The Nineteen

By A. Fadeyev

Razgrom (literally: devastation, debacle), here translated under the title of The Nineteen, was Russian author Alexander Fadeyev’s third novel. It has been widely acclaimed in Russia as one of the best novels of that decade and a significant artistic embodiment of revolutionary faith in a new Russia. A story of youthful guerrilla fighters it still stands as a fine work of modern Russian literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eschenburg Press
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787208131

A. Fadeyev

ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVITCH FADEYEV (24 December 1901 - 13 May 1956) was a Soviet writer, one of the co-founders of the Union of Soviet Writers and its chairman from 1946-1954. He was born in Kimry, Tver Governorate (near Moscow) in 1901, the son of a feldscher—a second-class officer of health. His childhood was spent in Vilna, then in the Ural mountains, in various small places along the Siberian coastline where it fronts Japan, and in the Siberian forest. He attended school in Vladivostok. Shortly after the Revolution of October 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1918 and took part in the guerrilla movement against the Japanese interventionists and the White Army during the Russian Civil War. He began writing full-time around 1922 and became a member of the ruling body of the Fellowship of Proletarian Writers. He was the author of The Rout (also known as The Nineteen); The Last of the Udege (1930); and The Young Guard, for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1946. He committed suicide in Peredelkino, Moscow Oblast, in 1956 at the age of 54. He is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. RICHARD DENIS CHARQUES (1899-1959) was an English author, translator and editor. Born in London in 1899, he was best known as a literary critic for the New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement, and the New York Times. He was also a published author, including The Soviets and the Next War (1932), Soviet Education (1932) and Profits and Politics in the Post-War World (1934). He died in 1959.

Book preview

This edition is published by ESCHENBURG PRESS – www.pp-publishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – [e-mail]

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1929 under the same title.

© Eschenburg Press 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE NINETEEN

by

A. FADEYEV

Translated from the Russian by

R. D. CHARQUES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE 4

PART ONE 5

Chapter I—MOROZKA 5

Chapter II—METCHIK 11

Chapter III—A SIXTH SENSE 17

Chapter IV—ALONE 22

Chapter V—PEASANTS 26

Chapter VI—THE MINERS 30

Chapter VII—LEVINSON 36

Chapter VIII—ENEMIES 43

Chapter IX—THE FIRST MOVE 49

PART TWO 58

Chapter I—METCHIK IN THE COMPANY 58

Chapter II—THE BEGINNING 66

Chapter III—HARVEST TIME 75

Chapter IV—WAYS AND MEANS 84

Chapter V—A LOAD 95

PART THREE 105

Chapter I—METELITSA RECONNOITRES 105

Chapter II—THREE DEATHS 115

Chapter III—THE BOG 127

Chapter IV—THE NINETEEN 136

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 143

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVITCH FADEYEV was born near Moscow in 1901, the son of a feldscher—a second-class officer of health. His childhood was spent in Vilna, then in the Ural mountains, then in various small places along the Siberian coastline where it fronts Japan, then in the Siberian forest—the taiga of the present story. He went to school in Vladivostok. A few months after the Revolution of October, 1917, he joined the Communist Party, which was an illegal organisation at the time throughout the large part of Siberia under the control of Koltchak. Fadeyev joined a company of partisans (irregular Soviet troops), fought in the Civil War during 1919 and 1920, was twice wounded, and subsequently went to Moscow as a Communist delegate.

He has been writing for seven years or so and is at present a member of the ruling body of the Fellowship of Proletarian Writers.

Razgrom (literally: devastation, debacle), here translated under the title of The Nineteen, is Fadeyev’s third novel. The first, The River Overflows in Spring, was written during 1922-3, and was soon followed by another, Against the Stream. The present work, written during 1925-6, is much his best so far. It has been widely acclaimed in Russia as one of the best novels of the past decade and a significant artistic embodiment of revolutionary faith in a new Russia.

I am very deeply indebted to Mme Z. Mitrov for the generous assistance she has given me in translating the novel.

R. D. C.

November, 1929.

PART ONE

Chapter I—MOROZKA

LEVINSON’S chipped Japanese sword clattered on the stairs as he walked out into the yard. From the fields came the honeyed scent of buckwheat. Overhead the July sun swam in a warm pinkish-white haze.

Morozka, the orderly, flicking his whip at the infuriated guinea-fowls gathered round him, was drying oats on a ground-sheet.

Here, take this to Shaldiba’s headquarters, Levinson said, handing over a bundle of papers. And take this message.…No, it isn’t necessary.…It’s all written down.

Morozka, not at all pleased, turned his head away, twirling his whip. He had no particular longing to go. He was tired of these tedious official journeys; the papers were of no use to anybody, and, more than anything else—Levinson’s eyes were the eyes of a stranger. Large and peculiarly deep, like lakes, they seemed to engulf Morozka from head to foot, discovering in him many things of which, perhaps, Morozka himself was unaware.

Scoundrel! thought the orderly, offended, blinking his eyelids; and at once, by force of habit, concluded: All Jews are scoundrels!

What are you standing still for? Levinson asked, getting annoyed.

Oh, well, comrade commandant, as soon as anyone has to go somewhere it’s always Morozka. As if there was no other fellow in the company.…

Morozka deliberately said comrade commandant in order to make it sound official; as a rule he addressed Levinson simply by his name.

Perhaps I ought to go myself, eh? Levinson said cuttingly.

Why you? There are as many men here as you want.…

Levinson stuffed the packet of papers in his pocket with the grim look of a man who has exhausted every peaceful method of persuasion.

All right, hand over your kit to the quartermaster, he said with deadly calm, and you can clear out of here. I’ve got no use for a confounded nuisance like you.

A gentle wind ruffled Morozka’s unruly locks of hair. In the parched grass, near the shed, the locusts drummed tirelessly through the burning air.

Wait!… Morozka growled. Give me the letter.…

Slipping it under his blouse, he explained, not so much for Levinson’s sake as for his own:

Me leave the company?…that’s absolutely out of the question. And as for giving up my rifle, that’s a sight more unlikely. He shifted his dusty cap to the back of his head, and, suddenly gay, his voice very soft, went on: It wasn’t for your beautiful eyes, friend Levinson, that we started this business. Between you and me…to talk to you in plain language, as we miner chaps would…

That’s all right, the commandant said, smiling. Why do you start off by being so pig-headed?…Idiot!…

Morozka took hold of Levinson by the button of his coat, pulled him towards him and whispered mysteriously:

Look here, brother, I’d been getting ready to go and see Varya for a bit at the hospital…and all of a sudden you turn up with your papers.…It shows, doesn’t it, that you’re the idiot.…

He winked cunningly with a greenish-brown eye and sniggered, and in his laugh, even now, when he was speaking about his wife, there entered something obscene, the habit of many years, growing and spreading in him like mildew.

Timosha! Levinson shouted to a sleepy young fellow on the steps, look after the oats. Morozka is going off.

In front of the stables, sitting astride on the overturned trough, the sapper Gontcharenko was repairing some leather packs. His head was bare and sunburnt, and his dark carroty beard was matted like felt. His stony face bent over the packs, he plied his needle vigorously backwards and forwards, as if he wielded a pitchfork. His powerful shoulders heaved like millstones under the linen of his blouse.

Hallo, you off again? asked the sapper.

You’ve said it, your sappery Excellency!

So saying, Morozka stood stiffly to attention and saluted by putting the palm of his hand to an indecent part.

Stand at ease, Gontcharenko said indulgently. There was a time when I was as big a fool as you. What’s the business you’ve been sent on?

Foo, something I wouldn’t spit on. The commandant wanted me to take a little exercise. If I didn’t, he said, I’d probably start breeding children.

Fool! murmured the sapper, biting the thread between his teeth. Bloody fool!

Morozka led his horse from the stable. The long-maned colt pricked up its ears expectantly. It was strongly made, a fast, shaggy animal, resembling its master; it had the same clear greenish-brown eyes and, like the other, it was squat and bow-legged and wore a naively cunning and impudent look.

Mishka-a…ah, ah.…Satan-a, Morozka growled affectionately, tightening the girths. Mishka-a…ah, ah…the Lord’s own beast!

If somebody was to look at you both and decide which of you is the bigger rogue, the sapper said gravely, it’s not you who ought to ride on Mishka, but Mishka who ought to ride on you, upon my soul!

Morozka rode out at a trot from the yard.

The rough road, overgrown with tall grasses, sloped towards the river. Beyond the river stretched fields of wheat and buckwheat, flooded in sunshine. In the warm, hazy distance trembled the blue summits of the Sihota-Alin mountains.

Morozka’s nostrils dilated with the sickly-sweet smell of the grain. His wrinkles faded, his eyes shone like the lamp before an ikon, his chest rose and fell deeply and evenly, glowing like copper in the sun. Quiet, ardent strength born of the black earth and of forgotten ancestors surged up in a soul already eaten into by coal-dust.

Morozka was a miner and the son of a miner. His grandfather, his silly grandfather, outraged alike by God and man, still ploughed the fields; but his father had exchanged the good black fields for the coal-mine.

Morozka was born in a dark little hut near No. 2 Pit, just as the raucous whistle was calling the men to the morning shift.

A son? his father had asked, when the pit doctor came out from the hovel and told him that he had a son—yes, a son, nothing stranger.

That makes the fourth. His father was resigned. It’s a happy life!

Then he clumsily put on his waterproof jacket, grimed by the coal-dust, and went off to work.

At the age of twelve Morozka had learnt to get up when the whistle went, to push the trucks, to speak unnecessary words, and filthy words, too, and to drink vodka. There were at least as many drinking-shops in the neighbourhood of the Sutchansk mines as there were pile-engines.

At two hundred yards from the pit the valley ended and the volcanic hills began. From there old fir trees, covered with lichens, looked down frowningly on the straggling village. In the grey misty mornings the deer of the taiga{1} tried to drown the noise of the whistles. Over the steep paths in the bluish passes of the hills, along the whole length of the track, the trucks loaded with coal crawled day after day towards the Kangaiuz station. On the ridges, the windlasses, black with fuel oil, trembling in continuous tension, wound their greasy cables. At the foot of the steep paths, among the scented firs, stood the brick buildings, intruders upon the scene; men worked, not knowing for whom; the little railway engines sang; the electric elevators hummed.

Truly, life was gay.

In this sort of existence Morozka did not seek new ways, but followed the paths which had been safely trodden by generations before him. When the time came he bought a satin shirt and topboots of leather, and, during holidays, started to walk to the village in the plain. There, with other youths, he played the accordion, fought with his friends, sang smutty songs and debauched the village girls.

On the way back, the people of the mine stole little cucumbers from the water-melon fields and bathed in the mountain torrent. Their shrill, joyful voices awakened the forest; the waning moon watched them with envy from behind the hill; from the river floated the warm damp night air.

When the time came Morozka was put into a foul police-station smelling of dirty stockings and bugs. This happened at the worst point of the April strike, when the underground water, muddy like the tears of the blind pit ponies, trickled day and night through the wooden props of the pit and there was nobody to pump it out.

He was locked up, not at all because he had done anything extraordinary, but simply because he was known as a chatterer; they hoped to frighten him and to get from him the names of the leaders of the strike. Sitting in the evil-smelling cell with a number of men imprisoned for smuggling spirits, Morozka told them an incredible assortment of filthy stories, but did not betray the strike-leaders.

Again, when the time came he went to the front. They put him into the cavalry. There he learnt, like everybody else, to look down contemptuously on the foot-sloggers. He was wounded six times, suffered twice from concussion, and was discharged with a clean sheet before the Revolution.

Having returned home, he drank steadily for a fortnight and then married a worthy creature, a loose woman, though sterile, who worked at the pump at No. 1 Pit. He did everything without premeditation; life seemed to him quite simple, not in the least perplexing; it was something to be enjoyed like a fine cucumber stolen from a kitchen-garden in Sutschansk.

It was perhaps in some such frame of mind that he went away in 1918, taking his wife with him, to defend the Soviets.

At any rate, it was from that time that work in the pit was no longer open to him. The local Soviets had failed to maintain themselves in power, and the new authorities were not particularly enthusiastic about fellows of his type.

* * * * *

Mishka stamped his iron-shodded feet in fury. The orange gadflies were buzzing maddeningly round his ears, imprisoned in his shaggy hair, biting until the blood came.

Morozka rode into the Sviaginsk sector. Behind the bright green hill, which was covered with hazel trees, the river Krylovka lay hidden; Shaldiba’s company was encamped there.

Vss…Vss… sang the unrelenting gadflies.

A strange sound, as of something bursting, broke and rumbled behind the hill. Then came a second, a third—as if a wild beast had torn off its chain and was tearing to pieces the prickly bushes.

Easy there! said Morozka, gently pulling in the reins.

Mishka obediently stood motionless, stiffening his muscular frame.

Can you hear? They’re firing! the orderly murmured in excitement, drawing himself upright. They’re firing! Yes.…

Ta-ta-ta, barked the machine-guns behind the hill, as if sewing together with threads of fire the deafening sounds of the guns and the sharp, clear crackle of the Japanese rifles.

Forward! Morozka shouted in a voice tense with emotion.

His toes instinctively sought the stirrups; with trembling fingers he undid the holster of his revolver, while Mishka leaped towards the summit through the sounding bushes.

At a short distance from the hill-crest Morozka abruptly reined in the horse.

Wait! he said, jumping to the ground and throwing the reins over the saddle. Mishka, faithful slave, did not need to be tied up.

Morozka crept on all fours towards the crest. To the right, on the other side of the river Krylovka, advancing in perfect formation, as though on parade, came waves of small figures, all of them marvellously alike, with green and yellow bands on their caps. To the left, disorderly groups of panic-stricken men ran in wild confusion through the golden-bearded barley, firing wildly as they retreated. The infuriated Shaldiba (Morozka recognised him by his shining black horse and the pointed crown of his Cossack hat) lashed his whip in all directions, without stemming the retreat. Some of the men could be seen stealthily tearing the red ribbons from their uniform as they ran.

Swine! What are they doing—what the devil are they doing? Morozka muttered, more and more excited by the firing.

In the last group of the panic-stricken men a slight young fellow, his head tied up in a handkerchief, wearing a queer townish jacket, hobbled along, trailing his rifle clumsily. The rest, it seemed, tried to keep pace with him, unwilling to leave him behind. But the group quickly scattered, and the young fellow with the white bandage fell. He was not dead, however; several times he tried to get up and crawl along, stretching out his arms and shouting something that could not be distinguished. The men ran faster, leaving him behind, and without looking back.

The swine!…what are they doing? Morozka repeated, nervously clutching the damp revolver.

Mishka, here! he shouted suddenly in a voice which was no longer his own.

Scratched and bleeding, the colt, dilating its nostrils widely, neighed quietly and bounded up the slope.

In a few seconds, poised like a bird in flight, Morozka was racing over the field of barley. Over his head flew other gadflies—gadflies of lead and fire—hissing angrily. The horse’s back seemed to fly over an abyss, the barley whistled under its feet.

Lie down! Morozka shouted, throwing the reins on one side, and madly spurred the colt with one foot.

Mishka did not want to lie down under the bullets, but pranced on all fours around the upturned groaning figure with the bloodstained bandage on its head.

Lie down! Morozka snarled, getting madder, tearing the horse’s lips with a jerk of the bit.

Bending his knees, which trembled with fright, Mishka sank to the ground.

It hurts…God, how it hurts! the wounded man groaned as the orderly threw him across the saddle. The fellow’s face was pale, beardless and genteel, although it was smothered in blood.

Shut up, you sniveller! Morozka hissed.

In a few minutes, the reins slackened, supporting his burden with both arms, he was galloping round the hill to the village where Levinson’s company was stationed.

Chapter II—METCHIK

To tell the truth, from the first glance Morozka had failed to be impressed by the creature he had rescued.

Morozka had no love for clean, genteel people. In his experience they were unreliable good-for-nothings whom one couldn’t trust in the very least. Besides, the wounded man had shown himself from the first moment pretty faint-hearted.

Chicken! the orderly murmured scornfully through his teeth when the unconscious youth was laid on a bunk in Riabetz’s cottage. He’s been scratched, and he’s gone quite soft.

Morozka wanted to say something very derisive, but he couldn’t think of the right words.

Of course—snotty nose! he eventually brought out in an exasperated voice.

Stop that! Levinson cut in sharply. Baklanov!…Tonight you’ll carry this lad to the hospital.

The fellow’s wounds were dressed. In the side-pocket of his jacket they found a little money, papers (name—Pavel Metchik), a bundle of letters and the photograph of a young girl.

A score of men, all surly, unshaven, black with sunburn, examined in turn the girl’s gentle face, set off by fair curls. Disconcerted, they put the photograph back in its place. The wounded man lay unconscious, his lips fixed and bloodless, his lifeless hands stretched out on the blanket.

He did not feel how they carried him out of the village in the sultry purple-grey evening on a jolting cart; he reached consciousness only on the litter. The first sensation of a smooth swinging movement was joined with the consciousness, equally faint and distant, of a starry sky swinging over his head. On all sides he was surrounded by thick, eyeless darkness; strong and clean, as though distilled in alcohol, the smell of pine needles and decaying leaves was carried to him through the darkness.

He was filled with tender gratitude to the people who were carrying him so gently and with so much care. He wanted to talk to them; he moved his lips and, saying nothing, relapsed into unconsciousness again.

When he regained consciousness for the second time it was already day. An opulent and idle sun