The Youth (A Translation)

By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Lithograph by Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), a Russian-American painter and printmaker.

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They were writing the sopromat* exam. Anatoly Pavlovich Vozdvizhensky, an engineer and docent of the bridge-building faculty, saw that his student Konoplev was flushed, breathing heavy, and had repeatedly missed his turn to come up to the examiner’s desk. And then, with a heavy step, he approached and quietly asked that his question be changed. Anatoly Pavlovich looked at his face, his sweaty brow, the helpless pleading look in his bright eyes — and obliged.

But an hour and a half had passed, a few others had answered, and just four were left from the class. Among them was Konoplev, who had seemingly grown even redder and still didn’t come up.

And like this he sat to the very end. They were left alone in the auditorium. 

“Well then, Konoplev, you can’t go on any further,” calmly yet firmly said Vozdvizhensky. It was evident that this one doesn’t know anything. On his sheet were some kind of scribbles that barely looked like formulae, and drawings that barely looked like schematics.  

The broad-shouldered Konoplev stood up, sweaty-faced. He didn’t walk up to the board to answer — instead, with a difficult step, came up to the nearest table, lowered himself into it and simpleheartedly, simpleheartedly: 

“Anatoly Pavlovich, I’ll hurt my brain from thinking this hard.”

“Well then you ought to have studied systematically.”

“Anatoly Pavlovich, systematically? We’re told that in every subject, and every day. Believe me, I don’t slack, and spend my nights on this — I just can’t fit it into my head. If they’d taught less, or slower, then maybe but as it stands — my brain doesn’t take to it, I’m not made for this.”

His gaze was honest, and his voice genuine — he wasn’t lying, he didn’t look like a slacker.

“Did you come here from the rabfak*?”

“Mhm.”

“And how long were you there?”

“Two years, accelerated.”

“And how did you get to the rabfak?”

“From the Red Aksai — I was a tinker there.”

He had a short, fat nose, a broad face and thick lips.

Vozdvizhensky thought, and not for the first time: why do they torture them so? He’d be better off tinning dishes, at the Aksai.

“I pity you, but I can’t do anything about it. I must mark you as ‘failed’.”

Konoplev didn’t take to the argument, and didn’t take his gradebook out of his pocket. Instead, he took both his hands and, like paws, laid them on his chest:

“Anatoly Pavlovich, I can’t have it this way! First — they’ll decrease my stipend. And they’ll shame me at the komsomol*. But no matter what they do, I’ll never make it through the sopromat. I’m already upturned, not in my element — where would I go from here?”

Yes, this much was clear.

Yet the lives of many other rabfak students were also “upturned”. The authorities must’ve known this when they pushed them into the universities. Surely they anticipated cases like this as well. The administration clearly stated: when it comes to rabfak students, loosen the requirements. It was the policy of enlightening the masses.

Loosen — but to this extent? Even the rabfak students passed today, which Vozdvizhensky made sure of. But — this was absurd! How could you give this one a ‘pass’ if he doesn't know anything? What would be the whole point of teaching? Were he to start engineering, it wouldn’t take long to discover that he hadn’t even heard of the sopromat.

He said it once: “It’s out of the question.” He said it twice. 

Konoplev was silent, there was almost a tear in his eye — a rare thing to see in a roughneck like him.

And Anatoly Pavlovich thought: if the policy of the authorities insists, and surely they understand the clumsiness of what they’re doing — why should I care more than they do?

He gave Konoplev some suggestions. He advised how to change courses; how to read aloud for better comprehension; by what methods one ought to restore mental energy.

He took his gradebook. Sighed heavily. Slowly wrote ‘passed’ and signed on the dot.

Konoplev immediately lightened up, and exclaimed: 

“I’ll never forget this, Anatoly Pavlovich! I’ll pass all the other subjects — but the sopromat is too much for me.”

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The State Transport University stood on the outskirts of Rostov, and Anatoly Pavlovich had a long way home. 

In the tram, he could see how shabby and nondescript his fellow passengers had become over the past years. Anatoly Pavlovich wore a modest and well-worn suit but still kept his white collar and tie. But now there were some professors at the university who made a point of going about in a simple shirt, belted and worn outside their trousers. In spring, one of them would even wear sandals over his bare feet. And this didn’t surprise anyone anymore — it was, precisely, in the color of the times. This was how the times were changing, and everyone was turned off when they saw the wives of the NEPmen* decked out in fancy dresses.

Anatoly Pavlovich made it home just in time for lunch. His exuberant wife, Nadya, the light of his life, was now in Vladikavkaz with their elder son, newly married and a railway engineer like his father. The cook came to the Vozdvizhenskys three times a week, though today was not one of her days. But Lyolya was animated and eager to make sure her father was properly fed. She had already set their square oak table, with a sprig of lilac at its center. She brought in a pitcher of vodka from the icebox for his invariable daily drink, taken from a small silver goblet. And then warmed up, and poured, soup with dumplings.

In school, in the 8th grade, she was spectacular — in physics, chemistry, mathematics. Her technical drawings were top rate, and had her heart set on attending the same university where her father was. But just four years ago, the decrees of 1922 had made it mandatory to filter the applicants and strictly limit the number of those of non-proletarian origin.  Entrants not recommended by the party or the komsomol had to present proof of their political trustworthiness. His son managed to enroll a year earlier.

Today’s rub with grading lay heavy on his mind.

He asked Lyolya about school. Their school was still quite shaken by a recent event: a few months before the end of the school year a student in the 9th grade had hung himself — Misha Derevyanko. The funeral was kept hushed, and immediately thereafter all grades were to have meetings. Explanations were given that this — the seed of bourgeois individualism and decadence: Derevyanko — this was the rust that everyone ought to cleanse themselves of. Though Lyolya and her two friends were sure that Misha had been pushed to it by the school’s komsomol cell.

Today, she was urgently adding — and this was no longer a rumor, but a certainty — that Malevich, the loved-by-all director of the school, the old gym teacher who had somehow clung on all these years and with his cheerful discipline had kept the school in line — Malevich — was to be replaced.

Lyolya ran to the primus stove to fetch the beef Stroganoff, and then they drank tea with cookies.

The father tenderly gazed at his daughter. So gracefully she tossed back her head with its chestnut curls (avoiding the short-haired fashion), glanced so cleverly and, furrowing her brow, spoke her mind clearly.

As is often the case with young women, her face contained a wonderful riddle of her future. But for the parents, that riddle was more like a nagging ache: to discern in this unbeknownst-to-all future — the flourishing or damage of so many years of her growth, education, and concern for her.

“Yet still, still, dear Lyolya, you cannot avoid joining the komsomol. You have one year left, don’t risk it. Otherwise they won’t accept you anywhere — and I, at my own university, will not be able to help.”

“I don’t want to!” she shook her head, upsetting her hair, “The komsomol is disgusting.”

Anatoly Pavlovich sighed once more.

“You know,” he gently instilled, and frankly believed it himself, “The new youth — they hold, probably, some kind of truth, inaccessible to us. They can’t not have it.”

Surely, three generations of the inteligencia hadn’t all lost their way on how to give the people access to culture and liberate their energies. Of course, not everyone can handle this uplifting, this leap forward. So, they torture themselves in school, go soulsearching — it’s hard to flourish when you’re divorced from family traditions. But they have to, and we have to help them rise to the occasion, and to tolerate their at-first-clumsy antics.

“But, you must admit, their optimism is remarkable, and their enviable strength of faith. And in this steam you must unavoidably flow, and not fall behind. Otherwise, you can, truly, my dear, miss the whole Epoch, as they say. After all, what’s being created — albeit ridiculously, ineptly and slowly — is something grandiose. The whole world is watching, with bated breath — the whole Western inteligencia. In Europe, too, they’re not fools.”

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Having successfully failed the sopromat, Lyosha Konoplev eagerly joined up with his friends, who were heading that night to the Lenreisovet culture center. Komsomol members weren’t the only ones in attendance; there were also some non-partisan youth who wished to be there. A speaker from Moscow was giving a lecture, titled: “On the Tasks of Our Youth”.

The hall seated about six hundred people and was filled to the brim, with some even standing. There was a lot of red: at the back hung two unfurled banners, leaning towards each other and embroidered with gold. In front of them, on the riser, was a big, broad shouldered Lenin — bronze in color. The girls had red kerchiefs around their necks, and wore headbands made of red calico. The pioneer* leaders all wore red pioneer neck scarves, some of whom brought along a few senior pioneers, who were sitting by their leaders.

And here we are, all squished and packed; we are close-knit. Young, albeit unfamiliar, we are here. And here, we are all our people, we are all for one. The Builders of the New World, as they say. And knowing this, each of us had triple the strength. 

Three horn players came up to the front of the platform, also with red cloths pinned to their horns. They formed up in a row and blew the call to muster.

As if by whip, the whole crowd was brought to life by these horn players! Something was addictive in such a grand ceremony: the red banners hung at an angle, the bronze Ilyich*, the silver-plated horns, with their sharp sounds and proud bearing… It hit you like some great battle cry, like making a solemn promise under oath.

The horn players left with the same orderly march with which they’d entered, and the lecturer rolled onto the stage. He was short, wide and had trouble keeping his arms still. He read from no script, and began to quickly, confidently, forcefully speak from behind his standing tribune.

He started off about how the Revolution, and the Civil War gave the youth a strong complexion — but also weaned it from their everyday life. 

“This transition weighs heavy on our youth. The residual emotions of the Revolution thrash painfully in the minds of our youth. Some think: wouldn’t it be more fun had another revolution started — it would instantly become clear what to do and where to go. To quickly press this, blow up that, shake down those… otherwise what would’ve been the point? Now — if only the revolution in China would hurry up, what’s taking it so long? It’s good to live and fight for the Global Revolution — and we’re stuck here being forced to learn nonsense, geometry theorems, what gives?”

Or the sopromat. Right, there’s a better use for idle arms and legs, and a better place for strong backs.

But no, persuaded the lecturer, and stepped out from behind the podium, excitedly pacing up and down the stage, very much carried away by his own speech. 

“We ought to correctly understand and internalize the present moment. Our youth is the happiest in all of human history. They claim a fighting, effective position in life. Their traits: first: godlessness, a sense of total detachment from everything non-scientific. This develops a colossal reservoir of bravery and vigor in those previously held captive by God. Their second trait: avant-gardism and planetarism, the tendency to be ahead of the epoch. Both friends and enemies are watching us.”

He spun his round head about the room, as if seeking out these friends — and especially enemies — from faraway lands.

“This — is the death of psychology ‘from one’s own bell tower’. Every detail is examined by our youth necessarily from a global point of view. Third: impeccable class consciousness, a necessary, albeit temporary, rejection of the ‘human condition in general’. And then, optimism!”

He came up to the edge of the platform and, not afraid to fall, bowed as much as he could to meet the audience’s applause.

“Please understand! You are the happiest youth in the world! What a joyous complexion you have!”

He once again paced the stage, yet delivered his speech with no delay: 

“And then, you have a hunger for knowledge. And a scientific organization of labor. And a pull towards rationalizing your biological processes. And a fighting impulse — and one at that! And also — a craving for leadership. And from your natural class brotherhood, you have collectivism, internalized to such an extent that it seeps into the private lives of its members. And this, is how it ought to be.”

Although the lecturer kept up his eccentricity, no one even thought of laughing. They did not whisper to each other; they listened with all ears. The lecturer was helping young people understand themselves, and this was a useful thing. As he got more excited, he raised one short hand, or even two - invitingly, for better persuasion.

“Look — our young women also have this awareness of generative socialism. The woman, over a short period of time, has acquired a personal and intimate freedom, and sexual liberation. And she’s demanding that the man reconsider their relationship. This breaks down the masculine inertia of the slave owner, introducing revolutionary freshness into sexual morality. And so in love, a revolutionary spirit is also found: to switch one’s bioenergetic reserve onto sociocreative rails.”

He finished. But he wasn’t tired — must’ve been used to it. He came up to the podium:

“What questions do you have?”

They began asking questions — right there on the spot, or by handing down notes. 

The questions were mostly about sexual liberation. One person — who looked almost like a brother to Konoplev: “It’s easy to say, ‘Achieve a whole decade of development in two years,’ but working at that pace might well kill you.”

And then the pioneers gathered up the courage and too started asking questions:

“Can a girl pioneer put on a ribbon?”

“How about powder?”

“And who ought to listen to whom: a good pioneer to a bad father, or a bad father to a good pioneer?”

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By 1928, the Shakhty Trial, so close to Rostov, had deeply frightened the Rostov engineers. People had begun to disappear even here.

It took some time for people to grow accustomed to this. Before the Revolution, an arrested person was simply put behind bars or in exile, keeping in touch with his family and friends — but now? He simply dropped into oblivion…

This past September, in 1930, there was a thunderous sentencing of 48 people to be shot by the firing squad — “subverters of the supply chain”. “Responses from workers” were printed in the newspapers: “The subverters must be erased from the face of the earth!” The front page of Izvestia proclaimed: “Squish the vermin beneath your heel!” And the proletariat demanded that the OGPU* be awarded the Order of Lenin.

In November, an indictment was printed regarding the “Industrial Party Trial” — and this was meant to take the whole engineering faculty by their throats. And again the papers echoed with cold remarks: “Agents of the French interventionists and White emigrants”, “We’ll cleanse ourselves of the traitors!”.

Your heart would helplessly skip beats. Yet you couldn’t voice your fears to everyone — only to those you had known well, like Anatoly Pavlovich — for close to ten years now — knew Friedrich Albertovich.

On the day that the Industrial Party Trial began, a four hour demonstration took shape in Rostov: they demanded that all on trial be shot! It was unbearably disgusting. (Vozdvizhensky had managed to wriggle out of it, and didn’t attend.)

A suppressed, bleak despair, and a sense of impending doom grew day by day. Although: what for..? They worked around the clock with soul, resourcefulness and faith — and only the clumsiness of the Party directors hindered them at every step.

And then, less than two months after the start of the Trial — they came for Vozdvizhensky in the night.

Afterwards, there was a long stretch of time filled with a sort of one-of-a-kind nightmarish nonsense, spanning many nights and days. From being stripped nude, to having all the buttons of your clothes cut off and the soles of your shoes pierced with an awl; it continued in a stifling underground chamber with no ventilation, filled with damp air and without a single window, yet with translucent bottle-like frames on the ceiling. You couldn’t tell day from night. They slept on the floor, on concrete that had been covered with loose planks. All were stupefied from lack of sleep and the latest lines of questioning. Some were beat to a pulp, others’ wrists were burnt with cigarette buts. Some were silent, others murmuring half-crazed stories to themselves. Not once had Vozdvizhensky been called up, not once had he been touched, but his mind had already been shaken from its foundations and could no longer grasp what was happening or even connect itself with his former life — now, alas, gone forever. His poor health meant that he hadn’t been called up for the German War. No one had bothered him during the Civil War either, that had run violently through Rostov-Novocherkassk. He had spent a quarter century at deliberate intellectual labor, and now he could only tremble each time the door opened, by day or by night: had they come for him? There was no way he was prepared to endure torture!

At yet — he wasn’t being called up. Everyone in the cell in this underground warehouse was in awe. (Only later did they realize it actually was a warehouse, and the translucent glass frames in the ceiling were set into the sidewalk on the city’s main street, along which carefree pedestrians constantly passed — people who had not yet been doomed to end up here. They could feel the walls tremble as trams passed above.)

No call. Everyone was shocked: these newcomers usually get dragged out right away.

Then maybe, it truly was a mistake? Maybe they’ll let him go? 

But on one of those days — he’d lost count which one — he was called up. “Hands behind your back!”, and a dark-haired overseer led him up, up the steps — to the surface? And then higher, higher, up the floors, all while clicking his tongue like some mysterious bird.

An investigator in a GPU* uniform sat behind a desk in a shaded corner of the room. You couldn’t clearly see his face, only that he was young and bulky. He silently gestured to a miniature table in the opposite corner of the room. Vozdvizhensky found himself in a narrow chair, facing a far-away cloudy window. The lamp was not lit. 

He waited with bated breath. The investigator was silently writing.

Then strictly:

“Tell me about your subversive activities.”

Vozdvizhensky was more surprised than scared.

“Nothing of the sort ever happened, I assure you!” And wanted to sensibly add: how can an engineer ruin anything? 

Yet after the Party Trial..?

“No, do tell.”

“But nothing had happened, nor could have happened.”

The investigator continued writing, but still did not light the lamp. And then, still sitting, in a sturdy voice:

“You saw the cells? You haven’t seen everything yet. We’ll leave you on the concrete — without the planks. Or in the damp hole. Or — under a lamp, as bright as a thousand candles. You’ll go blind.”

Vozdvizhensky could barely prop up his head with his hands. And… they’ll do it all. And… how to endure it?

Then the investigator lit his table lamp, stood up, lit the overhead light and stood in the middle of the room, looking at the defendant.

Despite the Chekist* uniform, he had a very very simple face. Large bones, a short and fat nose... thick lips.

And — in a new voice:

“Anatoly Pavlovich, I understand perfectly well that you didn’t do anything wrong. But you too must understand: no one leaves here acquitted. Either a bullet to your head or a sentence.”

It was not the harsh language, it was the kindly voice that amazed Vozdvizhensky. He stared fixedly at the interrogator’s face, and saw something familiar in it. It was such a simple face. Had he seen it before?

The investigator went on standing like that, lit up, in the middle of the room, and was silent.

Yes, that’s right, he had seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t remember where. 

“Do you remember Konoplev?” asked the investigator.

“Ah, Konoplev! Right, right! The one who didn’t know the sopromat. And then disappeared somewhere, from the faculty.”

“Yes — I dropped out. On orders of the komsomol they took me into the GPU. I’ve been here three years already.”

So what now?

They talked a bit. Completely freely, like human beings. Like in that past life, before the horrors. And then Konoplev said:

“Anatoly Pavlovich, the GPU does not make mistakes. No one simply walks out of here. And even though I want to help you, I don’t know how. You too should give this some thought. We need to make something up.”

Vozdvizhensky returned to his cell with a renewed sense of hope. 

But… also with a whirling gloom in his head. He couldn’t come up with anything. 

But to go to the camp? To Solovki?

Konoplev’s sympathy had shocked and warmed him. Inside these walls? In such a place?

He thought about these rabfak graduates. To this day, he couldn't shake the thought: an arrogant, rude fellow had been Vozdvizhenky’s boss when he worked as an engineer. And in school, the one that Lyolya finished, instead of the gifted Malevich they appointed some stupid ignoramus. 

Yet long before the Revolution the poets had anticipated, and prophesied, these new goons…

After three more days in the cellar under the street, beneath the steps of unsuspecting passersby, Konoplev summoned him again.

Just that Vozdvizhensky hadn’t come up with anything yet.

“And yet you must!” persuaded Konoplev, “There’s nothing else you can do. Don’t force me to take measures, Anatoly Pavlovich. Or have them get you a different investigator — that’ll be the end of you.”

He transferred him to a cosier cell — one not as damp, with a bunk to sleep on. He gave him some tobacco and allowed a parcel from home. 

The great thing about the parcel wasn’t the food and fresh clothes, but the joy that those at home now knew: he’s here! Alive. (His wife would get his signature on the receipt for the parcel.)

Again, Konoplev called him up. Again tried to persuade him. 

But — how does one spit in the face of his own twenty-year career? To spit in one’s own face — into one’s own soul?

And Konoplev: “Without results, they ought to send another to interrogate you any day now.”

On yet another day, he said:

“I got it. Figured it out. There is a way to get you released: you must sign a document giving us the information we need.”

Vozdvizhensky was taken aback: 

“How can..? How can this..? And — what information can I even give you?”

“About the mood in your engineering circles. About certain acquaintances of yours, like for example Friedrich Albertovich Werner. And some others on the list.”

Vozdvizhensky squeezed his head in his hands:

“But this — I can’t do!”

Konoplev shook his head. He simply couldn’t believe it:

“So then... to the camps? Keep in mind: your daughter will get kicked out of her last year as a class outsider. And maybe — they’ll confiscate your belongings, your apartment. I’m offering you a good thing here.”

Anatoly Pavlovich sat there, not feeling the chair under him, and stared, glassy-eyed, past Konoplev. 

He dropped his head on the little table — and started to cry.

A week later, he was set free.

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Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 Dec 1918 – 3 Aug 2008) was a Russian author, publicist, poet and Nobel Laureate. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature. A quote taken from his Nobel Lecture, published two years after it was given:

“A simple step of a simple courageous man: to not partake in lies. To not support false actions. Let that come into the world, and even rule it, but not through me.”

This was a short story by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — titled ‘Молодняк’, also translated as ‘The New Generation’.

Read the original text here, or listen here.

Some inspiration taken from Kenneth Lantz’s translation. Definitions sourced from Wikipedia.

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Definitions

Sopromat: A Russian abbreviation for the strength of materials, or mechanics of materials.

Rabfak: A type of educational institution that prepared Soviet workers for higher education.

NEPmen: Businesspeople in the early Soviet Union, who took advantage of the opportunities for private trade and small-scale manufacturing provided under the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1921-1928).

Komsomol: The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League; a political youth organization in the Soviet Union.

Pioneer: A member of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, a mass youth organization of the Soviet Union for children.

Ilyich: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin.

OGPU: The secret police of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1934.

GPU: The intelligence service and secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from February 6, 1922 to December 29, 1922 and the Soviet Union from December 29, 1922 until November 15, 1923.

Chekist: A member of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, abbreviated VChK, and commonly known as Cheka. It was the first of a succession of Soviet secret-police organizations.