502
PARTISAN REVIEW
munist system collapses so that he can be thawed and ride into
Moscow to assume power-constitute one of the poles between
which Kartsev is buffeted throughout the novel. The other is that
of "the Genialissimo," who hovers over the Soviet Union of 2042
in a space vehicle. Having engineered the Great August
Communist Revolution and taken to conducting inspections
from space, he is marooned there by the successors of the KGB
who decide "to divide power into the heavenly and the earthly."
The country itself is now "an entirely socialist landmass
with a communist core"-"the Moscowrep"-the result of the
Great August Communist Revolution which declared commu–
nism in one walled city. Kartsev finds a Red Square without St.
Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Tomb, or the monument to Minin and
Pozharsky, all these things having been sold to the Americans
"either by the Corruptionists or the Reformists." On the other
hand, Pushkin Square has been renamed "Square of the
Genialissimo's Literary Gifts" and Gorky Street "Avenue of the
First Volume of the Genialissimo's Collected Works" (there are
twenty-six such avenues altogether, one for each volume-not to
mention side streets like "Mterword to the First Volume Lane").
The popular Aragvi restaurant is now a Palace of Love, "The N.K.
Krupskaya Experimental Order-of-Lenin Brothel" (also known as
the Krupstatexordlenbroth), with sayings of the Genialissimo and
pictures of the administrators on the walls, but no girls: it operates
only on a self-service basis.
Welcomed as a classic of the past (who can be studied but not
read), and shown around by officials with names like Horizon
Timofeevich and Beria Ilich, Kartsev learns, "There is no
political system whatever in our country... [which] is the first in
history, the first of all mankind, to have built a classless and
systemless communist society." The Party, he discovers, has
merged with the KGB to form the KPGB, which in its turn has
established "The Communist Reformed Church," headed by one
Father Starsky, a "major general in the religious service," who
wears a cassock, leads the faithful in making the sign of the star,
and proclaims, "God absolutely does not exist, never did and
never will. There is only the Genialissimo who is there on
high. "
Irresistible as the impulse is to cite satiric highlights, it car–
ries the risk of misrepresenting this extraordinary book by slight-
