Nothing to Lose and Little to Gain:
Self-Preservation and the Nature of Resistance and in Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales
A theme of how to react to unjust punishment unites Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales into a whole work. His accounts of how he and his fellow inmates resisted the authorities who imposed this suffering on them are pessimistic, stoic at best: Resistance by the prisoners in Kolyma Tales is not for the sake of preserving dignity, experiencing rebellious triumph or for any high ideals of throwing off the yoke of oppression. It is a necessary resistance, the resistance that belongs to and originates in the individual’s barest instincts. The narrator and the other prisoners he observes are forced by drudgery and cruelty to become almost mechanical in their behavior, accepting the treatment and tasks given them and only resisting when they find themselves physically incapable of performing according to expectation. There is no redemption or catharsis to be gained from this suffering of punishment, as in a Dostoyevsky novel, but even with the minimal range of emotion and thought that is possible in this hopeless environment, Shalamov finds rudimentary forms of courage and selflessness in the individual, and loyalty among comrades, proving that even the dehumanizing conditions of a totalitarian prison camp are insufficient to destroy everything that is admirable in human nature.
A sentence from «Ягоды» (“Berries”) clearly illustrates both the effects of prison life on a prison-camp inmate’s attitudes and behavior, and the form that this deliberately inflicted punishment often took. (As it is unclear to what extent this story is autobiographical, the reader should not assume this is an accurate narration of one of Shalamov’s first-hand experiences in prison, but it can be assumed that if this story does not describe an event in which he was personally involved, it was probably at least informed by something he heard about or witnessed. In any case, I will not assume the narrator is interchangeable with Shalamov, but I will assume he can be understood to express Shalamov’s thoughts.) The narrator, an old prisoner, describes his response to a beating from the guards, which he receives as punishment for lying in the snow, too exhausted to move when the rest of his unit is ready to move:
«Мне было все равно. Я не выносил розовощеких, здоровых, сытых, хорошо одетых, я не боялся. Я согнулся, защищая живот, но и это было прародительским, инстинктивным движением - я вовсе не боялся ударов в живот. Фадеев ударил меня сапогом в спину. Мне стало внезапно тепло, а совсем не больно. Если я умру - тем лучше» (т. 1, с. 51).
What kind of resistance is possible, given this kind of cynicism among the prisoners, and their inability to form any ambitions higher than satisfying their own hunger and surviving the winter? The story «Сгущенное молоко» (“Condensed Milk”) provides a possible example: When Shestakov, a fellow prisoner who holds the relatively privileged position of engineer, tries to enlist the narrator’s collaboration in an escape plan, the narrator suspects him of being an agent provocateur and informant. He pretends to agree, but says he will need to build his strength up and asks for condensed milk, which is scarce in the camp and rarely given to manual laborers. When Shestakov procures the milk, the narrator drinks it and then says he has changed his mind. At the outset, the narrator manipulated of Shestakov not as a matter of principle or due to a sense of duty to be subversive. It is not an act with any ethical or political motivation, he is driven by hunger to seize the opportunity to get some extra food from someone more privileged. Besides, as the narrator points out at the end of his story, «Две банки сгущенного молока не такое уж большое дело, в конце концов» — in other words, the act did not deal a major blow to the oppressor. However, his sense of satisfaction, even pride, after having cheated Shestakov out of two cans of condensed milk is unmistakable. What is important here is that the pleasure derived from resistance is an afterthought, it is incidental. These prisoners do not seek to be subversive or defiant because they object to the conditions to which they are subjected. Their only motivation for resisting is not principles or emotions, but basic, physical necessity: hunger, exhaustion, or some hope of alleviating the atrocious deprivation and pain of their everyday lives. To this extent they have indeed been dehumanized: they have been forced to live and think like animals, whose only goal in life is to survive, and whose only ambitions are fulfillments of basic necessities. This does not prevent them, however, from feeling some small sense of satisfaction, pleasure, or even victory when they realize their defiance of the rules has caused trouble for the enforcers.
Even the potentially heroic prison break story «Последний бой Майора Пугачёва» shows a similar pattern. It is about an escape from a northern gulag by veterans of the Great Patriotic War story (“Major Pugachev’s Last Fight”) in the late 1940’s, executed by prisoners from a later “generation” than Shalamov’s. (This is one story from the Kolyma Tales that is certainly fictional, at least in part: The characters may, at most, have been his acquaintances, but the events are recounted in more detail than second-hand information could have supplied, and Shalamov certainly was not a member of the escape party in the story.) The group is made up of prisoners in a different “generation” from Shalamov’s. Shalamov had been sentenced during the early tumultuous years of the Soviet state. The characters in “Pugachev” are from the wave of new prisoners who entered the camps in the late 1940’s, mostly former Red Army soldiers who had been held as prisoners of war in Germany and Italy. At the end of the war, these returning soldiers, whose loyalty the Communist Party considered suspect after their exposure to Fascist and Western propaganda, were sent to gulags for re-indoctrination. A certain courage and confidence acquired during the war set these men apart from the prisoners of Shalamov’s generation, who had long since had their wills broken. An account of a typical interaction between these new prisoners and the older generation illustrates the difference between the resignation typical of Shalamov’s generation and the relative boldness of the newcomers:
«Новички спрашивали у уцелевших "аборигенов":
- Почему вы в столовой едите суп и кашу, а хлеб уносите в барак? Почему не есть суп с хлебом, как ест весь мир?
Улыбаясь трещинами голубого рта, показывая вырванные цингой зубы, местные жители отвечали наивным новичкам:
- Через две недели каждый из вас поймет и будет делать так же.
Как рассказать им, что они никогда еще в жизни не знали настоящего голода, голода многолетнего, ломающего волю - и нельзя бороться со страстным, хватывающим тебя желанием продлить возможно дольше процесс еды,- в бараке с кружкой горячей, безвкусной снеговой "топленой" воды доесть, дососать свою пайку хлеба в величайшем блаженстве.
Но не все новички презрительно качали головой и отходили в сторону.» (т. 2, с. 109).
Shalamov’s meetings with the new generation may have been his first encounters with anyone in the camp still credibly capable of heroism—which is to say acts of resistance carried out for the sake of something loftier than the fulfillment of a physical need: honor, principles, dignity, or justice. “The Last Battle of Major Pugachev,” is distinct from the other two stories from “The Kolyma Tales” discussed here in that it features at least one identifiable hero as its protagonist, rather than a mere object of abuse who has to resort to taking pleasure in small, inconsequential acts of resistance. (He is also named after a Cossack who rebelled against the Tsar in the 18th century, which suggests an association with a bolder type than most of the political prisoners in Shalamov’s camp.)
In contrast to accounts that are more likely from Shalamov’s own experiences, this story focuses more on the act of resistance than the form of punishment being resisted. Pugachev and his companions know they have little chance of success, but attempt the escape anyway. One may say that this ill-fated escape plan was an act of heroism, undertaken as it was with little hope of tangible success: It may therefore be interpreted as something committed for freedom, and not for the sake of a necessity. Major Pugachev takes action, and, even when his doomed escape attempt fails, admires the courage of his collaborators and clearly experiences satisfaction in knowing they remained loyal and united in their act of resistance. But again, he feels this most strongly only after he realizes the plan has failed and there is no more he can do. Like the narrator of “condensed milk” who took pride in knowing he had manipulated an informant, even if he knew his actions had little effect, Pugachev resigns himself to the more humble pride in himself and his companions for having defied the authorities at all. He is proud not of what he has achieved, but of the principle of having resisted, and of having done so in concert and solidarity with his comrades:
«Но лучше всех, достойнее всех были его одиннадцать умерших товарищей. Никто из тех, других людей его жизни не перенес так много разочарований, обмана, лжи. И в этом северном аду они нашли в себе силы поверить в него, Пугачева, и протянуть руки к свободе. И в бою умереть. Да, это были лучшие люди его жизни» (т. 2, с. 117).
This sort of solidarity among the prisoners is also apparent in «Сгущенное молоко». In the scene where the narrator eats the condensed milk procured for him by Shestakov, his fellow prisoners hand him a spoon and look on while he eats, not enviously, but in a sort of empathetic enjoyment of their comrade’s privilege in enjoying this uncommonly luxurious food:
« - Дайте ложку, - сказал Шестаков, поворачиваясь к обступившим нас рабочим. Десять блестящих, отлизанных ложек потянулись над столом. Все стояли и смотрели, как я ем. В этом не было неделикатности или скрытого желания угоститься. Никто из них и не надеялся, что я поделюсь с ним этим молоком. Такое не было видано - интерес их к чужой пище был вполне бескорыстен. И я знал, что нельзя не глядеть на пищу, исчезающую во рту другого человека. Я сел поудобнее и ел молоко без хлеба, запивая изредка холодной водой. Я съел обе банки. Зрители отошли в сторону - спектакль был окончен. Шестаков смотрел на меня сочувственно.
The narrator suspects Shestakov’s motives, but assumes the prisoners in his own rank to be “disinterested” (“бескорыстен”), he “knows” they do not expect him to share. In the setting of the gulag, this is another source of humanity: The knowledge of loyalty and empathy among fellow sufferers. This is what singles Shestakov out: he is obviously privileged, obviously has not experienced the same suffering the narrator has. The narrator notes earlier in the story:
«Мы отошли за бараки и сели на борт старого забоя. Ноги мои сразу отяжелели, а Шестаков весело болтал своими новенькими казенными ботинками, от которых слегка пахло рыбьим жиром.» (т. 1, с. 63)
Perhaps the narrator’s suspicion of someone so privileged is not just due to his proximity to the authorities, but also implies that those who share suffering both trust and respect one another because they have seen each others’ limits tested by subjection to shared adverse circumstances. In any case, it contrasts with Shalamov’s description of his fellow manual laborers.
Shalamov’s stories therefore show how an individual’s humanity preserves itself in a dehumanizing context in two ways: in the pleasure and pride taken in small achievements of resistance, and empathy among people who share the same suffering.
This hope, which survived in the face of deliberate attempts by organized authority to break all hope and the will to resist in those it acted upon, is a small but essential one. It does not imply that all forms of totalitarian power will eventually break down, exhausting themselves in the attempt to destroy a basic characteristic of humanity that cannot be destroyed. It does not imply that people are stronger than authoritarian forms of control. But it does imply that totalitarian control is never entirely total, that human beings do not become automatons or animals even in the most desperate, squalid, and painful conditions that a dictatorial state can impose.
Source:
Шаламов, Варлам. Колымские рассказы, в двух томах. Москва: Информационно-издательский центр «Наше наследие», 1992.