He told himself that he was being foolish, that it would be good to see her, and that, anyway, it wouldn’t be for long.
Once he had only his own reflection to look at, he made his way back to the crowded compartment. With the windows shut against the cold, the tobacco fug grew ever thicker, but at least they could hear one another talk, and soon the usual debate was underway. Piatakov’s regiment had more than its fair share of revolutionary veterans, and not for the first time, abuses of power and position were the principal topic under discussion. Some thought the increasing stratification, and the uneven distribution of goods and privilege that went with it, were only teething troubles—that once the economy was back on its feet the party would find a way to restore the simple egalitarianism of the early years. Others were convinced that the revolution had been betrayed, as much by the party leadership as by the specialists they’d hired in such numbers, and that these new bosses would soon resemble the old unless the lower ranks fought back.
What neither side disputed was the proliferation of double standards. Several other men had noticed the train that Piatakov had spotted in Polotsk station, with its luxury saloon for Lenin’s beloved specialists and overcrowded, run-down coaching stock for everyone else. Those specialists were the bourgeois gentlemen that Lenin had promised he would first squeeze dry and then cast aside. They hadn’t looked squeezed or fearful for their future.
Many soldiers had similar tales to tell. There was the brand-new workers’ sanatorium in Odessa, which had no worker patients, but was proudly shown to any visiting bigwigs. There were the dachas of long-vanished nobles in the woods around Moscow, which the government had confiscated in the name of the people, before erecting taller fences and gates. While in Petrograd, one of the soldiers had visited the Smolny Institute, where the October Revolution had been organized, and found himself in the midst of a bitter conflict over different canteens for different grades of party membership.
The general accord as to what had gone wrong didn’t extend to how things could or should be put right. Ever since the first revolution, stepping onto a train had usually also meant stepping into a highly animated discussion of political rights and wrongs. But in those early days, the debates would usually remain good-natured—people were genuinely intrigued by other possibilities, and not inclined to dismiss all opponents as merely self-interested. These days an argument was more likely to end in a brawl, as this one looked likely to do before an unscheduled stop gave everyone the chance to literally cool down.
Walking up the platform, Piatakov found himself with the teller of the sanatorium story. They knew each other by sight, but had never spoken before. The other man said he already knew Piatakov’s name, and that he was Vladimir Fyodorovich Sharapov.
“Are you really as pessimistic as you sounded?” Piatakov asked him.
Sharapov laughed. “I sometimes wonder that myself. I do think it will get a lot worse before it gets better. The Kronstadt sailors have seen to that.”
Piatakov was taken aback. “You think they’re wrong?”
“They’re right, and everyone knows they are, but our leaders can’t admit it. So they’ll make an example of them.”
“Will they find troops willing to go up against them?”
“Oh yes. The only ones that won’t are older regiments like ours.” His smile was bitter. “And look which way we’re heading.”
“But there must be another solution,” Piatakov said, hoping it was true. The acute sense of loss he was feeling suggested otherwise.
Sharapov just shrugged. “You know the party’s Tenth Congress is happening in Moscow?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the leadership will be announcing a new economic policy in a few days’ time. People will be free to trade again.”
Piatakov was more shocked than surprised. “How do you know this?” he asked, hoping it might be no more than a rumor.
“My brother works in the Economic Commissariat. They’ve been drafting the new regulations for weeks.”
Piatakov took a few moments to take this in. “But that sounds like they’re reintroducing capitalism,” he said eventually.
“That’s exactly what they’re doing.”
“But…”
“They think that as long as the party retains absolute political control, they can afford to lessen their economic grip. Give the bourgeoisie enough economic freedom to get everything moving again, but don’t let them get their hands on any political levers. A breathing space, a period of transition. That’s what they say we need.”
“You don’t believe it.”
“I don’t doubt that’s what they’re thinking. I don’t even question their good intentions. I do fear the consequences.”
“Dictatorship.”
“Of course. The more economic freedom you offer, the less you can risk any real democracy. We’ve seen it whittled away: the banning of other parties, even those with whom we shared a lot. Now there’s talk of banning factions in our own. Democracy’s like virginity—once it’s gone it’s gone. Can you imagine Lenin and the other leaders meeting a few years from now and deciding that powers should be handed back to the soviets or the unions or anyone else? It’s a fantasy. There won’t be any going back from this.”
Piatakov shook his head, but couldn’t deny a terrible sense of foreboding. “Is it really that hopeless?”
“Sometimes I think so, sometimes not. We can keep on arguing until they actually shut us up, and who knows? Miracles happen. We might even convince the men who matter. If we can’t…” He shrugged. “I have a wife and son to think about.”
Ten minutes later their train was on the move again, and this time running on a decent stretch of track. Piatakov arranged his body for sleep as best he could in the cramped space, and then went through his usual ritual of mentally reliving one of the many horrors he’d witnessed over the last two years. He chose the moment that he and a comrade had come across the commissar tied to the post, his eyes still showing signs of life, his entrails hanging out of his stomach, which was stuffed with the grain he’d been sent to requisition. This was the memory that often woke him screaming, and over the last few months he had convinced himself that reliving the experience while he was still awake made it less likely to haunt the sleep that followed.
The view from the small office window was surprisingly evocative, a wide expanse of grass sloping down toward the river, and the monastery sat on the bank beyond, white walls and golden domes set against the wall of birches, all beneath a pure blue sky. Moscow’s ragged streets seemed a world away, not a handful of versts.
The manager’s assistant, a woman of no more than thirty, was clearly unnerved by Yuri Komarov’s presence. This didn’t surprise the M-Cheka’s deputy chairman—few people instinctively reached for the samovar when the Bolshevik security police came to call. Most, in Komarov’s experience, were too busy trying to guess which of their activities had brought such dangerous visitors to their door.
The four men he had brought along looked almost as unhappy. They were standing around in the yard outside, smoking and staring moodily into space, all in their trademark leather coats. When he’d called them in that morning to explain the task at hand, the looks on their faces had suggested he’d lost his mind. When he had pointed out that higher authority had decreed that the Cheka take responsibility for Moscow’s large and ever-rising population of young waifs and strays, they’d rolled their eyes and offered muttered doubts about the Orgbureau’s collective parentage. Komarov had just smiled at them. He liked the idea of softening the Cheka’s image.