His General was also pale as he switched off the television set. “ ‘Arise, ye Russian people.’ We must set these thoughts aside, Pasha. It is hard, but we must. The State is not perfect, but it is the State we must serve.” Alekseyev eyed his commander closely. The General had almost choked on those words; he was already practicing how to use them on the crucial few who would know of this outrage, yet had to perform their duties as though it never existed. There will come a day of reckoning, Pasha told himself, a day of reckoning for all the crimes committed in the name of Socialist Progress.
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