SOVIET SLAVE LABOR AND WESTERN HORROR
of its kind, provides a fundamental text of modern politics. It is from
such sources that we learn what is in fact the dominion of government:
the extent of the state and of its penetration into the lives of its sub–
jects, its power
over
them and
in
them.
On the day of his first anest, Gliksman was kept waiting in the
corridor of NKVD headquarters in Kovel.
The hours passed, but I was still not without hope that I would be freed.
It seemed that my optimism was justified by logical considerations. Although
I well knew that the NKVD organization was harsh and pitiless; although I
knew of the Moscow Trials, of death sentences, deportations, terror, and so
forth, still, I thought, people were not arrested, even in Russia, for no reason
whatever. And, anyhow, what could they possibly have against me? I had been a
Socialist all my life, and I had never shown any enmity towards the Soviet Union.
And right here around me, on the corridor walls, there hung pictures of the
theorists of Socialism-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels-whose writings I cher–
ished so dearly. Well-known slogans, in which I, too, had believed since my
early youth, screamed from posters and red inscriptions on the walls. "Workers
of the World, Unite!" I read in large letters right above my head. I could not
believe that these did not mean what they said, and I became
hearte~ed.
The Soviet Union is fortunate in having in its service the myth of its
ultimate, however small, generosity to the spirit of socialism. There is
a "still," an "after all," that works in its favor, even among people who
know of the Moscow Trials, etc.; thus it obtains representation in the
hearts of those whose heads know better. The victims continue to hope;
their hope is worthless, it is perhaps worse than none at all, for so long
as the myth and the hope based on it continue to work, the totalitarian
state continues to have power
in
the men who are at its mercy. A
family tie, an incestuous bond. The fact that there is so little rebellion
in the prison camps may not only be due to the harshness and efficiency
of repressive measures; there is also the authority of the socialist myth
among socialists. Their humiliation is all the greater for coming from
so close a source.
But one is vulnerable merely
in
virtue of having had a childhood.
Prison-and camp-regime breaks down the prisoner's morale by at–
tacking precisely those habits, formed in childhood, on which the dig–
nity, decency and self-respect of the subsequent character have been
based. Personal cleanliness in body, linens and toilet, the discipline of
controlling and satisfying the appetite in a regular way, the belief in
one's right to a certain amount of privacy and the accompanying respect
for the same right
in
others, and the satisfaction we are encouraged to
feel in our ability to meet the standard social requirements at all the
levels, from sphincter control and hygiene up through the ethical and
intellectual formations, fair play, justice, etc.-all this is systematically
933
