Tilting the Balance

Somehow, though, she did not think Sholudenko, for all his cynicism, would betray her after giving her leave to speak.

Maybe that was naive on her part, but she’d already said enough to let him ruin her if that was what he had in mind, and so she said, “It’s terrible that our own Soviet government has earned the hatred of so many of its people. Any storemovie.ru ruling class will have those who work to betray it, but so many? ”

“Terrible, yes, ” Sholudenko said. “Surprising, no. ” He ticked off points on his fingers like an academician or a political commissar. “Consider, Comrade Pilot: a hundred years ago, Russia was entirely mired in the feudal means of production. Even at the time of the October Revolution, capitalism was far less entrenched here than in Germany or England. Is this not so? ”

“It is so, ” Ludmila said.

“Very well, then. Consider also the significance of that fact. Suddenly the revolution had occurred-in a world that hated it, a world that would crush it if it could. You are too young to remember the British, the Americans, the Japanese who invaded us, but you wilt have learned of them. ”

“Yes, but-”

Sholudenko held up a forefinger. “Let me finish, please. Comrade Stalin saw we would be destroyed if we could not match our enemies in the quantity of goods we turn out. Anything and anyone standing in the way of that had to go. Thus the pact with the Hitlerites: not only did it buy us almost two years’ time, but also land from the Finns, on the Baltic, and from the Poles and Rumanians to serve as a shield when the fascist murderers did attack us. ”

All that shield had been lost within a few weeks of the Nazi invasion. Most of the people in the lands the Soviet Union had annexed joined the Hitlerites in casting out the Communist Party, which spoke volumes on how much they’d loved falling under Soviet control.

But did that matter? Sholudenko had a point. Without ruthless preparation, the revolution of the workers and peasants would surely have been crushed by reactionary forces, either during the civil war or at German hands.

“Unquestionably, the Soviet state has the right and duty to survive, ” Ludmila said. Sholudenko nodded approvingly. But the pilot went on, “But does the state have a right to survive in such a way as to make so many of its people prefer the vicious Germans to its own representatives? ”

If she hadn’t still been shaky from flipping her airplane, she wouldn’t have said anything so foolish to a probable NKVD man, even “abstractly. ” She looked around the fields through which they were slogging. No one was in sight. If Sholudenko tried to place her under arrest… well, she carried a 9mm Tokarev pistol in a holster on her belt. The comrade might have a tragic accident. If he did, she’d do her best to get his precious pictures back to the proper authorities.

If he contemplated arresting her, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he said, “You are to be congratulated, Comrade Pilot; this is a question most would not think to pose. ” It was a question most would not dare to pose, but that was another matter. Sholudenko went on, “The answer is yes. Surely you have been trained in the historical use of the dialectic? ”

“Of course, ” Ludmila said indignantly. “Historical progress comes through the conflict of two opposing theses and their resulting synthesis, which eventually generates its own antithesis and causes the struggle to recur. ”

“Congratulations again-you are well instru