“I’m not a villain, oh no, Fate is my
ruin…”
M. Y. Lermontov.
And so, Professor Persikov lost, and Commissar Rokk
practically called open season on the Soviet Union. Instead of inviting foreign
specialists from reputable firms, Rokk let inside people who know people, so to
speak, anybody who cared to show up regardless of their qualifications, thus
opening the door to all kinds of corruption and fraud. [Bulgakov writes about
this problem in many of his literary sketches.]
This NEP madness was eventually stopped by Hitler’s
second version of Mein Kampf. The
first Soviet-friendly version had been written by Hitler in a Bavarian prison
under the supervision and influence of the bona fide German patriot Rudolf Hess
who, like many other patriots in Germany, was following Bismarck’s testament to
his German posterity, to be on good terms with Russia and never get into a
situation of fighting a war on two fronts.The second version of Mein Kampf (consisting of a radically revised First Volume and newly written Volume Two) was commissioned to Hitler for money by anonymous “well-wishers,” who were hiding behind a certain Mr. Czerny. Whatever one may say about that, the people behind Hitler’s” new improved” book were not motivated by Germany’s national interest, which is never the case when money changes hands.
Well, as soon as the new Mein Kampf reached the USSR (and that was very soon!), this spelled the end of NEP. In 1928 Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan, focused on an accelerated development of heavy industry, and in the Urals, far away from the reptilians both foreign and domestic, in a neck-breaking rush, the best specimens of military hardware were being built, such as the T-34 tank, for instance, which is still considered universally as the best tank ever built…
The fact that Professor Persikov’s discovery can be understood
as an allegory, is revealed by the use of the word “gads” (see my earlier
explanation of this word in Russian). The enraged mob breaking into the
Institute to kill Persikov accuses him of “letting the gads loose.” Clearly,
this word can be interpreted in this larger context not as “reptilians” but as
“scoundrels.” Bulgakov shows this broader meaning of “gads” in the already
quoted passage in his White Guard:
“Right then an electric charge pierced the
brains of the smartest of them… They understood that fate had tied them to the
defeated side, and their hearts were filled with horror. ‘The Germans have been defeated,’ said the gads. ‘We have been defeated,’ said the smart
gads.” The residents of Kiev understood
the same thing.
The horrific murder of Professor Persikov--- a Russian
patriot, a cosmopolitan in the best sense of this word, who understands that
his nation the Soviet Union cannot live in isolation from the rest of the
world--- can be rationalized, although hardly justified, by the generally
negative attitude of the Russian people toward the West. Persikov is not to
blame for the disaster, brought about by Rokk against Persikov’s better
judgment and fiery resistance. Bulgakov’s sympathies are with Persikov, but the
people are dead set against him.---
“This Persikov must be shot!” shouted
someone’s screechy voice.
“What does Persikov have to do with it?”
responded another from the thick. “It’s the son of a bitch in the state farm,
that’s who ought to be shot!”“They should have put up the guard!” yelled someone else.
As we see, there are reasonable people in the crowd,
who understand that Persikov is not to blame for the unfolding catastrophe, at
least not directly to blame. But the crowd is raging, and it is thirsty for
blood, for which reason, guilty or not, Persikov, who has refused to flee, is a
dead man.
As I said before, I was struck by the abundance of
respect and even love that Bulgakov shows for the character of Professor
Persikov. This character in particular indicates Bulgakov’s respect for
professionalism in people, whoever they are. Bulgakov’s professional is a
master of his trade. This is how Bulgakov wishes to be seen by others. This is
why he has given the hero of his last novel the name of Master. Reading A. S.
Pushkin’s article Voltaire, I couldn’t
help thinking that the following line from Pushkin’s work must have produced a
very strong impression on Bulgakov:
“The true place of a writer is his
scientific study.”
There is another gruesome depiction of violent death
in Fateful Eggs, but this time Bulgakov
has no sympathy for the victim. We are talking about Manya, Manechka, Rokk’s
wife, the wearer of certain diamond earrings, courtesy of her previous
incarnation as Manechka the secretary in Diaboliada,
Bulgakov’s embodiment of the vices of the NEP.
She dies a horrible death in front of her husband’s
eyes. The husband manages to flee the scene… (Sic!)
“The snake in front of Rokk’s eyes opened
its mouth for a moment, out of which something struck out, resembling a fork,
then snatched Manya, as she was sinking into the dust, by the shoulder with her
teeth with a strength that lifted her some two and a half feet above the
ground. Manya repeated her piercing deathly scream. The snake twisted its body
in a thirty-five-foot-long screw, its tail raising up a tornado, and started
pressing Manya. The woman made no more sounds, and the only sound Rokk could
hear was the sound of her cracking bones. High up above the ground came Manya’s
head, tenderly pressed to the snake’s cheek. A splash of blood came out of Manya’s
mouth, her broken arm popped out, showing fountains of blood coming from under
her nails. Next the snake dislocated its jaws, opened its mouth wide and all at
once pulled its head over Manya’s head, and started pulling itself over her,
like a glove is being pulled on a finger. There was such hot breath coming from
the snake in all directions that it touched the face of Rokk, while the snake’s
tail nearly swept him off the road in acrid dust. Here is when Rokk’s hair
turned white, first the left side, then the right side of his head once black
like a boot, changed color to silver. In deathly nausea, he finally tore
himself from the road, and seeing nothing and no one, he started running,
deafening the neighboring areas with his roar.”
In this terrifying but unsympathetic passage, Bulgakov
allegorically depicts the death of the NEP: Manya is being devoured by the
snake created by her husband, while her loving husband runs away…
(To be continued...)
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