SHRAYER
483
collectivization: "You have risen against Christ. And that is why you are
the Antichrist." Later the priest asks the Commissar, "Why do you hate
Christianity so much?" thereby affirming the familiar anti-Semitic idea
that collectivization was a markedly Jewish, messianic offensive against
Russian peasants as Christians. Towards the end of the novel, writing of
the Sixteenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party, Belov sinks to the basest
kind of defamatory anti-Semitism by grossly distorting the number of
Jewish delegates and Jewish members. Here is a characteristic quote that
precedes a list of Jewish-sounding last names: "The compilers of the lists
of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission still
knew the Russian alphabet." In Belov's novel Stalin speaks of the Jews
as "the mightiest force in the party" and refers to Lazar Kaganovich, the
only Jewish member of his Politburo in
I930,
as "passionate Zionist."
The novel ends with a suggestion that the "devilish whirlwind" was
only "testing its merciless forces," promising a continuation of Belov's
anti-Semitic histrionics.
Finally, a brief mention should be made of Belov's novel
Vse vperedi
[All Is Yet to Come,
I987].
A weak imitation of the language and style
of Soviet urban novelists, mainly Iurii Trifonov and Daniil Granin, this
work further testifies to Belov's unwillingness to explore the roots of the
Jewish question. The main subject is Jewish emigration, which is pre–
sented as a threat to Russian nationhood. Belov makes use of a number
of myths that are familiar to historians of intolerance, including the myth
that the male members of a minority (Jews) desire women of the religious
or ethnic majority (Russians) in whose midst they live. One of the pro–
tagonists, a Jewish engineer Mikhail Brish, pines after his former class–
mate Liuba, a Russian beauty married to another former classmate, a
talented experimental engineer Medvedev. The novel begins with a trip
to Paris in
I974,
where Brish tries to manipulate a Jewish friend into
having a sexual affair with Liuba so that it would create a rift between
her and her husband. They make a bet, and a bottle of White Horse
whiskey is the wager. The tritely apocalyptic white horse (from Revela–
tion
I9:II)
resurfaces several times throughout the novel and presum–
ably symbolizes how the West and the Jews have joined forces to corrupt
the Russian family. A rather clumsily plotted explosion in the lab results
in Medvedev's arrest and exile, and Brish soon takes his place at work.
He also replaces him at home by marrying Liuba and adopting
Medvedev's two children. The novel's second part is set in
I984,
as
Medvedev resurfaces in his children's lives while Brish contemplates emi–
gration to America. Several anti-Semitic ideas are invoked by the narra–
tor and in the dialogues between Medvedev and Ivanov, an alcoholic
