YUZ ALESHKOVSKY
369
kidneys by officer Prokhov during his arrest of me in a drunken
condition.
Citizen Judges, it is known to the whole world that the harvest–
ing of potatoes in our country (as distinct from capitalist countries) is
a respected and universal enterprise, because the kolhoz chronically
lacks its own population.
We, the Soviet people, are obliged to maintain an army to de–
fend the achievements of the workers of our brother countries, and a
militia with traffic police, and various inspectors, not to mention the
private car drivers of the city and country administrations. But I
won't go on here about the useless parasites . And how many people
do we have taking excellent care of the cosmos? How many brilliant
spies do we maintain in the capitalist countries to inform us about
imperialism's preparation for world war? How many writers do we
have, artists, secret agents, various scientific workers, students, and
other do-nothings?
In the last five years our viiiage alone has given the economy
84.5 soldiers and officers, six policemen, twelve prisoners of various
sorts, and three waiters from the drunken establishments of Tambov,
not counting the taxidrivers, railroad workers - may they drop dead
- and students of the literary institute in Moscow who don't want to
work in the fields but get a ruble and forty kopeks for a rhyme. Bas–
tards . There's no one to make up limericks, let alone plant or dig po–
tatoes. Also at various stations in Moscow, three of our Komosomol
girls were arrested for prostitution and were sent under convoy to
their native kolhoz to milk cows instead of depraved business-trippers .
In a word, if it weren't for the help of the city, our famous pota–
toes would rot at the root. The proletariat comes, students come,
and various egghead scholars, including genuine Jews, one of whom
traitorously took our best Komosomol Katka Zvorykin, in the guise
of his spouse , off to the land of Israel, from where she's sending her
girlfriends indestructible jeans and paint for their shameless eyes,
and spreading slanderous rumors about their kibbutz-kolhozes over
there. There, she says, a hundred people harvest more agricultural
produce than five hundred in three kolhozes do here and still have
their faces full of sour cream while sending produce to Europe . Isn't
that slander?
So our helpers come out from the city, which could never hap–
pen anywhere in the capitalist countries, because there it's dog eat
dog , and one man treats another like a wolf, a jackal, and a snake .
Just let the ruling republican party try going to someone and asking
