Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

It seemed that what had happened was that when the shortage of food had been most severe, the Soviet government had called on scientists to discover a more productive strain of wheat — not just to discover circumstances by which wheat growing would become more productive, but to create a type of wheat in which this characteristic would be passed on genetically. Orthodox biologists had explained: but this cannot be done to order; a new strain of wheat will depend on a chance mutation; this can be looked for and perhaps caught and then can be encouraged, but this will take patience, time; what is the meaning of 'chance' if we think we can summon it to order?

It was then that Stalin himself had apparently replied (might this not have been a joke? was it inconceivable that Stalin might be a

joker?) that the task of a Marxist scientist was not to describe nature but to change it.

And so just then there had turned up this scientist called Lysenko who claimed to have come across an improved strain of wheat, indeed by chance — he happened to have dropped a bag of winter-wheat seed in water one day and then had thrown it away in the snow because he had thought it would be useless. And this his father had happened to pick up by mistake and had sown the seed the following spring and, lo and behold! — a rabbit from a hat — out had popped two ears of wheat where one had grown before; and this new strain was one whose characteristics — yes! — could be passed on genetically. No evidence was put forward for this: it seemed that it was sufficient evidence that Marx might be thought to have suggested it. And so now all Soviet farmers had to do in order to save themselves and the country from famine was to dip their bags of winter seed into water and then throw them into snow-

I had said to my father 'All right, this new breed of Soviet scientist has in fact popped up: but what will happen when it is found that what they claim is not passed on genetically?'

My father had said 'Why should they ever find this? Isn't it this that I was saying to Vavilov — in a Soviet system it is necessary not for something to work, but to find someone to say that whatever is wanted works — '

I had thought — But what an amazing experiment! To find out what happens when you say something happens, quite irrespective of whether it does or not -

— Would not this be a real test of reality being a function of the experimental condition?

Now, sitting round the dinner-table with the Platov family who were like actors on a stage keeping up appearances in front of an audience or secret police, I thought -

— There may in fact be people in the wings waiting to kill them if they do not conform to the terms of the experimental condition!

I went with Kolya to attend the lectures at the Academy of Sciences. I sat at the back of the lecture-hall which was very cold and I did not understand much of what the lecturer was saying. I thought — But if words have so little to do with meaning, what does it matter if I do not understand what a lecturer is saying? Here we all are in our overcoats and quilted jackets and caps with flaps that come down over our ears: we are like bags of winter-wheat seed

dumped in the snow: indeed what is interesting is what will happen when, as it were, we are sown in spring — or what will happen if nothing happens in the spring — some ground will have been broken up, something one day may grow -

— Might not Lysenko in fact just be saying — If an old strain is broken up, how can you know what will grow?

I would walk back with Kolya from the Academy of Sciences. There were markets in the streets selling second-hand clothing and bits of old furniture. The atmosphere did not seem so different from the town in the north of England where I had been three years ago: there was even less food; but the atmosphere was somewhat more lively. I thought — It is within the mind that old patterns are being broken up -

I said to Kolya 'But do you yourself think that Comrade Lysenko's theories will work?'

Kolya said as if quoting ' — If there is a passionate desire, then every goal can be reached, every objective overcome — '

I said 'That sounds like a poem.'

He said'It is.'

I said 'Did you write it?'

He said 'No, Comrade Stalin wrote it/ Then he ran on ahead and kicked at a stone, or did a little dance, in the street.

I said 'Comrade Stalin is a poet?'

He said 'In Russia we are all poets!'

I thought — A poet crosses out a word here, a sentence there -

— Might a poet not see people as no more precious than words?

I said 'Have you heard of an Austrian biologist called Kammerer?'

Kolya said 'Oh yes, there was a film about Kammerer. He was on his way to take up an important position at the Academy in Moscow, when he was murdered by reactionary Fascist academics and priests.'

I said 'He was?'

Kolya said 'You didn't know?' He did a small entrechat half on and half off the pavement.

I said 'He thought he had discovered something about the inheritance of acquired characteristics.'

Kolya said 'You see?'

I thought — It is because no one knows whether people mean what they say or not that ballet is so popular in Russia?

In the apartment I shared a room with Kolya. Kolya was a redheaded boy with eyes set close together. When we got ready for

bed at night we each acted as if we were conscious of the other watching. I thought — But this is not homosexuality; it is in the style of a play by Brecht: we are trying to pass some message about being conscious that messages are being transmitted.

Then again — Stop thinking!

Mitzi was a strong round-faced girl who was training to become a champion discus-thrower. In the evenings she would change into a white blouse and white shorts and do exercises in her room. I thought — With Mitzi, indeed, it might be possible to stop thinking: to be held in her strong hand and whirled round and round and sent spinning through the universe.

I began to look for opportunities to waylay Mitzi: I was sometimes able to walk with her to the Academy of Sciences where she was studying metallurgy. When the cold weather came she dressed in a long coat with a fur collar and a fur hat and muff. I thought — She is like a girl in Dostoevsky: not one of those demure girls, but one of the ones who get men's heads spinning round on platters -

I said to Mitzi 'You like dancing? We could go and dance!'

She said 'Oh I used to love dancing, but I now fear it is not good for the physique.'

I said 'But of course it is good for the physique! Has not Comrade Stalin said "Let all the discus-throwers dance!"'

She said 'Comrade Stalin has said that?'

I said 'It is in one of his poems.'

When I said things like this Mitzi would stop and stand at the edge of the pavement and look across the road as if she were waiting for a gap in the traffic.

I thought — But if reality is a function of the experimental condition -

— Am I really trying to get Mitzi into bed?

I said 'Mitzi, but we can talk, no one can hear us here! Or if they do, you can always say that you were being kind to me, in order to get me sent to Siberia!'

Occasionally I got Mitzi to smile. She would then walk for a time with her arm through mine. She would say 'Why are you not serious? It is your way in England never to be serious?'

I said 'But it is you who are not serious!'

She said 'Me?'

I said 'The things you will not talk about. The things you will not even listen to — '

Mitzi began to take her arm away from mine.

I said loudly 'For instance, the magnificently improved production of wheat-!'

Mitzi put her hands over her ears and ran across the road.

Then I thought — But perhaps it is they who know some things are too serious to be within the range of talk -