Monumental Propaganda by Vladímir Voinóvich Read Free Book Online Page A

farm chairmen, agronomists, doctors, teachers, milkmaids, tractor drivers, ammunition-factory workers, cardboard men and thread women (that is, workers from the cardboard and sewing thread plants). Hanging here among the others was Aglaya Stepanovna’s own portrait, since last year the children’s home where she was the director had been awarded the Red Challenge Banner. And behind the board was the site for which the avenue had been named—the graves of the glorious warriors who had fought for our future and our present day. Beginning with the Red Commissar Matvei Rosenblum, who had arrived on the armored train Decisive and announced to the people the final establishment of the new power in these parts, following which he had immediately been shot by the socialist revolutionary Abram Tsirkes, the incident providing the pretext for the temporary immortalization of Rosenblum’s name in the title of one of the central streets. When it later became possible to joke, some people had actually suggested it was Tsirkes who should have been immortalized—after all, he was the one who hit the target. After Rosenblum came the tin obelisks with stars and the gravestones of the heroes of the Civil War, the Finnish campaign and the grueling battles of times of peace, arranged in two neat rows like the Board of Honor. In the very center of the row, under the name of Afanasii Miliagi, lay the bones of the gelding Osoaviakhim, who became almost human (those who have read
Chonkin
know about him). Under a thick covering of moss and mildew, a stone standing nearby bore the deceptive inscription ANDREI EREMEEVICH REVKIN. 1900–1941. HE SACRIFICED HIS OWN LIFE. AS THE GERMAN INVADERS APPROACHED, HE BLEW UP AN IMPORTANT INDUSTRIAL SITE AND PERISHED IN THE EXPLOSION.
    People who came here by chance bowed their heads over the stone, or perhaps they didn’t, but simply stood here in meditation, believing that this was truly the resting place of a hero who had performed a feat of outstanding courage. In actual fact, there was no one resting here. Because it had not been possible to find Revkin’s body after the explosion, especially as no one had searched for it, and especially as there had been nothing to search for, since the explosion had blown the entire power station into little pieces, and what was not blasted apart had burned away, and if it had not burned away, then in the conditions of German occupation, who could possibly have searched for bodies on the site of the power station and buried them with full honors? It was nothing but plain nonsense. Aglaya, of course, knew there was no one lying there, or she should have known it, but the brains of ideologically oriented individuals are arranged in such a way that while knowing one thing, they believe in something else. And Aglaya knew that Revkin was not lying there, but she believed that he was.
    The snow had melted a little and slipped downward, revealing the humps of the graves covered in withered grass. Aglaya stood by the grave, mentally promising the man who was not lying there that she would come back in early summer, dig up the old grass and sow new.
    The remainder of her route was straight and short.
    On reaching the monument, she first laid her flowers against the pedestal and then stepped back, raising her head, and only then noticed that something was wrong. Stalin was standing in his former place, in his former pose with his habitually raised right hand, but his glance was sad, his stance had shifted, as though somehow (but it was impossible!) he had begun to stoop. And on his cap—this was really incredible—two fat, disgusting gray pigeons were billing and cooing. It might seem there was nothing unusual in that; what else could be expected from these brainless creatures—after all, they never missed a single monument. But this monument was different from all the others, and they themselves had differentiated it. In all this time not a