were very bourgeois in their tastes and attitudes. In this respect, American workers resembled Hungarian workers. Neither wanted socialism. Sasha seemed incredulous. “Surely this is impossible,” he insisted. “Workers love socialism. Socialism is a worker’s doctrine. Socialism was created for workers. How can they not like socialism?”

“Sasha, let’s face it: you are an intellectual, not a worker. You do not share their hopes and miseries. Hungary reveals one thing very clearly: the workers did not want socialism, at least Soviet-style socialism.”

“But you must admit they did not want a return to fascism.”

“In fact, I don’t know what they wanted, but they did not want socialism. In the long term, maybe they had a plan, maybe they didn’t. As in many revolutions, emotions carried the day.” I paused for a moment. “They did not have a doctrine for tomorrow, only a hatred of yesterday.”

Sasha weighed my argument carefully. When he did formulate a reply, it sounded prosaic, as if he was recalling Pravda editorials and regurgitating them. It was the safer way. “The Red Army had to move into Hungary,” he began. “If it hadn’t, the Western armies would have. We had to stem the rise of fascism. We hate fascism. The workers were misled by black reactionaries, and mistakes were committed. Honest communists were killed.” He rambled on, his voice listless. He spoke as if he wanted to justify a doctrine on which his life had been based. To abandon it, in the absence of a sensible alternative, would translate quickly into ideological bankruptcy, a kind of emptiness, for which he was not ready.

He continued: “Capitalists distort news and information about the Soviet Union, about my country. The bourgeois press twists the truth almost beyond recognition. That’s why you think this is a bad country. It is really a very good country. You write about a reign of terror, about fear, about misery, about a lack of culture.”