VAS/LV GROSSMAN
23
are the same- both one-party States. Our capitalists are not the
masters. The State gives them their plan . The State takes their profit
and all they produce. As their salary they keep six percent of this
profit. Your State also outlines a plan and takes what is produced for
itself. And the people you call masters - the workers - also receive a
salary from your one-party State. "
Mostovskoy watched Liss and thought to himself: "Did this vile
nonsense really confuse me for a moment? Was I really choking in
this stream of poisonous, stinking dirt?"
Liss gave a despairing wave of the hand.
"A red workers' flag flies over our People's State too. We too
call people to National Achievement, to Unity and Labor. We say,
'The Party expresses the dream of the German worker' ; you say,
'Nationalism! Labor! ' You know as well as we do that nationalism is
the most powerful force of our century. Nationalism is the soul of
our epoch . And 'Socialism in One Country' is the supreme expres–
sion of nationalism .
"I don't see any reason for our enmity. But the teacher of ge–
nius , the leader of the German people, our father, the best friend of
all German mothers, the brilliant and wise strategist, began this war.
And I believe in Hitler. And I know that Stalin's mind is in no way
clouded by pain or anger . Through all the fire and smoke of war he
can see the truth. He knows his true enemy . Yes-even now when
he discusses joint military strategy with him and drinks to his health.
There are two great revolutionaries in the world - Stalin and our
leader. It is their will that gave birth to State National Socialism.
"Brotherhood with you is more important to me than territory
in the East. Weare two houses that should stand side by side . . .
Now , teacher, I want you to live for a while in quiet solitude . I want
you to think, think, think before our next conversation ."
"What for? It's all just nonsense. It's absurd and senseless!" said
Mostovskoy . "And why call me 'teacher' in that idiotic way?"
"There's nothing idiotic about it," replied Liss. "You and I both
know that it's not on battlefields that the future is decided. You knew
Lenin personally . He created a new type of party. He was the first to
understand that only the Party and its Leader can express the spirit
of the nation. He did away with the Constituent Assembly. But just
as Maxwell destroyed Newton's system of mechanics while thinking
he had confirmed it, so Lenin considered himself a builder of inter–
nationalism while in actual fact he was creating the great nation–
alism of the twentieth century .. . And we learned many things from
