David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

‘Law of Ural Regional Council,’ offered the podgy Trotsky.

‘And who might they be when they’re at home?’ asked Pinker.

‘Representatives of the working classes, apparently,’ Valentine said. ‘Isn’t that right, Korbelov?’

‘Exactly, Mr Darling,’ said Lenin. ‘They have taken control into their own hands. It is why the new government in Moscow has concluded a peace agreement with the Central Powers.’

‘I was under the impression,’ Valentine said, ‘that the Social-Revolutionary Party opposed a separate peace.’

‘Only members who give support to bourgeois Kerensky,’ Trotsky interjected.

‘War,’ the other Russian resumed, ‘is nothing more than a capitalist weapon with which to oppress the working classes.’

‘From what I’ve seen,’ Valentine observed, ‘they’re always keen enough to join in whenever it’s in the wind. What do you say, Pinker? As a working man do you feel oppressed by the war?’

‘Well,’ said Pinker, ‘a working man I may be but whether I can be called a member of the working class is another matter. Take Filbert here, is he working class?’

Filbert didn’t want to be taken anywhere, particularly to Russia with Valentine and had half a mind to say so. Solokov though, who Paul had finally identified as the fat Trotsky and whose English was not as good as Lenin’s, replied first.

‘If proletariat always “keen to join in” as you say, is because they are victims of bourgeois propaganda.’

‘Proletariat or bourgeois,’ Mrs Hogarth interrupted trenchantly, ‘the world is at war yet I see no one at this table in uniform.’ She bowed slightly to the captain. ‘With the exception of the ship’s officers, of course.’

Paul reddened while Pinker at the other end of the table said something about a dicky chest. Captain Nordvik cut him off.

‘For trade it has been a disaster,’ he said and launched into a account of how the Hesperus , along with nine other vessels belonging to the fleet of the Finland Steamship Company, had been caught outside the Baltic upon the outbreak of hostilities.

‘The British Admiralty,’ he said, ‘seized them for their own use and refused permission for me to serve on my own vessel.’ He signalled Turner to serve dessert and commenced a tirade against the war and every nation involved in it.

‘It is outrageous, Captain,’ Valentine agreed to Paul’s surprise, ‘how one country can impinge upon the trade of another. Particularly a neutral non-combatant.’

‘Finland was not neutral,’ Mrs Hogarth announced knowledgeably, despite the fact she had maintained earlier that Russian politics were no concern of hers.

‘Part of Russia, old chap,’ said Pinker quickly mopping his empty plate with a piece of bread before Turner took it away, demonstrating that a dicky chest was no bar to a healthy appetite.

‘Of course she was,’ Valentine said, as if the fact had slipped his mind. ‘How do things stand,’ he asked, addressing the two Russians rather than the captain, ‘now the Bolsheviks have signed the recent treaty accepting the present status quo? As an anti-imperialist, I suppose Marx would have no doubt welcomed Finnish independence.’

Solokov and Korbelov conferred briefly in their own language once again.

‘Finland presently occupied by Germany,’ Solokov observed.

‘Russia’s new ally,’ said Valentine.

‘Russia has no allies,’ Korbelov said. ‘As you may have noticed, The Times also reported that English and French detachments have landed on the Murman coast—’

‘According to Trotsky,’ said Valentine. ‘But perhaps the reports were unreliable. After all, they also said that the Bolsheviks have agreed to allow several hundred Germans into Moscow. Can that be true?’

‘To guard German embassy,’ said Solokov.

‘From whom? Not the British on the faraway Murman coast, surely?’

‘I think, Mr Darling, that you are being — what is your English word?’ Korbelov asked, ‘disernger…’

‘Disingenuous?’ Paul suggested, looking pointedly at Valentine. But Valentine, as if he had not heard, merely turned his attention to the bread and butter pudding that had just arrived.

‘Disingenuous,’ Korbelov finished.

Valentine smiled disarmingly at him, ‘If so, I am afraid it is through ignorance rather than intent. My grasp of Marxism is tenuous to say the least.’

‘An atheistic creed,’ the Reverend Pater announced unexpectedly, ‘born of envy and avarice.’

All faces turned towards him. He had not said a word since grace and even now was looking down at his pudding.

‘Our party regard God as a concept designed to keep the masses in subjugation,’ Korbelov countered mildly.

Pater lowered his spoon and glared at the Russian with contempt.

‘Is this your rationale for closing churches and destroying religious property?’ Pater shook his head. ‘I believe the Orthodox church is misguided in its liturgy theologically, but God’s house has many mansions. His compassion is infinite. But so is His vengeance. You will find, sir, that in their vainglorious attempt to build their Godless workers’ paradise your Bolshevik government will succeed only in constructing a hell on earth.’

Silence fell over the table while everyone waited for a Russian response. From what Paul could see, the party line appeared to favour unconcern. Solokov and Korbelov resumed eating as if damnation were a course they had neither ordered nor expected to see served up any time soon.

Pater, too, returned to his pudding as if he had said all that he intended to upon the subject.

Valentine seemed reluctant to let the matter drop.

‘But you aren’t Bolsheviks, are you,’ he said, ‘and perhaps not as Godless as the Reverend Pater fears? I do have to admit, though, that I’ve never been quite able to fathom the differences in ideology that you fellows seem to delight in arguing over. I mean, as Social-Revolutionaries—’

‘Democratic-Socialists,’ Korbelov reminded him.

‘ Left Democratic-Socialists,’ Solokov amended.

‘As Left Democratic-Socialists,’ Valentine resumed, ‘you’re not Social-Democrats, who — as I understand it — are divided into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. That leaves the Right Social-Revolutionaries, not to mention the Kadets and the Trudovniks, and the Populists… And I believe you’re not even all Marxists.’

Korbelov waved his spoon playfully at Valentine as if threatening to crack his skull like the shell of a boiled egg.

‘I think you know more about us than you want us to believe, Mr Darling.’

‘Ah well, even in my position one can’t help picking up stray titbits now and again, Korbelov. But seriously, are you really going to tow Lenin’s line once you get back to Russia?’

Korbelov gave it a moment’s thought as if considering just how serious Valentine’s question was.

‘With certain reservations,’ he said, ‘we concur with the theories of Marx even if we do not accept the interpretation placed upon them by Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders. We did support the October coup against the bourgeois Kerensky’s Provisional Government although we do not recognise the Bolshevik assumption of power.’

Solokov took over, smiling pleasantly at Valentine.

‘We will assess political situation as we find. You understand our difficulty to keep abreast of events exiled as we are in London since outbreak of war. When tsar abdicates we make strenuous efforts to go home but British government refuse same assistance German government give Lenin.’

‘Wasn’t there some talk that Lenin was in fact a German agent?’ Valentine asked. ‘Considering the ease with which he found his way back.’