The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics)

by Victor Serge

Before he went to sleep, he read the paper carefully. The face of the Chief filled a third of the front page, as it did two or three times a week, surrounded by a seven-column speech: Our economic successes … Prodigious, they were. We are the chosen people, the most fortunate of peoples, envied by a West destined to crises, unemployment, class struggle, war; our welfare increases daily, wages, as the result of Socialist emulation by our shock brigades, show a rise of 12 per cent over the past year; it is time to stabilize them, since production has shown an increase of only 11 per cent. Woe to the skeptics, to those of little faith, to those who nourish the venomous serpent of Opposition in their secret hearts! — It was set forth in angular periods, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; numbered too were the five conditions (all now fulfilled) for the realization of Socialism; numbered too the six commandments of Labor; numbered too the four grounds for historic certainty … Romachkin could not believe his senses, he turned a sharp eye on the 12 per cent increase in wages. This increase in nominal wages was accompanied by a reduction at least three times as great in real wages, as a result of the depreciation of paper money and the rise in prices…. But in this connection the Chief, in his peroration, made a mocking allusion to the dishonest specialists of the Commissariat of Finance, who would receive exemplary punishment. “Continued applause. The audience rise and acclaim the orator for...