Gary Kern - Zamyatin's We - A Collection of Critical Essays-Ardis (1988) PDF

ZAMYATIN’S WE
A Collection of Critical Essay

Edited & Introduced by Gary Kern
Ardis, Ann Arbor

Gary Kern, Zamyatin's We
Copyright © 1988 by Ardis Publishers
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Printed in the United States of America
Ardis Publishers
2901 Heatherway
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Zamiatin's We.
Bibliography: p.
1. Zamiatin, Evgenii Ivanovich, 1884-1937. My.
1. Kern, Gary.
PG3476.Z34M938 1988 891.73’42 88-3502
ISBN 0-88233-804-8 (alk. paper)
Contents
Introduction 9
I. THE SOVIET VIEW 23
1. Alexander Voronsky: Evgeny Zamyatin 25
2. Viktor Shklovsky: Evgeny Zamyatin’s Ceiling 49
3. M. M. Kuznetsov: Evgeny Zamyatin 51
4. O. N. Mikhailov: Zamyatin 56
II. MYTHIC CRITICISM 59
5. Richard A. Gregg: Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal Palace:

Dostoevsky, the Bible, and We 61
6. Christopher Collins: Zamyatin’s We as Myth 70
7. Owen Ulph: I-330: Reconsiderations on the Sex of Satan 80
III. AESTHETICS 93
8. Carl R. Proffer: Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin’s We 95
9. Ray Parrott: The Eye in We 106
10. Gary Kern: Zamyatin’s Stylization 118
11. Milton Ehre: Zamyatin’s Aesthetics 130
12. Susan Layton: Zamyatin and Literary Modernism 140

13. Leighton Brett Cooke: Ancient and Modern Mathematics in
Zamyatin's We 149
IV. INFLUENCES AND COMPARISONS 169
14. Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor: A Neglected Source of Zamyatin’s

We 171
Addendum: “The New Utopia” by Jerome K. Jerome 173
15. Kathleen Lewis & Harry Weber: Zamyatin’s We, the Proletarian
Poets and Bogdanov’s Red Star 186
16. E. J. Brown: Brave New World, 1984 & We: An Essay on

Anti-Utopia 209
17. John J. White: Mathematical Imagery in Musil’s Young Törless

and Zamyatin's We 228
18. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.: Zamyatin and the Strugatskys: The

Representation of Freedom in We and The Snail on the
Slope 236
New Zamyatin Materials: 261
1. The Presentists (1918) 263
2. Four Letters to Lev Lunts (1923-24) 266
3. A Letter from Ilya Ehrenburg (1926) 272
4. Excerpts from Unpublished Letters to his Wife (1929-30) 273
5. The Modern Russian Theater (1931) 277
6. The Future of the Theater (1931) 290
7. Auto-Interview (1932) 295
Sources 301
Bibliography for Further Reading 305

Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications for

permission to reprint copyright material:
Slavic Review: Richard A. Gregg, “Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal
Palace: Dostoevsky, the Bible, and We” (No. 4, 1965).
Slavic and East European Journal: Carl R. Proffer, “Notes on the Imag
ery in Zamjatin's We” (No. 3, 1963); Milton Ehre, “Zamjatin’s
Aesthetics” (No. 3, 1975); Susan Layton, "Zamjatin and Literary
Modernism” (No. 3, 1973); Christopher Collins, “Zamjatin’s We as
Myth” (No. 2, 1966).
Comparative Literature: John J. White, “Mathematical Imagery in

Musil’s Young Törless and Zamyatin’s We” XVIII (1966).
Russian Review: Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor, “A Neglected Source of

Zamiatin’s Novel ‘We’” (No. 2, 1973).
Other published essays and materials first appeared in Russian

Literature Triquarterly, published by Ardis. All sources are listed at the
back of the book.
INTRODUCTION
THE ULTIMATE ANTI-UTOPIA
Nearly seven decades since it was written, the novel We (Russian

title, My) remains an exciting and influential work of science fiction,
political satire and experimental prose. Its basic plot, whereby a true
believer comes to question the validity of a totalitarian state and thus to
transform it from a utopia into an anti-utopia, has been repeated by
Aldous Huxley (coincidentally) in Brave New World (1932), George
Orwell (consciously) in Nineteen Eighty Four (1948) and dozens of
writers and film-makers (unknowingly) in the fifties, sixties and
seventies; yet its artistry, prophetic power and underlying philosophy
remain unsurpassed. Although it makes a statement against the perma
nence of any human achievement, We has established itself as the
most significant anti-utopian novel of the century.
Zamyatin finished the novel in 1920 and sent it the next year to the
Grzhebin House in Berlin, which published books simultaneously in
Germany and Russia. In Petrograd (later Leningrad), the work became
known to fellow writers by means of author’s readings, such as the one
Zamyatin gave the Union of Writers in 1924. Publication was
announced, but never realized in Russia: the book has the distinction of
being the first novel banned by the Glavlit (Chief Administration for
Literary Affairs), established in 1922. As this censorship board was
understood at that time to be a prophylactic rather than corrective
device—to block publication of pornography and works of an overtly
counterrevolutionary nature, there can be no doubt about the reception
of We by Soviet officialdom. It was little short of treason. For this reason
the first publication was in English, in a translation by Gregory Zilboorg
in 1924. Three years later, when the book was considered for transla
tion into Czech, Marc Slonim, then the editor of Volia Rossii, a Russian
emigre journal in Prague, obtained the original and published it, palm
ing it off as a translation into Russian from Czech. (He tried to mask the
original by changing some words.) This foreign publication provided the
basis for attacks on Zamyatin at home as an anti-Soviet writer. He was
vilified in the press, and his books and plays were banned.
Zamyatin answered the charges point for point with customary
9
10 Introduction
frankness and irony in a letter to the Union of Writers, and resigned

from the chairmanship of the Leningrad branch. But he had to recog
nize that the “death sentence” for a writer—not to be able to write—had
been passed upon him. The systematic newspaper campaigns and the
ban on publication made continued creative activity in Russia
unthinkable. He therefore took the bold step of writing directly to Stalin,
as did Mikhail Bulgakov at about the same time. Acknowledging his
“very inconvenient habit of saying not what is expedient at a given
moment, but what strikes me as the truth,” Zamyatin asked to be de
ported from the country. With Maxim Gorky’s intercession, Zamyatin
and his wife were permitted to emigrate to Paris. Once abroad, he
shunned emigre circles, wrote interesting articles on the theater and a
few film scenarios (including one of We), and, like so many emigres,
hoped to return to his homeland. Zamyatin died in March, 1937. His
death went unmentioned in the Soviet press, and his funeral was
attended by only a few friends.
Texts
The original Russian manuscript of We has not come to light. In

1952 the Chekhov Publishing House of New York City brought out a
Russian-language edition, presumably based on the text sent to New
York in 1921 (by Zamyatin?) for an English translation. But if so, altera
tions of type styles, spellings and so on may still have been made.
Since the Czech publication was intentionally defaced, and in any event
is not readily available, the Chekhov edition has become the standard,
if not canonical, source for the original. (The 1967 Inter-Library Literary
Associates publication is simply a photocopy of the Chekhov edition.)
Possibly the author’s manuscript lies in a Soviet archive or in the estate
of Ludmilla Zamyatin awaiting the attention of a lucky textologist.
As of this writing, four English translations have appeared. The
first, the aforementioned effort of Zilboorg, was brought out by Dutton in
1924 and reprinted in 1952 with various covers. Dr. Zilboorg was an
interesting man who also translated Paracelsus from Old German; his
version of Zamyatin is accurate and retains some of the spirit of the
twenties, but today seems old-fashioned and lifeless. The translation by
Bernard Guilbert Guerney, included in An Anthology of Russian Litera
ture in the Soviet Period from Gorki to Pasternak (Vintage, 1960) and
republished separately (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), has much
more zip; it finds imaginative equivalents, invents words, uses different
print styles and even tosses in footnotes from a “Venusian
Introduction 11
investigator.” It best captures the hectic, mind-boggling pace of the

original, but is not very reliable for the purpose of literary analysis. This
distinction goes to the third translation, that by Mirra Ginsburg (Bantam,
1972), which steers a middle road between the stiffness of Zilboorg and
the excesses of Guerney. It is the most reliable for classroom use. A
new, fourth translation by S. D. Cioran was just published by Ardis in
Russian Literature of the 1920s (1987).
Plot
It is assumed that purchasers of the present book will be familiar

with the contents of We, but perhaps a plot synopsis will prove a useful
reminder. The chief characters are the following:
D503—engineer, builder of the spaceship Integral.

I-330—a leader of the revolutionary movement Mephi.
0-90—a sexual partner of D-503.
U—the controller at D-503’s apartment building.
R-13—a poet, D-503's friend.
S-4711—a Guardian interested in D-503.
Scissor-lips—a physician and co-conspirator with I-330.
The Benefactor—Head of the One State.
The action takes place in the thirtieth century, a thousand years

after the world has been subjugated to the rule of the single state and
human life in all its particulars has come to be regulated by scientific
reason. This reason is manifested in the omnipotence of "The One
State,” guided by the omniscience of the one man, the "Benefactor.”
One of the instruments of control, the “Table of Hourly
Commandments,” schedules the daily activities of waking, working,
eating, defecation, sleep, and is understood as the mathematical
guarantee of happiness. For a person to be happy, it is reasoned, "the
denominator in the fraction of happiness. . . [must be] reduced to zero,”
that is, freedom must be eliminated. Freedom is seen as the slow
murder of a society, mathematically much worse than the physical
murder of one man. With freedom standing at zero, there is no
inequality, no reason for envy, and the nominator—namely, whatever
the state permits—becomes infinite by comparison. Thus the rule of the
One State obtains divine force.
So that this happiness not be threatened by freedom, all houses
are made of glass. This facilitates the work of the “Bureau of
Guardians,” special agents who watch the citizens to ensure their unin-
12 Introduction
terrupted tranquility. All work is performed as a group activity, and all

group activities are regimented to ensure unanimity of thought and
action. The organization “splits into separate cells” only twice a day,
when citizens may stay alone at home. The Table of Hourly Command
ments allows for this by scheduling sexual activity on certain days at
this time. Each male citizen, designated by a consonant and odd num
ber at birth instead of by a name, may draw a ticket for any available
vowel and even number, i.e., female citizen, for use at this time. Only on
“Sexual Days,” during the “Personal Hours,” may shades be drawn in
the glass houses. Parenthood, as well as love, obtains a mathematical
basis with the “Maternal and Paternal Norms.” The Personal Hours,
however, are felt to be a flaw in the equation of happiness, conducive to
anxiety, and at the beginning of the account it is hoped that eventually
every second of every citizen’s existence will be planned by the One
State.
The thoughts of the numbers are protected by the one newspaper,
“The State Gazette,” and “The Institute of the State Poets and Writers,”
both of which glorify the One State and the Benefactor. The One State
itself, situated in an undefined area of the globe, is protected from the
vicissitudes of weather by a glass dome and a glass wall, beyond which
nature still exists in a savage state.
The story is told by the diary of D-503. His first entry explains that
he is the chief engineer in the construction of a spaceship designed to
carry the message of reason to other worlds. His diary is in fact part of
the cargo. Addressing his unknown readers, D-503 compares the life in
the One State with that of ancient times (i.e., our own). He demons
trates the superior quality of the Table of Hourly Commandments over
the apex of ancient literature, “The Time Table of All the Railroads,”
and marvels that people once lived chaotically, without obligatory
walks, without predetermined sexual hours. “Like beasts, they bore
offspring blindly. Isn’t it ludicrous—to know horticulture, poultry culture,
pisciculture . . . and yet to be unable to reach the last rung of this logical
ladder: pediculture. To be unable to think out the logical conclusions:
our Maternal and Paternal Norms.” Explaining the origin of the One
State, D-503 tells of a two-hundred year war and the development of a
new naphtha food which eradicated 99.8% of the world population: “But
then, cleansed of its millennial filth, how shining the face of the earth
became."
D-503’s satisfaction with the One State is challenged by the
appearance of I-330, a disturbing woman with disturbing ideas. Her
black clothing of a former time, her smoking, her preference for the
music of ancient composers over that produced by the state
Introduction 13
music-making boxes, and especially her sarcastic manner excite un

familiar sensations in the mathematician. He becomes reflective, ex
periences the ancient disorder of dreams, commits the crime of not
sleeping and even wonders if his knowledge is only faith. At first he is
reassured by the warm breath of the Guardian Angel on the back of his
neck, but day by day he falls deeper into doubt. Even his mathematical
certainty—“Eternally in love are two times two, forever combined in a
passionate four”—is upset by the notion of irrational numbers, suggest
ing an unknown chasm into which he is falling. At last he understands
that he is in love with I-330 and is afflicted with the disease of having a
soul.
After an unprecedented demonstration of opposition at the "Day of
Unanimity” (the traditional re-election of the Benefactor), I-330 takes
D-503 beyond the Green Wall, where he sees primitive people and
learns of the revolutionary movement. This sets the stage for the main
philosophical statement of the novel:
“There can't be a revolution ... our revolution ... was the last."
“My dear, you’re a mathematician ... Name the last number for me."
"... That's absurd. Since the number of numbers is infinite, why would you
want the last?"
"Well, and why would you want the last revolution? There is no last, revolutions
are infinite."
The revolutionary attempt to seize the spaceship fails, but D-503 is

not implicated. As the epidemic of the soul spreads, the Medical Bureau
perfects a device to remove the faculty of imagination—the last obsta
cle to complete happiness. The operation becomes mandatory for all
numbers under penalty of liquidation by the “Machine of the
Benefactor.” After painful hesitation, D-503 submits to the
“fantasiectomy” and betrays his former lover. I-330 is tortured and
sentenced to the Machine. D-503, returned to the fold, regrets the
revolution and ends as he began: “And I hope—we will conquer. More: I
am certain—we shall conquer. For reason should conquer.”
Within this plot, there are numerous subplots and subtleties. For
example, one can follow the spread of the soul “epidemic” to other
characters in contact with the love-smitten D-503: 0-90 falls in love with
him, becomes jealous of I-330 and illegally conceives a child by him; U
secretly reads his diary, falls in love with him and informs on the other
revolutionaries, thus affecting the outcome of the story. One can ex
plore the contrast between illusion and reality—D-503’s initial under
standing of the state and the revolutionary movement, and his ultimate
realization that he has been used by both. One can trace at least three
14 Introduction
levels of time in the diary: 1) the present tense—the story as it unfolds,

2) the future tense—the world lying one thousand years ahead, 3) the
past tense—the story of conversion and brainwashing completed, the
diary sent back through time from the 30th century to our own 20th
century.
Interpretations
One of the marks of a great book is its susceptibility to many levels

of interpretation, all apparently valid and convincing. We is such a book.
It has been analyzed by American Slavists perhaps more than any
other modern Russian novel; it has been picked to pieces by different,
sometimes antithetical methods; yet it always holds up. Its appeal is not
limited to Russian studies: We is commonly assigned in courses of
political science, history, science fiction, utopian literature, and so on. In
the classroom, it can be depended upon to excite students as few other
books. First contact with We is invariably thrilling: the reader feels chal
lenged and compelled to make his own analysis, often repeating
observations printed in scholarly journals unknown to him.
For this reason professors habitually photocopy one or two articles
on We for their students. Such articles serve to refine the initial analy
ses and to stimulate further discussion. This long-standing practice has
inspired the present collection, which brings together the best of the old
articles, some of the more exciting recent articles and a few other things
as well. The intention is to provide a handy sourcebook for interpreta
tions of Zamyatin—for professors, students and readers in the general
public who explore on their own.
The Soviet treatment of We is unfortunate, but instructive. Since
the novel was banned in 1922, later critics were reluctant to show any
familiarity with the original text. Instead, they relied on an essay written
by Alexander Voronsky, editor of the first state-sponsored
cultural-literary journal, Red Virgin Soil, and published in Moscow in
1922. Voronsky is generally regarded as a “moderate” Marxist critic of
the twenties, but even so it is clear from the essay that with him ideolo
gy came first and literary analysis second. In the essay, he delivers a
bitter denunciation of Zamyatin’s life and work, but also cites long por
tions of the novel. The historical respectability of Red Virgin Soil and
Voronsky’s negative assessment of Zamyatin made this essay the ideal
source for subsequent critics. They, in effect, implied that it was proper
for Voronsky to read and interpret the work in his time, but no one
afterwards should dare touch the poisonous thing. While seconding
Introduction 15
Voronsky, they avoided mention of the fact that he had been sent to
Siberia and perished in the purges. He was, however, posthumously
rehabilitated, and to stress the importance of his essay, the Soviet
publishing houses began to reprint it in 1963. It has not yet been sup
planted by anything new during glasnost. The complete essay is in
cluded here in an accurate English translation.
Also included from the Soviet side are a sort of off-beat piece by
Viktor Shklovsky, actually a critic very close to Zamyatin, but at that
time in the process of making amends with the Soviet government, and
two accounts from the sixties, interesting for their slight departures from
Voronsky. Notes at the back of the book spell out these particulars.
On the Western side, no single approach is dominant. Rather, as
already suggested, a profusion of interests and methods prevails. Re
lying on what seem to me the chief aims, I have collected articles into
three categories, admittedly rather loose. The first, “Mythic criticism,”
embraces the concerns of myth, religion and psychology. The second,
“aesthetics,” focuses on analysis of themes, structures and devices.
The last, “influence and comparisons,” explores influence on Zamyatin,
coincidental expressions in other writers and Zamyatin’s influence on
others. The essays are included in their entirety, which produces much
overlapping, but also permits one to dip into the volume wherever he
chooses and to read the articles in whatever order serves best.
Zamyatin was not known to have made any special study of
psychology, though he could not have failed to observe the European
fascination with Freud during his stays in Germany and England. It
seems fairly certain that he was unfamiliar with Jung’s works, which
were not yet famous in Europe and virtually unknown in Russia.
Nevertheless, We is as much a model of Jungian psychology as Her
mann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, written in 1927 under the direct influence
of Jung. This can be explained only by the fact that Zamyatin drew on
the same psychic forces that Jung described. In Jungian terms, the
hero of We is immediately recognizable as the persona—that aspect of
the psyche which conforms to society, adheres to conventions, follows
reason, presents a good face. I-330 appears as his anima, the hidden
female side of this blocked personality, the source of spontaneity,
irrationality, passions, dreams, love. It is she who awakens the
unconscious. Thus aroused, D-503 discovers a wild, violent self, an
impetuous, hairy-handed beast—his shadow. This process of
awakening, which all men must confront or avoid, is what Jung called
individuation, the discovery and conscious integration of the self
within—the discovery of one’s soul. With Jung the proper outcome of
this process is a self-sufficient and creative personality, but in the novel
16 Introduction
it is subverted by D-503’s fantasiectomy—with a definite artistic impact.

The first critic to take up this line of interpretation is Christopher Collins,
whose article “Zamyatin’s We as Myth” is included here.
Both Jung and Zamyatin turn naturally to myth for the story of
conscious awakening—Adam and Eve. D-503 assumes the role of
Adam, I-330—Eve; she seduces him and takes him beyond the wall
surrounding a paradise of unconscious happiness. The article which
first examined the Adam-Eve premises of We—regarded as a classic
by Zamyatin scholars—is Richard A. Gregg’s “Two Adams and Eve in
the Crystal Palace: Dostoevsky, the Bible and We.” Its decoding of the
characters’ names (or rather, designations) gives proof of the author’s
and the critic’s devilish cleverness. A more recent look at the psycholo
gical underpinnings of We, Owen Ulph's “I-330: Reconsiderations on
the Sex of Satan,” drops the expected tone of scholarly respectability
and plunges lustily into the heart of delicious sado-masochism. As with
Nabokov, Zamyatin has the fire to ignite not only the critic’s literary
interest, but his whole mind.
Slavic studies in the sixties were largely concerned with the twen
ties of Russian literature: this was still pretty much virgin territory, barely
touched by translators and critics. While the classics of the nineteenth
century were world famous and well worked by the previous generation
of scholars, graduate students in the sixties, by turning to the early
post-revolutionary literature of Russia, could discover exciting works
and authors totally unknown to the general public. (At the same time in
the Soviet Union a period of relaxed controls produced the "discovery”
and publications of Bulgakov, Platonov, Zoshchenko, Mandelstam,
etc.) One result of this development was the founding of Ardis, an
American publishing enterprise devoted to Russian literature, which set
off a veritable explosion of translations, articles and even first publica
tions of original texts forty years old. Another was the phenomenal
impact of Russian Formalism on students at this time. Nearly everyone
was infected by it, and its influence endures to the present day.
Reasons both intrinsic and extrinsic account for this. For the first, For
malism offers a ready tool for literary analysis; the young scholar does
not require the forbidding and sometimes fuzzy erudition of his profes
sors in order to discuss the works he admires. With care and practice,
he can pick a work apart and examine its components with precision
and authority. For the second, the method fills up space and time; it
enables the student to write his paper almost automatically, and the
novice professor to explicate his text through the full hour. Its virtue lies
in its avoidance of pompous statements of philosophy, religion or
politics; its vice lies in relegating these concerns to the unspeakable,
Introduction 17
often categorizing the most heartfelt passages of a literary work as

“padding,” “suspenseful retardation of plot” or “insertion of social
material.” In short, Formalism in the sixties and beyond contains the
same virtues and vices as it did in the twenties.
Most of the articles gathered here under the rubric "Aesthetics” are
touched to a greater or lesser degree by the Formalist persuasion.
Their chief concern is the structural make-up of We. Accordingly, the
early “Notes on the Imagery of We” by Carl Proffer looks at the color
yellow through the novel. Ray Parrott looks at the eye as a basic image;
he counts 160 instances of its usage. I attempt to break Zamyatin’s
style down into language, imagery and theme. Milton Ehre takes on the
task of describing Zamyatin’s aesthetic system. Susan Layton seeks
out the elements of Zamyatin’s “Neorealism.” Leighton Brett Cooke
makes a thorough investigation of the mathematical images and argu
ments of the novel. All these individual approaches demonstrate that
We achieved a complexity whereby the reader can take one perspec
tive as his point of departure and profitably carry it through the whole
work. As the Formalists were fond of saying, the "thing” became
“organic.”
Zamyatin was very well-read in Russian and foreign literature, par
ticularly English. As the most talented essayist of post-revolutionary
Russia, he naturally wrote about his reading, again providing material
for the study of his novel. On the Russian side, critics usually name
Gogol, Leskov, Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground, The Grand
Inquisitor), Remizov, Belyi (Petersburg), Bogdanov (Red Star) as
influences. Zamyatin’s own “English works” should not be neglected:
The Islanders (a novel), Fisher of Men (a story), The Society of Honor
able Bell Ringers (a play)—these lampooned English stuffiness and
sanctimony. Of foreign writers, Zamyatin admired Anatole France, Jack
London, O. Henry and most of all H.G. Wells (The Time Machine, When
the Sleeper Awakes); he wrote superb essays on each of these men.
Zamyatin was an outstanding figure in post-revolutionary Russia who
by his lectures, literary studies and creative works influenced a whole
generation of writers, in particular, the Serapion Brothers, Boris Pilnyak,
Andrei Sobol, Yury Olesha. Despite the long interdiction against his
works, his influence can be felt in the reawakened Russian fantasy of
the sixties, particularly Abram Tertz (Andrei Sinyavsky), Vladimir Voino
vich and the Strugatsky brothers. His influence in the West is
widespread, but most often indirect—by way of Orwell.
The articles in the last section of this collection look into the matter
of influences and coincidences—such as the mathematical images in
Musil’s novel Young Törless. They perform the useful service of proving
18 Introduction
Zamyatin’s kinship with other works by their wide and careful readings.
While all credit Zamyatin with creating a seminal work of fiction, one or
another of them takes a surprisingly critical approach to him. Contrary
to Soviet aspersions, Western critics are not necessarily enamoured of
Zamyatin’s philosophy and blinded by it to the quality of his artistic
work. Certainly the most formidable assault on Zamyatin’s outlook is to
be found not in Voronsky or later Soviet critics, who indulge in ideologic
al invective, but in the essay by the dean of American Soviet Russian
literary studies and longtime admirer of Zamyatin’s works: "Brave New
World, 1984, and We: An Essay on Anti-Utopia” by Edward J. Brown.
Contradicting almost all previous writing on Zamyatin, Brown asserts
that the writer did not look to the future, but to the past. He consistently
repudiated the city as a desirable place to live and found his preferred
subjects in "the pre-civilized and the primitive." The hero and heroine of
We try to escape the "conventions of their time” by running beyond the
wall to primitive hairy creatures. Furthermore, Brown states, Zamyatin
was not an original thinker: his thought is “a mixture of his basic roman
ticism with modern scientific vocabulary and Hegelian dialectics,” the
latter being picked up as part and parcel of his time. Brown regards
Zamyatin’s philosophy as an "artificial intellectual superstructure" de
signed to protect writers against the demand to take a definite ideolo
gical position. Zamyatin’s merit lies not in his philosophy, but entirely in
his art.
In one way, this essay is consistent with Zamyatin’s thought: it is
heretical and disruptive of previous thinking. But to my mind it is too
literal. The flight beyond the Green Wall is not the goal: the point is to
bring nature into the city. Besides, the flight is symbolic: not a return to
the ape, but to the unconscious, which lives not only in the past, but
also in the present, and points the way to the future. Zamyatin did not
reject the city, but its pernicious aspects—its impersonal structures and
dehumanizing routines. And he never advocated the simple country life
or the ideal village commune—he ridiculed them. Finally, Zamyatin as a
thinker did pick up from Hegel, as did Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkegaard,
Bergson et al., but was not unoriginal for all that. Although he could
hardly be expected to rework Hegel as thoroughly as the great
philosophers, he did make a significant innovation in the dialectic, both
in his fiction and exposition: he remained dialectical.
Zamyatin took Marx at his word. If we must "contemplate every
accomplished form in its movement, that is, as something transitory”
(Marx), then a final solution to the problems of social structure,
government, justice and happiness cannot be achieved. There will be
no final synthesis in which all existence achieves self-consciousness
Introduction 19
and God contemplates Himself (Hegel), nor will a dictatorship of the

proletariat eliminate class distinctions, cause the state to wither and
Beget a final communist society (Marx).. Zamyatin had the courage after
the revolution to remain a revolutionary, to deny utopian solutions,’ to
regard established truths as transitory. All truths will pass: “Truth is a
thought suffering from arteriosclerosis.” It is this simple, but fun
damental innovation in dialectical thinking which immunized some wri
ters against dogmatism in the twenties and which excites the minds of
readers today. Also, paradoxically, it locates a single sure outlook in a
whirlwind of change, just like the maxim of Heraclitus—“All flows,”
which has yet to be refuted.
Ideology
Whatever one's interest in We, it is impossible to ignore its

ideology. Zamyatin was arrested in 1905 for his involvement in the
revolutionary movement. He was a Bolshevik at the time. After seven
months' solitary confinement in a prison in Petersburg, he was exiled to
his native town of Lebedyan, where the stillness began to weigh on him.
Returned to Petersburg, he completed courses in the Polytechnic Insti
tute and travelled through Russia building ships. At the same time he
began to write stories, and by 1911 felt he had found himself. Two years
later he and his publishers were arrested and tried in court for his story
A God-Forsaken Hole (Na kulichkakh), a satire of garrison life in the
sticks. In March 1916 he went to England to supervise the building of
Russian ice-breakers. While bombs were falling from German
zeppelins, Zamyatin was busy writing his satire of English conformity,
The Islanders. News of the February Revolution in Russia changed all
his plans, and he hastened to return home, finding passage on a rickety
ship only by September 1917. Present for the October Revolution,
Zamyatin elected to stay and work with the new government, simul
taneously teaching courses in shipbuilding and prose writing. As an
“expert,” he was active in numerous state-sponsored cultural
enterprises, but was now a “Fellow-Traveller”—no longer a Bolshevik.
In 1922, Zamyatin was arrested and placed in solitary confinement,
again in the same prison and cell block as in 1905. Then he was exiled.
Details about the incident are skimpy, but it seems highly likely that We
played its part. Zamyatin returned to Petrograd-Leningrad and con
tinued to work there until compelled to address his letter to Stalin. From
this sketch of his career, it is clear that he took a critical view of whatev-
20 Introduction
er society he happened to be in. Pre-revolutionary Russia, wartime

England, post-revolutionary Russia—each began to bore him.
Zamyatin wrote his credo in the essay of 1918, “Are They
Scythians?”:
The lot of the true Scythian is the thorns of the vanquished. His faith is heresy. His
destiny is the destiny of Ahasuerus. His work is not for the near, but for the distant
future. And this work has at all times, under the laws of all the monarchies and
republics, including the Soviet republic, been rewarded only with a lodging at gov
ernment expense—prison.
(Translated by Mirra Ginsburg in A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny
Zamyatin, University of Chicago, 1970, p. 23.)
Ever alert to the first signs of monolithic thought, Zamyatin reacted

quickly to the new mores and institutions of the first Marxist state in
history. By reducing them to their essence and extending them ad
absurdem, he not only subjected them to ridicule, but in a sense pre
dicted the future. We accurately presages Stalin’s cult of personality
(“the Benefactor”), Pravda’s monopoly on truth (“the State Gazette”),
the travesty of one-party voting (“the Day of Unanimity”), the control of
literature (“the State Union of Poets and Writers”) and the Iron Curtain
(or Berlin Wall), beyond which one is not allowed to go ("the Green
Wall”). Some of Zamyatin’s predictions did not come to pass in the
Soviet Union, such as the “Sexual Hours”—the twenties were rife with
free-love theories, but Stalin enforced state marriage and puritanical
relations, at least officially. Readers can gauge how well “pediculture”
has been realized by Soviet child-care centers and schools. Or how
well “fantasiectomy” has been realized in Soviet psychoprisons,
euphemized as “Special Psychiatric Hospitals.”
Probably it is not these shots, damaging as they are, which prevent
the publication of We in the USSR. Soviet critics could dismiss them as
peculiarities of the time, or find parallels in American history—for
example, the spread of cults from the Oneida Community to Jonestown.
Indeed, some of Zamyatin’s predictions more accurately hit our society:
for the State Music Plant and music-making machines, we have the
inescapable Muzak or soft rock in store, elevator and telephone
on-hold; and for Sexual Hours, we have computerized dating and per
sonal listings in porno sheets. As for bugging devices, it’s a toss-up
who’s ahead. So rather it must be the ideological argument, the denial
of a final revolution and a final truth, which is intolerable to the Soviet
power. Were We published in the USSR, it would hardly cause a mass
revolution, but it might start a little revolution in the mind of each reader.
Thus it acts as a litmus test. So long as it is banned, all talk of freedom
Introduction 21
of speech and thought in the USSR must be regarded as sham. If ever it

is allowed, we might pay attention to such talk—and expect the publica
tion of Trotsky, Freud, Jung, Kierkegaard, all non-Marxist philosophers,
all novelists, all poets.
Little Details
Zamyatin’s name may be transliterated in three ways: Evgeny

Zamyatin, Evgenii Zamiatin, Evgenij Zamjatin. This book uses the first
in the text of the essays, but may use the second in footnotes when
referring to Russian-language publications. The third may also appear
in footnotes when it is in the original title of a publication. The first name
Yevgeny or Eugene may also appear in such instances.
The first entry of D-503 (fourth sentence of the novel) declares that
the One State was founded a thousand years previous. In the third
entry (third sentence), D-503 addresses the reader who may have only
reached the stage of civilization 900 years previous. Thus some critics
remark that the novel is set in the 29th century, others—in the 30th
century. There are also articles which refer to other centuries, not in
cluded here.
It seemed opportune on this occasion to collect a number of
Zamyatin materials which have come to light in recent years, even
though they may not always touch on the novel. As with the collected
articles, it would be a shame for them to remain scattered.
G. K.
THE SOVIET VIEW
EVGENY ZAMYATIN1
Alexander Voronsky
The example of Zamyatin excellently confirms the truth that talent

and intellect, however much a writer might be endowed with them, are
insufficient if he has lost contact with his epoch, if his inner sensitivity
has betrayed him, and in the midst of contemporaneity the artist or
thinker feels as though he were a passenger on a ship, or a tourist,
looking around with animosity and impatience.
With the appearance of A Tale of the Provinces (Uezdnoe) in 1913
Zamyatin immediately took a place among the prominent masters of the
word. A Tale of the Provinces portrays our pre-revolutionary tsarist
provinces with their sleepy, comfortable, fertile, serious, thrifty, devout
inhabitants. A Tale of the Provinces is well known to the reader both
personally and through the peerless fictional models of the classics,
beginning with Gogol and ending with Gorky. The fragrant geranium,
the ficuses, the vicious watchdogs, the deadly nightshade, the
shamelessness, the stinking coziness, and the crude psychology have
been encountered time and again. Nevertheless, Zamyatin’s A Tale of
the Provinces is read with the most vivid attention and interest.
Zamyatin had already at that time become established as an exception
al enthusiast for and master of the word. His language is fresh, original,
and exact. It is partly folk skaz, stylized and modernized to be sure, and
partly the simple colloquial provincial speech of the suburbs, the out
lying districts, and the Rasteryaeva streets.2 In this fusion Zamyatin
created something his own, something individual. The spontaneity and
the epic quality of the narration are complicated by the ironic and satiric
al mood of the author. His skaz is not without reflection, and only
appears to come straightforward from the author: actually everything
here is written with a “trap,” and contains a hidden mockery, smirk, and
spite. This is why the epic quality of the skaz slips out and the work lives
and emerges into the realm of the contemporary and the topical. The
provinciality of the language is ennobled and well thought out. Above all
it serves vividness, freshness, and picturesqueness, and enriches the
25
26 Alexander Voronsky
language with words which have not become familiar or trite. It is as

though there were before you just-minted coins, and not worn, dull, and
long-circulated ones. Great austerity and economy. Nothing is said
rashly; everything is joined together; there are no gaps. From the point
of view of form the tale is like a monolith. Zamyatin had not yet lost
control of his enthusiasm for words, as he was to do in some of his later
works. There is no overloading, superfluous affectation, wordplay, liter
ary foppery, or sleight-of-hand. He reads easily and effortlessly, and
this does not at all hinder one’s becoming absorbed in the contents.
This is already a manifestation of the great ability of the artist to instill an
image in the memory with one stroke, with one touch of the brush.
Zamyatin did not give us any new characters, but something old
and familiar is rendered in a new and original light. The peaceful exist
ence of A Tale of the Provinces is embodied in the ripe and juicy figure
of Anfim Baryba. Before the eyes of the readers Anfim grows up from a
boy into a provincial village policeman. The road is long, difficult, and
rich in misadventures. Anfim is quadrangular. “Not for nothing did the
provincial lads call him a flat-iron. Heavy, iron jaws, a very wide quad
rangular mouth, and a narrow forehead: just like a flat-iron, with its point
turned up. And Baryba is all in all some sort of broad, unwieldly, lumber
ing creature, composed of rigid right angles.” The strong body of a
beast, the soul of a beast, and all concentrated on one thing: gorging
himself—for Anfim’s jaws easily crush stones into sand. They throw him
out of school; Baryba doesn’t go home, but settles in a cowshed, goes
hungry, steals, and winds up on this occasion in the hands of the
250-pound merchant’s wife, Chebotarikha. She, however, feels pity for
Baryba after seeing his beastlike body, and Baryba—not the Baryba
from the cowshed, but Chebotarikha’s right hand—has “boots like a
bottle, and a watch made of silvei,” and esteem from all—above all
from Chebotarikha herself, devout and insatiable at night. Happiness is
not long-lived, however. Chebotarikha drives Baryba out because of the
maid-servant Polka. Again the hungry life. But Baryba is a “tough
cookie.” The monk Evsei turns up. Baryba robs him, then is paid by the
provincial lawyer Morgunov to give false evidence in court. The tail-end
of the revolution of 1905 rolls into the god-forsaken little town. There is
expropriation, carried out by youths who manage to hide, with the ex
ception of one. And to the greater misfortune of the district police
officer, the colonel who arrives to judge him is suffering from stomach
trouble, and there is no way the police officer can please him—and
furthermore he cannot find the malefactors. The same Baryba rescues
him from misfortune. For 150 rubles he proves that the tailor
Timokha—the true bosom friend of Baryba—is among the malefactors.
Evgeny Zamyatin 27
Baryba is sorry for his friend, but he endures and attains a provincial
nirvana: they give him silver buttons and gold braid. The policeman
salutes him, and they hang Timokha.
“It’s great to be alive!”
Anfim is a symbol of what is provincial: bestial, chewy, fat-snouted,
greasy, gluttonous. In the provinces God is something edible. There
people devote themselves to eating to the point of satiety, so that the
jaws grind away luxuriously, so that they can sleep to the point of
stupor, and can procreate children with sweaty and sticky bodies. Bary
ba himself is fortuitous: he could be born or not. But A Tale of the
Provinces pushes him out and moves him into the limelight. He is
awkward, obtuse, almost an idiot, cunning as a beast. But
Chebotarikha, the monk Evsei, the attorney Morgunov, the district
police officer, the public prosecutor, and the colonel need him; therefore
he attains the “heights” without effort and struggle. The others are also
bestial. Anfim takes them into himself; he is made from them; he is their
clot. This edible quality is accentuated and rendered by the author with
exceptional force. A Tale of the Provinces is only in part a story of
everyday life. It is more a satire—and not simply a satire, but a political
satire, brightly painted and bold for the year 1913. In distinction from a
number of authors who wrote about provincial matters, Zamyatin linked
Russian Okurovism3 with the entire Tsarist mode of life and its political
system, and herein lies his unquestionable merit. But, strange to say,
Zamyatin’s talent here achieves only half its goal. Something great,
something sincere, something all-illuminating, which the reader finds in
Gogol, in the satires of Shchedrin, in Uspensky, in Gorky, and even in
Chekhov, is missing. It is as if the tale, in spite of its purity of style and
form, falls to pieces before the reader. It is masterfully narrated and
delightfully done, but done just so it doesn’t touch the reader deeply or
penetrate inside, even though Baryba, Chebotarikha, Morgunov, Evsei,
Timokha, and the district police officer stand before our eyes.
Zamyatin approached provincial matters from another side in a
different tale—“Alatyr.” Gogol already noted the Manilovism of our
provinces. People live so-so, it would seem; it is not a heavenly life, but
man is so inclined that he must without fail dream about something
which does not exist and, perhaps, never will exist. Manilov has every
thing and still fantasizes. But if not everything is well with the Manilovs,
and they are pressured, no matter by what, they fantasize all the more.
Zamyatin tells about these peculiar dreamers in “Alatyr.” Alatyr is a
town.
Among those inhabitants—needless to say it was inherited from

mushrooms—there came to exist a downright unrestrainable fecundity. They bap
tized children wholesale, by the dozens. There remained only one street passing
through: a decree came out forbidding travel along the others, in order that the
babies crawling in abundance through the grass would not be crushed.
However, the paradise at one time passed away. The Turkish war
was on, many people were killed, and the maidens of Alatyr remained
without eligible young men. From here the dreams of Alatyr became
reality. Glafira, the daughter of the district police officer, moans for
eligible young men and awaits a love letter from a handsome stranger.
The district police officer, after unsuccessful attempts to marry off
Glafira, settles himself still more firmly in his study and invents things.
His latest discoveries are the secret of baking loaves of bread not with
yeast, but with pigeon dung, and how to prepare waterproof cloth from
ordinary unbleached linen. The archpriest Father Peter converses with
devils when drunk and when sober; his daughter Varvara also becomes
possessed in the absence of eligible young men. Rodivon Rodivonych,
the inspector, delights in reading Almanach de Gotha. And then there is
Kostya Edytkin, who works at the post office. He has a secret notebook
in which is written “The Works of Kons. Edytkin, that is, mine.” And
verses: “In my breast there lies a dream, but dear Glafira disdains me.”
At night he writes with excitement and great love. In a word, each one
has his dreams. Further, a prince arrives in the capacity of postmaster.
True, he has a nose with a hump and has no chin—he is an oriental
prince, but a prince nevertheless. And here is what happens: Glafira,
Varvara, and the maidens all go out of their minds. And the price also
has a most noble dream: all should speak one great language,
Esperanto, and then the brotherhood of peoples would be realized. The
district police officer, the inspector, Glafira, Varvara, the maidens,and
others all study with the prince. The dreams end lamentably. Glafira
and Varvara arrange to fight it out; Kostya endures a most cruel failure
with the composition “The Internal Feminine Dogma of Godliness,” and
failure in love also; the prince suffers failure with his Esperanto; the
district police officer suffers failure with his experiments; and so forth.
Here also appear the provincial, the bestial, and the edible, but in
addition to this there are phantasms, mirages, and dreams. The phan
tasms are pitiful and distorted, and they lead into a blind alley, but all the
same they are phantasms. And so the meager and tedious life of Alatyr
flows on between zoology and absurd fantasizing. The dreaming of the
inhabitants of Alatyr, however, is distinguished from Manilovism by
means of its dramatism; regardless of its absurdity, it eats into and
Evgeny Zamyatin 29
mangles life, flying asunder as dust at the first contact with life. And
perhaps that is why the inhabitants of thousands of Alatyrs do not
believe in the feasibility of the great impulses of the human spirit: after
all, they have before their eyes only these nonsensical, unnecessary
dreams.
In “Alatyr” the basic features of Zamyatin’s artistic talent are those
which appear in A Tale of the Provinces. The tale is somewhat less
vivid, but there is in it the same enthusiasm for the word, the same
craftsmanship, the same oblique observation, the same smirk and iro
nical smile, the same anecdotal quality (more, perhaps, in "Alatyr” than
A Tale of the Provinces), the same sharpness, abruptness, and promin
ence of device, the same careful selection of words and phrases, a
great force of picturesqueness, unexpectedness of similies, the isola
tion of one or two traits, and restraint.
Bestiality is also treated in the story "The Womb” (Chrevo).
Anifimya, a robust peasant woman, young, in the prime of life, kills her
husband because of the need to have a child, and pickles his body. But
here the force of the womb is presented in a different light. There is a
great deal of lyricism in the story, and the bestial element in Anifimya is
different from that seen in Baryba. One sympathizes with it. Bestiality
splits in two: it is no longer in the image of Baryba, but in the image of
Anifimya, touchingly thirsting for fertilization.
The tale “At the World’s End” (Na kulichkakh) closely corresponds
to A Tale of the Provinces and “Alatyr” in content and theme. Written at
the beginning of the Russo-German War, it was confiscated by the
Tsarist government and the author, as a Bolshevik, was imprisoned for
antimilitaristic propaganda. (The tale appeared in print in issue number
one of The Circle, the almanac of the writers’ artel.) A military unit is
dispatched to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, to a sentry post forgotten
by all and not needed by anyone. The oppressed, muddle-headed
Russian peasants, very sharp-witted in economic and agricultural
matters, but utterly obtuse with regard to service, adapt according to
their needs as "gentlemen officers.” Their needs are highly peculiar:
they teach one to speak French, another is transformed into the wet
nurse and nanny of nine children, a third exists in the kitchen for the
purpose of absorbing slaps in the face from generals—and all are
reduced to the point where they lose their human traits, and it is not for
nothing that the soldier Arzhanoy kills a Chinaman while out
walking—in such a situation this is very natural. The author’s attention,
however, is concentrated not on the Arzhanoys, but on a small group of
officers. Kuprin’s The Duel (Poedinok) pales before the picture of moral
decay and degradation depicted by Zamyatin: a cesspool in an
out-of-the-way place. There is the General—an exceptional glutton, a

coward, a philanderer, a voluptuary, and a rotter; the narrow-minded
pedant Shmit—fidgety, in his own way just, being changed into a miser
able sadist; and Captain Nechesa, rearing nine children who in reality
are not his; the weak-willed mellow Russian intellectual in an officer’s
coat, Andrei Ivanovich; the lanky, absurd Tikhmen, vainly trying to solve
the riddle of whether “Petyashka,” born to Nechesa’s wife, is his child
or not; the quiet, half-crazy General’s wife; and the regimental lady,
Nechesa’s wife—all chubby, and whose children are a living
chronology. As in both A Tale of the Provinces and “Alatyr” it is deadly
wearisome, sleepy, and absurd at the world’s end. But not so much
wearisome as terrifying. In the tale this terrifying quality is particularly
emphasized by the author, and the principal part of attention is concen
trated on it—in distinction from A Tale of the Provinces and “Alatyr.” A
terrifying quality exists in these works too, but there is more about
bestiality and about a provincial fantasizing in them; here it is the basic
thing. Beneath the cover of a tedious, petty life Zamyatin saw this
terrifying quality and pointed out to his readers not that imperceptible,
grey, slowly-enveloping side of it, which Chekhov wrote about in his
time, but the genuinely bloody, hideously brutal, tragic side of it. True, at
the world’s end, at the back of the beyond, they often fail to notice this
side of it, but that is because it has entered into their everyday life.
Tikhmen and the rectangular Shmit end their lives by suicide, Andrei
Ivanovich becomes “ours," the soldiers are reduced to a bestial state,
and the general basely, lispingly, and slobberingly rapes the tender and
frail Marusia. “At the World’s End,” like A Tale of the Provinces, is a
political and artistic satire. It makes much of what happened after 1914
understandable. In its own way it is a perhaps justified prophecy, but it
also brings out, more so than the works written earlier, still another
feature of Zamyatin’s artistic gift. The tale is cast in a genuine, lofty, and
touching lyricism. Zamyatin’s lyricism has something all its own. It is
womanly. In its details and subtleness it is always a kind of autumnal
spider’s web—a Virgin’s thread. Here are Marusia’s words: “About one,
very last little second of life—delicate as a spider web. The very last—it
will break now, and everything will be silent...” Or, a slight hint “about
the bird dozing on the snowy tree, the blue wind.” This is the way it is
everywhere in Zamyatin’s later work. One can speak of this lyricism in
the author’s words: not meaningful, not anything special, but it is re
tained in the memory. Perhaps it is because of this that Zamyatin’s
female types succeed so well, so intimately, and so tenderly: they all
have a special something, they are not like one another—and in the
best, the favorite of them there throbs that small, sunny, dear, memor-
Evgeny Zamyatin 31
able something which is scarcely perceptible to the ear, but which is

sensed by the entire being.
And still, when you read “At the World’s End,” every now and then
old acquaintances are called to mind: Kuprin’s The Duel,
Sergeev-Tsensky’s “Lieutenant Babaev” and "Kukushka,” Gogol’s
Petukh, and so forth.
Let us note, however, that in all these things, in A Tale of the
Provinces and in “At the World’s End,” the struggle against stagnation,
obtuseness, and staleness reflects only a personal attitude. Timokha,
Marusia, and Andrei Ivanovich are isolated rebels, not united with any
collective or group. This is not accidental—but greater detail about that
below.
II
After a two-year stay in England during the war years, Zamyatin

brought back “The Islanders" (Ostrovitiane) and “A Fisher of Men"
(Lovets chelovekov). From A Tale of the Provinces to London and
Jesmond. From dirt, pigs, and mire to stones, concrete, iron, steel,
zeppelins, and underground roads. From Chebotarikha, Baryba, and
district police officers to the sedate English life, mechanized and sche
duled in detail. For Vicar Dooley, author of a book called The Testament
of Compulsory Salvation, everything is done according to hours:
... a schedule for the hours of food intake; a schedule for the days of repentance
(twice a week); a schedule for the enjoying of fresh air; a schedule for the pursuit of
charity; and, finally, among a number of others—one schedule, out of modesty
untitled and especially concerning Mrs. Dooley, on which the Saturdays of every
third week were marked.
Life is a machine, a mechanism, and everything is thoroughly

regulated; all the people are identical, with identical walking sticks, top
hats, and dentures.
In “The Islanders" and “A Fisher of Men” there is satire on English
bourgeois life—biting, sharp, effective, finished down to the details and
to the point of scrupulousness. But the more carefully one reads both
the long tale and the short story, the more strongly one gets the im
pression that neither the heart nor the bosom of life has been captured,
but rather, that its surface has been captured. In essence the artist has
produced a filigree work on slight material. Here are the trifles of British
life; it is true that these trifles drive one to distraction, but this does not
change matters. A life mechanized according to a timetable; the gleam

ing pince-nez of Mrs. Dooley; the gentlemen with dentures; Campbell's
mother, Lady Campbell—a “frame in an old umbrella, broken by the
wind”—with her sedateness and her lips wriggling like worms; the ser
mons about compulsory salvation; visits to cathedrals; the Pharisaism;
the espionage; the English crowd demanding execution; and the
execution—excellent, well done, clever, talented—but very similar to
the tales (told by the Andrei Ivanoviches who have been abroad) of the
Philistine mores of virtuous Swiss landladies, who are horrified at the
sight of men’s galoshes, forgotten overnight by the room of a female
Russian emigree. They are engaging and interesting tales, and it could
happen that some Andrei Ivanovich or other winds up in prison because
of these galoshes; there he may do some other unseemly thing, for
which he will be hanged or executed in the electric chair. To present
similar cases in the form of conclusive artistic generalizations is not
enough in our days, after the war and during the mightiest of social
cataclysms. In England, as everywhere, there is not one, but rather,
there are two nations, two peoples, two races; and he who does not
understand this, and he who, in our time, through the eyes of one
nation, cannot look at the other nation even for a minute and weigh and
evaluate it, will never feel the true depths of social life, its most profound
contradictions, and its “essence.” And Zamyatin looks through the eyes
of the attorney O’Kelly, the coquette Didi, and Campbell; there is no
mention of these other eyes without which one can no longer make a
step. O’Kelly and Didi are the “underminers of the foundations” of loyal
English life. The bases are “shaken” in the living room of the venerable
vicar, at dinner at Lady Campbell’s (O’Kelly appears for dinner in a
morning coat, prefers whiskey to liqueur, and embarks on a conversa
tion about Oscar Wilde), in Didi’s room, in the circus, and elsewhere. It
is precisely in this way that a Russian “shakes” principles in the
antechamber of a Zurich landlady by absent-mindedly leaving his
galoshes. It seems that other eyes of the other nation in England would
have noticed, from the shipyards and the coal mines, something a bit
more serious and more substantial, and would have arrived at conclu
sions in a more substantial manner.
It is possible to object that the author uses a special artistic device
here: an immensity of trifles, with a bloody denouement, seemingly
underscores the unbearable asphyxia of the situation in which the abor
igines of London and Jesmond find themselves. However, this is more
than an artistic device here; it is something more profound and intimate,
connected by strong and indissoluble roots with Zamyatin’s artistic
credo. According to the author’s ideology there are two forces in the
Evgeny Zamyatin 33
world—one striving for peace, the other eternally rebelling and

dynamic. In his latest unprinted and fantastic novel We, one of the
heroines says: “There are two forces in the world, entropy and energy.
One leads to blessed peace, to happy equilibrium; the other leads to the
destruction of equilibrium, to agonizingly perpetual motion.” A Tale of
the Provinces, “Alatyr,” and “At the World’s End” represent equilibrium
and entropy. But here too another, opposite, force is at work, albeit in
distorted form. It is seen in Timoshka, in the absurd phantasms of
Kostya and the other inhabitants of Alatyr, and in Marusia. In the short
story “The Good-for-Nothing” (Neputevyi), the eternal student is a
thoughtless and negligent sot who squanders his energies, and whose
merry and impudent life ends on the barricades. In the short story “The
Diehards” (Kriazhi), this force makes Ivan and Maria go against one
another for a long time. They are obstinate, and such persons have to
have this tight, resilient, willful, good-for-nothing quality. All the works
published by Zamyatin (we are convinced still more strongly of this
below) symbolize the struggle between these two elements. And from
this point of view Zamyatin is unconditionally a symbolist who has set
himself the goal of dressing the laws of physics and chemistry in the
analytical means. Therefore his style manifests living folk skaz, mod
ernized colloquial speech, and squareness of images—quadrangular,
square, straight, flat-iron-like, and so forth.
The two forces engage in an endless struggle, but one—the force
of inertia, tradition, peace, equilibrium—weighs down the other,
destructive, force with heavy layers, like the earth’s crust, easing and
forging a molten fiery element. Peace and equilibrium are found in the
sleepy Tale of the Provinces, in the life of the Craggses and that of the
Dooley couple. Only in certain rare instants are vents opened and does
the crust break; and then the stormy underground force of destruction
gushes forth like lava from a volcano. But usually the cold, petrified,
numb forces reign. Only such rare moments are valuable and
significant. Zamyatin tells mainly about them; they are the axis of his
artistic creation. This force and the “instants” assume in Zamyatin the
most varied images, shapes, and forms. Marusia with her meaningless
conversations about the spider web and death, which are imprinted
forever in the soul of Andrei Ivanovich; the capricious Didi; the fiery
redhead Pelka in “The North” (Sever); the heroine number
such-and-such in the novel We. They personify what is most necessary
and valuable: from them emanates, and through them speaks the
genuine force of life, its womb and its most holy of holies. From them
come uprisings and ruptures in things of set dimensions which have
always been overgrown with moss. In the short story “The Land
Surveyor” (Zemlemer) the hero can find no way to say that he loves
Lizaveta Petrovna. The “moment” arrives when out of mischief some
lads have smeared the dog "Funtik” with paint. The girl begins to feel
sorry for the dog, tears begin to flow, and then “the surveyor forgot
about everything and began to stroke Lizaveta Petrovna’s hair.” Then
the surveyor is about to have to spend a night with the girl in one room
in a monastery, and had this happened they would have remained
together. But the nanny arrives, and everything is over: “That’s how it
had to be.” In “A Fisher of Men” such a moment occurs when the
Zeppelins are over London. Crashing bombs burst into the thoroughly
regulated life of the Craggses, and the usual balanced and settled way
of life collapses. The “curtain” is drawn over Mrs. Lorry’s lips, and a
pianist, the good-for-nothing Bailey, kisses her with lips “as tender as a
colt’s,” and Mrs. Lorry responds in kind. But that is only an instant: “The
cast-iron feet fell silent somewhere in the south. Everything was over.”
In “The Protectress of Sinners” (Spodruchnista greshnykh), during the
revolution peasants break into the Mother Superior’s quarters of a cer
tain monastery with the intention of stealing, but at the very decisive
moment the "reverend mother" in an especially touching way treats the
malefactors to pies and something else, and the bloody deed is
shattered. In “The Dragon," the dragonman (a Red Army man) has just
told in a streetcar how he dispatched “an intellectual mug,” “without
transfer, into the kingdom of heaven.” Suddenly he sees a sparrow
freezing in a corner of the streetcar. The dragon, his rifle fallen to the
floor, warms the sparrow with all his might, and when the sparrow flies
away, the “dragon's" mouth opens in an ear-to-ear grin. The world is
like a dog (“Eyes”): it has a mangy fur coat, it cannot speak, but only
barks, it zealously guards its master’s property (the property is guarded
for a little dish of rotten meat); it breaks away from his chain and slowly,
pitifully, and full of guilt, with its tail between its legs, drags itself along to
its master’s kennel. But. . . “such beautiful eyes. And in those eyes, in
the depths, such sad human wisdom ..."
Sometimes there are sailors of the Potemkin ("Three Days”), but
more often Didi, O'Kelly, Senia, and others. The sailors of the Potemkin
are entirely outside Zamyatin’s field of vision. He was born and grew up
in A Tale of the Provinces, and his people are for the most part found in
the images of the Arzhanoys, the Timokhas, the Neprotoshnys, the
drunkard Guslyaikins, the lads who out of boredom half-drown a boy by
pouring water over him, or who perform experiments with paint and a
dog, or peasants who rebel against cheese (“we ate close to five
pounds of that very same soap”). In Zamyatin there is no peasant who
looks different as, for instance, there is in the partisan stories of Vsevo
Evgeny Zamyatin 35
lod Ivanov. Zamyatin cannot look at what is around him through the
eyes of these sailors, peasants, and workers. It is interesting that in his
reminiscences of the Potemkin days the author also concentrates his
attention on only an instant—three days—when it seemed that every
thing was breaking away from the shores. The moment is therefore
valuable to him. No general connection is felt between these days and
the revolution. The author does not need that.
This is why in “The Islanders” and “A Fisher of Men” Didi, O’Kelly,
and even Campbell introduce a rebellious element into the thoroughly
regulated life of the Craggses and the Dooleys. The rebellion turns out
not to be very dangerous, since the tops, and not the roots are taken.
Poignant, but permissible. The rebellion is loyal—it is not that rebellion
of which sailors, workers, and peasants are capable. After all there is
only dissolution here, a narrowly individualistic protest, as a result of
which the foundations will not be shaken. The writer is concerned with
that: for him it is necessary to juxtapose to thoroughly regulated life
moments of individual rebellion, small and insignificant and intimate,
which the author nonetheless values and remembers most of all. In A
Tale of the Provinces and “At the World’s End” the protests and the
struggle are also personal and are carried on by persons acting alone.
The writer completely fails to see, mention, or value other forms. There
the struggle always ends in defeat. It cannot be otherwise when exclu
sively individual considerations are put foremost. In our time, we repeat,
this is too little and is superficial. And when an artist is inclined toward
political lampoons, it is possible to anticipate that he will experience
failures.
Nevertheless, both “The Islanders” and "A Fisher of Men” remain
masterful artistic lampoons, in spite of their limited significance. The
writer’s London works, like A Tale of the Provinces, “At the World’s
End,” and "Alatyr,” will remain in our literature. We must also bear in
mind the fact that "The Islanders” came off the press when many fellow
writers, considering themselves the preservers of the testaments of all
Russian literature, perceived in the likes of Vicar Dooley and Mister
Craggs the bearers of humaneness and humanity, and of other virtues
which are not in keeping with those insidious Bolsheviks. Zamyatin did
not stick to his noble, truly and only “mutinous” position later. But about
that below.
The artistic merits of “The Islanders” and “A Fisher of Men” are
indubitable. The capability of rendering image and character with one
device is consolidated in hardened form. It is as if Vicar Dooley and
Mister Craggs were forged. Zamyatin is an artist-experimenter, but a
special experimenter. With him the experiment is taken to extremes, to
the limit. It is, so to speak, an experiment in the pure form. In his style
Zamyatin departed from modernized folk skaz: it is necessary to do that
in a story about London. For the first time the artist renders that clipped
and condensed style with dashes, omissions, hints, and things left
unsaid, that intricate work on the word and that admiration for it, that
semi-imaginism—all of which have later been strongly reflected in the
work of the majority of the Serapions. It is painstaking work to the point
of small details, so laborious that one must maintain a constant effort
and must read every line intently. This is wearisome; at times it even
leads to affectation and satiety, as though the author were playing with
his handicraft.
Ill
In the short story “The Good-for-Nothing” the following conversa

tion takes place between a conspirator, the underground figure Isav,
and Senia the good-for-nothing:
Isav was saying:

“And how is it possible to believe in anything? I only assume and act. A working
hypothesis, you understand?"
Peter Petrovich turned to Senia:
"Well, and you?"
“Me-e? What, are you crazy? That I... If I had my way I wouldn’t even look at
all their programs. Thank God, at long last we busted loose from those shores, but
now they want to drive us back. And I say if there is an overflow, then let it be for
real, like on the Volga ....”
In accordance with this, the good-for-nothing Senia is given an obvious

moral preponderance: Senia heroically perishes on the barricades, and
Isav philosophizes on the occasion of his senseless death, although the
author does not refuse Isav his cold, even inimical respect.
The attitude “I wouldn’t even look at all their programs” flows forth
organically from the writer’s entire artistic outlook. As we saw earlier,
Zamyatin approached the complex phenomena of social life with a
physical theory about two forces in the world: entropy and energy.
Moreover, it has turned out in his work that the destructive element
functions at “moments,” in “incidents,” and in individual, intimate im
pulses of the human spirit.
The artist has also approached the Russian revolution with this
measuring stick. The result has been what it must be on these
occasions. As applied to society this theory of two forces is not so much
Evgeny Zamyatin 37
untrue as it is abstract, and therefore untrue as well. There are insignifi

cant cliches containing nothing concrete; living life flows away here, like
water between the fingers. As a matter of fact a dead scheme has been
applied to whatever has been found suitable: abstract rebelliousness,
revolutionism, and heresy in the name of heresy. The “flood,”
“agonizingly perpetual motion," “asceticism”—this is all very empty,
insignificant, and abstract. This abstract rebelliousness weakened the
artist to a greater extent in “The Islanders,” as well as in A Tale of the
Provinces and “At the World’s End." It led to a fundamental misunder
standing in the writer’s attitudes toward the Russian revolution. This is
the way it had to happen. As soon as a “heretic" tried to descend to
earth from the mountainous heights in the name of “heresy,” great
discord resulted. It turned out that “their programs," those of the
peasants, the workers, and the masses, also existed on the “rebellious”
earth, and concrete “earthly” targets were established on earth. They
were in general very little interested in intimate, personal rebellion.
Instead, they prepared and set in motion the most enormous
collectives: Communists, the Red Army and others. Historically and
socialistically, abstract revolutionism and so-called spiritual maximal
ism have expressed the intelligentsia’s rosy pre-revolutionary
romanticism, and even before the revolution they pointed out the
essential discord between the ideal and the real in the consciousness of
broad circles of the intelligentsia. The liquidation of the autocracy was
thought to be necessary and desirable, but on the other hand even then
the intelligentsia viewed the elemental Bolshevism of the workers and
peasants with fear. Thus arose the desire to see the revolution as
noble, and not made by the coarse hand of the peasant and the worker,
but rather by clean hands with polished nails. As soon as it was disco
vered that this would not be the case, but that the revolution would be
rough-hewn, the rebelliousness of the Russian O’Kellys and Senkas
vanished most rapidly, like smoke. Spiritual maximalism and the fier
cest heresy were suddenly left somewhere beyond the bounds of the
revolution, and it was discovered that maximalism had “a soul small in
appearance and by no means immortal,” that world-wide revolutionism
looks very (even extremely) cultured, moderate, and neat, that it pre
sumes to conquer the heavens and not the sinful earth, that this was
said about the revolution of the spirit in some sort of special fiery
transformation—and not about “that republic," or whatever it is
called—and that it was said about the intimate and all-cleansing
moments. And they were not to plunder country estates, or take away
factories, or carry valuable cultural objects off to their huts, etc., etc.
In Zamyatin we see seemingly implacable rebelliousness, fun-
damental and indefatigable, we see people in the images of the Arzha-

noys and the Guslyaikins, we see a looking to the ideal as to something
irreparably torn away from the earth (the acknowledgement of revolu
tion in the spirit, in intimate moments), alienation, cold remoteness from
the genuine face of the revolution, and hostility to it.
Be that as it may, after October Zamyatin wrote a number of stories
and tales which afforded undoubtable satisfaction to the most violent
enemies of October, and great and sincere chagrin and indignation to
those who knew and valued his talent: "The Dragon,” "Mamai,” “The
Cave,” “The Church of God,” “The Moors,” (Arapy), “The Protectress
of Sinners,” and finally, the novel We. The most talented of these works
is "The Cave," and the most serious is We.
We have happened to hear the objection that it is very rash and
premature to paint Zamyatin’s recent works white: not every satire is
White propaganda, and not everything which is dressed in red is
genuine revolution. That is so. There really does exist among us a fear
of touching upon the sore spots of the Soviet mode of life. We must fight
this fear in every way possible. The following often happens: people are
long silent, and all of a sudden they begin to sound the alarm (let’s say
over a bribe, for example). And there are quite a few weak-willed indi
viduals to be found, too. If Zamyatin had written his caustic works while
remaining on the soil of the revolution, it would only be possible to hail
him. Unfortunately, things are not that way at all. Zamyatin has
approached the October Revolution obliquely, coldly, and with hostility,
it is alien to him not in its details, even if they are essentially important,
but as a whole.
In the strange, unfamiliar city of Petrograd the passengers wandered in

confusion. In some ways it was like, and in some ways unlike, the Petersburg from
which they had been sailing for almost a year now, and to which, God knows, they
would return some day .. . Australian warriors in strange rags, their weapons on
ropes behind their shoulders . . . Australians with red faces were pushing into the
opening with enormous bags (“Mamai").
And again:
On the streetcar platform a dragon with a rifle flashed briefly, rushing into the
unknown. His cap fit down over his nose and would of course have swallowed up his
head if it were not for his ears; the cap had settled on the protruding ears.... And a
hole in fog: his mouth ("The Dragon").
In "The Moors” the dragons and the Australians are called

redskins. Only a citizen-passenger of the republic, who on the
Evgeny Zamyatin 39
republic’s ship turns green from seasickness in the strongest tossing,

can write this way. Of course seasickness is a most unpleasant illness,
but if a passenger transfers his condition to the sailors and to the
officers, who work to the point of exhaustion during a fierce storm to
bring the ship into a port, this is entirely wrong and unjust. Our passen
ger behaves himself just as wrongly and unjustly in relation to the ships,
officers and sailors. They are Australians, and they have their weapons
on ropes, and their mouths are like holes—he doesn’t like any of this.
The situation becomes still more complicated by the fact that the pas
senger got on the ship unexpectedly and suddenly, and doesn't know
where the ship is rushing, into which harbor it will pull, or whether it will
even pull into a harbor at all. The greenishness from seasickness and
other discomforts seems entirely unjustified and meaningless here. In
fact, in the name of what are all these torments and discomforts
suffered? Wouldn’t it be better to sit at home in the living room: “My little
blue room, and a piano with a cover on it, and on the piano a wooden
ashtray in the shape of a little horse.” This is from "The Cave.” The
story is excellently written and conveys the conditions which existed.
There were those days when rooms were transformed into icy caves,
and the greedy cave-god, the stove, ruled over everything. Martyn
Martynych pitifully and awkwardly steals firewood so that Masha can
warm herself. And Masha has become thin and has not got out of bed.
She recalls the blue room, simply and quickly takes a bottle with poison
in order to die, and as if nothing special were happening, she sends
Martyn Martynych out to look at the moon so that he won’t see her die.
And he goes obediently. That is all. But how is the work presented, in
what light? Not a word about dragon-Bolsheviks, but the entire story is
pointed against them. The author directs every little detail against them
with a skillful hand: they are to blame for the cave life, for the stealing,
and for Masha’s death. This becomes especially clear in the context of
Zamyatin’s other works. It is enough to juxtapose the description to the
gentle lyricism in which the writer couched Masha’s reminiscences of
the piano, the wooden horse, the open window, and so on.
Once it is unknown where the ship is speeding, and it is incompre
hensible why there are passengers on it, all the sailing and the entire
struggle with the hostile elements seem wild and senseless. It’s as if
Moors were fighting. Now the blacks beat the redskins bloody and roast
them, then the redskins roast the blacks, and in addition they are indig
nant at the blacks: how dare the blacks maim us? (“The Moors”). Here
one discovers quite clearly that the author is standing off to the side,
and that he is a cold and hostile observer. Only one who did not take an
active part in the events and the struggle can write like this. The strug-
gle was such that it was not only impossible, but was frankly criminal, to
approach it with the measuring sticks of the old intelligentsia. Only in
the thick of this struggle, in its bloody and fiery font, could it be realized
what is allowed and what is not. Can one accept and justify the murder
of a bound man? Can one resort to espionage? The answers to these
questions are made known to those who struggle, hate, love, and live
ardently in the fire of the elements, and not to those who sail and travel.
Is this allowed? It is allowed and must be if the enemy himself does not
disdain it, if he has reached a state of animal frenzy, if he resorts to the
very worst tactics, if he has been sold and plays the role of hireling and
spy for the likes of Vicar Dooley and Mr. Craggs. These and other
questions are not decided abstractly in the intelligentsia’s crowded
nooks, but on the field of battle when a real enemy must be dealt with,
when it is known what activities the enemy himself is undertaking and
what he is practicing. Any other statement of the question is moral
astrology, helpless philosophizing, and only plays into the enemy's
hands. "A Fairytale” (Skazka) and “The Church of God” are permeated
by such a spirit. The church of God turns out to be tainted—and
how!—and all as a result of Ivan’s having built it with the money of a
merchant whose throat he cut and whom he robbed. The moral is that it
is impossible to build a good deed on corpses. And, incidentally,
another conclusion is that one must not rob a merchant—it is a bad and
dishonorable business. And third, let the merchant live (that is, rob).
The author hardly agrees with the last conclusion, but only on the
strength of his own inconsistency. In practice it works out this way: let
the merchant rob, since the social struggle of the classes has its own
logic. The last conclusion is a result of the fact that the fairytale suffers
(besides other things) from one inaccuracy: the merchant is repre
sented as the person who suffers. He is in fact a first-rate swindler, and
before Ivan robbed him he had out and out swindled hundreds, and
perhaps thousands, of those same Ivans who later robbed him. The
situation turns out to be entirely different. Before our eyes spiritual
maximalism, heresy in the name of heresy, and rebelliousness based
on principle are changed little by little into some sort of dull, sweetened,
ideological wash which they preached to the Ivans from the pulpit, with
the encouragement of the Chebotarikhas and their sons. In the story
"The Protectress of Sinners” (“such words, Mother”), as was already
mentioned earlier, peasants, with the permission of their council, have
already managed to rob the Mother Superior of the monastery. The
deed is shattered because the Mother Superior turns out to be very
kind. It is her nameday and she has already treated some peasants
very well.
Evgeny Zamyatin 41
Sikidin stood up and lowered his forehead, like a butting ox. With his hands he
supported himself against the table; his right hand was wrapped in a rag.
"My dear fellow, what’s wrong with your hand? Let me wrap it in a clean
bandage, or else it will start to hurt...”
Sikidin held up his hand. He glanced at the Mother Superior and at his right
hand—and hesitated ...
Very touching. Truly reading that is good for the soul; it is fit for an
ecclesiastic reader. At least, if the Eparchial News existed now, the
story could be a true decoration in the unofficial part. It is myrrh-giving.
As for the style, it is no match for the Boris-and-Gleb and Alatyrian
Edytkins who at once time penned things for the News occasionally.
Reading such things as these one involuntarily thinks that if the old
Tsarist government should rise from the tomb even for a minute it would
be tenderly moved. See what kind of rebels have come to exist: not only
are they not prohibiting them or putting them into prison, as they did
earlier for the tale “At the World’s End,” but rather they are producing
them for public consumption without number and without consideration
for money. And here these dragons, Australians, and redskins, or
whatever—in a word, Bolsheviks—are talking about some sort of class
struggle determined by some law or other, but the entire matter consists
of seating the Sikidins at the same table with the Mother Superiors, and
let’s hope that these Mother Superiors will smile just at the right time
and in a special way, will slip them a pasty, and will know how to
bandage a hand. What sort of struggle is going on is really here—in
unintentional, but particular, gestures, words, in a look, in that which is
intangible and insignificant but which (and this is most valuable of all) is
remembered. Only you cannot convince these redskins. They are
stubborn. They do not believe "in circumstances contrary to our
expectations” and are not susceptible to the exceptional and extremely
rare moments.
It is necessary to say a few more words about these moments and
instants. It is all very well when Marusia tells Andrei Ivanovich about the
spider web and death, or the surveyor helps “Funtik.” This is
appropriate, lyrical, and artistically truthful, because here the personal
and the intimate need be considered, and that is all. But when an artist
tries to solve the most complex social problems by means of a “spider
web,” by momentary insights, and so on, and to say his word in the
social struggle, then trifles result—sheer saccharin, sticky syrup, politic
al Manilovism—simply because one cannot do anything here with a
“spider web," and because good-natured gestures and the impulses of
nuns and other heroes and heroines do not in the least determine the
course and outcome of the struggle. Zamyatin thinks otherwise.
In an article about H. G. Wells, Zamyatin writes:
For Wells socialism is undoubtedly the way to cure the cancer which has eaten into
the organism of the old world. But medicine knows two paths for the struggle with
this illness. One path is the surgeon's knife, which will perhaps either cure the
patient quickly or kill him. The other path, a slower one, is treatment by radium and
x-rays. Wells prefers this bloodless path.. . .
All this is extremely unsuccessful, but it is characteristic of

Zamyatin. Marx said that the new society is born from the bosom of the
old, like a butterfly emerging from a pupa (from a caterpillar, strictly
speaking). This is a thousand times more nearly correct than a writer’s
judgment about some sort of organism which it is necessary to cure,
even if fundamentally. What we are talking about at these moments is
the application of forceps and other obstetrical duties rather than about
the curing of an organism. There is no use in curing it and no reason to
cure it—it is a matter of the pupa and the butterfly. Whether it is neces
sary to apply forceps or not depends on circumstances, and not at all on
the good will of the obstetrician. But Zamyatin writes that he prefers to
cure the organism bloodlessly. Childish trifles. But all of Zamyatin’s
socialism is found in this. He also “prefers” the bloodless path of influ
ence upon man. All one need do is open the windows of people’s souls,
and then Sikidin will lower his beast's paw, and the Mother Superior will
remain—is that the way it is?
And so spiritual vagabondage, heresy, and maximalism have been
turned into ordinary petit-bourgeois arguments before our very
eyes—we are all socialists, but we prefer the bloodless path, and so
forth.
Zamyatin's tale “The North" reveals one more feature which is of
no small importance in his contemporary work. Somewhere, also
among the devils at the world's end, where “a thousand versts across
the blue ice, the frozen sun shines on the bottom” (excellently told)
there live the proprietor and shopkeeper Kartoma, Kartoma’s fisherman
and worker Morei, and the beautiful red-haired Pelka. Kartoma feels his
way about the earth, gives short weights, buys “the good wives” for
putrid stuff, fills his pockets, and goes on drunks. Morei looks at the sky.
He has done that since childhood, since that day when he was drown
ing in the river. They gave him artificial respiration then, "only he be
came somehow strange and withdrawn, and at the same time he would
and would not look at you; he would look past, and who knows what he
saw?” It happens that Morei falls in love with Pelka, and she with him,
and they get on well until a lantern takes Pelka's place. Kartoma men
Evgeny Zamyatin 43
tions the lantern and lies about it. In Petersburg there supposedly
shines an enormous lantern, and all around it is as light as if it were day.
“Morei had a brainstorm. He would build a lantern like the one in
Petersburg. Light it over the village, and there would be no night. They
would begin a new life.” Morei and Pelka go hungry, but Morei has no
time to worry about that: he is making the lantern. Kartoma takes Pelka
at this time, and nothing comes of the project. The lantern does not
illuminate the thousand versts of frozen darkness. But Pelka cannot
forget Morei. The story ends fatally for both. Pelka fixes it so that a bear
crushes them while they are hunting.
“A familiar motif, elaborated earlier in the tale “Alatyr.” And if "The
North” is juxtaposed to “Alatyr," it becomes obvious from where the
author’s gaze upon the ideal and reality is evoked. It is from A Tale of
the Provinces. While it is true and correct in a conventional and limited
sense and for a certain situation, the author’s conception becomes
incorrect as artistic generalization. But nowhere has the artist attemp
ted to provide a solution to the problem of the relationship between the
ideal and reality; it is therefore necessary to conclude that for him there
is no other solution. The ideal is always divorced from life and always
stifles it. Such an approach in our days leads directly to worn-out,
narrow Philistine attitudes (let us recall Andrei Bely with his recent
sermon: down with great principles—I want to live a frog’s life; I want to
be a Philistine).
Finally, something about Zamyatin’s latest work, the novel We,
which has not yet been published.
In one of his speeches Comrade Lenin observed: “Socialism is no
longer a problem of the remote future, or of some abstract picture, or of
some ikon.” The principal traits of our epoch are found in this
statement.
Socialism has ceased to be an ideal in the sense that it was
earlier—say about twenty or thirty years ago. It is not a star calling to us
as it shines in the distant and pure skies. It has become a problem of
tactics, practice, and embodiment in life. And this forces some to look
somewhere higher with joy and trembling, to try to raise the next
curtain, and to dream boldly of further conquests—and it fills others with
a great and genuine fear, a fear before that socialism which, so to
speak, is already becoming current, for the historical sentence is being
carried out. Zamyatin’s novel is interesting in precisely this respect: it is
wholly saturated with a genuine fear of socialism which, from an ideal,
was becoming a practical, everyday problem. It is a fantastic novel
about the future. But it is not a utopia. It is an artistic lampoon about the
present and an attempt at a future prognosis as well. In this future
everything on earth is thoroughly regulated and the great “Integral” is

being built in order to conquer the entire universe and grant it mathema
tically exact happiness. Cultured human society is separated from the
rest of the world by an indestructible wall, and since the time of the
great 200-year war (a thousand years have passed since then) no one
has looked beyond that wall, and no one knows what is there. Every
thing is glassed in; everything is in plain sight and is registered. Glass
sky, glass houses; there is no "I”—it is "We.” All get up and work at the
same time; they eat petroleum food on command; at certain hours they
make love according to little pink coupons. And over everything watch
the Single State and the Benefactor of Mankind, wisely caring for
mankind’s precisely mathematical happiness. Nevertheless not every
thing is thoroughly regulated. A person does have hairy hands and a
"soul,” as well as the foolish attitude that “I want to live according to my
own will.” Not all, but nevertheless those who are like this are not alone.
And here a thought crops up: demolish the wall, overthrow the benefac
tors and destroy the mathematics in life. A woman, a heroine with a
number, is at the head of all this. Together with her and a group of
wreckers one of the builders of the "Integral” (the narration stems from
his notes) gets outside the wall by means of an underground passage.
There "the Earth swims, drunken, merry, light,” and people without
clothing are covered with shining hair; there are birds, grass, and sun.
An uprising is prepared, the wall is destroyed at once place, and an
attempt is made to use the "Integral” for those who are beyond the wall.
But the bureau of guardians uncovers the conspiracy. Arrests are
made, the heroine executed, and an operation performed on the
builder, as on all, and his fantasy center is cut out.
The novel makes a painful and frightful impression. To write artistic
parody and portray communism in the form of some sort of
super-barracks beneath an enormous glass nightcap is nothing new.
The foes of communism have long since practiced in this manner—a
beaten and inglorious path. And if here are added discourses about
noses (for there are these too), which must without fail be equal in
length among all persons, then the character and tenor of the lampoon
become clear.
Everything here is untrue. Communism does not strive to subju
gate and keep society under the heel of a single state. On the contrary,
it strives for the state’s destruction and extinction. Communism does
not posit as its goal the absorption of "I" by "We”—it leads, rather, to a
synthesis of the individual with the social collective; nor does thoroughly
integrated, mechanized, machine-like life, in the form in which the au
thor presents it, enter into the task of communism. In communist society
Evgeny Zamyatin 45
neither the city in its present form, nor the village with its "idiocy,” will
exist. A combination of the city with the village is envisaged. If the artist
had our wartime communism in mind, then the lampoon misses its mark
here too. The practice of wartime communism can be understood only
when one has taken into consideration the fact that it was necessary to
fight and fight and fight with a mighty enemy, and that Soviet Russia
was a fortress under siege. There is not a word about that in the novel.
To oppose grass, human willfulness, and people covered with hair to
communism means not to understand the essence of the question.
Gleb Uspensky already observed that the herbivorous life has one
essential shortcoming: it depends on mere chance. Such chance will
burst into life (and it does so constantly and continuously), and all the
wonderful herbivorous harmony will be wiped away. That is why man
rejected this blissful primeval paradise and wanted to create his own
paradise with machines, electricity, and airplanes. As for the formula “I
want to live according to my own foolish will,” only to people covered
with hair does it appear that they live according to their own will. Under
socialism this dependence of man on the elements and the ignorance
of this dependence will be replaced by knowledge and the systematic
scientific liberation from it (a leap from the realm of necessity to the
realm of freedom).
Zamyatin has written a lampoon which is concerned not with
communism, but with Bismarckian, reactionary, Richterian state
socialism. Not for nothing did he rework his “Islanders” and transfer
from there into the novel the main features of London and
Jesmond—and not only that, but the plot as well. At times this involves
even the minutiae (noses and the like). And as though sensing that not
everything in the novel was in place, Zamyatin places in the mouth of
his heroine No. 1-330 words which are entirely unexpected and which
conflict with the general spirit of the novel. Answering the builder No.
1-330 says that the heroes of the 200-year war (read “Bolsheviks”) were
right in destroying the old order. Their error lay in one matter. They later
decided that they were the ultimate number, but there is no such thing;
that is, from destroyers they became conservationists. If this is so, if the
"heroes of the 200-year war” were right in their time, then it may be
asked whether we are now experiencing that time, the time of the
destruction of the old world. Anyone of sound mind and good memory
will say: yes, we are experiencing it, for the simple reason that the old
world still has not been destroyed and stands quite firmly in the
meantime. And in that case, on what basis does the artist find it timely
to fight against “communistic conservatism,” recently leaving the other,
old world in shadow? Or does he suppose that we have already pre
vailed at last? We are of course certain that we will ultimately and

irrevocably prevail, but to consider this an accomplished fact would be
thoughtless. The novel, therefore, does not hit its mark.
In the novel the protest and insurrection stem from the builder’s
love for a woman with a certain number. The motif is Zamyatin-like and
narrowly individualistic. No wonder the ending is pessimistic. The Sing
le State has crushed those who have risen in rebellion and, moreover,
the heroine herself has turned out to be thoroughly regulated in her
relationship to the builder. She intended to exploit him as a necessary
and useful person. There can be no other ending when grass, people
without clothing, and narrowly exclusive personal protest are opposed
to communism.
Zamyatin is in general a pessimist. With him the forces of stagna
tion and inertia always triumph; the force of destruction overcomes
them only for an instant, even though it wages a never-ending struggle.
This dates from A Tale of the Provinces. That story has settled atop
Zamyatin’s work with all its immobility and stagnation, its apparent
constancy and inviolability.
The artistic aspects of the novel are excellent. Zamyatin has
attained full maturity here—so much the worse, for all this has gone into
the service of a malicious cause.
In his article about Wells, which in many respects is very good,
Zamyatin touches on Wells’ book Russia in the Shadows and cites
Wells’ opinion about the Russian communists which, according to
Zamyatin, can be taken as the epigraph to the entire book. ”1
disbelieve,” Wells says, "in their faith, I ridicule Marx, their prophet, but I
understand and respect their spirit.”
Apropos of these lines Zamyatin writes:
. .. Wells ... could not have spoken otherwise. A heretic, to whom any settled
way of life or any catechism is unbearable, could not have spoken otherwise of the
catechism of Marxism and communism; a restless aviator, to whom the old earth,
overgrown with the moss of tradition, is more hateful than anything else, could not
have spoken otherwise about an attempt to break away from this old world in some
giant airplane, even if it is of unsuccessful construction.
Finally, he also writes very unsuccessfully and inarticulately about

communism too. At one time it is the “church of God,” built on blood
and with a foul smell, at another time a united and thoroughly regulated
state where people are driven to happiness with the lash, or else
suddenly—just look at that—a gigantic airplane, albeit unsuccessfully
constructed, trying to break away from the earth which is overgrown
with the moss of traditions. It is not thought out or complete, there are
Evgeny Zamyatin M
contradictions, there is no broad common grasp of things, and there is

no “zest.”
And furthermore, the “heretic” (Zamyatin loves the world)—the
“heretic” Wells somehow, in his own way and with an inner feeling,
understood the communist heretics of bourgeois civilization and said “I
respect,” “I value,” "I understand.” But the author of A Tale of the
Provinces, “At the World’s End,” “Alatyr,” and “The Islanders,” the
preacher of provincial heresy and maximalism, did not find a better lot
for himself during the years of severest struggle with the old world than
to write works which by rights should be given the common subtitle
“Down with Communism, the Communists, and October.”
The “heretic” up to this time has not felt, nor has he made the
reader feel through any of his works, that we, the communists, are the
most dangerous of the heretics in relation to the old world. The most
dangerous, the truest, the most hardened, and the firmest to the end. A
strange heretic, a strange maximalism. He is much to the liking of the
man in the street who has become hardened and stale in his discourses
about identical noses by decree. And he is also to the liking of the Mr.
Craggses, for whom Soviet Russia is like cast-iron heels or bombs over
London.
Zamyatin is on a very dangerous and inglorious path.
This must be stated directly and firmly. And more from
Wells—Zamyatin sympathetically cites the words of Peter-Wells,4
“We’ve got to live like fanatics. If a lot of us don't live like fanatics, this
staggering old world of ours won’t recover.” We do not know just what
Peter had in mind, but these are golden words if they are applied to the
social struggle of our days. And we communists remember them well:
we’ve got to live like fanatics. And if this is so, then what role is played
by the narrowly individualistic considerations which the author particu
larly values? A harmful, narrow, and reactionary role. It is necessary to
be fanatical in a great social struggle. This means crushing ruthlessly
everything which stems from a little beastie’s heart or from personal
considerations, for it temporarily harms and hampers the struggle, and
it hampers the victory. All triumph only when they act as one.
IV
Our article would be incomplete if we did not mention the influence,

the specific gravity, of Zamyatin with regard to contemporary artistic life.
He is undoubtedly significant. Suffice it to say that Zamyatin has in
many ways determined the character and course of the circle called the
“Serapion Brothers.” And although the Serapions maintain that they

came together purely according to the principle of accord, that there is
no trace of unity in their artistic devices, and, it seems, that they also
“have nothing to do with Zamyatin,” it is nevertheless permissible to
have doubts about this. From Zamyatin comes their enthusiasm for the
word and their passion for craftsmanship and form; in accordance with
Zamyatin's works, their works are not written, but rather are made.
From Zamyatin stems their stylization, their experimentation (carried to
extremes), their passion for skaz, the tension of their images, and their
quasi-imaginism. From Zamyatin stems their contemplative, external
approach to the revolution. I do not mean by this that their attitude
toward the revolution is the same, although here too the taint of
Zamyatin is felt among some. And if there is among the Serapions a
tendency for the artist, like the biblical Jehovah, to create for them
selves (and such opinions among the Serapions are not accidental),
this is also from Zamyatin. Perhaps here, however, it is not so much
influence as coincidence, but a striking coincidence.
Notes
1. Alexander Voronsky is best known for his literary activities while editor of the
Soviet “thick" journal Red Virgin Soil from 1921 to 1927. The article translated here first
appeared as the third of Voronsky's serious “literary portraits" in Red Virgin Soil, No. 6
(1922), pp. 304-322. Voronsky was one of the most liberal and openly style-conscious of
Marxist critics, and from 1923 on was also a notable theoretician of the artistic creative
process. From 1923 to 1927 Voronsky engaged in almost unceasing polemics with the
proletarian literary group “October," which sought to establish its own hegemony in
Soviet literature. Voronsky maintained that the writer, as an individual, must be allowed to
work out his own social content and to elaborate his own style, and Red Virgin Soil was
the main source of publication for the literary "fellow travelers.” Late in 1927, some time
after the Octobrists had in effect gained control of Red Virgin Soil, Voronsky was arrested
and exiled to Siberia. In 1930 he was allowed to return to Moscow, but was no longer
associated with the journal. He was arrested again in 1935 and disappeared during the
purges of the following years. The Small Soviet Encyclopedia lists the date of his death
as 1943. A more detailed English account of Voronsky's literary life can be found in
Robert Maguire, Red Virgin Soil (Princeton, 1968).
The present essay has been reprinted in the Soviet Union on a few occasions (once
in 1928 when the author was in exile). It was most recently reprinted in 1963, seven years
after Voronsky's official rehabilitation as a Soviet writer.
2. An allusion to Gleb Uspensky's sketches of village life entitled The Manners of
Rasteryaeva Street (1866).
3. An allusion to Gorky's story The Town Okurov (1909).
4. Voronsky refers to the hero of Wells' novel Joan and Peter (1918).
Translation and notes by Paul Mitchell

EVGENY ZAMYATIN’S CEILING1
Victor Shklovsky
Every airplane has its ceiling, the height above which it cannot rise,
spread out like an invisible horizontal surface. The one-sided ability of
Zamyatin most likely creates this ceiling for him.
The usual tragedy of a writer is the question of his method.
Zamyatin has a novel, We, which probably will appear soon in an
English translation.
Since this novel is still not published in Russian, due to accidental
circumstances, I will not analyze it in detail.
The novel represents a social utopia. Strange as it seems, this
utopia recalls a certain parody of utopia by Jerome Jerome. This ap
plies even in minor correspondences, for example, the clothes of the
future people, both with Zamyatin and Jerome Jerome, is a grey tunic.
The names of the people are replaced by numbers: even for men, odd
for women, etc.2
In its basic intent and construction, the thing3 is most closely con
nected with The Islanders (Ostrovitiane).
The whole setting represents a development of the word
“integration.”
The country’s social system is a realization of “Vicar Dooley’s
Testament of Compulsory Salvation.”
One of the heroines, U, plays approximately the same role in the
thing as Mrs. Dooley, etc.
The heroes are not only square, but they think, in the main, about
the equality of their angles.
All the heroes have their themes which, so to say, constrain them:
one, for example, is "scissors," and he doesn’t talk, he “snips."
In my opinion, the world into which Zamyatin’s heroes have fallen
is not so much similar to a world of failed socialism, as a world con
structed by the Zamyatin method.
That is, in general, we are examining not the universe, but its
instruments.
This world (per Zamyatin), no matter what it may be, is a bad and
boring world.
49
50 Viktor Shklovsky
It seems to me, all the same, that this is the Zamyatinian ceiling.
The author is helpless when he breaks out of it.
In We there is a remarkable heroine, her brows cross in such a way
as to form an X, she thus signifies in this equalized world—X.
Of course, her brows are mentioned every time she appears.
Sometimes the heroine leaves the equalized world, goes into the
old world, the “Old House.” In this Old House she puts on a silk dress,
silk stockings. A statue of Buddha stands in the corner.
I fear that “Apollon” will be lying on the desk, or maybe “Stolitsa i
Usad’ba.”4
Probably this happens because Zamyatin is unable to construct a
world outside of his categories.
The people who oppose the equalization call themselves "Mephi,”
an abbreviation of Mephistopheles, because Mephistopheles signifies
inequality.
They bow down to this Mephistopheles. And also to a statue of
Antokolsky.5
In vain.
There is nothing worse in the world than Antokolsky. Despite a
number of successful details in We, the whole thing is a failure and a
clear indication that Zamyatin, within his old manner, has reached his
ceiling.
Trans, by G.K.
Notes
1. The conclusion to an essay of the same title, published in a book of essays Piaf
chelovek znakomykh (Five People I Know) in Tiflis, 1927. Shklovsky, a prominent
Formalist, was quite close to Zamyatin in literary analysis and tone earlier in the twenties.
A hasty emigration to Germany and a return to Russia under amnesty produced a marked
change in attitude: this article represents a sad reversal in literary outlook. The bulk of it
deals with Islanders, which Shklovsky interprets as a constriction of form due to a hyper
trophic growth of imagery.
2. Shklovsky has the situation reversed.
3. The Formalists referred to a literary work as a "thing."
4. The first was the most luxurious pre-revolutionary cultural journal (St. Petersburg,
1909-17), the second devoted to "the capital and the manor."
5. Reference to the nineteenth-century sculptor, Mark Matveevich Antokolsky.
EVGENY ZAMYATIN1
M. N. Kuznetsov
In 1922 Red Virgin Soil wrote decisively: “Zamyatin is on a very

dangerous and inglorious path.”2
By 1917 E. Zamyatin had already taken shape as a writer, although
his books had appeared some four years before October. A Provincial
Tale (Uezdnoe) immediately forced one to speak of him as an original
artist; here both the ideological position of the author and his creative
manner appeared in sharp relief. In the tale one finds the beastly exist
ence of the Russian province, a heavy, terrible, downright zoological
womblike way of life, a quagmire which swallows up everything human.
However, Zamyatin here is not so much a naturalist as a
satirist—malicious, unmerciful, he wrenches everything terrible and
nightmarish from the Russian boondocks and lays it out in the open. In
this satire there was a distinctive feature—bleak pessimism, admitting
not a single ray of light. This told on the subsequent creative develop
ment of the writer.
The essential features of Zamyatin’s style were also revealed in A
Provincial Tale: modernized skaz, full of allusions, sometimes with dou
ble meanings; narrative speech with heightened imagery; intentionally
sharp portraiture. Following Remizov and Belyi, he would exert an un
questionable influence on the development of ornamental prose.
The Revolution swept away that which had nurtured the nightmar
ish world of A Provincial Tale. But the author of this tale never did
understand the true meaning of the great social turnover. In the
Revolution—he is not a fellow traveller, he is rather an enemy who as
time goes on rebels more vehemently against that which was born by
history.
His stories written after October either fly away from the earth into
some cosmic abysses, or this—stylized legends, and when he comes
up against the new reality, he depicts it with ever greater hostility. The
sadlyfamous story, "The Cave” (Peshchera), presents Petrograd dur
ing the Civil War as a city frozen in a new ice age. All perish, the
guardians of culture perish. The two heroes live in a room-cave, and in
it, “as once in Noah’s ark: clean and unclean creatures mixed together
51
52 0. N. Mikhailov
before the flood: a writing desk, books, stone-age pancakes looking like
potter’s clay. Scriabin opus 74, a flatiron, five potatoes lovingly scrub
bed white, nickel bedsteads, an axe, a chiffonier, firewood and in the
center of this universe—God. A shortlegged, rusty-red, squat, greedy,
cave god: the cast-iron stove.” Cold, gloom, death, destruction of
mankind, destruction of culture. Nikolai Aseev remarked wittily in regard
to “The Cave” that the story turns from a "numb” (ledovitogo)
chef-d’oeuvre into a chef-d’oeuvre of venom (iadovitosti) against the
new order.
Zamyatin attained his apogee of hatred for the Revolution in the
novel We (My). At the beginning of the twenties this novel, in manu
script copies, had a certain currency in literary circles. The editor of Red
Virgin Soil, A. Voronsky, received such a copy and immediately wrote a
long indignant letter to Zamyatin. It reads, in part:
“Before me lies your novel We, received from Pilniak. A very grave
impression. Honestly. Can it really be that October and what has trans
pired to our most recent days inspired you only to this? What indeed is
this ‘most jocular and most serious thing’? The most dismal and most
misanthropic. It’s a bit early to shoot at us with such satires. Somehow
you don’t look where you ought. Now take Wells, about whom you
wrote so well and with such talent, he after all saw something positive
and very big in us, the Communists, but you paint us only black. This is
no good. It’s your affair, of course, and I’m not your advisor. We stand
on different planes.”3
The planes, in truth, were so different that they may be called two
camps—the Soviet and anti-Soviet.
Voronsky considered it necessary, besides this, to come out pub
licly against the novel We (though still not published at this time). In Red
Virgin Soil No. 6, 1922, his long, sharp and profoundly just article on
Zamyatin appeared, from which we cited the prophetic words about the
dangerous and inglorious path of the writer.
We is an example of a novel used as a weapon against us, against
our order, against our literature. Marxist criticism openly polemicized
with this novel, it is mentioned in Gorky's correspondence (naturally
Gorky had an extremely negative attitude toward this novel, considering
it harmful in thought and anti-artistic),4 essentially all of the young
Soviet literature rejected what We had drawn. Finally, it is quite logical
that precisely this novel was and is still raised as a shield by contempor
ary American arch-reactionaries of literary study.
In We there is neither verbal invention nor the engaging tie of ironic
skaz, neither the "outpouring” of the unconscious nor pure portraiture.
This was written not for a little coterie of esthetes, as with certain other
Zamyatin 53
stories of Zamyatin, but “popularly”—for the general reader. We is a

straightforward, maliciously clear, rationalistic piece of agitation.
Zamyatin has a pamphlet on England, The Islanders (Ostrovitiane): its
poetics had an effect on We. “The pure experimenter” (thus he was
called in the circle of the “Serapions”) turned into a ferocious political
writer when it became a question of whether the bourgeois individual
ism so dear to his heart would exist or not. From laboratory searches for
new forms of skaz the writer switched “painlessly” to the
novel-pamphlet, or more accurately the novel-slander.
Zamyatin depicts the distant future. After a great two-hundred year
war between the city and country the long-awaited One State was
created. A certain “median majority” won out, equality is brought down
to the anecdotal level. Now everyone has only a number, a golden
badge with a cipher. Everyone lives by the Table of Hours—they get up
at the same time, raise their spoons to their mouths at the same time,
begin work at the same time .. . True, “an absolutely precise solution to
the problem of happiness has not yet been found: from 16 to 17 and
from 21 to 22 o’clock the single powerful organism breaks down into
separate cells: thus the Personal Hours assigned by the Table.”
Nevertheless, this too will be conquered by the “science of equality.”
The hero-narrator writes with pathos: "... I believe: sooner or later, but
someday we shall find a place for these hours as well in the general
formula, someday all 86,400 seconds will enter the Table of Hours.”
The hero of the novel is a mathematician, the builder of the inter
planetary ship "The Integral," an ideal hero of the new world, who
suddenly experiences a certain illness, for he ceases to perceive the
world from the viewpoint of the table of reproduction. A medic locates
the source of the illness: “a soul, apparently, has formed in you.” Such
an ancient concept is not known to the hero. Then it is explained to him
that the man of the future age has a mirror in place of the soul: “And on
the surface we are with you, there—you see, and we squint from the
sunlight, and the blue electrical spark in that tube, and over there the
shadow of an aero flashed by. Only on the surface, only for a second.
But imagine—from some kind of fire this impenetrable surface suddenly
softens, and nothing slides over it anymore—everything penetrates into
its depths, there, into this mirror world . . . And you understand ... a
cold mirror reflects, throws back; but this one absorbs, and everything
leaves a trace—forever.”
And so, the order depicted by Zamyatin negates the soul and
replaces it with a cold, unfeeling mirror. The people of the new world are
ant-executors; fantasy—should it inadvertently rise in them—is cut out
like a cancerous tumor. The heroine—1-330 (a number instead of a
54 O. N. Mikhailov
name)—is a woman-rebel who hails the new revolution in the future

society; she proceeds under the banner of feelings, under the flag of
love.
The end of the novel is gloomy: 1-330 perishes, she perishes with
out saying a word as she is tortured under the gas bell; her adherents
perish . . . True, the revolt still rages somewhere in the blocks of the
city, but the narrator, having betrayed freedom, the narrator-traitor and
executioner, says that “Reason must conquer.” With Zamyatin reason
is the most terrible reaction, the ruin of personality, the triumph of
"antiness.”
Zamyatin believed that he had written a pamphlet against
socialism. A most profound delusion! The picture he painted has no
thing in common with Marxist socialism. Here, rather, is something of
Prussian regimentation, the dedicated state functionaries so brilliantly
portrayed by Heinrich Mann. Marxism has never been reconciled with
the primitive understanding of equality as a depersonalization of the
individual. On the contrary, Marxism has always fought against this
most reactionary conception of socialism! "Antiness,” the inhuman rub
bing out of individuality, the extermination of freedom, the enforcement
of discipline which kills freedom (the almost Jesuitic “be a corpse in the
hands of the chief")—these were the raving ideas of arch-reactionary
bourgeois political thinkers.
It is also characteristic that We is absolutely devoid of any Russian,
Soviet coloration—here everything is “mid-European,” like The Time
Machine of Wells or a similar utopian novel.
A. Voronsky was profoundly right when he wrote:
“Zamyatin has written a pamphlet which relates not to
Communism, but to Bismarckian, reactionary, Richterian state
socialism. Not for nothing did he give new faces to his Islanders and
transfer from that work into the novel the main features of London and
Jesmond—and not only that, but the plot as well.”5
A characteristic stroke—Voronsky’s article speaks also of
Zamyatin’s influence on the “Serapions.” This drew forth the sharp
objections of these writers themselves. N. Nikitin wrote Voronsky: "I'm
sitting at Zoshchenko’s . . . We see—the huge mistake of everyone who
pastes on us the obligatory Zamyatin label . . . Zoshchenko says that
we are not bound to him (that is with Zamyatin) by any kindred idea.
This is not the teacher from whose every new work you expect a
revelation.” And further Nikitin speaks even more sharply: “Zamyatin
does not have a line without a little laugh. Zamyatin is always intriguing.
The label ‘Zamyatinites’ is not only harmful, but fundamentally coarse.
My credo is known to you: 'with the Bolsheviks!’ It’s not my custom to
dress myself as a Red soldier.”6
Zamyatin 55
No less definitely did K. Fedin write Voronsky at that time: "I share
your view of Zamyatin’s ‘symbolism’ completely—bad politics,
indecent.”7
We—this is a bourgeois ideological diversion. The appearance of
this novel shows once again how insubstantial are assertions about the
possibility of some peaceful co-existence of ideologies. With good
reason the most reactionary imperialistic circles in the USA have armed
themselves with We. This work, so it is said, “aligns itself” with the most
dismal creative works of contemporary bourgeois literature, aptly
named "anti-utopias.” These anti-utopian novels try frantically to des
troy faith in the coming human happiness; they are shot through with
hopeless historical pessimism and a zoological hatred for the people,
for democracy. Such are Brave New World by Huxley, 1984 by Orwell.
Zamyatin truly took an inglorious and shameful path, to the ranks of the
obscurantists who strive, as even one bourgeois literary scholar noted,
to remove man from art.
Every new day of the making of socialist society, every talented
work on Soviet reality, depicting both the difficulties and the contradic
tions and the dramas, but drawing all this honestly and truthfully—these
have smashed Zamyatin's malicious fantasies to bits. From the novels
of Tolstoi and Sholokhov, Serafimovich and Fadeev, Fedin and Leonov
and many others there has arisen the free personality of the man of
Soviet society, there has arisen the image of the socialist collective
which elevates man and supports him in the most noble and daring
undertakings.
Translated by G.K.
Notes
1. A chapter from the book Sovetskii roman: ocherki (Academy of Sciences:

Moscow, 1963), 131-36. The following notes are the author's own.
2. Krasnaia nov' No. 6, 1922, 321.
3. Cited from the book: A Voronsky, Literaturno-kriticheskie stat'i ("Sovetskii
pisatel'”: Moscow).
4. In a letter to I. Gruzdev, Gorky writes: "We is desperately bad, a completely
unfruitful thing. Its anger is cold and dry, this is the anger of an old maid.” (Sochineniia,
vol. 30, p. 126.)
5. A Voronsky, "E. Zamyatin," Krasnaia nov’ No. 6, 1922, 319-21.
6. A. M. Gorky Archive.
7. Ibid.
ZAMYATIN
O. N. Mikhailov
Entry in The Short Literary Encyclopedia (1964)
Zamyatin, Evgeny Ivanovich (20.1.1884, Lebedian' Tambov

district—10.111.1937, Paris.) Russ, writer. Grad, shipbuilding dept.
Peterb. Polytech. Inst. Took part in the revol. movement 1905-07, suf
fered persecution, from 1906-11 lived in an illegal status. Began to
publish in 1908. Z.’s pre-revol. creative work developed in the traditions
of Russ, critical realism—N. V. Gogol, N. S. Leskov—and was colored
with democratic ideas. In 1913 Z.’s best tale was pub.—Uezdnoe (A
Provincial Tale), portraying in grotesque satiric tones the womblike
zoological way of life of provincial philistinism. In 1914 for his anti-war
tale Na kulichkakh (In the Sticks) the writer was tried in court, and the
issue of the journal Zavety in which the tale appeared was confiscated.
In 1916 Z. went to England. The bourgeois civilization which trans
formed man into a machine provided material for the satiric tale Ostrovi
tiane (The Islanders) (1918) and the story Lovets chelovekov (Fisher of
Men) (1918, pub. 1921). In the autumn of 1917 Z. returned to Russia,
took part in the editorial work of the pub. house Vsemirnaia literatura
(World Literature), the journals Dorn iskusstv (The House of Arts), Sov-
remennyi Zapad (Contemporary West), Russkii sovremennik (The Rus
sian Contemporary). Z.’s post-revol. creative work is imbued with a
hostile attitude toward the revolution, deep pessimism. In the article la
boius’ (I fear) (1921) Z. asserted that Russ. lit. had “only one future: its
past.” In Z.’s numerous fantastic-allegorical stylized stories,
fable-parables and dramatic “pageants”—Peshchera (The Cave, 1920,
pub. 1921), Mamai (1920, pub. 1924), Poslanie Zamutiia, episkopa
obez'ianskogo (Epistle from Zamuty, ape bishop, 1921), Ogni sv.
Dominika (The Fires of St. Dominic, 1920, pub. 1922), Attila (wr. 1928)
and others—the events of the War Communism period and Civil War
were grotesquely distorted and portrayed from anti-Soviet positions as
a return to primitive "cave” existence. Z. also wrote the novel My
(We)—a vicious pamphlet against the Sov. state. Its appearance
abroad (pub. in England 1924) provoked the indignation of Sov. social
56
Zamyatin 57
comment. The novel had an influence on the West Europe.

anti-Communist "anti-utopian” novel of the 20th c. (O. Huxley, Geo.
Orwell). In 1925 Z. wrote the “popular amusement" Blokha (The Flea)
on the theme of N.S. Leskov’s Levsha (Lefty) (Perf. 1925 by Studio 2
Moscow Dram. Art Th.). Certain aspects of Z.’s creative work
(stylization, ornamentalism) exerted an influence on the lit. group
“Serapion Brothers." In 1932 Z. went abroad, where he published no
thing significant.
Translated by G.K.
MYTHIC CRITICISM
TWO ADAMS AND EVE IN THE CRYSTAL
PALACE: DOSTOEVSKY, THE BIBLE, AND WE
Richard A. Gregg
“Prophetic” is a quality which few thoughtful readers would deny

Zamyatin’s We. For if its moral argument (the irreconcilability of “pure”
communism and individual freedom) has, to a disturbing degree, been
confirmed by the course of twentieth-century history, so have some of
its boldest technological predictions (for example, state-enforced
restrictions on human fertility, Communist-inaugurated space travel).
Even its genre (an original blend of political satire and science fiction)
has proven to be a prophecy of sorts, anticipating, as it does, the more
celebrated satirical fantasies of Huxley and Orwell.1
That these oracles have impressed the readers of We is as it
should be. That they have distracted them from less obvious aspects of
the work is not. For, objectively considered, We is a Janus-faced novel.
It looks backward as well as forward. The philosophical problem it
explores had engaged one of the greatest Russian minds of the
previous century; its closest literary ancestor is a classic of Russian
literature; and, as we shall see, underlying much of its plot is a famous
myth of Judeo-Christian religion. Only when the traditional aspects of
We have been properly assessed can the edge of its satire be fully felt.
The philosophical debt which the novel owes to Dostoevsky’s
thought in general, and to Notes from the Underground and The
Brothers Karamazov in particular, will not detain us long, for it has
received its due elsewhere. The ethical dilemma confronting
Zamyatin’s hero, D-503, namely, that freedom and earthly happiness
are incompatible and that benevolent totalitarianism destroys the
former as it ensures the latter, evidently derives—as Professor Peter
Rudy has already noted2—from Ivan Karamazov’s legendary Grand
Inquisitor, who rebukes Christ for refusing to trade man’s freedom for
the miracles, mystery, and authority offered by Satan and praises the
Church for having rectified the error. Another scholar, Mr. D. J.
Richards, has called attention to a more far-reaching parallel when he
noted that D-503 in "confiding to his diary his anti-social sentiments and
his tortured speculations on the irrational nature of man becomes a
61
62 Richard A. Gregg
literary descendant of Dostoevsky's hero in the Notes from the

Underground.''3
As far as he goes Mr. Richards is surely right, but one wishes he
had gone a little further. For the evidence suggests that Zamyatin drew
artistic as well as ideological inspiration from the Notes—and not,
perhaps, from the Notes alone. That the “underground caves’’4 which
once housed the insurgent enemies of We derives from the spiritual
“underground’’ which housed Dostoevsky’s enemy of society, or that
the huge glass dome which encloses the United State is Zamyatin’s
hypostasis of Dostoevsky’s hated Crystal Palace5—such debts cannot,
of course, be proven. Similarly, one cannot be sure that the
mathematically regulated existence of D-503 “invested in the sacred
cyphers of the Table”6 derives from Dostoevsky’s vision of an
arithmetical utopia where “all human actions will be tabulated by those
laws, mathematically”;7 or that the regulated sex life of the citizens of
the United State (pink slips, assigned hours) was inspired by
Dostoevsky’s forecast of a race of robots who “desire nothing except by
the calendar.”8 But, taken collectively, and in the light of Dostoevsky’s
known philosophical influence on We, such correspondences raise
suspicions. When Zamyatin’s "square root of minus numbers”9 (symbol
to D-503 of the irrational in life) is compared with Dostoevsky's
“extraction of square roots”10 (symbol for the purely rational life), these
suspicions are bound to grow; and when the Dostoevskian leitmotif 2 x
2 = 4 (another symbol of rationality and finitude) is heard to
reverberate in Zamyatin’s satirical hymn to rationalism: “Two times two,
forever in love/ Forever joined in passionate four/ Most ardent lovers in
the world/ Eternally welded two times two,”11 they approach something
like certitude.
Whatever ideas the Notes may have suggested to Zamyatin, the
central metaphor or myth of his novel was drawn from a much older
source, though it is possible that this debt, too, may have been
suggested by Dostoevsky. The source in question is the Biblical story of
Adam and Eve, which Zamyatin incorporated into his tale of a
communist paradise, and the satirical uses of which Dostoevsky
had—albeit in rudimentary form—anticipated in The Possessed. For
when in the chapter entitled “Among Us” the revolutionary theoretician
Shigalov12 predicts that mankind in search of a socialist utopia will
“through boundless submission by a series of regenerations attain a
primeval innocence something like primeval paradise" (a moment later
it is called “an earthly paradise”),13 he is not only summarizing the
prehistory of We but naming its central metaphor. And shortly
thereafter, when Petr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, describing his own
(perverted) concept of the future totalitarian society, exclaims to

Stavrogin, “We shall consider how to build up an edifice of stone. For
the first time! We will build, we and only we!”14 he may have supplied
Zamyatin with his title as well.
But to gauge the possible extent of Zamyatin’s indebtedness to
Dostoevsky is more difficult (and less important) than to see how the
myth actually works itself out in the novel. The action of We has barely
begun when Zamyatin drops his first small hint of the mythical shape of
things to come. As D-503, still a joyful cog in the machine of the United
State, passes proudly in review (Entry 2), he reflects that “not past
generations, but I myself have won a victory over the old god and the
old life, I myself have created all this”—a piece of pompous
self-deception which the heroine (I-330) is quick to perceive.
Addressing her future lover for the first time, she mockingly remarks: “I
beg your pardon ... but you gazed about like an inspired mythological
god on the seventh day of creation.”15 Although there is, in truth,
nothing very godlike in the shuffling and neurotic D-503, his delusion is
not without significance. For just as Adam, the servant and mortal
replica of Jehovah, once labored for his Maker in the fields of Eden, so
D-503, the dedicated architect, labors to improve the “glass paradise”
(the phrase is his)16 of the Well-Doer. And it is precisely because the
United State has restored that perfect community of interests between
master and man which had once reigned in Eden (“The Ancient God
and we [were] side by side at the same table,”17 the poet R-13 later
explains to the hero) that “Adam’s” momentary confusion is possible.
To do the Well-Doer’s will on earth is, of course, the vocation of our
hero—a vocation which the crafty, beautiful I-330 seeks to subvert by
inducing him to taste the delights of freedom and knowledge, that is, of
Evil. In essence this is, of course, an imitation of Genesis. And just as
the Biblical authors and their successors used certain traditional
images to describe the fateful event—a forbidden food, a bite, a
figurative fall, and sinful intercourse—so Zamyatin in relating D-503’s
loss of innocence uses his considerable ingenuity to ring the changes
on these symbols. The seductive charms of Eve and her first fatal bite
are thus telescoped into the recurrent images of l-330’s sharp teeth and
“bite-smile,” which have such a fatal fascination for D-503; the moral
fall of Adam becomes literal in We: “Down, down, down, as from a
steep mountain,”16 descends the hero into the site of his transgression
(the Ancient House); it is there that a green and forbidden liqueur
offered by I-330 replaces the forbidden fruit of Genesis, the
consumption of which—here Zamyatin follows Milton rather than
Genesis—on the hero’s next visit leads to sinful and guilty intercourse
64 Richard Æ Gregg
with “Eve." When it is all over, the latter pointedly remarks: “Well, my
fallen angel, you perished just now, did you know that?”19 There was, in
truth, no need to labor the point; for D-503 feels a guilt quite worthy of
his ancestor departing through the Gates of Eden: "I, a corrupted man,
a criminal,” he reflects in anguish, “have no place here. No, I shall
never be able to fuse myself into the mechanical rhythm ... I am to
burn eternally from now on, running from place to place, seeking a nook
where I may hide my eyes.”20
Zamyatin exploits his myth in a manner that is neither mechanical
nor, on the whole, obtrusive. Indeed, he drops his symbols so gently
that their presence seems to have gone unnoticed. Perhaps it was to
forestall such an event that on one occasion he expounds his Biblical
design explicitly and in detail. His mouthpiece is the poet R-13, who in
Entry 11 describes to D-503 the plight of the modern state in these
unambiguous terms:
You understand ... the ancient legend of paradise ... That legend refers to us
today, does it not? Think about it. There were two in paradise and the choice was
offered to them: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness . . .
They, blockheads that they were, chose freedom.
And a moment later:
It was he [the Devil] who led people to break the interdiction, to taste pernicious
freedom—he, the cunning serpent. And we planted a boot on his head, and squash!
Everything’s fixed. Paradise again! We returned to the simplemindedness and
innocence of Adam and Eve. No more meddling with good and evil and all that.2'
Of course the poet cannot know what the reader knows—that his
interlocutor is at that very moment “meddling with good and evil” for all
he is worth. And it is this very ignorance which allows him to deliver the
coup de grâce, when he playfully adds: “Oh you . .. Adam! By the
way—about Eve .. . ”22
The reader who accepts Zamyatin’s gambit and starts looking for
further Biblical parallels will not be disappointed. He will note, for
instance, that the Well-Doer becomes the Lord God of Genesis: “It was
he, descending to us from the sky. He—the new Jehovah in an aero”;23
that his guardians (official custodians of virtue, that is, conformity) are
angels: “He, my Guardian Angel,” writes D-503 of one of their number,
“decided matters;”24 and that the world lying beyond the Green Wall of
the United State and visited by the New Adam and Eve after the Fall
(Entry 27) is clearly that wilderness "east of Eden” where the first sinful
couple had taken refuge.
But if We is to some significant degree Zamyatin’s ironic retelling of

Genesis chapters 1-4, where, one may ask, is the Archfiend without
whose odious designs and serpent's shape no account of the story
would be complete or even meaningful? The answer is provided by that
enigmatic friend of Eve, S-4711, whose letter stands for Satan, serpent,
and snake alike,25 and whose collusion with Eve, “double-curved"
body, manner of locomotion (“gliding over the ... glass ... the running
body . .. like a noose"),26 and deceitful disguise (“ . . . if he should
discard the deception of clothes and appear in public in his true form . . .
Oh!”)27 make his diabolical vocation clear. And if the frivolous reader
would inquire how such a deformed creature could have ever enjoyed
the favors of the beauteous I-330, Zamyatin has a no less frivolous
answer ready. For who could be more ingratiating, more insinuatingly
seductive than he who wears the world’s most famous perfume for a
name—4711? Subtlety, thy name is Eau de Cologne!
Zamyatin does not allow such occasional playfulness to blunt the
edge of his satire, which cuts deepest when it diverges most widely
from its model.28 For if the Biblical argument is that in order to be worthy
of God, Adam should have resisted Eve's blandishments, the moral of
We is that to be worthy of man the new Adam ought to succumb to
them. Hence, if Genesis is tragic because Paradise was lost, and man's
happiness forfeited, its modern analogue is tragic because in the end
Adam is saved, and his “glass paradise”—putatively at
least—preserved.
The use of ingenious mythical parallels can, as the record of
contemporary fiction attests, become a habit-forming authorial
indulgence. It should not, therefore, surprise us that midway through
the novel Zamyatin is tempted to introduce a second Biblical pattern,
though it is doubtful whether its artistic integration into the novel as a
whole is entirely successful. The earliest trace of this can be found in
Entry 20, when Zamyatin makes his penitent hero (he has illegally
gotten 0-90 with child) ponder the equity of the death sentence
awaiting him: "This [then] is that divine justice of which those
stone-housed ancients dreamed, lit by the naive pink rays of the dawn
of history. Their 'God' punished sacrilege as a capital crime."29 This
rather shadowy equation of Christianity and communism evidently
pleased the author (who was a friend of neither ideology), for two
chapters later D-503, relishing the sensation of selfless solidarity with
the community (he is going through one of his conformist phases), puts
the case more clearly:
66 Richard A. Gregg
In the ancient days the Christians understood this feeling; they are our only, though
very imperfect, direct forerunners. They knew that resignation is a virtue, and pride
a vice; that “We" is from God, "I" from the devil.30
Several chapters later the same conceit crops up again; this time,
however, it is presented from the insurgents’ standpoint: "Our—or,
more exactly, your—ancestors, the Christians, worshiped entropy like a
god,” explains 1-330 to her lover. "But we are not Christians."31
That a disciple of Dostoevskian ethics could depart from his
master’s metaphysics so far as to see Christianity as the father of
communism was an irony which Zamyatin evidently understood and
even exploited through parody. For as We draws to its tumultuous
close, the hero finds himself in a situation (Entry 36) which bears a
bizarre but unmistakable resemblance to that of Christ in the Legend of
the Grand Inquisitor, the philosophical importance of which has already
been noted. Like Ivan’s Christ, though in a very different way, D-503
has tried to liberate mankind.32 Like Him, too; he has failed in his
endeavor and has returned to earth, where he is taken prisoner and
summoned into the presence of the austere and loving leader of the
terrestrial forces for an accounting. Silent (like Jesus), he listens to the
stern arraignment by his superior as the latter rejects the concept of
freedom ("[Man] longed for that day when someone would tell him what
happiness is, and then would chain him to it”),33 and defends the
enemies of Christ:
Remember—a blue hill, a crowd, a cross? Some up on the hill, sprinkled with blood,
are busy nailing a body to the cross; others below, sprinkled with tears, are gazing
upward. Does it not seem to you that the part which those above must play is the
more difficult, the more important part? If it were not for them, how could that
magnificent tragedy have been staged? True, they were hissed by the dark crowd,
but for that the author of the tragedy, God, should have remunerated them the more
liberally, should he not?34
Like the Grand Inquisitor, the Well-Doer knows that the forced
benefactions of the good society outweigh the freedom which
Christ—and now D-503—would offer. And the hero, whose forty days of
temptation in the wilderness of doubt (there are forty entries in his
journal)35 and thirty-two years of age at his “death" are obvious
allusions to his Christlike role, feels a solitude akin to that of Jesus
before His crucifixion:
If only I had a mother, as the ancients had—my mother, mine. For whom I should
not be the Builder of the "Integral," and not D-503, not a molecule of the United
State, but merely a living human piece, a piece of herself . . . And though I were
driving the nails in the corpse or being nailed to it (perhaps it is the same), she would
hear what no one else could hear.36
Perhaps, indeed, his solitude is greater; for Jesus’ apostrophe on the

Cross was, after all, addressed to Somebody. The New Saviour has no
one.
D-503’s ultimate decision is, of course, the opposite of Christ’s.
Instead of dying so that men may be free, he lives so that they will
remain slaves. Yet, paradoxically, even as he submits himself to the
machine which makes soulless robots of its victims, he is—if we accept
his own identification of communism and Christianity—behaving like a
Christian. And in the words written on the eve of his self
sacrifice—“Perhaps then [that is, after the operation] I shall be reborn.
For only what is killed can be reborn”37—one can hear ironical
overtones of the Christian promise that only he who loses himself shall
find himself, or that to live in the spirit is to die in the flesh.
To describe some of the more important symbolic patterns in We is
not to affirm their artistic success. In particular, the compounded ironies
occasioned by D-503’s appearance as both the First and the Second
Adam seem to blur and blunt more than they intensify. And other
symbolic allusions (I have not tried to discuss them all) raise similar
doubts.38 But if We is read today, it is less for its artistic merits (which
are uneven) than for the boldness and ingenuity of its satirical concept
(which are very great). In this concept the Biblical patterns described
here play a role of the first importance.
Notes
1. It is true that the futuristic novels of H. G. Wells (who strongly influenced Zamyatin)
are not without satirical overtones. But whereas in Wells satire is a subsidiary and
dispensable element, in We it is inalienable and essential.
2. Introduction to Eugene Zamiatin, We, trans. Gregory Zilboorg (New York: Dutton,
1959), p. viii (“Dutton Everyman Paperback”).
3. Zamyatin, a Soviet Heretic (London, 1962), p. 56.
4. Zamiatin, My (Russian text, New York, 1952), pp. 84-85. For the quotations from
the text of My, I have drawn upon the translation by Gregory Zilboorg (see note 2 above),
with minor modifications.
5. It is also interesting to compare Dostoevsky’s rebel who swears he will never
"bring a single brick" to the building of the Crystal Palace (F. M. Dostoevskii, Sobranie
sochinenii [Moscow, 1956], IV, 152) to Zamyatin's latter-day rebels, who by their
apostasy have "lost their rights to be the bricks ... of the United State" (Zamiatin, p. 128).
6. Zamiatin, p. 13
7. Dostoevskii, p. 152.
68 Richard A. Gregg
8. Ibid., p. 158
9. Zamiatin, pp. 37 ff.
10. Dostoevsky, p. 155.
11. Zamiatin, pp. 59-60. Richards (pp. 60-64) takes cognizance of this corre
spondence but not of the others.
12. The words are actually pronounced by the "lame schoolteacher,” but they are an
admiring description of Shigalovsim, and evidently have Shigalov’s approval.
13. Dostoevskii, VII, 423, 424.
14. Ibid., p. 442.
15. Zamiatin, p. 9.
16. Ibid., p. 111.
17. Ibid., p. 56.
18. Ibid., p. 25
19. Ibid., p. 66.
20. Ibid., p. 74.
21. Ibid., p. 56.
22. Ibid. The fact that R-13 is referring to 0-90, while the reader (and no doubt D-503)
have quite another "Eve" in mind is characteristic of Zamyatin's compounded ironies.
23. Ibid., p. 121.
24. Ibid., p. 96. Ironically, this Guardian Angel is, in fact, a fallen angel, for it is S-4711
that the hero is referring to. Since Satan, too, was once an angel, Zamyatin is being
faithful to religious as well as literary tradition here.
25. The use of the Roman alphabet for the nomenclature of Zamyatin’s characters
made punning difficult in Russian. His excellent command of English makes that
language appear to be the likeliest candidate, although it is true that the play would also
have been valid in French (Satan, serpent) or German (Satan, Schlange). The reader
may wonder why Zamyatin did not try to slip in symbolic hints of the Genesis story in the
other names. The answer is that he seems to have done exactly this. Thus, the phonetic
value of Eve’s initial in English is rendered by the Cyrillic letter which, in turn, is the
conventional written equivalent of the English letter "I.” Hence an identity of sorts
between I-330 and her mythological archetype. If this seems a little far-fetched, it will be
noted that the letter of the poet R-13 phonetically rendered in Russian is "P,” the graphic
equivalent of which in our alphabet is, of course, also ”P.” Since Zamyatin’s poet was
almost certainly a kind of avatar of Pushkin (see note 38 below), the initial once again fits
the archetype. When it came to encoding the mythic name of the hero, Zamyatin
encountered a special problem, since all the men in the United State had to have
consonantal names. Unable to use Adam’s first letter, Zamiatin simply used the second
one.
26. Zamiatin, p. 122.
27. Ibid., p. 50.
28. It does not follow, of course, that whenever Zamyatin’s plot diverges from
Genesis we must look for irony. There are important narrative elements in We which are
quite unrelated to the story of Eden. The myth is, after all, only one strand—though a very
important one—in Zamyatin’s plot.
30. Ibid., p. 111.
31. Ibid., p. 142.
32. D-503 tries to free his fellow men by turning his spaceship "Integral" over to the
insurgent enemy.
34. Ibid., p. 183.

35. This may also have been suggested by Dostoevsky, whose underground hero
was a symbolic forty years old.
36. Zamiatin, pp. 185-86.
37. Ibid., p. 193.
38. What, for instance, are we supposed to make of the hints which Zamyatin drops
with regard to R-13? His status as the country's greatest poet, his somewhat negroid
features, and his ebullient character—to say nothing of the fact that he composes hymns
of praise to his country, but fights for individual freedom and eventually falls victim to the
regime—all this cannot fail to remind the Russian reader of Pushkin. But it cannot be said
that this identification, even if valid, helps illuminate the novel as a whole. More than
anything, it seems like a private joke. Symbol hunters will also note the use of the
seasonal cycle (spring fever at the beginning, autumnal resignation and defeat at the
end), as well as water imagery (dripping faucets, bubbling fountains), which is clearly
connected with the motif of freedom and revolt. Here, too, however, the artistic
effectiveness of these symbols may be questioned.
ZAMYATIN’S WE AS MYTH
Christopher Collins
Critical studies of Evgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We, whether

philosophical, socio-political, or structural, have accepted it as a fiction
al diary account of external life in the future by an engineer undergoing
a spiritual crisis.
Certain ambiguities involving D-503’s finger and 1-330’s appear
ance and character are reminiscent of Gogol’s The Nose and
Dostoevsky’s The Double, respectively, and suggest that a clearer,
purely realistic interpretation of We might be obtained by carefully
separating real life sequences from dream and hallucination
sequences, as has been so well done in psychoanalytic studies of The
Nose1 and of The Double.2 However, We resists such efforts and re
quires a different approach. I hope to show that a reading of the entire
novel as a myth relevant to the spiritual career of twentieth-century
Western man is crucial to an understanding of the work's structure,
meaning, and impact.
Alienation, commonly considered the fundamental spiritual prob
lem of modern man, can be regarded essentially as the dissociation of.
the conscious and the unconscious, the rational and the irrational, in the
psyche and life of the individual. Closely related to this phenomenon is
a compulsive longing for non-freedom, non-responsibility, and security,
as evidenced by the totalitarianism mass movement on the one hand,
and conformism on the other.
But the unconscious may resist dissociation and the concomitant
regressive desire for child-like security, and express itself in archetypal
images in dream or myth. In either case, a representation of an inner,
psychic conflict is staged. Archetypal figures represent various forces
within the psyche and are brought into conflict.
The stage in We is the city, representing the psyche. D-503's
psyche-city is dominated by the rational, where "all of life in all its
complexity and beauty has been minted for eternity in the gold of
words" (p. 62).3 The unconscious is nearly completely suppressed,
permitted limited expression only two hours a day during the Personal
Hours, when “the mightly one organism separates into cells” (p. 14).
70
Zamyatin’s We as Myth 71
The separate cell may engage not only in occasional regulated sexual
relations, but in creative work as well, such as D-503’s writing of a
journal. The deliberate repression and dissociation of the unconscious
underlies the appearance of a group of archetypal figures and a battle
for the integration of the psyche.
It might be ventured that the novel suffers from having only one
character, the protagonist-narrator, portrayed in any depth. The other
figures, even considering they are seen entirely through the eyes of the
protagonist, lack internal conflicts, and may seem uninterestingly
consistent. But the one-sided, unreal quality of the figures surrounding
D-503 is perhaps the first formal indication that the entire novel is a
myth, populated not with separate individuals, each with his own
ego-consciousness, but with archetypal figures, displaying "all the
marks of fragmentary personalities .. . without problems, lacking
self-reflection, with no conflicts, no doubts, no sufferings . . . ”4
The most important of these fragmentary personalities is I-330.
She appears suddenly in the crowd in the street as D-503 reflects on
the confusion of the long-past twentieth century. She hints at her
psychic origin to D-503: "You seem so certain that you created me” (p.
9). Next, she begins to utter his own thoughts. The circumstances of her
initial appearance, her character, her role, and her death all suggest
she is a manifestation of D-503’s anima. The rationalistic ego has so
long and so thoroughly repressed the female^Tement physiologically
and psychically present in the male, that the anima manifests itself and
attempts to guide the ego, to put him in touch with the unconscious. She
seeks to make the ego receptive to female qualities—the irrational,
love, and a feeling for nature.
The anima of myth may be witch or fair damsel, may have, in fact,
both good and evil aspects. l-330’s appearance at the concert is
marked by a black piano, her black dress, her sharp teeth, and by the
pain D-503 feels (18-19). Yet she is not wholly black; as she plays the
piano D-503 feels the sun breaking through. On her first appearance in
the Ancient House she provocatively dresses in black and yellow (p. 28)
and often thereafter in yellow, signifying that there is sunlight within her
as well as darkness. Like Goethe’s Helen of Troy, the animas in the
novels of Rider Haggard, or Blok’s prekrasnaia dama, I-330 prefers
historical dress. As the an/'ma-guide, I-330 introduces D-503 to the
Ancient House—a museum representing the collective unconscious
surviving in the rationalized psyche-city, just as primordial survivals are
also manifested in the body, e.g., in D-503’s hairy hands, and in the few
drops of “sunny, forest blood” (p. 140) in his veins.
Once the anima has shattered his complacency, D-503 finds him
72 Christopher Collins
self "alone on a desert island" (p. 76), a barren psyche. But she is
willing to help the ego find the self, to lead it to the world outside the
prison-like wall. D-503 tells her, "There you are by my side, and yet it
seems as if you were, after all, behind one of those ancient, opaque
walls; through the wall I hear rustling and voices," to which she replies:
“You want to learn everything? . . . And you would not be afraid to
follow me?” (115-116).
She inspires D-503 to a frenzy of lust, hate, and violence during the
disorders on the Day of Unanimity. She later meets him at the Ancient
House and conducts him through an underground passage of the spirit
to the outside world. Above ground, at the same time, a hole in the wall
of the psyche-city is being blasted. Now free in the outside world, and
unconsciously realizing the emptiness of the psyche-city, D-503 sees it
as being overwhelmed, inundated, a feeling R. D. Laing would term the
fear of implosion by the ontologically insecure.5 In immediate reply to
this concern over inner emptiness, the anima explains the real meaning
of the hole blasted in the wall (and of the tunnel underneath it): “Oh no!
We have simply gone beyond the Green Wall.” (p. 132.) Although her
primary appeal is on the level of the unconscious, she also appeals in
rational terms to the ego, in such explanations as: "They [the primitive
people outside the wall] are the half we have lost... it is necessary for
these halves to unite” (140-141). He is unable to be convinced finally
by appeals either to his unconscious or to his ego, his participation in
the rocket’s seizure notwithstanding. Yet her impact is literally
devastating, as physical and spiritual confusion reigns in the
psyche-city.
Having won the struggle for possession of the Integral, the forces
of tyrannical rationalism go on to triumph in the failure of the attempted
maternal-monster murder, the death of the birds, the death of R-13, the
appearance of the Benefactor, the operation, the repairing of the wall,
and amid all this, the gradual death of I-330. Her final three appear
ances reflect the death of the anima. Her first appearance after the
rocket seizure fails is in the subway, in the underground of the
psyche-city, where she makes a vain attempt to rally her supporters.
One or two days later (Entry 38) D-503 awakens in the night in a fog
and finds I-330 already in his room in a scene recalling the dream in
Entry 18. She quickly learns of his betrayal, says a few words, and
leaves him to brood away the rest of the night. The anima, previously
accepted as a real person above ground, in the light of day, went
underground after the rocket revolt, and by her next brief,
middle-of-the-night appearance has almost faded into a dream figure.
At the beginning of her final appearance in the torture chamber she and
the entire unconscious have been so far repressed that D-503 has only
the faintest feeling that there is something familiar about her. Not a
sound is heard, no emotion is felt, and she is to be executed. The
triumph of rationalism and non-freedom is complete.
0-90 appears to be the only named figure to represent a real, outer
person. If the entire novel were a dream, the psychoanalyst might well
demonstrate that 0-90 was a representation of the dreamer's real-life
fiancée or wife, with whom he has difficulty establishing a mature
relationship. The anima traditionally assists the ego to overcome his
inability to have a mature relationship with a real woman. Sexual rela
tions with the anima may cause a feeling of guilt, and the real woman
may become jealous, but a fuller relationship with the real woman
should be the result.
After 1-330’s concert, D-503 has an exceptionally full sexual experi
ence with 0-90, and she tells him of her desire for a child. He refuses
the responsibility of fathering a child by her, excusing himself on the
grounds that she is too short,6 and that childbirth would therefore be the
death of her. (In the manifest story, the One State prohibits conception
on pain of death. In the latent story, D-503 is relying on the thin excuse
that her shortness would not permit a normal pregnancy and safe
delivery.) Through the anima’s influence, however, D-503 begins to
overcome his immaturity and consents to impregnate 0-90, to become,
biologically at least, a father, a man. It is significant that conception
occurs during intercourse with 0-90 sanctioned by 1-330’s pink check.7
D-503 offers to have 1-330 save her, but 0-90 refuses, and he must
assume the responsibility of a father, be a man, and provide for the
welfare of mother and unborn child himself. Though confessing he is
obligated to save her (p. 163), D-503 never accepts this responsibility.
His failure to be a true father is part of his over-all failure to be a human
being. Yet 0-90, whom D-503 considers like all female numbers
“completely incapable of abstract thought” (p. 35), escapes the realm
of rationalism. Their child is to be born outside the Green Wall, and
therein lies the only hope for the future.
Yu- is the maternal monster the hero of myth must destroy to free
himself from a regressive longing to return to the secure, un-free world
of the infant. Yu-’s entire role and character is that of the smothering,
domineering mother. She mans the entrance to D-503's apartment
building, reads his mail, and "guards” (p. 138) him from the anima. She
even desires him sexually. Her gill-like cheeks and her pupils’ carica
ture of her as a fish recall the dragons (reptilian maternal monsters) of
mythology, not to mention the myth of Jonah, swallowed by a whale and
nearly suffocating in a womb-like security.8 She treats D-503 like her
small son: "... you poor, poor thing” (p. 91); and ”... you, my dear,
are also a child” (p. 107). She takes maternal pride in D-503’s worldly
success: “You have surely heard of him? He’s always sitting at his desk
like that—he absolutely will not spare himself.” (p. 144.) In her vocation
as teacher of small children she represents the one mother small chil
dren have in this paternalistic state. One might identify her with that
state in D-503’s metaphor of "the maternal breast of the One State” (p.
168). That she is the only figure, major or minor, not to have a full name
suggests that her identity as mother is too horrible to be faced directly.
(One recalls the Medusa.) She and D-503 are the only figures to have
Cyrillic letters in their names, possibly indicating a family connection.
In a burst of filial enthusiasm described in Entry 21, D-503 reads
her “a bit from my Twentieth Entry beginning with: ‘quietly, the thoughts
click metallically’ ” (p. 106). If the reader turns back to the previous entry
he will discover that this quotation from D-503’s journal precedes a
passage referring to O-90’s pregnancy. The pregnancy and the plan
ned seizure of the rocket are correctly seen by Yu- as D-503’s attempt
to escape her mother-prison and to cleave unto another, hence she
betrays her "child.” Realizing her role in frustrating his attempt at
freedom, he then sets out, like the archetypal hero, sword in hand (a
piston rod), to kill her. His failure to slay the maternal monster is another
part of his over-all failure to achieve maturity.
The dual-mother motif, common in mythology, is also present in
the novel. Just as Yu- attends the entrance to the apartment building, a
helpful, grandmotherly figure attends the entrance to the Ancient
House. As a mythical “grand” mother, she represents a higher level of
motherhood, the "just-so love” (prosto-tak liubov’, p. 26) D-503 longs
for, in contrast to the devouring love of Yu-.
As the novel begins D-503 has peacefully shared 0-90 with the
Negro R-13 for three years. R-13 prefers a purely sexual relationship,
poetry, or non-intellectual socializing. He replies to D-503’s proposal to
do some mathematical problems for relaxation: “Let’s simply go over to
my place and sit awhile” (p. 38). That R-13 is the male sexual drive
within is emphasized by his being a Negro (a common image in the
myths and dreams of white men) and by the constant spurting from his
“repellently Negroid lips” (p. 122)—saliva and semen being often
associated with myths. Being of the same sex as D-503 and possessing
opposite qualities than those in the ego, R-13 fits the role of the arche
typal shadow, having values needed by consciousness, but rejected by
it. Through the help of the anima, D-503 comes to recognize the needs
of his shadow, becomes lustful, jealous, and even strikes R-13. The
ego is not attacking the male sexual principle, but rather is indicating
that R-13 is no longer needed as a separate part of the psyche, since

D-503 has (temporarily) incorporated maleness and is himself capable
of taking from R-13 by force the bleeding, bare-breasted I-330. The
close association of sexual and creative drives—a favorite theme of
Zamyatin’s—is emphasized by R-13's writing verse to be carried on the
rocket. R-13 is also by race and profession identified with the bust of the
sexual and literary genius Pushkin found in the Ancient Horse.
Jung observes that primitive man often has a bush-soul as well as
his own, or even several bush-souls.9 The bush-soul may be an animal,
a bird, or an inanimate object with which he identifies psychically
through myth and symbolism.
The rocket D-503 builds is a bush-soul. Its career parallels his own.
Its flight is his flight. Its fire is his fire, and they are both extinguished
together. The rocket is at once a symbol of transcendence, like the
bird-like cranes constructing the Integral and like the birds flying into the
city, and a symbol of the thrust of the unconscious against the
conscious, fire against steel and glass, or (to use Zamyatin’s terms)
energy against entropy. The rocket is associated with nature, creation,
sexual intercourse, childbirth, and psychic and political revolt by the
repeated image of fire contained by a shell but seeking to burst forth.10
As D-503’s relationship with his anima progresses, the Integral’s image
changes. He first describes the Integral in terms of machines, materials,
physics and mathematics, but later addresses it personally: “ . . . thou
wilt shudder from the fiery, burning spurts within thy womb” (p. 155).
D-503 acknowledges the rocket test blasts as "a salute in honor of her,
the one woman [I-330]” (p. 93).
The Integral’s name is ironic. The forces of rationality so named the
spaceship in order to indicate its mission of integrating the universe on
an entirely rational basis. But as the fruit of the creative mind, neces
sarily incorporating the unconscious and the conscious, and
(consequently) in its actual structure, the Integral represents a
balance11 of thrust and containment, irrationality and rationality, a sort
of model of an integrated psyche. As a model and as the means of
escape from the prison of rationality, it is potentially a psychic integral,
though not in the sense intended by the forces of rationality.
A common myth of transcendence from one stage to a higher,
more mature existence is the journey undertaken by the ego, guided by
the anima, to a strange land. The anima takes D-503 to the strange land
twice. The first journey is made underground while the second is made
through the heavens, signifying the different routes of the transcenden
tal journey. I-330 prevails on D-503 to help take the rocket, also his
creative genius, away from the exclusive use of the rational. They seize
the rocket briefly, escape the city, and hover over the strange, outer
world. The forces of the Benefactor, assisted by Yu-’s unwillingness to
let D-503 escape her embrace, crush the revolt. Rationalism still needs
the forces of the unconscious, but insists on absolute control of them:
“The Integral shall not be yours! The trial flight shall be carried out to the
end, and you yourselves . . . with your own hands, will carry it out.” (p.
174.) The annihilation of the unconscious at novel’s end implies the
rocket will never fire again.
The Benefactor is the Great Man within. He is omnipotent,
God-like, appears at crucial moments in the life of the psyche, sits in the
center of the psyche-city on a cube, and liberates the ego from the
destructive potential of the anima, in short, is an archetypal image of
both God and Self.12 But if this rationalistic, authoritarian slavemaster is
the Self, at once the center and totality of the psyche, whence came
I-330 and R-13? Marie-Louise von Franz notes that the Great Man, or
Self, of some myths is a false one, an imitation of outside religious
forms, who, lacking any sense of humor, is fanatically convinced he has
solved the riddles of the Cosmos.13
The frequent appearance of the Lenin-like, Socratically
bald-headed man, and his mysterious silence, lead D-503 to sense this
old man will play a crucial role in his life: “[In the room] to the right, over
a book, is a knobby bald head, and a forehead like an enormous yellow
parabola. The furrows on the forehead are a series of yellow, illegible
lines of print. Sometimes our eyes meet—and then I feel: these yellow
lines have to do with me.” (p. 179.) Only as rationalism triumphs at the
end does the bald-headed man speak, exclaiming he has proved there
is no infinity. But he is not only a bald-headed citizen, and a victim of the
operation the Benefactor orders, he is also the Benefactor himself (see
his description in Entry 36).
As Benefactor, he appears four times. First, in a ritual sacrifice
recalling pagan and Christian rites of transformation, he executes a
rebellious poet. The transformation of blood into water may also be
seen as an effective image of the dissociation that dominates this myth.
(Referring to the blood and water, Zamyatin uses the word dissotsiat-
siia on page 44.) In his next appearance he presides over, and is
re-elected during, the Day of Unanimity festivities. Here he speaks
(briefly) for the first time: “Those for. . . those against?” (p. 123.) D-503
pays ritual homage to the Benefactor on both occasions, although in his
private life he is staging a revolt against the Benefactor, this Self copied
from the outer religion. The Benefactor will not permit purely formal
obeisance, but, speaking fully (for the first time) in his third appearance,
crushes D-503 with logic. D-503 is unable to defend irrationality in
Zamyatin's We as Myth 77
rational terms. In his fourth and final appearance the Benefactor has
already annihilated the unconscious, is torturing the anima, and will
execute her on the morrow.
Like the mandala, another archetypal image of the psyche, the city
is laid out in a circular and four-folded geometric pattern. At the center is
the Plaza of the Cube surrounded by sixty-six concentric rows of seats.
Through the streets of the city march “quadrangles" (p. 108) of
marchers, displaying "the square harmony of their gray-blue ranks" (p.
9). Aniela Jaffé observes that in the traditional mandala, the circular
and the four-folded are completely integrated, symbolizing the connec
tion between the circle (the psyche) and the square (earthbound matter,
the body), but that “in most modern art, the connection between these
two primary forms is either non-existent, or loose and causal ... [a]
symbolic expression of the psychic state of twentieth-century
man. .. ,”14 In D-503’s psyche-city the mandala is distorted, the square
dominates the center; the circular is connected only by its complete
submission to the four-folded. The gaze of those seated in the concen
tric rows of seats is necessarily directed upward toward the gigantic
Cube in the center, where executions take place. The Cube is also in
shape and role a sort of Earth-altar, representing, as does the Benefac
tor seated upon it, the Self to which the ego must submit.
The inhabitants of the psyche-city are not permitted to walk the
streets at night, which is to say, as /s said, that no dreaming is
permitted.
Set aside as a museum of the psyche is the dark-red Ancient
House, to which the anima introduces D-503. The Ancient House is
l-330’s locale. Jung notes that the anima lives and functions in the
collective unconscious, as evidenced by her frequently historical dress,
and by her bringing to consciousness the unknown psychic life of the
past.15
The chaos of line and color inside the Ancient House is too much
for D-503 to bear at first, but the house does not remain a dusty
museum of the psyche, but becomes its center, from which come "the
axes of the X’s, the Y’s, and the Z's, upon which of late my entire
universe is built" (p. 80), and the place in which D-503 finds a tunnel out
of his prison to the outside world.
The many archetypal images and patterns shown above lead the
reader, consciously or unconsciously, to recognize the entire novel as a
myth.
If the central trope in Gogol’s style is termed the downward-
directed metaphor, so might Dead Souls be read as a sort of
downward-directed myth of the Holy Grail. And Chekhov, whose work
Zamyatin also admired, places many of his stories within the framework
of classical and literary myths,16 but proves them in character and
situation banally inferior. If Gogol’s myth is grotesque and Chekhov’s
banal, Zamyatin's is horrific. His myth is peopled with strong, serious
figures engaged in a deadly archetypal struggle. But the myth does not
have the ending we expect—the maternal monster survives, the anima
dies, Perseus does not slay the Medusa and save Andromeda, and a
false Self triumphs. Not only does psychic wholeness remain
unachieved, but the protagonist, a representative of modern man, loses
what little human qualities and possibilities he possessed in the
beginning. The impact felt at the novel’s end derives from the violent
denial of the expectation of the eventual victory of the true Self that
myth encourages.
Notes
1. I. D. Ermakov, Ocherki po analizu tvorchestva N. V. Gogolia (Moscow, 1922).

2. Erik Krag, "The Riddle of the Other Goljadkin: Some Observations on
Dostoevskij's Double," in Morris Halle, et al., For Roman Jakobson (’s-Gravenhage,
1956), 265-272.
3. Page numbers in parentheses refer to the first Russian edition of the novel:
Evgenii Zamiatin, My (New York, 1952). Translations of quotations are mine, although I
have also consulted B. G. Guerney’s translation in his An Anthology of Russian Literature
in the Soviet Period (New York, 1960).
4. C. G. Jung, “Conscious, Unconscious and Individuation," in The Collected Works
of C. G. Jung (New York, 1953), IX, 286.
5. F. D. Laing, “Ontological Insecurity," in Hendrik Ruitenbeek, ed., Psychoanalysis
and Existential Philosophy (New York, 1962), 41-69.
6. A synopsis of My in Zamyatin’s papers in the archives at Columbia University
explains that 0-90 was not permitted motherhood by the One State because of her failure
to meet the Maternal Norm in height.
7. Carl Proffer ("Notes on the Imagery in Zamjatin's We," SEEJ, VII [1963], 269-278)
discusses the color symbolism in the novel. He does not mention the pink check sanction
ing sexual intercourse. Pink is, of course, a mild, diluted version of red, the color of
passion. (Nor, in the case of the Green Wall and the green liqueur, does he note that,
physically and metaphorically, green stands between yellow and blue.)
8. For this interpretation of the Book of Jonah, see Erich Fromm’s The Forgotten
Language (New York, 1957), 20-23.
9. C. G. Jung, "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," Works, XI,
133.
10. Proffer observes the image to be the central one in the novel but does not
mention the rocket at all.
11. Although best known for his advocacy of energy, irrationality, and heresy,
Zamyatin fell a balance was necessary. He slates the case for an "integral" in his essay
"O sinlelizme,” Litsa (New York, 1955), 239.
Zamyatin’s \Ne as Myth 79
12. Jung argues that the symbols of the Self and the God-image are empirically
indistinguishable. See "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,’’ Works, XI,
194.
13. Marie-Louise von Franz, "The Process of Individuation," in C. G. Jung [ed.], Man
and His Symbols (New York, 1964), 216-217.
14. Aniela Jaffé, "Symbolism in the Visual Arts," in Man and His Symbols, 249.
15. C. G. Jung, "Conscious, Unconscious and Individuation," Works, IX, 285-287.
16. See Thomas G. Winner's "Myth as a Device in the Works of Chekhov," in Bernice
Slote, ed., Myth and Symbol (Lincoln, Neb., 1963), 71-78.
1-330: RECONSIDERATIONS ON THE SEX OF
SATAN
Owen Ulph
In the winter of 1917, Eugene Zamyatin, weathering the sulky fogs

of the London Dockyards, directed the construction of icebreakers.1 It
was a task symbolic of his literary mission—so elegantly symbolic that it
is one of those captivating instances in which Life overtakes Art. His
icebreakers were successful against the solid surfaces of the polar
seas, but his creative assault upon the frozen dogmas of the Russian
Association of Proletarian Writers2 encountered such resistance that
Zamyatin was, ultimately, compelled to back away.
Zamyatin returned to Russian from England on the eve of the
Bolshevik seizure of power, witnessed the dismal vicissitudes of civil
war and Soviet reconstruction, and wrote with sardonic wit in 1922, “I
regret that I did not experience the February Revolution and know only
October... It was as though I never tasted the delights of courtship and
awoke one morning to discover I had been married ten years.”3 The
edge of the simile cuts sharply. Marital bliss was not a condition to
which Zamyatin gave much credibility. “The beautiful woman in legal
marriage,” he wrote on one occasion, “is only Mrs. Everybody with
curlers in her hair at night and head-ache complaints in the morning.”4
The contrast between the glamour of the Revolution and the dowdiness
of its aftermath was expressed in another instance in which, referring to
the early stages of rebellion, he remarked, “The Revolution was not yet
a lawful wife who jealously guarded her legal monopoly. The Revolution
was a young, fiery-eyed mistress and I was in love with the
Revolution.”5 This mood of passionate infatuation grew increasingly
difficult to sustain. By 1923, venting his contempt for the repressive,
spiritless censorship of the new regime, Zamyatin was trying to con
vince an obtuse bureaucratic dictatorship that “the Revolution should
not be treated like a consumptive maiden who must be protected from
every draft.”6
This curious, miscegenous coupling of sex and politics is charac
80
1-330: Reconsiderations on the Sex of Satan 81
teristic of Zamyatin’s unusual power to bring congruence out of appa

rent incongruence. It is a quality which pervades his tensile and fre
quently astonishing imagery and symbolism. It attains its most fanciful
and provocative expression in his creation of I-330, like many a legen
dary femme fatale, a type of half-caste. With audacious deftness,
Zamyatin crosses Keats’ Belle Dame Sans Merci with the disciplined,
dedicated woman of the Russian revolutionary tradition—a tradition
which, in fact and fiction, includes such characters as Sofya
Perovskaya, Olga Lyubatovich, Alexandra Kollontai, a bevy of Veras
(Pavlovna, Filipovna, Zasulich), and numerous stony nymphs with
cores of iron.
Both history and literature are replete with lurid hetairae who have
escorted men to their doom, causing them to fritter away the old
homestead, desert their wives and children, sell their mothers into
slavery, betray their country and squander empires while writhing in the
alternating throes of ecstasy and despair. In most instances such
women, despite their allure, are only the Devil’s serving wenches. It
was Zamyatin, a Prince among black heretics, exploring the revolution
ary potential of romantic agony, who created a woman worthy of inclu
sion in Mario Praz's taxonomy of the sundry metamorphoses of Satan
himself. Orwell’s Julia, a character inspired by Zamyatin’s heroine, is
just another Eve driven from the Garden along with the dupe she has
led down the path of Temptation. What makes I-330 unique is that her
witchery is used to re-enforce the spirit of creation. In her ignited
person, the conflict between good and evil is eternally resolved. All
opposites are synthesized. She becomes the incarnation of the
Absolute—the Urgeist—the unwavering advocate of the glory of
permanent, unrelenting rebellion. "Why do you think there is a final
revolution?” she asks D-503, who has been lulled into accepting the
belief that the revolution which created the United State was the ulti
mate one. "Only thermic contrasts make for life, and all over the world
there are evenly warm or evenly cold bodies. They must be pushed off!
In order to get flame—explosions! And we shall push.”7 l-330’s words
echo those of Sofya Antonovna who, addressing the police spy in
Conrad’s Under Western Eyes, says "Life, Razumov, not to be vile,
must be a revolt—a constant, pitiless protest.”8
Unlike Dostoevsky, whose influence upon him has too often been
stressed without being delineated, Zamyatin does not sink into the
abject mire of slave-morality. There are no Father Tikhons or Zossimas
to skim spiritual spoils from the predicaments of his characters. There
are no velvet-souled prostitutes whose self-abasement and woeful suf
ferings point the way to salvation. If, indeed, Huysman’s choice be
82 Owen Ulph
tween “the muzzle of a revolver or the foot of the cross”9 was the only
pair of alternatives open to a sensitive intellect, Zamyatin would choose
the former—as, in fact, 1-330 finally does in such an insolent and une
quivocal fashion that the reader receives the impression that the char
acter snatched the decision away from the author. If Zamyatin eschews
Superman in his treatment of D-503, it is only to exalt Superwoman.
1-330 is, herself, the embodiment of the transvaluation of values. She is
the female Scythian. Pure solar energy fires the crucible containing the
element from which she is wrought. Let us don our smoked glasses and
examine her more closely in her dialectic duality—siren and
revolutionary—the woman who did not intend that the universe should
rest!
II
Its horror and its beauty are divine.

Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath
The agonies of anguish and of death.10
1-330 first materializes in Zamyatin’s terrifying apocalyptic tale of

the future as a set of teeth. All the better to eat you with, my dear! The
"white, very white,” sharp, vampire-like teeth, ever ready to bite, haunt
the timid D-503 throughout the narrative. He is still fascinated by them
even after his Fancy has been expunged in the Great Operation by
which the United State preserves its immaculate, immutable sanctity
against the uprising of the Mefi and 1-330 has been lodged in the Glass
Chamber for final extinction. Behind this prominent dental display is “an
unfamiliar face” which suggests to D-503 “a strange, irritating X.” All
the better to confound you with, my dear! What more disturbing and
corrupting quality can a woman possess than that of mystery—the
quality that beckons one to pursue compulsively into the abyss of
self-destruction? It is this quality in 1-330 that is a direct assault upon
D-503's logical, predictable, geometric, crystalline world within the
transparent Wall—the world that constantly prompts him to begin each
sentence with the catechismic, “It is clear that ..." Throughout their
relationship, the worlds of D-503 and 1-330 are in constant collision with
no buffers to absorb the concussion. "I am afraid to lose in 1-330
perhaps the only clue I shall ever have to an understanding of all the
unknowns,” D-503 writes, rationalizing his increasing infatuation. “The
unknown is naturally the enemy of man. And homo sapiens only be
comes man in the complete sense of the word when his punctuation
includes no question marks, only exclamation points, commas and
periods.” Opposed to this is the position of 1-330 who, speaking raptur
ously after the riots on the Day of Unanimity, her torn unif exposing a
naked breast—an image reminiscent of Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the
People—breathes passionate words through sparkling white, clenched
teeth. "Tomorrow, nobody knows what... do you understand? Neither
I nor anyone else knows; it is unknown! Do you realize what a joy it is?
Do you realize that all that was certain has come to an end? Now . . .
things will be new, improbable, unforeseen!”
Zamyatin draws his reader’s attention from the haunting, X-like
face of 1-330 downward to her serpentine body, “slender, abrupt, resis-
tantly flexible like a whip ...” All the better to beat you with, my dear!
Again we are presented with an image of dual purpose. The whip which
the merciless Belle Dame uses to lash naked Arthurian knights can be
used to goad men from lethargy—to flail the senses and awaken
desire—to arouse the elation derived from the pleasure that cannot be
divorced from pain. The mission of 1-330 is not senile happiness, but
anguish. “Desires are tortures, aren’t they?” she asks D-503, and then
proceeds with biting ironic mimicry, "It is clear, therefore, happiness is
when there are no longer any desires ...” (Italics mine).
Before 1-330 departs, “little horns” appear at the corners of her
brows. Teeth. An X. A whip. Horns. The demonic vampire image is
branded on the reader’s mind. D-503, and anyone who identifies with
him, is damned.
L'ephémère ébloui vole vers toi, chandelle,

Crépite, flambe et dit: Bénissons ce flambeau!
L'amoureux pantelant incline sur sa belle
A l'air d'un moribond caressant son tombeau.11
The reassuring kisses which, after his initial encounter with 1-330, he
bestows upon his tidy, plump little legal consort, 0-90, whose mind and
body comfortably resemble a dumpling, do not reassure. They only
accentuate the shadow that foreordains the inevitable Fall of Man.
Although D-503 squirms, struggles against his destiny and
embroiders elegant lies for his private, personal deception, his fall is
terrifyingly swift. He has no genuine wish to escape the spell that 1-330
has cast upon him. The elfin grot to which La Belle Dame whisks him is
the Ancient House—symbol of the condition to which 1-330 has visions
of a return. Since the United State is, on the surface, the embodiment of
84 Owen Ulph
Unimprovable Perfection, 1-330’s smoldering revolution can only be

regressive and all symbols employed to express it must be archaic
ones. While D-503 is, indeed, bewitched, he is not simply a chance
victim. The hair on the back of his hand, which infuriates him as an
atavistic flaw constantly reminding him of his kinship with the ape, 1-330
finds appealing. At the Ancient House, D-503 is again exposed to white
teeth that seem poised to bite into his flesh, l-330's laughter assails him
like a whip. Fire images abound. He is seered by her blazing eyes as
she tempts him to accept the corrupt services of one of her accomplices
in the Medical Bureau who would issue a falsified certificate of illness,
thus releasing D-503 from compulsory attendance at the State Auditor
ium and permitting him to remain in 1-330’s nefarious embrace. D-503
recoils in fear and horror at the suggestion. He panics and reaches for
the cold brass knob of the door. But he does not escape in time to avoid
hearing her cold brass voice place a telephone call, the significance of
which explodes within him a few minutes later when he has taken
refuge in the sanctuary of the State Auditorium. She was still at the
Ancient House. With another! The sorceress, 1-330, is not above using
human devices to ensnare her victim. But to D-503 such devices are
sub-human. “Is it possible,” he asks himself, “that the insanity called
love and jealousy actually exists and is not confined to the idiotic books
of the ancients?"
A few days later D-503 hears rumors of the existence of a subver
sive underground opposition. Can his house of glass be threatened with
cracks and imperfections? He recalls childhood tantrums, stamping his
feet at the concept of the square root of minus one, which took posses
sion of him like some malevolent spirit that could not be exorcised.
“This irrational root grew into me as something strange, foreign,
terrible; it tortured me; it could not be thought away. It could not be
defeated because it was beyond reason.” The parallel of the square
root of minus one to 1-330 is unmistakable.
When 1-330, in accordance with the Lex Sexualis of the State (“a
Number may obtain a license to use any other Number as a sexual
product”) issues a pink check on D-503, he goes to her apartment and
experiences one of the most sadistic, frenetic and comical seductions
of the faltering male by the determined vamp in Western literature.
"Suddenly her arms were about my neck . . . her lips grew into mine . . .
no, even somewhere much deeper, much more terribly.” His code
wrestles ineffectually with the primordial beast within. "I swear all this
was very unexpected for me. That is why perhaps ... for I could not—at
this moment I see clearly—I could not myself have the desire to ...” As
1-330 injects him with that ancient poison, alcoholic beverage, all falter-
ing ceases. D-503 turns into a ravening Mr. Hyde! “I saw my other self
grasp her rudely with his hairy paws, tear the silk, and put his teeth in
her flesh! ... I remember exactly, his teeth ..."
Alas! Before he can consummate his passion the time allotted him
by the pink check has expired. He cannot be caught in the street after
twenty-two thirty. The shadow of the Well-Doer, Chief Executive of the
United State, blots out the wild, captivating radiance of 1-330. "My
insanity disappeared at once,” D-503 writes. “I was again I. I saw
clearly one thing: I hated her, hated her, hated ..." He races from the
room, but his salvation is illusory. That night he is unable to sleep. In the
United State the law reads: “At night all Numbers must sleep.” Not to
sleep is criminal. "I was perishing,” he cries out, “I was unable to fulfill
my duties to the United State! I ... ”
The moral disintegration of D-503 proceeds rapidly as he suc
cumbs to the hypnotic power of 1-330. He violates another basic law. He
is late to work. Eventually he absents himself from work for extended
periods. Where once he had refused, he comes to accept the fraudulent
certificates of illness made out for him at 1-330’s instigation by the
scissor-lipped doctor in the Medical Bureau. "Thus I stole my work from
the United State," he confesses like a repentant sinner. "I was a thief. I
deserved to be put beneath the Machine of the Well-Doer." He consorts
with 1-330 without the legal sanction of the pink checks. His thralldom
becomes an agonizing rack. When 1-330 fails to meet an appointment,
he wanders about distractedly and ultimately appears in the Medical
Bureau where he learns that "apparently a soul had formed in him.”
This disease seems to be developing into an epidemic and one staff
physician recommends immediate, wholesale surgery on all victims.
D-503 is spared the finality of surgery only by the intercession of the
scissor-lipped doctor-friend of 1-330. The doctor speciously points out
that as Chief Designer of the space-ship, Integral, an operation might
impair his usefulness to the United State. Evidence of an
“underground" grows increasingly pervasive. There have been too
many strange episodes to be accounted for by coincidence. A saboteur
is apprehended on the Integral. The spectral spy, S-4711, instead of
escorting D-503 directly to the Operation Department where the "soul”
would have been immediately excised, brings him to the Medical
Bureau where he is "rescued” by 1-330’s associate. Could all these pale
warriors be agents of a vast organization directed by the Witch Queen?
D-503, his intellect paralyzed by his emotions, is now ripe for political
conversion. 1-330 acquires another dimension and, on the surface,
undergoes apparent metamorphosis. To the role of La Belle Dame
Sans Merci she now adds that of disciplined revolutionary. Sex and
86 Owen Ulph
politics fuse in her struggle with the United State for the custody of
D-503’s badly battered Will.
Ill
In a detailed study of Zamyatin, Alex Shane states, "1-330 does not

really love D-503, but simply is using him as a tool to further the aims of
the revolutionary ’Mefi.’”12 Shane adopts this male-chauvinist point
probably because he has so completely identified with D-503 that he
falls into the same psychic traps that Zamyatin set for his muddling,
middle-class intellectual anti-hero. "Is it possible,” the Well-Doer asks
D-503 during the interrogation that takes place after the failure of the
plot to hi-jack the Integral, "that it never really occurred to you that they
(we do not yet know their names, but I am certain that you will disclose
them to us), that they were interested in you only as the Builder of the
Integral? Only in order to be able, through the use of you—”
The italicized use of they is Zamyatin’s. To D-503 they is a
euphemism for she. “Don’t! Don’t!” he screams, but continues, “it was
like protecting yourself against a bullet with your hands.” The State
accomplished its purpose. It planted the insidious seed of doubt in the
mind of Alex Shane as well as D-503 and broke the bond of faith that
creates Humanity and alone stands in the path of the Absolute Soulless
Collective. I-330 is divinely aware of the nature of this bond, but D-503,
with his incurable narcissism (after the audience with the Well-Doer he
takes refuge in sickening, hysterical mother-seeking fantasies) and his
stubborn addiction to formal logic, cannot comprehend this simple,
elemental truth. Ultimately it is D-503 who betrays I-330 and not I-330
who betrays D-503. By employing her talents as temptress only for
ulterior purposes she would be doing violence to the fulcrum of her
convictions. She joyfully enlists the support of D-503 in the revolt of the
Mephi, but only when she believes he is capable of becoming one of
them. Her love and her anarchistic politics derive from the same pre
mises and are blended in an indissolvable unity. For I-330 feeling and
action exist as ends in themselves. There are no metaphysical
dilemmas, no perplexing antinomies, no bewildering problems concern
ing the relationship between ends and means. All scholastic subtleties
are swallowed in the infinite vortex of life. "Our ancestors were right,”
she declares, “a thousand times right! But they did one thing wrong;
they began to believe they were the last number, a number that does
not exist in nature . . . We Mephi know that there is no last number. We
may forget someday. Of course, we shall certainly forget when we grow
old, as everything inevitably grows old. Then we shall inevitably fall like
autumn leaves ..." 1-330 is a daughter of the Sun—and Dionysius, too.
Flaming, tempestuous, resplendent. "Never before had I seen her in
such a state,” D-503 exclaims. And for the moment he is transfigured.
But D-503 is a congenital defective, a chronic backslider who
should never have emerged from the womb, in short—a liberal. Despite
the fact that 1-330 has blasted the foundations of his schematic world
and fired him with the secret of the universe, a vexatious dialectic
continues to rage inside him. Nagged by doubt, he continues to
cerebralize, searching for intellectual convictions to justify his intrinsic
moral cowardice. Only in moments of crisis, prompted by frenzy, does
he stumble to the brink of the heroic. Once, on the Day of Unanimity
during the election riots, he seizes 1-330 who has curled his marrow by
openly raising her arm in opposition, and carries her hurriedly to safety.
Once, when he has been escorted beyond the Green Wall and witnes
ses 1-330, a coal black silhouette against a brilliant sky, instigating the
Mephi to seize the Integral, he springs to a rock and shouts, “Yes, yes,
precisely. All must become insane; we must become insane as soon as
possible! We must: I know it.” Again, when the plot to seize the Integral
has foundered and 1-330 suspects him of having been the informer, he
attempts to ground the ship in a rash demonstration of loyalty to 1-330
and her rebellious cause—only to be slugged from behind by the
Second Builder. Most of the time, however, he vacillates, equivocates,
oscillates between polarities, and engages in endless intricate
rationalizations. 1-330 is aware of his unreliable temperament and sub
jects him to severe tests. "I must be sure that you will do anything I
wish,” she says, "that you are completely mine.”
“Yes, completely,” he assures her. 1-330 gives another turn to the
screw and mimics his past recitations of duties due the State. Her irony
is withering and D-503 winces. It is not her irreverence for the State, nor
his own incipient treasonable conduct that are the sole causes of his
mental disturbance. Pangs of jealousy gnaw at him. He inquires about
the Ancient House and of the men he had seen in her company.
"You want to know all?" she asks.

"Yes.”
“And you would not be afraid to follow?”
“Anywhere!"
“All right, then. I promise you, after the holiday, if only ..."
and then she carelessly intrudes an afterthought, “Oh, yes, there is

your Integral. I always forget to ask. Will it soon be completed?” Small
88 Owen Ulph
question marks, like fish-hooks, sink into his flesh. Why did she sudden
ly inquire about the Integral?
What is 1-330 really testing? D-503’s corruptibility? The degree of
his loyalty to the United State? These questions have only an indirect
bearing on the issue with which she is really concerned. She is probing
to discover the depth of his love—measuring its intensity and purity.
1-330 wishes to reciprocate the love of D-503, but she is unwilling to
bestow her flawless devotion on someone unworthy to receive it. Here
is the type of love to which Zamyatin referred in his essay on Sologub,
“the love which demands all or nothing, that absurd, incurable, beautiful
disease . . . ”13
Instances can be cited in which I-330 appears to place the Revolu
tion above D-503, but these isolated cases are superficial. They consist
only of temporary inconveniences imposed on him while she carries out
immediate party tasks. Moreover, there is no basic contradiction be
tween her loyalty to the Revolution and her loyalty to D-503. Only in the
fertile soil of revolution can the love of I-330 and D-503 reach fruition.
Triumph of the United State is the triumph of death. But so is the
triumph of I-330. D-503 formulates this thought into a fantastic
equation. "In order to establish the true meaning of a function one must
establish its limit,” he remarks. “Death is the complete dissolution of the
self in the universe. Hence L = f(D), love is the function of death.”
He is seized with intellectual hysteria. “Yes, exactly, exactly! That
is why I am afraid of I-330; I struggle against her. I don’t want..." His
final tragic dilemma is foreshadowed by his logic:
Why is it that within me ‘I don’t want to’ and I want to’ stand side by side? That is the
chief horror of the matter; I continue to long for that happy death of yesterday. The
horror of it is that even now, when I have integrated the logical function, when it
becomes evident that the function contains death hidden within it, still I long for it
with my lips, my arms, my heart, with every millimeter...
The fatal dialectic accelerates at an increasingly made tempo and

circumstances relentlessly hustle him to the edge of the abyss. He must
choose. Scientists of the United State have developed a surgical cure
for the spreading plague of "Fancy.” By submitting to the Operation he
will be cleansed of the disease. D-503 begins to build
dream-castles—the serenity that will be restored to him after the
Operation—obliteration of all shadows—the last irritating wrinkle on the
otherwise smooth plane of existence removed. It is for I-330 to point out
to him the implications of his beatific vision. He is faced with two
alternative forms of destruction. There is no escape route. She pulls
him to her:
Everything seemed to have disappeared save her sharp hot lips . . .

“Goodby."
"Why ... Why ‘goodby?’"
"You have been ill, have you not? Because of me you have committed crimes.
Hasn't all this tormented you? And now you have the Operation to look forward to.
You will be cured of me. And that means—goodby."
"No!" I cried.
A pitiless sharp black triangle on a white background.
“What? Do you mean that you don’t want happiness?”
My head was breaking into pieces; two logical trains collided and crawled upon
each other, rattling and smothering ...
"Well, I am waiting. You must choose; the Operation and one-hundred-per-cent
happiness, or ... ”
"I cannot... without you ... I must now ... without you ...”
For D-503 the moment of truth has come. As he walks down the
street—alone in a crowd of Numbers on their way to salvation, he
mutters, “I do not want salvation ...” The question is, will he manage
to summon the strength of will to support the decision he wishes to
make? But D-503 is doomed. Once again he cannot proceed beyond
the point of noble intentions. His aspirations are elevated, but the
stakes set by 1-330 are too high. He throws in his cards. During the
chaos of the last revolt he rushes to 1-330’s apartment and finds the
floor strewn with discarded pink checks—almost all of them made out in
his name. But there is one other—a mysterious F number. Shaking and
trembling, he returns to his own quarters and finds 1-330 waiting for
him—calmly smoking an illegal cigarette. He begins to babble
incoherently. 1-330 exudes the dignity of eternity. “Be silent. Don’t you
see it matters very little? I came anyway. They are waiting for me below.
Do you want these minutes which are our last... ?”
After the passionate embrace that follows, 1-330 comments quietly,
“They say you went to see the Well-Doer yesterday; is it true?”
He does not lie and 1-330’s eyes widen with delight. He has not
failed her. But then her face loses color as she contemplates the
consequences. He describes the interview in full, but omits the
Well-Doer’s contention that he has only been used. The strain,
however, is too great for him. He recalls the pink checks. D-503 must
live with Certainty. He can contain himself no longer and stupidly or
compulsively he asks the lethal question, “Did you come to see me
because you wanted to inquire ...”
1-330 regards him mockingly. She becomes ice.
Even after she has gone, D-503 must continue to feed his dessi-
cated academic mind dry bones. In a public rest-room he encounters a
crank who has calculated that there is no infinity.
90 Owen Ulph
"If the universe is infinite, then the average density of matter must equal zero;
but since we know it is not zero, therefore the universe is finite; it is spherical in form,
and the square of its radius—R2—is equal to the average density multiplied by . . .
The only thing left is to calculate the numerical coefficient and then ... Do you
realize what it means? It means that everything is final, everything is simple . . . But
you, my honored sir, you disturb me, you prevent my finishing my calculations by
your yelling!”
D-503 is, indeed, yelling. He is absolved! 1-330 was wrong. But then the
final recoil of the diabolical dialectic. D-503 grips the mathematical
zealot by the lapels, "There, where your finite universe ends, what is
there? What?”
Drained of all further will to resist the claim of his gloriously inglo
rious destiny, D-503 allows himself to be escorted to the Operating
Auditorium and permits his soul to be removed. Simultaneously he
returns to the Garden of Eden, re-enters the Womb, is united with the
Divine Logos and receives the Supreme Grace of Unblemished Happi
ness from the Immaculate United State. He reveals all he knows of the
Underground. In the evening 1-330 is brought in. She refuses to testify.
Smiling within the translucent casing of the Great Bell, she remains
silent and defiant. Three times she is deprived of consciousness and
three times resuscitated, but she utters no word. Thus she chooses
annihilation in preference to submission while D-503, imbecilically
transported, looks on—patriotically deploring her dishonesty and
hypocrisy. His final words are, “Reason must prevail.” If this is irony, it
is not the irony of D-503, for we must conclude that a sense of the ironic
is a taint on Man’s perfection which must have been expunged along
with his soul in the course of the Great Operation.
With Zamyatin’s multi-visioned conclusion, the anomalous blend
ing of the sexual and the political leaves the reader in a state of baffled
consternation. Reason does, indeed, prevail in its triumph over the
subversive nature of personal love—the theme developed more expli
citly and with less subtlety in Orwell’s 1984. Romanticism, rooted in the
emotions, goes down to defeat with the implacable and irrevocable
extermination of I-330. The Absolute Collective is victorious. The
Individual, even reduced to the level of Arthur Koestler’s “grammatical
fiction,” is exterminated—and "the love which demands all or nothing”
gets nothing. The "absurd, incurable, beautiful disease” to which D-503
almost succumbed, is extirpated with unconditional finality.
Was l-330's act of willful acceptance of extinction a futile gesture?
Whatever answer is given to this rhetorical question, I-330 is a
monumental creation. She is a contemporary Prometheus who failed.
Yet her failure is more magnificent than any conceivable success. She
emerges as the quintessence of Dignity, Stature and Nobility. She is the

incarnation of Divine Disdain. This sublimely defiant female Satan can
not simply be slung from Heaven; because as long as She exists
anywhere, Omnipotence will be confronted by Contempt. She must be
obliterated. The new gods have learned from the blunders of the old.
I-330 is a glowing tribute to womanhood. But it took a male mind to
conceive her—and since all great romantics are narcissists . . . Well.. .
it is clear that the true sex of the Devil requires further research.
Notes
1. Evgenii Ivanovich Zamiatin (1884-1937): Russian mathematician, naval architect,

critic and novelist. Died in Paris after seven years of voluntary exile from the Soviet Union.
See Living Age, Vol. CCCXLIII, Oct., 1932, 160-163.
2. RAPP: Stalinist organization for the “seizure of power in literature." See Max
Eastman, Artists in Uniform—A Study of Literature and Bureaucratism (New York, 1934).
3. Zamiatin, Autobiography, 1922 ed., 43.
4. Zamiatin, “Skifi li?", Mysl, No. 1, 286.
5. Zamiatin, “L. Andreev," Litsa, 53.
6. Zamiatin, “Defense of the Serapion Brothers," Novaia russkaia proza. Russkoe
Iskusstvo, Nos. 2-3 (1923), 58-59.
7. Quotations from Zamyatin's novel We will not be cited. The translation used was
that of Gregory Zilboorg, Dutton Paperback ed. (New York, 1952).
8. Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, New Directions (New York, 1951), 260.
9. J. K. Huysmans, “Preface to 1903 Edition,” Against the Grain (New York, 1931),
73.
10. Percy Bysshe Shelley, "On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci,” Complete Poetic
al Works, Cambridge ed. (Boston and New York), 369.
11. Charles Baudelaire, “Hymne à la Beauté,” Les Fleurs du Mal, C. F. MacIntyre
edition (Berkeley, 1947), 54.
12. Alex M. Shane, Evgenij Zamjatin; a Critical Study, Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Dept, of Slavic Languages and Literature (U. of C. Berkeley, 1965), 185.
13. Zamiatin, "Fedor Sologub," Litsa, 37.
AESTHETICS
NOTES ON THE IMAGERY IN ZAMYATIN’S WE
Carl R. Proffer
The modernistic imagery used in Zamyatin’s We often seems

senseless and chaotic. The diarist, D-503, undergoes a mental crisis
while he is keeping his record; from a narrative point of view his own
inner turmoil justifies, to a large extent, the disconnected nature of the
diary entries and the rapidly shifting focus of attention within each entry.
Because he has been educated in the Single State, his ability to de
scribe his personal life clearly and methodically has never developed;
he can think only in terms of straight lines, uncomplicated geometrical
figures, and mathematical formulae.1 This does not suffice for treating
the new and strange mental events which overpower him, and for this
reason his record often becomes chaotic, almost incoherent. He falls in
love, is introduced to life beyond the Green Wall, and is drawn into a
revolutionary plot; all this is too much for him to endure without
confusion, especially since he is trying to resist all these new
influences.
Many strange images appear in his diary, images which seem to
be senseless products of his own agitation and confusion: yellow dres
ses jump into his mind, water drips on a stone, sap pours from a brass
Buddha, fiery golden suns blind him, beasts’ eyes stare at him, the
eyelids of I-330 become curtains, secrets seem to hide in the opaque
dwelling of the head, under its crust the earth seems to be on fire, fires
leap up behind l-330’s eyes. These and other images recur constantly,
seemingly with no pattern and no meaning..
Yet in all the apparent chaos, these images do fall into a coherent
pattern and have important bearing on the theme of the novel. We will
examine in particular the use of the color yellow (applied to numerous
objects) and the image of a fire encased in a cold shell. This study will
explain the function of these images in the novel.
95
96 Carl R. Proffer
II
Zamyatin’s novel attacks the proposition that man knows what is

best for himself, that man always chooses the course of action which is
most advantageous to himself, that he can rationally organize life and
thereby win perfect happiness.2 In We the irrational faculty in man is
termed “fancy," and in the end the scientists of the Single State discov
er the one infallible, irrevocable way to make men happy—an operation
which excises fancy. That part of the human brain which, according to
the leaders, does not function in man's own best interests, that which is
not explainable, predictable, and logical, that which does not serve the
interests of society as a whole is removed.
“Fancy” is concealed deep in the human mind, and Zamyatin con
siders this faculty essential for free, meaningful, complete human life.
That which is hidden in the mind is alive and vital; it is the golden stuff,
the golden sap of life; it is formless, hot, irrational—but it is the basis of
life.
The imagery used by Zamyatin in We reflects his conception of the
struggle between the cold, logical outer forms limiting life (the new
society with its restraints and controls) and the seething inner life of
each human being. Accordingly, the novel’s basic image, recurring in
various forms, is the image of a cold outer shell (form, logicality,
predictability) covering a hot, seething inner core (formlessness,
irrationality, unpredictability). This image is used on different levels. In
the following passage it is first applied to the entire earth, then to man in
particular:
.. . we, on earth, are constantly walking over a seething blood-red sea of fire which
is hidden there in the womb of the earth. But we never think about this. And suppose
that this thin shell beneath our feet were suddenly to turn to glass, that suddenly we
would catch sight of...
I became glass. I saw within myself.
There were two "I’s.” One was my former self, D-503, number D-503, but the
other ... Up to now he had only stuck his shaggy paws a little out of the shell, but
now he was crawling out altogether, the shell was cracking .. . and what then?3
Images similar to this one, representing man’s body as a shell conceal

ing irrational energies, usually symbolized by fire, appear again and
again;
At that moment I saw only her eyes. An idea came to me: isn't man constructed
just as primitively as those absurd "apartments"—human heads are opaque, and
there are only two very small windows leading inside: the eyes. She seemed to have
Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin's 'Ne 97
guessed—and turned around. "Well, here are my eyes. Well?” (This, of course,
without saying a word.)
Before we were two sinister dark windows, and, within, such an unknown, alien
life. I saw only fire; some “fireplace" of her own blazing . .. (p. 27.)
She went up to the statue of the snub-nosed poet and, having lowered the curtains
on the wild fire of her eyes—there, inside, behind the windows ... (p. 28).
Then she lifted the curtain—and raised her eyes: through the dark windows a fire
was blazing (p. 29).
Related images are applied to other characters:
And his eyes sparkled—two sharp little drills, twisting rapidly, drilling deeper and
deeper, and now, at any moment, would bore to the very bottom, would see what I
do not even dare admit to myself... (p. 33).
For a long time we looked into each other’s eyes—those shafts leading from the
superficial world to another world which is beneath the surface (p. 81).
When D-503 is in love (an irrational emotional manifestation for

which, to use D-503’s terms, there is no formula), he moves inside
l-330’s eyes, into the fire which is symbolic of passion and, more
importantly, of freedom in general: " 'I knew you would be here, that you
would come. I knew thou, thou . . . ’ The spears of her eyelashes move
aside, they let mein...” (p. 131.) Logic and rationality seek to rule the
new world, but they can never destroy the inner irrational world of each
man: “I am like a motor set in motion at too many revolutions per
minute: the bearings have become too hot, in another minute, the mol
ten metal will begin to drip, and everything will turn to nothing.
Quick—some cold water, some logic. I pour on bucketsful, but logic
sizzles on the hot bearings and spreads through the air in an intangible
white vapor.” (p. 116.) Here the image is quite clear: the cold shell of
logic encasing blazing energies and passions. Logic keeps the form
hard and compact, but irrationality (human feelings and emotions)
melts the metal, transforming it into a formless molten mass.
With the removal of fancy this irrational human spirit, this inner fire
of life is quenched. But Zamyatin believes that the human mind and
body must struggle free from the cold artificial shell of logic in which
they are imprisoned by such a society. There can be no freedom for a
man when he is thus immured, shielded from life by uniforms, glass,
habit, and strict regimentation.
98 Carl R. Proffer
III
Zamyatin uses the color yellow for objects symbolic of man’s strug
gle for freedom, objects associated with man’s efforts to crack the walls
of hard logical shells and escape from the limitations of rationality to a
complete life—to the burning, life-giving golden sun.
D-503’s discovery of his second self is actuated by his passion for
1-330. She has already rebelled against the controls of the Single State
and cast the chains from her mind. She now impells D-503 to
insurrection, to obey his instincts instead of his logic. Significantly, yel
low is her color; it is repeatedly associated with her and connected to
the above-noted image of fire leaping behind the eyes, deep in the
human mind. She draws D-503 into her eyes, into the chaotic world of
the illogical and the unpredictable:
"Do you realize that all that is certain has come to an end? Now things will be new,
improbable, unforeseen.”
. . . She slowly drew me into herself through the narrow golden windows of her
pupils. Thus it was for a long time, in silence. And for some reason I recalled how
one day I had watched some incomprehensible yellow pupils through the Green
Wall; and over the Wall birds were soaring .. . 4 (p. 126.)
Her eyes and the color yellow are connected with the old irrational
world, the museum, the seething life outside the Wall, in particular the
free birds flying above the imprisoning Wall. When I-330 is in the old
‘‘illogical" world she removes the standard blue uniform; in the
museum, “She was dressed in a short, bright-yellow dress ...” (p. 28.)
In this yellow dress she draws D-503 into the realms of irrationality and
sunlight.
In D-503’s first dream (an irrational event which frightens him
considerably), the color yellow predominates, the yellow of l-330’s
dress, and, especially, the yellow brass statue of Buddha (a
non-rational philosopher and teacher of the ancient illogical world). For
Zamyatin gold becomes the color of life itself. The sap of life flows richly
from the serene Buddha: “ . . . a dress, yellow as an orange. Then—a
brass Buddha; suddenly it lifted the brass eyelids—and sap began to
flow—from the Buddha. And from the yellow dress—sap, and on the
mirror drops of sap, and the large bed oozes sap, and the children’s
cribs, and now I myself..." (p. 31.) Again Zamyatin creates the image
of a life-substance (which is basically free and non-rational) flowing
formlessly from a cold shell. D-503 considers this a sickness; he is still a
slave of the Single State and fears freedom: “The dream—
yellow—Buddha ... It immediately became clear to me that I should go
Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin’s We 99
to the Medical Bureau.” (p. 35.) Yellow is identified as the color of life
and freedom by being mentioned together with Buddha and then with
flowers in a seemingly disconnected series of images: "My head was
spinning; within a dynamo hummed. Buddha—yellow—lilies of the val
ley .. . ” (p. 47.) Of course, the flowers are symbolic of the freedom
existing only beyond the Wall.
Uncontrolled sexuality (non-rational, the basic unbounded instinct
of the man-animal), is continually associated with the color
yellow—again through 1-330. The first time she and D-503 make love: "I
turned around. She was in a light, saffron-yellow dress of ancient style.
This was a thousand times more evil than if she had been completely
unclothed. Two sharp points, glowing with a rosy color through the thin
cloth—two hot coals through the ashes.” (p. 49.) She has purposely
changed from her unit into the yellow dress before seducing him. Note
again the image of the internal fire, in this particular case associated
with sexuality. The saffron-yellow color is stressed again:
... she stood up and, glowing rosily through the saffron tissue, took a few
steps, and, stopping behind my chair...
Suddenly her arm was around my neck, her lips plunged into my lips ... no,
somewhere still deeper, still more terrifying ... (p. 51.)
Thus the color yellow, passion and freedom are related to each other.
And when he makes love to her later, he recalls the dream, the
Buddha, and the yellow color: it seems to him that all is saturated with a
golden sap, the original stuff of life. It is formless and irrational, as are
his actions at this point in the novel:
The room in half-dusk, blue, saffron-yellow, dark green morocco leather, the
golden smile of Buddha, the gleam of mirrors. And—my old dream, now so
comprehensible: everything was saturated with a golden-roseate sap, in a second
it would pour over the brim, splash out—
It ripened ... there was no pink coupon, there was no accounting, there was
no Single State, there was no me. There were only the golden eyes opened widely
to me; and through them I slowly entered within—deeper and deeper. And silence
. .. (p. 66.)
His revolt against the State, against being a logical cog in a logical
machine, against the sacrifice of his own ego and desires is at its peak;
he has the audacity to say that he is the Universe. He proclaims his
freedom. This desire for freedom is irrational, but it is human and is here
associated with sexuality. Again we see the golden sap of life, the
golden statue of Buddha emitting life from inside its shell of brass.
100 Carl R. Proffer
The life-giving sun is also golden. Outside the Wall sunlight is

unfiltered, uncorrupted, full of life:
And if you too were sometime as sick as I am now, you know what kind of sun
is—what kind of sun there can be—in the morning; you know this rosy, lucid, warm
gold. And the air itself is faintly roseate, and everything is alive: the stones are soft
and alive; iron is warm and alive; people are alive and every one of them is smiling.
It can happen that within an hour everything will disappear—the rosy blood will drain
off drop by drop—but in the meantime everything is alive, (p. 72.)
The sun is the blood of all life; like the golden sap of the Buddha or the
melting metal of the brain it is a formless liquid. Real sunshine is wild
and searing, unlike the dull, de-vivified sunlight which pierces the glass
of the logical Wall: “And then, slowly, the sun. Not ours, not that
bluish-crystalline sun uniformly distributed through the glass
bricks—no: a wild, soaring, scorching sun, tearing everything from you,
ripping everything into small bits.” (p. 19.) When D-503 goes beyond
the Green Wall for the first time one of the things which agitates him
most strongly is the vitality and ferocity of sunlight not diffused by glass:
“The sun ... it was not our sun evenly distributed across the mirror
surface of the pavements: this sun was made of some kind of living
splinters, incessantly jumping spots which blinded the eyes, put the
head in a spin.” (p. 132.)
Even before D-503 learned so much about life outside the Wall, in
the spring there were evidences of it: "Spring. From beyond the Green
Wall, from wild, unseen plains, wind brings the yellow honeyed pollen
of some kind of flowers. The lips dry up from this sweet pollen—you
continually run your tongue over them, and, probably, the women you
meet also have sweet lips (and men too, of course). To some extent this
hinders logical thinking.” (p. 67.) The pollen is a symbol of freedom and
natural vitality; and it is associated with the color yellow, as well as with
women (subdued sensuality here) and with the absence of rational
thinking. Later D-503 notes that the fragrance I-330 leaves behind her
in his room is "like the sweet, dry, yellow dust of flowers beyond the
Green Wall” (p. 116).
Life outside the Wall, outside the shell, is associated with this color
in numerous other instances:
Foggily, dully, the blunt snout of some kind of beast was visible to me through the
glass; its yellow eyes were constantly repeating the same thought which was in
comprehensible to me. For a long time we looked into each other's eyes—those
shafts leading from the superficial world to another world which is beneath the
surface. And a thought stirred within me: "What if, suddenly, he, the yellow-eyed
Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin's We 101
one, in his absurd dirty heap of leaves, in his uncalculated life, is happier than we
are?" (p. 81.)
The same chain of associations is seen in this passage: yellow, life

outside the shell-Wall, freedom, absence of logical calculations.
When I-330 stands outside the Wall, in the sunlight, D-503 notes:
“And then, with my body rumpled, happy, crumpled as if after the
embraces of love, I was below . . . The sun, voices above—the smile of
I-. A golden-haired woman, her whole body silky-golden, redolent of
grasses. In her hands—a chalice, apparently of wood. She drinks some
with red lips—and gives the cup to me, and I close my eyes and drink
eagerly in order to quench the fire within me—I drink sweet, prickly, cold
sparks.” (p. 135.) Again Zamyatin uses the image of fire within the
human body. In addition, the sunlight is associated with the free, wild,
natural life—life not encased in a frigid glass coffin. The freedom of
being in the sunlight has the same effect on him as the embraces of
love.
These examples do not begin to exhaust Zamjatin’s use of these
images and patterns. For example, when 0-90 is pregnant, ripe with
life:
Her entire body was strangely, perfectly, and resiliently rounded. Her arms and the
chalices of her breasts, and all her body which I knew so well was rounded out and
stretched her unit taut: there, at any moment, the thin material would be torn—and
everything would be outside, in the sun, in the light. It seems to me that there in the
green debris, in the spring, the sprouts just as stubbornly tear their way through the
earth in order as quickly as possible to put forth branches, leaves and, as quickly as
possible, to burst into bloom, (p. 146.)
In this passage the author uses three images presenting life throbbing
under the surface, trying to burst through to the life-giving sun: the first
is her body itself striving to tear the cloth, the second is the green shoot
reaching through the earth to freedom in fruition, and the third is the
unborn child within O-90’s softly rounded body awaiting its struggle to
freedom.5 Just as the baby rests expectantly in the mother’s womb, so
do all men wait in the womb of the Earth: ”... through the mist the sun
sang—it was barely audible; everything was suffused with resilient
pearl, gold, rose, red. The whole world is one unembraceable woman,
and we are in her very womb; we have not yet been born, we are
joyfully ripening. And it was clear to me, incontrovertibly clear; every
thing existed only for me: the sun, the mist, the rose, the gold—for me.”
(p. 64.) Here Zamyatin uses all of the elements we have been
102 Carl R. Proffer
examining: the image of life within a casing, sexuality associated with

life, freedom, and the golden vivifying sun.
All the beings outside the Wall are associated with the sun, with the
same golden color, the sap of life: “Naked, they went into the woods.
There they learned from the trees, the beasts, the birds, the flowers, the
sun. Hair grew over their bodies, but under the hair they preserved their
warm red blood.” (p. 141.) The untamed sun can revivify even an old
person, suffuse him with life and warmth: "... the old woman caressed
the branch; on her knees—a yellow stripe from the sun. And for one
instant I, the sun, the old woman, the wormwood, the yellow eyes—we
were all one, we were firmly united by some kind of small veins, and
through these small veins—one common, tempestuous, magnificent
blood ...” (p. 82.) The red color of blood is often connected with the
image of the sun as we have already seen. Later, when I-330 examines
D-503’s hands, she tells him that he must have in him "some drops of
the blood of the sun and the forest” (p. 140).
Red is the color of the irrational fire of spirit within the body. When
D-503 is outside the Wall with the people there, I-330 stands proudly
erect with her golden body gleaming in the sunlight, and we are told of
the image of the youth drawn on the rock: "I saw a crude picture ... a
winged youth, transparent body, and there, where the heart should
be—a blinding, red, smouldering coal" (p. 135).6 The wings are
obviously symbolic of freedom (we recall the image of the birds earlier),
as is the red coal itself, the fire within. D-503 feels the same vitality and
passion within himself: “At my side—1-330; her smile . . . And within
me—a hot coal, and this was instantaneous, light, a little painful, beauti
ful .. . ” (p. 136.) Zamyatin hints here that freedom is beautiful, but that
it is also a source of pain. When D-503 assumes the burdens of free
dom even temporarily, it causes him to suffer.
IV
The control of fire is glorified in the metallic iambs of the Single

State's poets. D-503 writes of the poetry which describes the harnes
sing of fire:
... A fire. Houses swayed in the iambs, spurted liquid gold upward, collapsed.
The green trees were scorched, sap dripped—already there remained only the
black crosses of skeletons. But Prometheus appeared (this was, of course, we).
"He harnessed fire to machine, to steel,
And chained chaos with Law."
Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin’s We 103
Everything was new, steel: A steel sun, steel trees, steel people. Suddenly
some insane man “freed fire from the chains,” and again everything was perishing
• • • (P- 43.)
Here again is Zamyatin’s favorite imagery: the fire, yellow liquid, sap,
steel shells. The numbers of the Single State view the releasing of fire
as insanity; it must be contained by steel. Law and regularity must rule;
logic and form render all things predictable. Just as the golden sun is
replaced by a steel sun and the sap-filled trees by steel ones, so must
man be turned to steel by controlling the fire within him.
Zamyatin sees each free man as a repository for this fire of life.
Men construct logical systems, but in life cold logicality always remains
a superficial covering. A fire of irrational instincts, feelings, emotions
burns in man, just as the yellow sun burns in the sky. The sources of the
fire are different, but the nature of the fire is the same. The fire is the
source of free life. Just as sunlight filtered by layers of protective glass
supports only an atrophied kind of life, so man rigidly bound by rules
and systems lives an incomplete life. When the fire of the instincts and
emotions is extinguished, then human life ceases.
This is what happens to D-503; in the end he undergoes the opera
tion which removes “fancy.” Then he is completely content with regula
tions and logic; the bluish light filtering through the glass brick seems
the only kind of sunlight possible. The yellow pollen in the spring will no
longer attract his attention. He will not be interested in the golden sap of
life. When others who have had the operation look at him, he will not
have to worry about seeing a fire burning behind their parted eyelids.
He will no longer think of himself as a motor out of control; he will not
have to shout for pailfuls of logic, because the metal of the brain will not
be hot. The unpredictable fire has been extinguished.
Yellow is not the only color used symbolically in the novel. Some
comments on the significance of the others are necessary. We have
already seen that red is connected with the images of the sun, fire,
heart, and blood. One important fact is that all the colors except blue
are associated primarily with the irrational world of the past. D-503
writes that among the colors which are “stifling the logical course of
thoughts” are the “reds, greens, bronze-yellows, whites, and oranges”
(p. 148). For example, the color green is associated with the grasses
and trees beyond the Wall; these are "illogical” and disgust D-503 at
104 Carl R. Proffer
first. The Green Wall separates the numbers from this wild foliage. In
the museum there is furniture covered with green leather, and there are
old books with green bindings. Both the liquor which I-330 drinks and
the revolutionary letters M E FI are "poisonously green." Several times
D-503 refers to the red-brown mahogany bed in the museum; later
Pil’njak was to make mahogany a symbol of the past. The color of the
grand piano which is used in the Single State’s satire on the past is
black. When she plays this piano I-330 wears a black dress. She wears
a black hat and black stockings with her yellow dress when she
seduces D-503. He repeatedly complains that he is covered with black
stains (traces of irrationality) which are ineffaceable. The Single State’s
announcement of the operation calls "fancy” a worm which eats “black
wrinkles” in the forehead.
The color of the Single State is blue. The uniforms are blue. D-503
refers to the icy blue rows of buildings, the grey-blue rows of numbers,
the soft blue light which calms him, the crystalline-blue sunlight, and to
the blue spark of electricity which the Guardians use to punish
offenders.
In one important case the color blue is associated with the
non-rational world: O-90’s eyes are blue. She is repeatedly character
ized by the rosy crescent of her lips and her "round, blue-crystalline
eyes” (p. 12). The diarist notes that, like the sky over the Single State,
they are clear and unclouded. When, on one occasion clouds do
appear in the sky, D-503 notes a parallel—tears appear in her blue
eyes. (For him neither clouds nor tears are logical.) The image of the
eyes as secret corridors is applied to 0-90, just as it was to I-330: "...
round blue eyes opened widely to me—blue windows to the
inside—and I penetrate to there without being hindered ...” (p. 34).
She too revolts against the Single State, but her revolt is a different kind
than that of I-330. 0-90 has one simple desire: to feel the stirring of life
within her. She wants to be pregnant, even though she realizes she will
be executed when it is discovered. Unlike I-330 (who eventually saves
0-90) she has no raging fire within her; but, significantly, there are “tiny
droplets of the sun in her blue eyes” (p. 39). The gold of the sun
remains the most important color in the novel.
This, then, is the sense of part of the imagery used by Zamyatin in

We. It shows that seemingly disconnected elements actually fit into a
logical pattern. Taken as a coherent system of images they illustrate
some of the central ideas of this novel against utopian rationality.
Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin’s \Ne 105
Notes
1. The comparisons D-503 uses to explain various aspects of the old and new worlds
and to describe characters are taken largely from geometry or the physical sciences.
2. The novel's connections with Dostoevskij, especially with the sullen hero of Notes
from Underground, have been examined by R. L. Jackson, Dostoevsky's Underground
Man in Russian Literature fs-Gravenhage, 1958).
3. E. Zamiatin, My (New York, 1952), pp. 51-52. All of the passages which are
quoted here I translated myself using the text of the Chekhov Publishing House edition.
Hereafter the page references to that edition are given in parenthesis following each
quotation. I have striven to make the translations literal, while retaining something of the
elliptical style and corresponding punctuation.
4. In this quotation, as in all those which follow, all italics are my own.
5. Renewal of life, the blooming flower (breaking of the outer shell) is commented
upon elsewhere by D-503. He writes, "... I am ill, I have a soul, I am a microbe. But is
blooming not a sickness? Is it not painful when a bud bursts? Don’t you think that the
spermatozoid is the most terrifying of microbes?” (p. 133.)
6. One might speculate that this image is borrowed from a similar one in Pushkin’s
Prorok. Pushkin’s bust is in the museum of the Single State, and it is mentioned more
than once. In addition, R-13, the rebel poet of the Single State, is repeatedly character
ized by his "Negroid lips," a detail one would associate with Pushkin because of his
much-discussed Abyssinian ancestry.
THE EYE IN WE
Ray Parrott
I—my eyes . . .
D-503
Numerous scholars and critics have noted that nearly all of

Zamyatin's fictions turn on their imagery.1 Edward J. Brown, for
example, remarks that most of his characters are "identified by the
device of the repeated metaphor . .. They are repeatedly associated
with objects that typify them for the reader."2 Alex Shane also has
written that the repetition of images is crucial to Zamyatin’s technique of
characterization; in fact, realized metaphors, sprung similes, as well as
the recurrent, fixed image and its associations are the writer’s basic
means of characterization. Having selected some "particular physical
characteristic . . . which best reveals . . . character or some basic
aspect of it,” Zamyatin then almost exclusively focuses upon this char
acteristic or correlative associations in developing character.3 No better
demonstration of this technique could be adduced than the anti-utopian
novel We.
Zamyatin, of course, employs a variety of physical features in por
traying nearly all of the major and minor characters in We. All of us
vividly recall the arresting images of O-90’s rosy roundness, her rosy
mouth and saucer-like, vacuous blue eyes; S-4711’s body formed in a
double curve like that of the letter "S," his pink wing-ears, and his gimlet
eyes; R-13’s smacking, spraying Negroid lips; l-330’s smile-bite with
sharp, white teeth and her triangulated brows; D-503’s shaggy, atavistic
hands; the old crone’s wrinkled, overgrown mouth; and the doctor’s
scissor-lips, to mention only a few of Zamyatin’s recurrent, characteriz
ing image-metaphors. These image-metaphors are the salient feature
of the writer’s synecdochical style of characterization, the technique of
pars pro toto, wherein an important part of the whole signifies the whole
and usually is the part most directly associated with the subject in
question.4 Or, as D-503 characterizes his own style: "This was my way
of thinking: from the part to the whole.’’5
Interestingly, Zamyatin’s predilection for this synecdochical style of
106
The Eye in We 107
characterization is most consistently evidenced and developed in We

through the individual, physical features of sensory reception and
response: eyes, ear, noses, lips, hands, and the like. This paper is
devoted to an analysis and demonstration of this style of
characterization, and in particular of the multi-faceted use and meaning
of the novel’s dominant functional metaphor, the eye, or the
eye-symbol.6 I shall include in my analysis not only the eye or eyes per
se, but all the external, contiguous physical features of the eye such as
the eyelids, the eyelashes, and the eyebrows. For it is through this total
metaphor-image of the eye that its various emotive and referential qual
ities are expressed.
I have encountered more than 160 specific references to the
eye-symbol in We. In a novel of approximately 200 pages in length, the
sheer cumulative bulk of the recurrent eye-symbol tends to support my
contention that it is Zamyatin’s major device of characterization.
Characters’ eyes provide the central clues to their personalities, in
addition to their thematic functions in We; a point which has largely
escaped scholarly attention to date.7
From a strictly physiological point of view the eyes are perhaps the
human being's most expressive receivers and senders of direct sense
impressions. Traditional symbolism in turn expresses the central im
portance and function of the eye through its likeness to the sun; the
representation of the sun as an eye, for example, is basic to the
legendes des origines. The eye, like the sun, is a source of light; light
itself is symbolic of intelligence and the spirit. Thus, the act of seeing
represents a spiritual act and symbolizes the capacity of the mind to
understand as well as to evaluate.8 The eye embodies and expresses
the “Self,” it becomes a metaphor of the Self. Consequently, when
D-503 confronts the irrational world beyond the Wall, his eyes cannot
stand the glare, just as R-13 had predicted; at this point in the novel
D-503 is incapable of comprehending the irrational world, the irrational
element in his self.
In We the eye or eyes function as metonymical references of the
Self, or various Selves. The eye-symbol is used not only to characterize
all the novel’s major and most secondary figures, occasionally it is
employed as a metaphor-image of the Self even to the point of replac
ing pronouns and numerical designations of character. Moreover, eyes
in the novel are metaphorical "corridors” to the inner Self, or Selves;
“corridors” which serve to reveal, guard, or conceal the inner Self as
occasion warrants and which, when closed, provide the Self with a
means of escape from the rational strictures and encroachments of the
Only State. Eyes are also, as it were, a vantage point for the inner Self
108 Ray Parrott
and at the same time a projection of this Self. Occasionally they serve
to mirror other Selves; frequently they are employed to reflect the sun,
thereby strengthening this analogic association. In addition to the re
ferential value suggested by the image of inner fire seen in characters’
eyes, and symbolic of the human desire for passion, the irrational, and
individual freedom, Zamyatin employs the eye-symbol to reflect emo
tional states in his characters.9 Open and closed eyes also signal states
of wakefulness and reverie in narrative dream-sequences, conscious
ness and unconsciousness; they also signal D-503’s spatial and
temporal, psychological and ideational movement between the rational
and irrational worlds via the nebulous tunnel-corridor. And it is signifi
cant that Zamyatin extends his use of the eye-symbol to inanimate
objects and animals as well as to the human figures in We.
As “corridors" to the inner Self, eyes are the direct means by which
the real selves of the rebellious citizenry of the Only State are revealed.
Behind the cold exterior of logic, order, and rationality superimposed by
the Only State lurks the real apartment of the 29th-century citizen. This
is aptly illustrated in the passage where D-503 draws an analogy be
tween the House of Antiquity and l-330's eyes:
We stopped in front of a mirror. At that moment I saw only her eyes. An idea
came to me: the human being is constructed just as ridiculously as these absurd
“apartments"—human heads are opaque, and there are only two tiny windows: the
eyes. .. . (27)
Later, when D-503 searches l-330’s eyes in an effort to comprehend

her true nature, Zamyatin reinforces the suggestion of an unknown
inner-being through the device of the recurrent eye-symbol. This inner
Self, accessible only through the eyes, is a repository and fortress of
the real, irrational world; the world of ideas, feelings and emotions
which comprise the whole, individual being:
Before me were two terrifyingly-dark windows, and inside such a strange,

unknown life. I saw only a fire—some peculiar “fireplace" was burning there.. ..
(27)
. . . Through the dark windows of her eyes—there, within her, I saw a flaming
oven, sparks, tongues of fire leaping upwards, mountains of dry, resinous wood
heaped up. . . . (140)
There soon will appear from somewhere the sharp mocking angle of brows
lifted to the temples, and the dark window eyes, and there, within, a flaming
fireplace. ... (76)
The Eye in We 109
In this dualistic conception and nature of character the body is but a

"cold shell of logic encasing blazing energies and passions.”10 This
notion of the real, irrational Self existing as a separate entity within an
impassive, rational exterior shell is most succinctly and explicitly illus
trated when D-503 recounts his long silent appraisal of the beast
beyond the wall:
We looked into each other's eyes for a long time—into those shafts from the
superficial world into another world beneath the surface. (81)
The use of the eye-symbol as a corridor into the inner self is implicit
in all the foregoing. However, Zamyatin makes the image explicit when
D-503 refers to O-90’s eyes as a means of access to her inner being:
"... round blue eyes opened toward me widely—blue windows leading
inside ...” (34). This same device and suggestion is extended to
l-330’s eyes in a similar if more vivid vein: “But midway I stumbled
against the sharp, motionless spears of her eyelashes, and I stopped”
(190). And then extending or realizing the metaphor: "The spears of her
eyelashes moved apart, permitted me inside ...” (131). It should be
stressed that these passages represent only a fractional portion of the
instances and related images employed by Zamyatin wherein the
eye-symbol serves as the point and metaphor of direct access to the
real, inner Self.
I mentioned earlier that the eye in We serves as a vantage point for
the inner Self, and, I might note, as an almost periscopic perspective.
The prime example of this device occurs in the portrayal of the Letter
Messenger, whose face is likened to an overhang or a refuge beneath
which his rebellious inner-Self is hiding. We read D-503’s impressionis
tic characterizations:
"Here is a letter from her, for you." (From under the awning of that forehead)
. . . From under the forehead, from under the awning .. . (94)
... hair low over the forehead, eyes gazing from under his brows—that same
man.. . . (169)
... that same flattened man with the forehead low over his eyes, who several
times had brought me notes from I. (142)
And then, suggesting the eyes’ contiguous relation with the covert voice
of the inner-Self: "Before me stood a slovenly, slantingly lowered fore
head ... a very strange impression: it seemed as if he spoke from
there, from the eyes beneath his brows” (94). It is noteworthy that
110 Ray Parrott
Zamyatin extends this metaphor of overhanging brows with but slight

changes to several of the novel's characters. To D-503: "Shrunk into a
ball, hidden beneath the awning of my forehead, I somehow from be
neath my brows stealthily watched ...” (142). To R-13: “R sucked in
his lips, looked at me from under his brows” (57). And finally the author
applies the inner-voice—inner-Self parallel to I-330: “Her voice came
from there, from inside, from behind the dark window eyes, where the
fireplace was blazing” (28).
The irrational nature of the inner-Self is necessarily concealed be
neath the graphic image of the overhanging brows; yet the inner voices
of the rebellious citizens express their fundamental convictions. And
when the propitious moment for “self-revelation finally presents itself,
the Letter Messenger is the first to extricate himself from his
constricting, external shell as he joyously exclaims;
“Aha-a" and the triumphant back of the neck turned; I caught sight of that man
with the protruding forehead. But now all that remained in him of his former self was
a name alone, so to speak; he had somehow crawled out from under his overhang
ing forehead, and on his face about the eyes and lips rays were sprouting like tufts
of hair; he was smiling.
"Do you understand?" he shouted to me through the noise of the wind and the
wings and the cawing. "Do you understand? The Wall! They have blown up the
Wall! Do you un-der-stand?" (187)
Eyes also serve as a means of escape in We; as a means of

shutting out external reality; as a means of veiling one's true feelings
and convictions, whether of a personal (emotional) or ideological
nature. 0-90, confronted by D-503’s rejection of her in favor of I-330, by
his unwillingness to impregnate her and the chill sterility of his eventual
advances, reacts typically and plausibly by closing her eyes to the
situation:
. . . her blue eyes were closed. . . . (69)
O raised her face from the pillow and without opening her eyes she said, "Go
away." (69)
Her eyes were closed as if the sun were shining straight into her face. (98)
This same metaphor is extended to I-330. As the major symbol of the

rebellious inner-Self struggling against the conditioned-thought proces
ses of the Only State, it is only natural that l-330’s eye-symbol figures
most prominently in the novel. Indeed, Zamyatin invests her figure with
a striking, unique, and recurring image when he represents her eyelids
The Eye in We 111
as “blinds” which conceal her real Self at her discretion and inclination.
And while these “blinds” obviously serve a sensual function in her
portrayal, they more importantly serve to veil the irrational forces of her
inner emotions and thoughts.
She looked somewhere, down; her eyes were closed like blinds.
I suddenly recalled: evening, about twenty-two; you walk along the avenue and
among the brightly lighted, transparent cubicles are dark spaces with lowered
blinds, and there, behind the blinds . . . What has she there behind her blinds? (26)
. . . again the lowered blinds of her eyes . . . There behind the blinds, something
was going on in her, I didn't know what, but something that made me lose my
patience. . . . (27)
Again she lowered her eyes to the letter. What had she there, behind her
lowered blinds? What would she say? What would she do in a second? How to learn
it? How to calculate it, when she comes entirely from there, from the wild, ancient
land of dreams. (48)
When I-330 is apprehensive over D-503's visit to the Benefactor,

Zamyatin reverses the psychic image of closed eyes:
She said (without opening her eyes—I noticed this),

"They say you went to see the Benefactor yesterday; is it true?”
“Yes, it's true.”
And then her eyes opened widely and with delight I looked at her and saw that
her face quickly paled, effaced itself, and disappeared: only the eyes remained.
(192)
When D-503 consciously seeks to avoid the reality of an undesirable

situation he, too, repeatedly withdraws into himself and prevents the full
impact of the situation from reaching his inner Self by simply dropping
his eyelids: "... and I merely close my eyes to avoid seeing the date on
which her name, the name 0-90, is written on my Sexual Table” (90).
Subsequently, in tacit acknowledgement of the conflict between the
rational and irrational aspects of his personality, D-503 attempts to
escape from l-330's penetrating and provocative gaze, to retreat from
perplexity: “I locked myself into myself as though into an ancient, opa
que house; I blocked up the door with rocks, I lowered the window
blinds ...” (174)
In an interesting variant of this act of escaping, D-503 opens his
eyes at the height of a fearful dream-sequence. The dual aspects of his
personality have again been struggling for possession of his Self, and
on this occasion his irrational impulses threaten to overcome his
rational, Only-State conditioning: “ . . . and for me that was something
112 Ray Parrott
terrible in this that I could not bear. I screamed, and again opened my
eyes” (87). Generally speaking, however, the opening and closing of
D-503’s eyes in dream-sequences simply signal the onset and conclu
sion of his reveries.
It is noteworthy that D-503’s nascent guilt-feelings are constantly
expressed through the synecdochical image of his lowered eyes, as he
cannot bring himself to face his betrayed Only-State comrades and
society. Not only is this image psychologically plausible, it is stylistically
consistent with Zamyatin’s overall use of the eye-symbol:
I was shamefully saving myself by flight. I did not have the strength to raise my
eyes . .. There was no place for me here, a criminal, a tainted man .. . (73-74)
I could not raise my eyes. (77)
But I could not raise my eyes. (77)
... and I was afraid to raise my eyes. (182)
As this guilt becomes more manifest and complex, D-503 attempts to

suppress his increasingly irrational thoughts and acts by consciously
reasserting his mathematico-geometrical, Only-State conditioning as a
defense mechanism:
Quick to the newspaper! Perhaps there.... I read the paper with my eyes
(exactly: my eyes are now like a pen, or like a calculator which you hold and feel in
your hands; it is foreign, an instrument). (166)
And finally, standing before the mirror in his apartment, D-503 acknow
ledges to himself that heretofore he had been completely unaware of
the latent individualism awaiting release from his inner Self: “Steel-gray
eyes encircled by the shadow of a sleepless night. And behind that
steel—it turns out that I never knew before what was there” (54).
The emotive property of the eye often serves as a concise indicator
of a character’s state of mind in We. This is perhaps best illustrated in
the extended passage where R-13’s eyes express the entire cycle of
his feelings during a lengthy discussion with D-503 over the question
able concepts of the Only State:
. . . black eyes varnished with laughter. . . . (37)
... the varnish disappeared from his eyes. (40)
Suddenly I see R's eyes becoming more and more opaque. (55)
The Eye in \Ne 113
And finally, when R-13 returns reassured to the confident end of his
cycle: “ ... his eyes became covered with the varnish of laughter. . . . ”
(55). This same device is extended to S-4711 when he happens to read
D-503’s incautious diary entries, revealing the latter’s perplexed, inter
nal vacillation. The clever, extremely graphic image is wholly repre
sentative of the vivid, often bizarre, quality of much of Zamyatin's
imagery: "... and I saw how a smile jumped out of his eyes, scam
pered down his face, and, slightly wagging its tail, perched on the right
corner of his mouth ..." (144). This graphic quality is again evidenced
in 9-Controller’s eyes as she hesitatingly, lovingly appeals for D-503’s
affection:
... through the bashful jalousies of lowered eyes—a tender, blinding, envelop
ing smile. (91)
And finally, through the bashful jalousies, very quietly ... (91)
Amazement is expressed through the eyes of 0-90 and U-Controller,

respectively, through a considerably more conventional image:
O amazedly, roundly, bluely looks at me . . . (163)
She raised her body on her elbow, her breasts splayed out to one side, eyes
round; she had become wholly waxen. (181)
Regardless of D-503’s efforts to maintain a calm, outwardly rational

appearance, his eyebrows belie his true psychological state as he
stands before a mirror. They reflect the visible traces of his internal
conflict as he struggles to retain control over his latent individualism:
I look at myself—at him. And I know surely that he—with his straight brows—is
a stranger, alien to me ... (54)
... from the armchair I saw only my forehead and eyebrows. And then I, the
real I, saw in the mirror a distorted, quivering line of brow . .. (57)
In the mirror for a second my distorted, broken eyebrows. (94)
For an instant in the mirror—the broken, quivering line of my brows. (138)
Personality traits are implicit in the leitmotif of O-90’s vacuity. She

is essentially devoid of substance, and her vacuous nature is the pre
vailing note conveyed by her characterizing images, and specifically
her eye-symbol:
114 Ray Parrott
. . . three times I kissed her wonderful blue eyes, unmarred by a single cloud.
(12)
. . . round blue eyes opened toward me widely . .. and I penetrate inside

unhindered: there is nothing in there, that is, nothing foreign, nothing superfluous.
(34)
. . . and empty eyes, engulfing in their blue emptiness. (164)
The artistic figure of the eye-symbol is repeatedly applied to S-4711,

the rebel Guardian. In keeping with his character, and supposed
obligation, as a beneficent guardian of the Only State, his eyes are
portrayed as tiny gimlets which enable him to penetrate D-503’s exter
nal trappings of logic and rationality:
And his eyes sparkled, two sharp little drills swiftly revolving; they drilled in
deeper and deeper. It seemed that in a moment they would drill in to the very bottom
and would see something that I do not even admit to myself ... (33)
The drills reached the bottom within me . .. (33)
Without looking I felt his two gray steel-drill eyes bore quickly into me . . . (77)
Screwing up his eyes, he bored his little drills into me ... (104)
S turned around. The little drills bored quickly into me to the bottom and found
something there. (129)
The doctor's contemptuous attitude toward D-503, and probably his

fellow citizens in general, is vividly suggested through his eye-symbol of
impaling horns:
... he was tossing patients up with his eyes, as if on horns . . . (77)
He picked up my thin doctor with his horn eyes, then picked me up. (79)
Practically nothing, or no one, escapes Zamyatin’s exploitation of

the artistic device of the eye-symbol. Animate beings quite naturally
occasion its fullest use, although it is significant that inanimate objects
and animals also are characterized by the device. Perhaps the fore
most example of this is the House of Antiquity: “The yellow . . . walls
were watching me through their dark, square window-glasses, were
watching ..." (104). Then, within the House of Antiquity, the device is
applied to the Brass Buddha, animating his imperious gaze: “Then a
brass Buddha. Suddenly it lifted its brass eyelids ...” (31). More often
The Eye in \Ne 115
than not, as with the novel’s human characters, animals’ eyes are the
only constant physical feature, if not the sole peculiarity, that Zamyatin
focuses on in characterizing them for the reader. The portrayal of the
beast and the bird on the other side of the Green Wall are prominent
examples:
Through the glass the blunt snout of some beast looked at me dully, dimly; its
yellow eyes stubbornly repeating the same thought which remained incomprehensi
ble to me ... (And a thought stirred in me:) "What if he, this yellow-eyed one (in his
absurd dirty heap of leaves, in his incalculable life) is happier than we are? ... the
yellow eyes blinked, backed away, and disappeared in the foliage. (81)
... and its round black eyes drilled themselves into me ... (136)
Even the novel’s very minor figures usually are characterized by a

metaphorical or conventional reference to their eyes. At the Divine
Service the condemned man standing before the dreaded Machine is
represented as: “And only the eyes—thirsty, swallowing black
eyes . . .” (42). The parade protestant mistakenly identified by D-503 as
I-330 is portrayed as: "Before me a quivering, freckle-strewn face with
rusty-red eyebrows ...” (109). The person beyond the Green Wall
whom D-503 addresses when searching for the momentarily lost I-330:
“Shaggy, austere eyebrows turned to me . . . and shaggily nodded over
there toward the center ...” (134). The Old Crone at the entrance to
the House of Antiquity: "... craft rays from yellow eyes probing their
way into me, deeper and deeper...” (82). And, finally, the eyes of the
Second Builder of the Integral are parenthetically analogized as little
flowers:
His face is like porcelain, painted with sweet blue and tender little pink flowers
(eyes and lips) ... (130)
The little blue flowers are stirring, bulging out. (131)
This catalog of the multi-faceted use and significance of the

eye-symbol in the novel We would not be complete without mentioning
the reinforcing diversity of the device as applied to a number of
characters’ portrayals. For example, Zamyatin lends a clever turn to the
device when he compares O-90’s eyes to a saucer, as previously
noted:
. .. little blue saucer-eyes filled to the brim. (96)
... I looked into her blue eyes, filled to the brim . .. (97)
116 Ray Parrott
Tiny blue saucers overflowing the brim; silent, rapid tears ran down her cheeks,
rushing over the brim ... (97)
The same literary trick is extended to l-330’s brows, which are repe
atedly characterized as forming a triangle:
Coal-black, slender eyebrows quirked up toward the temples: an acute triangle,

smile. (137)
... the mocking, acute triangle of brows . .. (149)
Dark brows raised high to the temples, the sharp mocking triangle . . . (50)
And, lastly, when D-503’s eyes are transfixed upon U-Controller in the
humorous “seduction” scene: "... holding her as firmly as ever on the
leash with my eyes . .. ” (180).
The role of the eye-symbol as thematic device has been implicit
throughout my remarks to this point. And it would seem that the novelis-
tic conflict between that free individuality essential to complete human
expression and the thorough suppression of the inner Self demanded
by the concept of total service to the Only State needs no elaboration.
Yet, though an analysis of the novel's theme lies outside the scope of
this paper, meaning is a necessary correlary of the eye-symbol in We.
The foregoing has provided a relatively studied if indirect statement of
this aspect of the novel. One final illustration should suffice to suggest
the pervasiveness of the eye-symbol in this aspect of the novel as well
as in characterization. An eyelash becomes the extended image of
D-503’s irrational behavior intruding upon the heretofore precise, logic
al regimen of his daily existence:
Yes, now it is precisely like that: I feel some foreign body or other there, in my
brain, like a very fine eyelash in the eye. One feels entirely oneself, but as for this
eye with the eyelash in it—that’s something one cannot forget, not even for a
second ... (31 )
And through the glass walls of my algebraic world that eyelash penetrated
again—there was something unpleasant . .. (33)
Then, in a slight variation of this image: “But then, to be conscious of

one’s self, to be aware of one’s individuality, is only to be like a
cinder-irritated eye ...” (111).
Characters, of course, serve as bearers of the novel’s message
and, as such, the tone and nature of their portrayals leaves an indelible
impression upon the development and expression of theme. In this
The Eye in We 117
sense, the eye-symbol serves the dominant function among the aggre
gate of creative images which figure so prominently in We. As an artistic
device, the eye-symbol contributes more to the total novel than any
other physical, spiritual, or ideological image; an understanding of its
recurrent and complementary functions contributes both to an appre
ciation of Zamyatin’s synecdochical style and the novel itself.
Notes
1. This paper was first presented in abridged form at the April 24, 1976, Spring
meeting of Wisconsin AATSEEL held at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
2. Edward J. Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution (New York, 1963), 72.
3. Alex M. Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin (Berkeley, 1968), 152-53.
See also Milton Ehre, "Zamjatin’s Aesthetics,” Slavic and East European Journal, Vol.
XIX, No. 3 (Fall 1975), 291 and 293.
4. Hongor Oulanoff also has noted this distinctive feature of Zamjatin’s style: "He
operates by means of synecdoche: some distinct quality, some individual trait or physical
detail of appearance signal the whole personality of the character." See The Serapion
Brothers: Theory and Practice (The Hague, 1966), 117.
5. Evgenii Zamiatin, My (New York, 1952), 61. Hereafter all citations from this edition
will be noted in brackets by page number in the body of the article.
6. "Cleanth Brooks uses the term 'functional metaphor' to describe the way in which
the metaphor is able to have ‘referential’ and 'emotive' characteristics and to go beyond
them and become a direct means in itself of representing a truth incommunicable by other
means. Clearly when a metaphor performs this function, it is behaving as a symbol.”
Quoted from Thrall, Hibbard and Holman's A Handbook to Literature (New York, 1960),
282.
7. Although Christopher Collins discusses the role and nature of imagery in We at
great length, his references to the eye only suggest its function as a "window” to the inner
self. See Evgenij Zamjatin: An Interpretive Study (The Hague, 1973), 52-68.
8. See, for example, J.E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (New York, 1962), 95-96.
9. Carl R. Proffer, "Notes on the Imagery in Zamjatin’s We,” Slavic and East Euro
pean Journal, Vol. VII, No. 3 (Fall 1963), 269-78.
10. Ibid., 271.
ZAMYATIN’S STYLIZATION
Gary Kern
One way to form a concept of Evgeny Zamyatin’s work is to deter

mine first what is missing. Zamyatin did not write poetry (save Attila, a
play in blank verse), big novels or narrative stories. Much of his work
lacks the feeling of a definite time, place or people. Instead of “realistic”
description, one finds the surrealistic: “days like amber rosaries:
identical, transparent, yellow” (“The Miracle of Ash Wednesday”), a
“glowing, unprecedented, icy sun” (“The Dragon”), “sleepy
elephant-busses” (“Fisher of Men”), “six-storied stone ships” in the
“raging-stone ocean of streets” (“Mamai”). Instead of events fixed at a
definite moment in history, one often finds universal situations: a diary
from the thirtieth century relating to today (We), a moss-covered forest
which has seen ancient Rus and will see winged men (“Rus”), the
simultaneous, related experiences of a worm, Russian peasants and
the last people on another planet (“A Story About the Main Thing”). And
instead of types, one meets individuals: the vivacious Didi in her black
pajamas: “In this costume and with closely clipped hair—girl-boy—she
resembled a medieval page: because of pages like this prim ladies
easily forgot their knights and quite willingly tossed the rope ladder
down from the balcony of the tower” (The Islanders); the shy old monk
Arsiusha: “Shaggy, bent-over—he was like some kind of small beast:
the friendly beast stands on its hind paws but does not entirely straight
en up, now it drops to its forepaws and runs from the disruptive people
into the forest” (“The Sign”); the protective mother Mrs. Fitzgerald:
“She was a turkey: her head was always sideways on her stretched-out
neck, and one eye was always turned upwards, to the sky, from where
any moment a kite might swoop down and carry off one of her nine little
turkeys” (“Fisher of Men”). In a word, Zamyatin avoids long forms,
narrative development, realistic devices and standard literary depiction.
With these categories eliminated, one is ready to study Zamyatin's
work—a collection of stories and short novels. These might be
arranged into a number of genres (skaz, impious parable,
science-fiction, pastoral, 0. Henry short story, etc.), but there is one
feature common to all: an original form or technique. For Zamyatin, life
118
Zamyatin’s Stylization 119
had ceased to be “flatly realistic,” it had become dynamic and complex;

writers could no longer merely describe life—they needed to organize it,
resolve new problems and seek new forms. Zamyatin advised writers to
avoid “topical” literary trends, the description of the daily round (byt)
and narratives about workers’ projects. Instead, he believed, the writer
should maintain a broad “contemporary” view, align his work with the
“huge fantastic sweep of spirit in our epoch” (not byt, but bytie) and
therefore fuse realism with fantasy.1 The embodiment of this view in
Zamyatin’s work is an original stylistic system, sometimes called
“neo-realism.” I prefer to call it “stylization”—to emphasize the form
and avoid the overtones of the term “realism.”
To analyze this stylization is to X-ray it: the skeletal structure
shows up in a bright light, while the flesh and blood (meaning, emotion,
spirit) appear only as a dim shading. Yet it is well to analyze, for this
structure is original and helps us to understand at least a little of the
power and thrust of the body. We shall concentrate on Zamyatin’s
“second period” (1917-31, but mainly the 20s)—stories and novels
written after the provincial satires ("A Provincial Tale,” Alatyr,” etc.) and
before the works written in emigration (the novel The Scourge of God,
the story “The Lion,” etc.). Plays also are not treated.
For the purpose of analysis, Zamyatin’s stylization may be reduced
to three components: language, imagery and theme. These compo
nents are not mutually exclusive and may often overlap: language may
be imagery and imagery may be theme.
1. Language
The key to the language of Zamyatin’s work is found in his own

lecture to beginning writers, “On Language” (O iazyke, 1920). Here he
recommended not “literary language,” which he deemed “oratorical”
and “corsetted,” but “popular language.” For Zamyatin this meant brief
statements, few subordinate clauses, diminutive forms, particles and
colloquialisms. An artistic use of this language, he reasoned, promoted
greater economy, vitality and cohesion.2
The colloquial aspect of “popular language” affects all of
Zamyatin’s works, but particularly those of the first period. It involves a
mimicry of local dialects, word play and improvization in the
Gogol-Leskov-Remizov tradition. The two-page story “It’s the honest
truth” (Pravda istinnaia, dated 1917), for example, offers the following
curiosities: the colloquialisms dorit’ (instead of darit'), lysishchii
(instead of lysyi), bashka (instead of go/ova); the expressions
120 Gary Kern
vidimo-nevidimo, podi-ka, zhit’ dura-duroi; and the mistakes vobche

(vovse plus voobshche), ogromadnyi (ogromnyi plus gromadnyi) and
navozryd plakat' (navoz plus navzryd). Zamyatin uses such verbal de
vices not so much as ornaments (as the term “ornamentalism” would
suggest) as an element of composition: they always reflect the mental
ity of the character, either directly (first-person speech, skaz) or in
directly (third-person speech, depicting the world as the character sees
it). In the present story this produces a sentimental effect: a letter from a
girl to her mother reveals that despite her assurances (“it’s the honest
truth!”), she is suffering in the city and longs for the village. In the story
“Comrade Churygin Has the Floor” (1926), it produces a satiric effect:
the narrator relates a story in a mixture of his local dialect and common
Soviet expressions ("Pervo-na-pervo, uvazhaemye grazhdanochki. . .”);
when his brother is told by a nobleman that the statue before him
is Mars, the brother takes off his hat in respect (thinking the statue to be
Marx). However, in Zamyatin’s major works—We, “The Cave,”
“Mamai,” “A Story About the Main Thing”—colloquial speech is not so
prominent: it is either synthesized with literary language or alternates
with it (as dialogue).
The chief contribution of “popular language” to Zamyatin’s styliza
tion is brevity. Zamyatin not only avoided long sentences with subordin
ate clauses, but often eliminated grammatical parts of speech. With this
technique he sought to reproduce what he called "thought language”
(myslennyi iazyk)—the speed language of “pieces, fragments and
additions.” The reader is thus given only the guidelines to the action:
faced with incomplete sentences (aposiopesis), changes of construc
tion (anacoluthon) and bare allusions, he is forced to fill in the missing
links, to think, and, in a sense, to create with the author. The story which
uses this technique with the most marked effect is “A Story About the
Main Thing” (Rasskaz o samom glavnom, 1923). Here is the first de
scription of the heroine:
Thick, bent under the weight of flowers, lilac branches. Under

them—embroidered here and there by the sun, shade; in the shade—Talia. Her
thick, bent down by the weight of some kind of flowers, lashes.3
The absence of verbs in this passage makes an impressionistic effect:

Talia is seen in three swift glances. Later in the same story, Zamyatin’s
thought language is used to express a heightened, shocked awareness
of life:
Kukoverov smokes hungrily, on his cigarette grows a gray, slightly curly ash, in his
head the watch hands spin around like mad.
"But this: we're together—by the window on the stool, the sky—and something
. . . Yes: streetcar bells—and this seemed to us like . . . like . . . And now—you and I
. . . funny! I kept thinking . . . This cup of water, tin—here, see the dirt at the top
under the seam? You understand—I looked at it and thought: tomorrow it will be
absolutely the same . . . You, maybe, the most absolute emptiness, a wasteland,
nothing—and. you understand, I think: suddenly to see there this same cup and the
dirt on it here—maybe, this is such an incredible joy—such a ... Or to see: a worm
crawling—nothing more: a worm.
Kukoverov’s monologue (a long one by Zamyatin’s standards) is bereft

of complete sentences, yet the reader understands that the hero is
taking his last look at life, and also that his executioner is his childhood
friend.
In conjunction with “thought language,” Zamyatin employed the
device of misleading statements or “false assertions” (as he called
them). This is a standard ploy of irony: by stressing the truth of what is
patently false, the author makes the false appear ludicrous. In The
Islanders (Ostrovitiane, 1917-18) one runs across statements such as
this:
As is well known, a cultured person should to the best of his ability have no
face. That is, he should not be completely without a face, but the face should be like
a face, and then not like a face—so it doesn't catch your eye, like clothes sewn by
an excellent tailor. It goes without saying that a cultured person's face should be
exactly like that of other cultured persons, and of course it by no means should
change in any of life’s situations.
The use of false assertions in We is a tour de force, a modern equiva

lent of Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly. Here insidious spies are called
“Guardian Angels,” imagination and love are labelled “diseases,” a
tyrant is regarded as "the Benefactor” and so on.
As may be expected with such an experimental writer, Zamyatin
makes extensive use of the oxymoron. He may do this on a broad scale
(imagery and theme)—a dog with eyes of “sad, human wisdom”
(“Eyes,” 1917), Didi as a male "page,” a monk who gives birth to a boy
("The Miracle of Ash Wednesday,” 1923)—or on the smaller verbal
scale. The following examples are taken from The Islanders:
charmingly outrageous (porcelain pug)

outrageously dear (intelligent people)
tender points (of Didi)
a prickily tender something (of Didi)
sweetly acrid (gillyflower) ,
happily exhausted (Vicar Dooley)
joyfully shameful (to be with Didi)
122 Gary Kern
reproachfully caressingly (way of speaking)

ornamentally forged (streetlight)
dog-human (hammer head)
(These combinations are hyphenated in the Russian: prelestno-bezobraznyi,
bezobrazno-milye, sladostno-edkii, etc.)
Another peculiarity of Zamyatin’s language (more properly, syntax)

is his highly personal system of punctuation. The frequency of dots and
dashes in thought language (e.g., Kukoverov’s monologue) facilitates
rapid transition: the reader is presented with a brief thought, a dash and
then another thought; three dots slow up the pace; then thought, dash,
thought again. The alternation of these two marks—fast (dash) and
slow (dots)—stimulates a feeling of nervousness, breathlessness and
peculiar precision, like knife-throwing. A passage from "The Cave”
(Peshchera, 1920):
Suddenly light: exactly ten o’clock. And without finishing. Martin Martinych
squinched, turned away: in the light it was more difficult than in the dark. And in the
light one could clearly see: his face was crumpled, clayey (many now had clayey
faces: back—to Adam). But Masha:
And you know, Mart, I might try—maybe I'll get up ... if you warmed it up in the
morning.
"Well, Masha, of course . . . Such a day . . . Well, of course, in the morning."
This passage also exemplifies Zamyatin's persistent use of the

colon. It too marks a change of thought, but often it also represents a
lens through which images are reversed. Bits and pieces of ideas are
presented before the colon, which focuses them into a generalized
concept:
Glaciers, mammoths, wastes. Nocturnal, black, somehow similar to houses,

cliffs: in the cliffs caves. And it is not known who trumpets at night on the stone path
between the cliffs and, sniffing out the path, blows up the white snowy dust; maybe
a grey-trunked mammoth; maybe the wind, and maybe—the wind itself is the frozen
roar of some kind of most mammothian mammoth. One thing is clear: winter.
(First lines of “The Cave")
The fragmented world is unified in a capsule understanding, but it may

be fragmented again. Zamyatin often reverses the motion (general
concept, then pieces), changes the viewpoint (telescope, then
microscope).
The world: a lilac bush—eternal, immense, immeasurable. In this world I: a

yellowish pink worm Rhapolocera with a horn on my tail. Today—I am to die into a
chrysalis, my body twisted with pain, bent over as a bridge—taut, trembling. And if I
knew how to scream—if I knew!—all would hear. I'm mute.
Another world: a mirror of a river, a transparent bridge of iron and blue sky;
shots, clouds.
(First lines of “A Story About the Main Thing")
All the devices mentioned impart a special rhythm to Zamyatin’s

writing. In this regard, it is interesting to note that Zamyatin did not
distinguish prose from poetry. For him both were qualitatively the same,
both used the same means of “instrumentation.” Poetry with a fixed
metrical pattern differed from prose only superficially.4 He wrote: “In the
analysis of prose rhythm even Andrei Belyi—a most subtle investigator
of verbal music—made a mistake: he attached the [metrical] foot to
prose (hence his illness—chronic anapest) . .. The prose foot is mea
sured not by the distance between stressed syllables, but by the dis
tance between (logically) stressed words . . . Meter in prose is always
an alternating magnitude; one always finds delays, then accelerations.
These, of course, are not accidental: they are determined by the emo
tional delays and accelerations in the text.”5
The musical quality of Zamyatin’s prose, of course, can only be
suggested in translation. A short example of his Russian from the story
“The Sign” (Znamenie, 1918):
Shia vsenoshchnaia, bednaia, budniaia. Redkie svechi—tsvety paporotnika v

kupal’skuiu noch'; v temnom kupole—gulkoe alliluia; mimo svetleiuschikh
okon—lastochki s piskom, iz vysi v vys'. I tarn—chut' povyshe lastochek—bog.
2. Imagery
Few of Zamyatin’s images are occasional, used once and then

abandoned. As he explained: “I rarely make use of single, chance
images: these are only sparks, they live a second and go out, they are
forgotten. The chance image comes from an inability to concentrate, to
really see, to believe. If I firmly believe in an image, it inevitably gives
birth to a whole system of derivative images, it grows by the roots
through paragraphs, pages. In a short story the image may become
integral—it spreads through the entire piece from beginning to end.”6
An integral image could be named for almost every one of
Zamyatin’s stories. The most contrived, and therefore unsuccessful
example is the story "The Play Room” (Detskaia, 1920). Here a hap
less gambler Semyon Semyonych plays cards with the adept Capt.
Krug. The Capt., whose face is “locked up,” relates how he once pulled
124 Gary Kern
the head off a fly, and whenever Semyon loses a hand he “wipes his
face like a fly.” While Semyon plays to his inevitable defeat, a fly strains
desperately to escape from a sticky ring (krug) left by a glass on the
table. The most famous and, I think, successful integral image is found
in “The Cave”: frozen Petrograd is likened to prehistoric times, hence
houses are cliffs, apartments are caves, the stove is a cast-iron god,
and so on. In the novels integral images proliferate and interact. Thus,
in The Islanders, Vicar Dooley is “a smoothly running machine,” his shy
wife is “a pince-nez” and the hero, the slow-witted Kimble, is “a lumber
ing tractor." When an accident brings Kimble into the Dooleys’ life, he
becomes “a foreign body,” the inconvenienced Vicar becomes “an
overturned train” and Mrs. Dooley loses her pince-nez. The other
character-images interact with these object-images: O’Kelly is “four
waving arms,” Macintosh is “a football head,” Didi is “a medieval page"
or her own “porcelain pug,” the parish secretaries are "Remingtonists”
or simply “pinks and blues” (the color of their knees) and Lady Kimble is
“the carcass of a broken umbrella” with “a head pulled by invisible
reins,” a “mummy face” and “writhing worm lips.”
The reader of We quickly becomes attuned to the integral image: it
is the opposite of “The Cave.” The hero D-503 laughs at the ancient
people of the twentieth century who were unable to reach “the last rung
of the logical ladder.” So the new Soviet state is transported to this last
rung: Lenin becomes the Benefactor, Pravda—the one and only State
Gazette, the unions of proletarian writers—the one and only State Un
ion of Poets and Writers, their poetry—2x2 = 4, the Cheka—the
Bureau of Guardians, faith in the Party—servility to the One State, one
party choice—the Day of Unanimity, party guidance—pediculture, the
Table of Hours, obligatory walks, etc., and the world revolution—a uni
versal one. Further, the perspective of engineer D-503 gives rise to a
whole system of mathematical and geometric images: 0-90 is “made
up entirely of circumferences,” her mouth says O, she has a babylike
ring around her wrist; I-330 has facial lines like an X—the unknown
quantity—and a metallic voice; the Benefactor has cast-iron hands
which move with the weight of a hundred tons. These images are not
simply repeated, but treated like verbs, inflected by all the conjugations.
They interact with the mathematical songs and formulas for happiness,
love and death. Opposing them are images representing the hidden,
primitive side of man: D-503's hairy hands and “shaggy I,” l-330's
sharp teeth and eyebrow horns, U's brick red cheek-gills, the name of
the revolutionary movement—Mephi, the mocking, disruptive force of
Mephistopheles. All these images may be complicated by thought
language, false assertions and subordinate images, such as Biblical,

zoological, technological, etc.
Finally, Zamyatin's imagery may be made on different levels. The
diary of D-503 represents three planes of action: 1 ) the experiences of a
man from the thirtieth century; 2) the woman who reads the diary,
informs on people mentioned in it and therefore affects its outcome; 3)
the reader of the twentieth century who has received the diary by rocket
(D-503 appears to be on earth, yet his diary must reach us from another
planet; perhaps Zamyatin intended an advanced duplicate world).7
Such parallelism finds its apotheosis in “A Story About the Main
Thing” (Rasskaz o samom glavnom, 1923). Here events already in the
past appear in present-tense narration which predicts their outcome in
the future; they are said to take place in “an instant, an hour” or “a day,
a century,” and they occur both on earth and on a star. Four planes of
existence (with related imagery) are indicated: a worm, a Russian,
people on the star and the author. All are doomed: the worm is dying,
the Russian is sentenced to death, the people have drunk their last
bottle of air and the star is hurtling toward the earth. The structure of the
story is based on the alternation of these four planes: the chapters
alternate between earth and the star. Clearly Zamyatin, in this last
major experiment, was trying to give new literary form to modern
consciousness. The result is not an unqualified success, but the effort
was noble. For who would have believed that after Einstein,
Heisenberg, Bohr and Gödel, writers would still write novels with one
(omniscient) consciousness, one plane of existence and occasional
images? Zamyatin is still ahead of the time.
3. Theme
There is an alternating current which runs through Zamyatin’s

work. His focus shifts from telescopic to microscopic, his tone—from
epic to lyric, his images—from mathematical to zoological, his
sentences, from fast to slow, his words—from literary to colloquial. This
fluctuation can be reduced to one principle: tension between opposites.
This principle relates to the philosophical view expressed in
Zamyatin’s essays: existence as the continuous struggle between en
tropy and energy, the former tending toward repose and death, the
latter striving toward action and life. On the human plane, entropy is
seen in custom, tradition, dogmatization; energy—in change,
revolution, skepticism. Only by the victory of energy over entropy,
Zamyatin argued, are vitality and progress maintained—in society,
religion, art and thought.0
126 Gary Kern
Zamyatin used the theme of entropy-energy throughout his career.

Alexander Voronsky noted that the works of Zamyatin's first period
present the victory of entropy: the mental and moral stagnation of pro
vincial Russia. With the satires of the second period, however, entropy
is challenged by energy. In The Islanders the staid, respectable world of
English hypocrites is upset by uninhibited bohemians: the Vicar loses
Kimble's soul to Didi and his wife’s heart to Kimble. In “Fisher of Men"
the reserved Mrs. Craggs, frightened by a bombing attack near her
house, rushes into the street to kiss her outrageous admirer, Bailey. But
in both, entropy wins in the end: Didi and Kimble are destroyed and the
Vicar’s regimented life returns like a repaired machine; Mrs. Craggs is
not bombed and resumes her drab life with her husband. Yet the victory
of entropy is only apparent: it is clearly related to the technique of false
assertions. In Zamyatin’s third period, it might be added, energy
triumphs: Attila leads his hordes of robust Mongols against the rotting
West (The Scourge of God).
The theme of entropy-energy is most fully realized in We: D-503’s
thoughtless slavery is punctured by free-thinking I-330, and the mono
lithic One State is challenged by revolution. The outcome is a false
assertion: the apparent victory of entropy. Many commentators regard
such an outcome as pessimistic: the author supposedly believes that
entropy conquers all. This view contradicts Zamyatin's own statements
(in essays) and ignores the obvious artistic result: the reader sides
wholly with the forces of energy.
Many other themes in Zamyatin's works might be enumerated, but
let us briefly consider only three: love, transgression and fate.
Zamyatin’s love stories are usually tragic, with a peculiar twist: the
land surveyor is given every opportunity to confess his love to Lizaveta
Petrovna but is overcome by shyness, does not speak and loses her
forever (Zemlemer, 1918). D-503’s love for I-330 is scientifically
extracted, he betrays her and watches her execution. Marka recipro
cates a young man’s love, but wants him to bow down before her
(according to ancient custom); when he refuses and dares to kiss her,
she renounces him (Kuny, 1922). In these and other stories, love is a
rare chance, an awakening, the “most important thing."
The theme of transgression naturally derives from the
energy-entropy dialectic. In addition to We and the English satires, it
occurs in impious fables. The novice Erasmus, tormented with curiosity
about a girl he has seen, paints a voluptuous picture which incites the
monks to riot. After order is restored, the abbot satisfies Erasmus’
curiosity by permitting the girl to spend the night in his cell. ("How the
Novice Erasmus Was Healed," 1920.) In another, the father of a boy
given birth by a monk turns out to be the Archbishop. (“The Miracle of

Ash Wednesday,” 1923.) These and other such tales make the obvious
point: dogma is hypocritical, opposed to life, pleasure and freedom.
The theme of fate may be seen in works already discussed: “The
Play Room,” "The Cave,” We and “A Story About the Main Thing.” Two
aspects may be distinguished: destruction (first two works) and rebirth
(latter two). These two aspects correspond, of course, to entropy and
energy. Thus, in the last story, the earth is destroyed when the star
crashes into it, but in order that there be “new, fiery creatures,” and
after them “new, light-like . . . human flowers.”
4. The Dominanta
Zamyatin’s prose has been segmented into three periods; the

works of the second period have been broken down into three
components, the components have been reduced to devices. Such
analysis may tell us something about the structure of the body, but not
so much about the whole organism. We see the bones, we may even
see the muscles, but we do not see the intelligence which makes the
body move. The Russian Formalists, aware of this problem, the tenden
cy of literary analysis to become static, sought a dynamic concept and
found it in the “dominanta.” Boris Eikhenbaum wrote: “Artistic works
are always the result of a complex battle between various formative
elements, always a sort of compromise. These elements do not simply
coexist and do not simply ‘correspond’ to each other. Depending on the
general nature of the style, one or another element has the significance
of an organizing dominanta which prevails over the others and sub
ordinates them to itself."9 Unfortunately, Eikhenbaum, Tynyanov and
others mainly defined the dominanta; they gave few extended exam
ples of its use as a critical instrument.
Yet there are several writers of the early Soviet period whose
dominanta, so to say, leaps into view. The dominanta of Babel is the
irreconcilable union of beauty and cruelty, tenderness and violence,
love and carnage. The red pearl of blood rolling down the stallion’s
white neck—this is Babel’s dominanta, which can be found in his
imagery, his composition,, his philosophy, his biography. Pilnyak also
writes under an obvious dominanta: intentional chaos. His works are
not like shuffled decks of cards, contrary to Tynyanov and Goffman, for
in real life many cards randomly fall into place. With Pilnyak the cards
are stacked: information is presented to the reader in a composed
disorder. This is the dominanta which controls his works and relates to
128 Gary Kern
his philosophy of spontaneity—itself an oxymoron. The structural domi-

nanta in the works of Shklovsky is the “baring of the device" through
parody, digression and direct address.10 Olesha's works lend them
selves to analysis by means of the dominanta: his famous shift of
perspective from telescope to microscope, belief in perspective as a
way to the third world of imagination. And then, Zamyatin: the integral
image. It is chosen for each work from a satiric perspective, a negentro-
pic philosophy, and it brings under its dominance the devices of thought
language, irony (false assertions) and subordinate images. The crea
tive shaping of the work within this system is what has been called
stylization.
The trouble with the concept of the dominanta is that critics will
disagree on which element is dominant and formative, which emerges
from which—the philosophy from the imagery, or vice versa? Other
questions arise: What did the author take from his predecessors, his
contemporaries, his time? How did he transform these influences and
elements into his own personal creation? Is the dominanta his
talent—the thing that is left when all traceable materials are subtracted
from his work, or the work into which he transforms them? Or is it not a
personal achievement at all, but merely a conjunction of time, place and
person? Such questions lead away from easy analysis toward
psychology, history and a philosophy of art.
Notes
1. The essays "Tsel"' ("The Goal," 1919) and "Novaia russkaia proza" ("New Rus
sian Prose," 1923) in Litsa (New York, 1955). Both translated by Mirra Ginsburg in A
Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Chicago. 1970).
2. “O iazyke,” Novyi zhurnal No. 77, 1964. Trans, by Ginsburg, op. cit.
3. Russian text in Evgeny Zamiatin. Povesti i rasskazy (Munich. 1963). Trans, by
Mirra Ginsburg in The Dragon: Fifteen Stories by Yevgeny Zamyatin (New York. 1966).
My translation here and elsewhere attempts to retain Zamyatin's technique of thought
language. This technique is always obliterated in translation by the need for a "smooth
reading." This need is contrary to that of the present article.
4. "O iazyke," op. cit.
5. "Zakulisy" (1929), Litsa, 269-70. Trans, by Ginsburg as "Backstage." Zamyatin’s
attitude toward Belyi seems to have been a love-hate relationship. (See Alex Shane. The
Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin, 1968, p. 225, n. 27.) Obviously he struggled under
Belyi's strong influence: myslennyi iazyk has much in common with Belyi's mozgovaia
igra (cerebral play). Zamyatin's indebtedness to. and departure from. Belyi requires a
separate study.
6. “Zakulisy," 270.
7. The translation of Bernard Guilbert Guerney includes a footnote by a Venusian
researcher, but since I cannot find this note in the Russian text or any other translation, I
suspect the invention of B. G. G. An Anthology of Russian Literature in the Soviet Period
from Gorki to Pasternak (New York, 1960), 235.
8. “O literature, revoliutsii, entropii i o prochem” (1923), Litsa, 249 ff. Trans, by
Ginsburg.
9. B. Eikhenbaum, "Melodika russkogo liricheskogo stikha" (1922), included in 0
poezii (Leningrad: 1969), 332. In a footnote Eikhenbaum states that the term is taken
from B. Christiansen’s Philosophy of Art (Russian translation by G. P. Fedotov, 1911).
10. As noted by Fyodor Grits in his study “The Work of Viktor Shklovsky” (1926),
included in V. Shklovsky, Third Factory, trans, by Richard Sheldon (Ann Arbor, 1977),
esp. 103ff.
ZAMYATIN’S AESTHETICS
Milton Ehre
Zamyatin entered Russian literature in 1913 upon the demise of

Symbolism as a coherent literary movement.1 His views of art were
shaped by the Symbolist heritage and the post-1910 polemics of the
avant-garde with the Symbolist past.
The Symbolists differed among themselves as artists and thinkers
but were united in devotion to form as an “absolute value” in art.2 They
placed the word at the center of their aesthetics. The word was seen as
a “kind of energy” (ibid., 15) and literature was “above all, language.”3
Their faith in the primacy of the word led them to various linguistic
innovations—neologisms, striking sound patterns, a broadening of
vocabulary. The Symbolist interest in myth and the effort of many Sym
bolists to restore a mythic apprehension of life (Viacheslav Ivanov) or
create new myths of the modern city (Aleksandr Blok) induced a con
cern with the evocative rather than the descriptive powers of language.
Literature became “a process of conjuring” where “every word is a
magical formula.”4 What the artist was to describe were not the
“secrets” of life, but “a magically experienced reality” (Holthusen, p.
32). Though the artist was free to distort and deform, to introduce
fantastical and grotesque elements into his work, the starting point for
this magical and mythic apprehension of the world resided in language,
in its musical and evocative powers.
The post-1910 attacks on Symbolism centered on the metaphysic
al yearnings (or pretensions, as their enemies would have it) of Symbol
ist aesthetics. Young writers rejected the high seriousness of the
Symbolists, their myth-building, and the quest for a higher transcenden
tal reality. The Acmeists spurned the “hopeless Germanic
earnestness” of the Symbolists and turned to irony, wit and clarity,
which they sought in Romance (especially French) literatures.5 The
Futurists reacted against what they felt to be the excessive “sweetness
and melodiousness" of the Symbolists’ language and worked for a
“tougher," more “prosaic" language.6 The Zavety group, which was led
by Remizov and to which Zamyatin belonged, recoiled from the eclectic
Alexandrian character of much Symbolist writing and set out “to
130
Zamyatin's Aesthetics 131
de-Latinize and de-Frenchify the Russian literary language and to res

tore to it its natural Russian raciness.”7 But if the post-1910 avant-garde
denied a place to metaphysics in art and objected to the musicality of
Symbolist language, it nevertheless remained indebted to its
forerunner. Concentration on the word, linguistic experimentation and
verbal play, exploitation of the evocative power of language, interest in
fantasy and the grotesque continue to characterize much of Russian
literature in the decade before and after World War I.
This dialectical motion of revolt against the Symbolist heritage and
simultaneous acceptance of many of its aspects characterizes
Zamyatin’s aesthetics and much of his prose. His career can be under
stood as an attempt to do in prose what the Acmeists and Futurists
were attempting in poetry—to establish in theory and exemplify in
works the basis for an avant-garde literature. Zamyatin is most insistent
in rejecting Realism and Naturalism, which are the dominant traditions
of Russian fiction. The stable world that any realism presupposes,
whether “bourgeois" or Socialist Realism, is an unreal “convention”
and an “abstraction.” The conventions of Realism are totally incompati
ble with the electric, Einsteinian, technological age in which we live.8
The prose fiction that would catch the quickened tempos of modern life
Zamyatin calls alternately Neorealism and Synthesism. It was intended,
as we shall see, to provide a temporary synthesis of Realism and
Symbolism in the never-ending dialectical process that, in Zamyatin’s
view, constitutes literary and human history.
Zamyatin, along with almost everybody else, sees Belyi as the
paradigmatic figure of the new prose.9 Through his polychromatic style
and multileveled structures Belyi was able to capture the complexity of
modern life. In Belyi, Zamyatin writes, mathematics, poetry,
anthroposophy, and the foxtrot are rolled into one (the foxtrot, or jazz, is
Zamyatin’s metaphor for the disjointed and intense rhythms of the mod
ern scene). “The language of our epoch is quick and sharp, like a
code,” he remarks in a survey of the new Russian prose.10
However, Zamyatin has certain reservations about Belyi’s
contribution. The former student of Remizov wonders whether one may
properly say that Belyi’s books are written in Russian. His language is
so full of neologisms, his syntax is so unusual that it strikes us as a very
special language—the language of Belyi, he finds, suffered from a
chronic illness—anapests. Prose and poetry, or at least poetry written
in meter, have limits that preserve their integrity. The rhythms of metric
al poetry are built upon individual units—upon feet. Prose deals with
sums of units: “The prose foot is not measured by the distance between
stressed syllables, but by the distance between stressed (logically)
132 Milton Ehre
words.” The “meter" of prose is not one of regular shifts of articulation;

prose treats “changing quantities” instead of "constant” ones—now the
tempo is slowed down, now it is quickened, according to the
"emotional" emphases of the language.11 What Zamyatin objects to is
not musicality of prose as such, but the regularity that Belyi's prose
often exhibits. A prose rhythm that is too regular and too periodic, he
fears, is in danger of losing its integrity as prose.
The following passage from “The Protectress of Sinners"
(“Spodruchnitsa greshnykh,” 1922) is illustrative of Zamyatin’s use of
rhythmic prose.12
Glut)1, cherno, lokhmato: log, v logu—les. Skovz’ chernoe—vysoko nad golovoi

monastyrskie steny s zubtsami, nad zubtsam'i—zvezdy. I slyshno: tarn pod stenoi
storozh v dosku tukaet.
Most of the passage falls into traditional metrical feet, though the
arrangement is irregular: six iambs with catalexis at the opening and the
pause between logu and les counting as a syllable in the first
sentence,13 the rising intonation continued in the second sentence
where iambs and anapests accumulate, and a return to six feet in the
last sentence but with a shift to trochees and a dactyl in the last three
feet to close out the sentence. However, though Zamyatin provides the
passage with metrical underpinnings, which undoubtedly contribute to
its rhythmic quality, he avoids turning his prose into verse. He avoids it
by introducing pauses and emphases which counteract the flow of the
line. The first sentence, for example, is a string of rather isolated words,
almost all of which contain a complete thought. Their insularity lends
them emphasis. Log and les are made especially emphatic by
punctuation, alliteration, and repetition (log, v logu), by their position
under stress, by their monosyllabic character, and by the semantic and
syntactic weight that accrues to them. Glub', cherno, and lokhmato,
though a noun and two adverbs, give the attributes of log; v logu is an
adverbial phrase giving the location of the only other concrete noun in
the sentence, les. The sentence does not flow evenly along its metrical
line, but explodes through a row of relatively isolated terms to the more
fully charged log and les.
What determines the rhythmic quality of the passage are, as is
usual in rhythmic prose, syntactical parallelisms and verbal echoes that
run from phrase to phrase and sentence to sentence.14 Besides the
alliterations of I which help balance the first sentence (lokhmato: log, v
logu—les), there are other striking alliterations and consonances of s,
st, and z. A dash and the lonely les ends the first sentence. It finds its
echo in the solitary zvezdy, also after a dash, of sentence two. Skvoz’
chernoe and dash open the second sentence, and I slyshno of the third
sentence provides a rhythmic parallel; s zubtsami resonates against
nad zubtsami, as does vysoko nad golovoi against tarn pod stenoi. The
most striking example of such symmetrical phrasing is of course the
string of relatively isolated words that comprise the first sentence. Ver
bal echoes, repetitions, and syntactical parallelisms are the building
blocks of Zamyatin’s rhythmic prose. His rhythms are often, as here,
complex and intense. They always avoid mellifluousness by highlight
ing and dramatizing the individual word (log, les) and phrase (skvoz'
chernoe, I slyshno).
Zamyatin conceives the image in terms analogous to his concep
tion of prose style. The quickened tempos of modern life do not tolerate
the “slow, horse-and-buggy descriptions” of nineteenth-century
Realism. The age demands that syntax become “elliptical, volatile,”
and the image must also convey “quickness of motion.” “The image is
sharp, synthetic; there is only one basic feature in it, the kind you can
manage to take note of from a speeding automobile” (Litsa, 255). A
“synthetic image is one that is inclusive, that summarizes a. fleeting
experience (ibid., 208). Character is expressed through reduction to a
single image that is then threaded through the work until it becomes a
leitmotif. The image, in Zamyatin's aesthetics, “inevitably gives birth to
an entire system of derivative images” which may serve as an
“integrating” force to hold the story together (ibid., 270). The
symbolism, as well as the lexicon, of a literature so perceived may
seem “unusual, often strange” (ibid., 255).
“Sharpness” of language and imagery—Zamyatin employs the
same term for both—distinguishes Neorealism from Symbolism. “In
contrast to the Symbolists,” he writes, “the Neorealists . . . employ
characters who are exaggeratedly vivid, sculptured; the colors are ex
aggeratedly and sharply bright.”15 This sculptured quality is set against
the mellifluousness of Symbolist language and the haze of the Symbol
ist landscape. Zamyatin often calls his and his contemporaries’ art
“impressionistic,” but if impressionism is the right term—and I do not
think it is—it is an impressionism closer to the solidity of Cezanne than
the fluidity of late Monet. It is a similar solidity that Picasso and Braque,
looking back to Cezanne, were working for in the Cubist experiments,
which were taking place in the same years that witnessed the Russian
revolt against Symbolism.
The essential mode of Neorealism or Synthesism is ironic.
Zamyatin employs the Hegelian dialectic to illustrate the new literature’s
relation to traditional Realism and Symbolism. Realism was the thesis,
134 Milton Ehre
Symbolism the antithesis, Neorealism or Synthesism is the integration

of both into a new art. Or, in a suggestive image he uses in the essay,
"On Synthesism,” first there was Eve who was all flesh, the Eve of
Tolstoi, Zola, Rubens, Gorky (Realism). Then the artist rejected the Eve
of flesh for the Eve of unattainable and tragic longing whose other name
was Death (Symbolism, Idealism). Finally, contemporary man, the new
Adam, returns to the Eve of flesh, but he is no longer the same. He has
been poisoned by his knowledge of the second Eve. Beneath Eve's
flesh the new Adam, Adam become wise, can see the skeleton. From
her kisses he carries away a bittersweet taste of irony. Among the
artists who represent the third stage, the synthesis, he includes
Whitman, Gauguin, Seurat, and Picasso.16 The new art, then, assumes
traditional Realism’s power over the flesh and the earth. It seeks mas
tery of the concrete and the specific. Though it rejects Symbolism’s
idealistic yearning, it is unable to overcome the worldly skepticism of
the Symbolists. A vivid sense of the real world combines with a pro
found doubt as to the possibilities of that world. This paradoxical situa
tion of rootedness in reality and skepticism about the ultimate value of
that reality leaves the modern artist with a pervasive irony.
Neorealism, in Zamyatin’s aesthetic formulation as well as in his
literary practice, bears little resemblance to the central tradition of
nineteenth-century Realism. Paradoxically, its realism lies in
“displacement, deformation, misshaping, and nonobjectivity.” It permits
the grotesque and fantasy—indeed Zamyatin calls his realism
“fantastical” (Litsa, 255, 237-38). Neorealism was a misleading term in
that it suggested a stylistic affinity to Realism that it did not have.
Actually it in many ways continued the Symbolist experiment in its
concern with the musical powers of language, and its interest in
metaphor and myth.
What distinguishes it from Symbolism is its preference for the
sharp as against the hazy, for irony as against mystical and meta
physical longing. Historical periodization necessarily blurs the complex
ities of a given moment. Zamyatin is aware of the diversity of
Symbolism, of its ironic as well as its metaphysical aspects, of its fre
quent use of “low” detail. Indeed the Belyi of Petersburg and the Blok of
The Twelve are for him essentially Neorealists.17 Nevertheless, he
argues, in its desire to connect with a transcendental order Symbolism
remained a nineteenth-century phenomenon; it kept a bridge open to
Romanticism.18 Neorealism is burning the bridges, and in doing so it
becomes the truly modern, an art expressive of an age when absolutes
have gone up in smoke. The abandonment of the vision of a transcen
dental order, despite continued skepticism about the world as it is, has
Zamyatin’s Aesthetics 135
changed the nature of art.19 Irony replaces high seriousness. A trans

cendental Symbolism becomes impossible. The symbols of
Neorealism, because they are deprived of higher correspondences,
turn from hieratic signs into mere aesthetic tropes. The work does not
strive upward to das Ewige but remains a self-contained artifact.
“The Fisher of Men” (“Lovets chelovekov,” 1922) is characteristic
of the kind of story Zamyatin wrote in the early years of the Soviet era,
which was the most productive and perhaps the central period of his
career.20 It can show us what Neorealism meant in practice. The story
is set in wartime London. Its central character is Mr. Craggs, a respect
able English bourgeois. He is an apostle of the Society for Struggle
Against Vice—and an inveterate voyeur. He spends his Sundays (after
church) in Hampstead Heath, where he mounts a soapbox to rally the
reluctant natives to do battle against vice and consecrate themselves to
virtue before the impending apocalypse, which in the story takes the
form of German zeppelins. His missionary zeal carries him into the
bushes of the park to stalk young lovers. Upon finding them in com
promising attitudes, he threatens to summon the police unless they pay
him. Virtue combines with sound business sense. Craggs’ wife, almost
but not quite as virtuous as he, fearing that she may perish in an air raid
without having tasted of life, ultimately succumbs to the blandishments
of a sexy church organist. The story presents a favorite Zamyatin con
frontation between puritanical rigidity and sexual expression.
The story, like most of Zamyatin’s fictions, turns on its imagery.21
Each character is expressed by one or several images. For Mr. Craggs,
they are either metallic images or images taken from lower forms of
animal life—rodents and crustaceans. The color pink is associated with
the church organist Bailey, who seduces Mrs. Craggs; pink is also the
color of the imaginary veil that seems to cover Mrs. Craggs’ mouth; the
beautiful girl Craggs pursues in Hampstead Heath is associated with
apples and a raspberry-colored umbrella. The images, through repeti
tion and their accessibility to categorization, turn into symbols: the
metallic images represent frigidity, pink and raspberry, sexuality.22
However the images are more than mere signatures of a character
or signs of a value. “The Fisher of Men” presents a series of meta
morphoses whereby characters become the things they are associated
with. The first time we encounter Mr. Craggs he is eating crabs: “S
kusochkami krabovykh kleshnei proglatyvaia kusochki slov mister
Kraggs chital vslukh gazetu.” A few pages later and he has acquired
crab claws. (Povesti i rasskazy, 121, 126-27). The movement is from
an association with crabs—through the witty consonances of k (and g,
kh) and the paralleling of “pieces of words” and “pieces of crab
136 Milton Ehre
claws”—to an identification with crabs, i.e., from metonymy to realized

metaphor. Similarly, the beautiful lady under the raspberry umbrella,
who is the prey of one of Craggs' voyeuristic hunts, is compared to an
apple, only to become, through an exotic realization of the metaphor,
Lady Apple. Let us follow Craggs in his hunt:
Mr. Craggs walked, carrying before him on his stomach huge crab claws and
lowering his eyelids. Lowering his cast-iron eyelids, Mr. Craggs ate, and at the
neighboring table the beautiful lady beneath the raspberry umbrella ate. She was
entirely drenched (natta) in the amber sap of the sun: it was painfully necessary that
someone drink of her, even a bit. Apples in the windless, sultry evening: they have
already become full (nalilis’), transparent, they are gasping—oh, but to break off
quickly from the branch, and to the earth.
She rose, Lady Apple beneath the raspberry umbrella, and her Adam rose—it’s
all the same who he is; he is only the earth. . . .
Mr. Craggs waited a moment. Sill hiding something under his lowered cast-iron
eyelids, he clambered up a hill, looked about—and with rat-like quickness. . . .
rushed down [after them].
There, below, everything quickly became fuzzy, everything was overgrown with
the violet wool of night: trees, people. Under the fragrant furs of the bushes tender,
overgrown beasts panted and whispered. Mr. Craggs, grown wooly, silent, poked
about the park like a huge, fantastical rat; the blades of his eyes sparkled on his
wooly snout; Mr. Craggs panted..................................
A silent, pitch-black pond. A pair of swans in its middle become piercingly white
in their nakedness. And further, beneath a cosily overhanging willow, a boat.
Mr. Craggs dragged his paws more quickly across the grass. The swans came
closer, whiter. On tiptoe, he cautiously leaned over the trunk of the willow.
A boat below. All about it grew darker, hiding faces; a soft fuzzy umbrella, but
recently raspberry, in one end of the boat, and in the other, legs became swan-white
in the darkness, (p 130).
Landscape as well as character are metamorphosed. In the manner of

the grotesque, the boundaries separating human, animal, and veget
able have been obliterated.23 The beautiful lady is drenched with the
amber of the sun; the association with ripening apples ready to fall to
earth is made; the lady becomes Lady Apple; her Adam is the earth
ready to receive her. Mr. Craggs rushes with “ratlike quickness”; the
landscape becomes fuzzy (lokhmatilo) and overgrown with the “night's
wool,” thereby suggesting animal characteristics; a wooly Craggs, now
to all appearances a huge rat, emerges from the night. Vladimir Pozner
once compared Zamyatin’s elaboration of a metaphor to the logic of the
syllogism,24 swans pierce the dark night with their white nakedness; the
lovers’ legs are naked and white; the lovers apparently are white
swans.
Through metamorphosis Zamyatin converts Hampstead Heath into
the landscapes of myth. The story opened with a juxtaposition of two
Londons: a contemporary, mechanized London of iron arches, factory

chimneys, and glittering neon signs, and a primitive London of druid
temples, antediluvian black swans, and skull-like houses, with a great
stone phallus at its center (the Trafalgar column). The juxtaposition of
the mechanical and the sexual, as we have seen, evolves through the
story. Here Hampstead Heath has been converted into a prehistoric
Garden of Eden, furnished appropriately with an apple tree, an Adam,
and a creature that intrudes upon the bliss of paradise. In Zamyatin’s
version of the myth it is a rat instead of a serpent.25
But the uses of myth are purely ironic. The great drama of man’s
fall into sin has been lowered to the ordinary and its values have been
reversed. Such lowerings and reversals are of course the essence of
parody. While moving into the forests of myth we do not cease to be
aware of the “daytime” incarnations of our characters. We remain con
scious that our Adam and Eve are merely two ordinary Londoners out
for some quick fun on a Sunday away from work, that our serpent is
only a malignant and repressed voyeur disguising his fetishes behind a
cloak of respectability. The original Adam and Eve fall from innocence
to sex and knowledge. In Zamyatin’s version sexual enjoyment is the
condition of the garden; its enemy is the mechanized routines and
puritanical religiosity of bourgeois civilization.
The story ends with another ironic touch, this time revealing the
hand of the author. “Everything is finished” are Mrs. Craggs’ last words,
a double-entendre referring both to the end of the air raid and the
consummation of her desire. “Everything is finished,” the narrator
reiterates to wrap up his story. Zamyatin, in a manner characteristic of
him, has placed an emphatic dot at the end of his work. Its symbols and
myths do not reach to intimate another order of things, but stand as part
of a self-enclosed artistic play that is meant to be humorous and
instructive.
To summarize, Zamyatin conceived of literature as undergoing a
continual and dialectical relation with Symbolism. Zamyatin continued
Belyi’s experiments in rhythmic prose, but sought a prose that would be
intense and concentrated instead of melodious. The image was to con
vey an analogous intensity. Symbols were to have no higher
correspondences. Zamyatin believed that the concreteness of lan
guage and imagery of contemporary literature and its ironic rootedness
in the physical world (which did not preclude fantasy) made it a syn
thesis of Realism and Symbolism. We have argued that Neorealism
continued the Symbolist experiment but that in its rejection of metaphy
sics and turn to irony it resulted in something qualitatively different.
138 Milton Ehre
Notes
1. Dates are according to Alex M. Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin
(Berkeley: Univ, of California Press, 1968). Zamjatin had published before but considered
the writing of "Uezdnoe" in 1911-12 (published 1913) as the true beginning of his literary
career. See Evgenii Zamiatin, "Avtobiografia," in Povesti i rasskazy (Munich 1963), 14. A
version of this paper was delivered at the meetings of the Modern Language Association,
December 1974.
2. J. Holthusen, Studien zur Ästhetik und Poetik des russischen Symbolismus
(Göttingen, 1957), 5.1 am especially indebted to Professor Holthusen’s excellent study for
my understanding of Symbolism and the reactions against it.
3. Innokentii Annenskii, “Chto takoe poèziia," Apollon, 2, no. 6 (1911), 52.
4. Andrei Belyi, “Magiia slov," Simvolizm (M.:Musaget, 1910), 431.
5. Nikolai Gumilev, "Nasledie simvolizma i akmeizm," Apollon, 4, no. 1 (1913), 43.
6. D. Chizhevskii, "O poèzii russkogo futurizma," Novyi zhurnal, 73 (1963), 141-42.
7. D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature, ed. Francis J. Whitfield (New York,
2949), 479.
8. E. Zamiatin, "O literature, revoliutsii i èntropii” (1924), Litsa (New York, 1955),
254-55. Zamyatin's essays are cited, whenever possible, according to this handy and
representative collection. For original places of publication see Shane. Dates unless
specified otherwise are of publication.
9. See “Andrei Belyi," in Litsa. 73-80. Written in 1934.
10. "Novaia russkaia proza" (1923), Litsa, 201. See also Litsa, 255.
11. "Zakulisy," Litsa. 269-70. The full text of this abridged essay appeared, without
title, in Kak my pishem: Teoriia literatury (L: Izd. Pisatelei, 1930), 29-47. See also "O
iazyke," Novyi zhurnal, IT (1964), 97. Written 1919-20.
12. Cited from Povesti i rasskazy, 73. Written in 1918.
13. The first sentence is uncertain, but the division of words, with stress on multisylla
bic words consistently falling on the second syllable, indicates a rising intonation.
14. See V. M. Zhirmunskii, "On Rhythmic Prose," in To Honor Roman Jakobson:
Essays on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (3 vols.; The Hague, 1967), III,
2376-88.
15. "Sovremennaia russkaia literature," Grani, 11, no. 32 (Oct.-Dec. 1956), 97.
Originally presented as a public lecture in 1918.
16. “O sintetizme” (1922), Litsa, 233-34.
17. See Litsa, 239; Grani, 32 (Oct.-Dec. 1956), 92.
18. Grani, 32 (Oct.-Dec. 1956), 92.
19. Irving Howe makes the point in discussing Zamyatin’s "On Literature, Revolution
and Entropy" in his introduction to The Idea of the Modern in Literature and Arts, ed.
Irving Howe (New York, 1967), 20-22.
20. The story was written in 1917-18. Shane (p. 131) calls the years 1917-21 the
middle period of Zamyatin's career and notes that this is when he "produced his greatest
amount of imaginative prose."
21. See Viktor Shklovskii, "Potolok Evgeniia Zamiatina," in Piat chelovek znakomykh
(Tiflis: Zakkniga, 1927), 43-67.
22. Shane (156-57) traces the use of the color pink (and other color imagery) in this
and other works. See also Carl R. Proffer, “Notes on the Imagery in Zamjatin’s We,"
SEEJ, 7 (1963), 269-78.
Zamyatin’s Aesthetics 139
23. See Wolfgang Kayser, Das Groteske: Seine Gestaltung in Malerei und Dichtung
(Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1957), 20-24.
24. Panorama de littérature russe (Paris, 1929), 320.
25. Richard Gregg has traced a similar mythic pattern in We, Slavic Review, 24
(1965), 680-87.
ZAMYATIN AND LITERARY MODERNISM
Susan Layton
Zamyatin’s art offers strong evidence in support of the proposition

that the roots of the complex phenomenon of Russian Modernism are
located in nineteenth-century Russian culture. In examining the con
nections between Zamyatin’s "new Realism” and this culture, valuable
perspectives are provided by his aesthetic of distortion, his view of man
as essentially irrational, and his concern for the human
condition—characteristics which also link his work to tendencies in the
international Modernist movement.
Zamyatin's art belongs to the first wave of Modernism, a reaction
against nineteenth-century traditions which peaked between 1910 and
1925.1 He set forth his aesthetic creed most forcefully in his famous
essay “On Literature, Revolution, and Entropy,” a polemical statement
of the Modernist outlook reminiscent of the literary manifestos which
had proliferated in Russia prior to World War I.2 In it Zamyatin aligned
himself with many twentieth-century artists by rebelling against estab
lished canons and exalting the innovator. He defined “genuinely revolu
tionary literature” as a phenomenon of Sturm-und-Drang periods in
cultural history and glorified the heretics, the romantics who leap into
the future. Specifically rejecting photographically accurate Realism, he
participated in a basic tendency in modern art by arguing that deforma
tion and distortion surpass mimesis in creating a more truthful, com
plete representation of authentic reality.3
As a typical Modernist, Zamyatin defended his aesthetic by insist
ing that an artist cannot approximate twentieth-century life by repre
senting surface reality. He considered Einstein’s discovery of the law of
relativity the symbolic keynote of the age, remarking that even before
this scientific confirmation artists and philosophers had intuited the
nonexistence of objective reality and absolute truths. In the age of
relativity life itself posed a challenge to the artist’s imagination; the
strange and fantastic had invaded daily life so that “today the Apocaly
pse might be announced in the morning paper.” Was it not clear, he
asked, that the art which arises from this modern reality must be
"fantastic like a dream”?4 This was particularly true for Russia, which
140
Zamyatin and Literary Modernism 141
had become “more fantastic than the countries of modern Europe.”

Zamyatin believed his own novel We, Aleksei Tolstoi’s Aèlita, and Ilya
Ehrenburg’s Julio Jurenito and Trust D. E. represented favorable begin
nings in creating a new Realism (“Gerbert Uells,” 105-08), not
“primitive” like the old, but characterized by “displacement, distortion,
curvature, nonobjectivity.” He enumerates some of the stylistic techni
ques which he himself employed to displace the surface phenomena of
daily life, which he believed could convey the fast pace and the
fragmented, complex quality of modern life.
The old, slow, soporific descriptions are no more: laconicism—but every word
supercharged, high voltage. Into one second must be compressed what formerly
went into a sixty-second minute; syntax becomes elliptical, quick, the complicated
pyramids of periods are dismantled into the single stones of independent clauses. In
the swift movement the canonical, the habitual escapes the eye; the result: unusual,
often strange symbolism and diction. The image is sharp, synthetic, it contains only
one basic feature, the kind you can catch from a moving automobile. The lexicon
hallowed by custom has been invaded by provincialisms, neologisms, science,
mathematics, technology.5
The style Zamyatin was defending here is most characteristic of his

work during the period 1917-21. To be sure, some continuity in themes
and techniques is apparent throughout his career;6 one thinks im
mediately of the clashes between individuals possessing human spir
itual potential and societies indifferent or hostile to them, or the use of
recurrent impressionistic imagery. However, the works written in the
years 1917-21 are notable for their combination of significant elements.
Consequently, I will use the novella "The North” and the short stories
"Mamai” and “The Cave” as well as We to illustrate my general
observations about Zamyatin’s new Realism. Despite differences of
genre all four works reflect Zamyatin’s desire to depart from traditional
Realism and to create a fictional world remote in time and space.7 He
made “The North” resemble a fairy tale, in "Mamai” and "The Cave” he
created literary grotesques, and in We he adopted the conventions of
utopian fiction.
In its typically Modern deformation of the actual, Zamyatin’s imag
ery tended to annul direct reference to the external world.8 Rather than
presenting careful descriptions of characters, he conveyed their
appearance through the intensification of one or two features, often to
the point of the grotesque: the bald Mamai has a head like a pumpkin;
the sickly, thin Masha in "The Cave” is flat, cut out of paper. Frequently
the recurrent image is realized: Kortoma in "The North” becomes a
copper samovar; Obertyshev in “The Cave" becomes a monster over
142 Susan Layton
grown with teeth. As in We, Zamyatin sometimes carries metonymic

representation to an extreme, reducing characters to pure lines and
geometrical shapes as in a cubist painting.9 Like many modern painters
he employs color abstractly (in “The North,” for example, Pelka is often
visible only as a flash of red). Such techniques produce a radical meta
morphosis of the actual in order to reveal the reality Zamyatin perceived
beneath the surface.
Characterization by leitmotifs rather than by full, individualized de
scriptions is related to Zamyatin’s retreat from Realism's traditional
exhaustive psychological analysis; in this he participated in a main
current of literary Modernism. Rather than depicting characters through
lengthy analyses of their social relationships and motivations, he pre
sented fundamental "contours” (Novyi zhurnal, 77 [Sept. 1964], 111).
Often this led him to represent them as persons whose typical experi
ences recur. In “The North” Marei’s nature as a dreamer is revealed in
his recollected response to the magical singing of the rusalki, just as it is
in his captivation as an adult by a fascinating woman and a fantastic
imaginary lantern. In "Mamai” the ludicrous hero is constantly ex
periencing his past anew: books replace boyhood games, and he fol
lows conventional codes just as he once submitted to parental
supervision. D-503 in We relives experiences from his childhood, and
he recognizes new meaning in them as his sense of individuality
develops. Importantly, each of these characters illustrates another fea
ture which Zamyatin's work shares with other works of modern litera
ture (although in a caricatured form in “Mamai”). This rejection of
Realistic psychology depends upon replacing the idea of a stable,
knowable ego, a “social being,” with a notion of a deeper “individual
being.”10 Rather than being defined conclusively, Zamyatin’s heroes
are in the process of becoming, seeking sources of authenticity in
existence. D-503 seeks to overcome a sense of alienation from himself
and from others and to define his true self. “The North" and "The Cave”
also have heroes who attempt to make life meaningful in the absence of
support from religion or from society. Like D-503, Marei and Martin
Martinych make choices which assert the primacy of feeling over
reason, and they experience love and the beauty of the world as abso
lute goods. As a caricature at the farthest remove from the human ideal,
Mamai also points to this concept of the man “genuinely alive”11 and
creating himself. In realizing the essential individual being, the touch
stone for Zamyatin’s characters is love. In “The North” the peak of
happiness for Marei and Pelka is their brief existence together in a
forest world which seems magically exempt from the ravages of time.
Similarly, in “The Cave" Martin Martinych is overwhelmed by the harsh
conditions of Soviet Petersburg and attempts to retrieve the quality of a

past experience, identifying his authentic self with an enduring memory
of love. And love for I-330 marks the high point in D-503’s attempt to
define his essential self. In each case love provides an epiphany and
seems to negate the passage of time, decay, and death.
Zamyatin celebrated man’s fundamentally irrational nature, an ess
ence which transcends individual existence. In his view, passionate
love, the impulse toward creation, and an awareness of beauty are
human qualities which must always be defended; representing this uni
versal human nature rather than recording topical events was the aim
he ascribed to genuine art.12 Thus his characters participate in undying
patterns of human experience. In blurring distinctions between past,
present, and future periods of history Zamyatin expressed the idea of
eternal recurrence.13 By depicting in “The North” Marei’s experience of
love and attempt to create something enduring, Zamyatin revealed in
the present age a persistent, primitive sense of harmony with the natu
ral cosmos. In a different manner We also touches on this theme. The
areas separated by the Green Wall have psychological as well as his
torical significance: the area outside the wall points to the essential
irrationality of man and juxtaposes a prehistorical anarchy with the
nightmarish city of the future, an extrapolation from contemporary
political, social, and technological developments in the Soviet Union.
This thematic conflict in We is not limited to these opposing images. As
the uniformed citizens of the Single State march in formation through
the streets during the morning walk, they look like Assyrian warriors;
rebellion against this state in the remote future is illuminated by the
ancient myth of Eden, which treats a universal problem of human
freedom. "Mamai” and "The Cave” display a similar intersection of
historical planes. The battle of Kulikovo, the imperial age of St.
Petersburg, the Russo-Japanese war, and the civil war in the Soviet
Union all enter the world of Mamai, along with the timeless feats of the
imaginary knight Ruslan. In "The Cave” the prehistoric ice age and the
Biblical myth of creation provide perspectives on the life of Martin Mar-
tinych and his wife in the Petersburg of 1919. By fusing such discon
tinuous elements into a timeless unity, Zamyatin sought to escape the
confines of contemporary history to deal with the human condition.
What links can now be established between the Modernist tenden
cies in which Zamyatin participated and the nineteenth-century Russian
heritage? His essay “On Literature, Revolution, and Entropy” was a
definitive expression of the Modernists’ sense that they were making a
new beginning by breaking with the nineteenth century, a phenomenon
observable throughout Western Europe. This cast of mind in Russian
144 Susan Layton
Modernism is related to the wide-spread nineteenth-century perception

of a cultural void. First formulated in the 1830s by Petr Chaadaev, the
notion that Russia had no venerable tradition continued to figure in the
thinking of intellectuals and artists throughout the century. Surveying
Russia’s past in his influential “First Philosophical Letter,” Chaadaev
concluded that his country had no genuine history; in contrast to the
countries of Europe, he saw no "admirable linking of ideas throughout
the passing centuries." Unmotivated by any vital principle, the Russian
people were living "in the most narrow present, without a past or a
future.”14 However, this sterile past led Chaadaev to speculate optimis
tically about developments to come, especially in his “Apology of a
Madman"; he was the first Russian to perceive the absence of a body of
tradition as a positive condition, because it left the way open to original
ity and innovation. Considering Russia's past, he was awed by the void
which he saw because its potential seemed unlimited. His country
appeared to exist "to provide some great lesson for the world,”15 and
precisely because Russia was unencumbered by tradition, he main
tained she could advance all the more rapidly.
Chaadaev’s notion that a backward country has a youthful vitality
reflected the pervasive influence of German Romantic philosophy in
early nineteenth-century Russia,16 but his idea outlived its source. In
the political arena Russians of very different persuasions embraced the
idea that their country's backwardness vis-à-vis the West conferred a
unique potential upon it. Focusing upon the distinctiveness of the
obshchina, Herzen maintained that Russia, a “young" country, pre
sented far more favorable conditions for a true socialist revolution than
did Europe. Similarly, Russia appeared to Dostoevsky as being capable
of rejuvenating the world by offering a new religious truth.17 But a more
directly relevant product of the notion that a cultural void opens the way
to originality can be observed in the conviction of major
nineteenth-century Russian writers that they could not uncritically bor
row literary forms characteristic of Western Europe. Tolstoi discussed
this tendency in commenting upon War and Peace in 1868; he main
tained the work was not a novel, a poem, or a historical chronicle, but a
unique form which allowed him to express what he had wanted to. He
saw in this disregard for conventional form a distinguishing feature of
nineteenth-century Russian literature: “The history of Russian literature
since the time of Pushkin affords not merely numerous examples of
such deviation from European forms, it offers not a single example to
the contrary. From Gogol's Dead Souls to Dostoevsky's House of the
Dead, in the recent period of Russian literature there is not a single
artistic prose work rising at all above mediocrity which quite fits into the
form of a novel, poem, or novella.”18 Other artists who articulated the

belief that Western literary forms were inadequate for their intentions
were Goncharov and Saltykov-Shchedrin.19 In particular this con
sciousness of the need to innovate forms for expressing truth from a
Russian perspective was notable in Dostoevsky’s discussion of his
art.20 Zamyatin, with a stridency fostered by the period in which he
lived, expressed an innovative zeal similar to his predecessors,
although he was reacting against the tradition they established.
Another correspondence between the avant-garde of the twenties
and the educated class in nineteenth-century Russia was their position
as outsiders in their societies. Dostoevsky’s underground man was
speaking with paralyzing self-consciousness when he proclaimed,”!
have no foundations”; but his sense of being without roots was not
aberrant in Russia. The superfluous man of the nineteenth century was
the Russian prototype of the homeless intellectual, a sensitive person in
opposition to society. In his dilemmas lay seeds of the fateful rift which
developed later between artist and society not only in Russia but
throughout Europe, where the avant-garde emerged as a special
caste.21 As an internal émigré and eventual exile, Zamyatin shared this
fate. The case of Chaadaev underlines the force of this parallel be
tween the modern artist and educated Russians during the last century.
Chaadaev was declared a madman (an outsider) by his society. Aware
of the personal conflicts experienced by educated Russians like
himself, Chaadaev was concerned in his philosophical writings with the
condition of homelessness; he saw it writ large as well in his country’s
history, perceiving no place for Russia among the family of nations. On
the basis of such considerations, Mandelshtam, Zamyatin’s contempor
ary who was also preoccupied with relating the past to the present age,
declared that Chaadaev had a message for posterity,22 in the
nineteenth century his concerns had prefigured the sense of discon
tinuity which is strikingly revealed in modern art.
Both in his theoretical statements and prose, Zamyatin sought to
establish continuity between past, present, and future on the personal
and historical levels by focusing on the human condition. This was in
essence a quest for philosophical meaning, which linked him directly
with much of nineteenth-century Russian literature. In calling for an art
of distortion which could achieve a philosophical synthesis, he revealed
his kinship with other Modernists. But his rejection of traditional Realism
also identified him with a broad tendency in the works of many
nineteenth-century Russian writers which distinguished them from the
mainstream of Western European Realism. It has been argued that the
masters of Russian Realism worked on the assumption that genuine art
146 Susan Layton
must have what Lev Shestov called second sight, in order to perceive a
human dimension which is inaccessible to the lens of the camera.23
Within this context, the most crucial heritage for Zamyatin was the
"Romantic Realism” of Gogol’ and Dostoevsky,24 it affected his struc
tures and themes, character types, and stylistic techniques. The dense
verbal texture of Zamyatin’s works, his use of grotesque imagery, and
his pronounced affinity for synecdoche and realized metaphors reveal
the impact of Gogol’. But in its fundamental aesthetic strategy and
intention, Zamyatin’s art finds a striking parallel, indeed a model, in
Dostoevsky’s “fantastic Realism.”25
When Zamyatin maintained that his new Realism best corres
ponded to the fantastic quality of contemporary life, he was following a
line of thought which Dostoevsky had taken in his own time. By em
ploying the symbolic and the fantastic, Zamyatin aspired like Dostoevs
ky to reveal a reality more authentic than historical fact. Although
Zamyatin was committed to the quest for new forms of expression, he
never considered art as the sum of its devices, maintaining instead that
it must have affective significance. Opposed to the “dehumanization of
art,” he defended literature as a forum for philosophical speculation,
thereby placing himself among modern writers who have believed they
must undertake tasks traditionally performed by philosophers.26 He felt
his relationship with Dostoevsky in this respect: discussing his own
desire to deal not with "everyday life” (byt) but with the "realities of
being” (bytie), he called the nineteenth-century Russian artist one of
the “boldest philosophers” of the past. (“Novaia russkaia proza,” 203).
These two Russian artists held very different beliefs, of course, Dos
toevsky affirming Orthodoxy and Zamyatin denying all absolutes and
seeking a synthesis in the passionately alive individual. But in adopting
styles which fused the realistic and the symbolic, they both aimed at
achieving a philosophical synthesis transcending the particulars of life
in a given time and place. They both explored the problem of human
freedom, maintaining that human nature is essentially irrational. And
despite the intensive analysis of motivation in Dostoevsky’s novels, a
conception of personality as a repository of mystery informs both artists’
work. Focusing on the inner life and showing characters in tormented
explorations of the self, Dostoevsky’s work prefigured the modern
writer’s rejection of the stable, knowable ego.27
Dostoevsky’s art focuses the role of the national heritage in Rus
sian Modernism as it was represented by Zamyatin. For all the distinctly
modern tenor of Dostoevsky’s ideas, we must also consider the
sources and nature of his aesthetic discussed above in order to under
stand fully the notion that the "twentieth century was born in
midnineteenth-century Russia.”28 Because Zamyatin was both in the

mainstream of the literature of his time and heavily influenced by
Dostoevsky’s ideas and aesthetic, his work helps in identifying the
historical roots of Russian Modernism.
Notes
1. Frank Kermode has labeled this “paleomodernism” to distinguish it from the

“neomodernism" which began with Dada and is characterized mainly by its antiformalism.
“Modernisms," Continuities (London, 1968), 10-14.
2. Zamyatin first discussed his “Neorealism" publicly in 1918 in "Sovremennaia
russkaia literature," Grani, 32 (Oct.-Dec. 1956), 90-101. Another extensive statement of
his aesthetic creed is “0 sintetizme" (1922), which appears along with “O literature,
revoliutsii i èntropii” (1924) in Litsa (New York: Chekhov, 1955). Unless otherwise
indicated, references to Zamyatin’s essays are to this volume.
' 3. “0 literature, revoliutsii i èntropii," 254. For general discussions of Realism and
Neorealism see Roman Jakoson, “O khudozhestvennom realizme,” in Ladislav Matejka,
comp., Readings in Russian Politics (Michigan Slavic Materials, 2; Ann Arbor: Univ, of
Michigan Dept, of Slavic Langs. & Lits., 1962), 31-34; Harry Levin, “What is Realism?"
Comparative Literature, 3 (1951), 195; and Stephen Spender, The New Realism: A
Discussion (London, 1939), 17.
4. “O sintetizme," 237-38. For discussions of the Modernists’ feeling of embarking
upon a radically new era see Irving Howe, Literary Modernism (Greenwich, Conn.:
Fawcett, 1967), 15-16, and Harry Levin, “What Was Modernism?” Refractions: Essays in
Comparative Literature (New York, 1966), 286.
5. "0 literature, revoliutsii i èntropii," p. 255. Elsewhere Zamyatin calls some of these
features impressionistic: "Sovremennaia russkaia literature," 98-100.
6. Cf. Alex M. Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin (Berkeley, 1968),
165-66, 180-81, 205-06.
7. Cf. Johannes Holthusen, Russische Gegenwartsliteratur, vol. 1, 1890-1940
(Bern, 1963), 107.
8. José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art and Other Writings on Art and
Culture, trans. Willard R. Trask (Anchor, A72; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), 34.
Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant Garde, trans. Gerald Fitzgerald (Cambridge,
Mass., 1968), 197.
9. An especially good analysis of Zamyatin's use of metonymy is given in Hongor
Oulanoff, The Serapion Brothers: Theory and Practice (SP&R, 44; The Hague, 1966),
116.
10. D. H. Lawrence used these two terms in "John Galsworthy,” Phoenix: The
Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, ed. with introd. Edward D. McDonald (New York,
1936), 540-42.
11. Zamyatin’s phrase from “O literature, revoliutsii i ehtropii,” 253.
12. “Tsel”' (1955; written ca. 1926), 180; “O segodniashnem i o sovremennom”
(1924), 213-14, 229-30.
13. For considering Zamyatin’s participation in this broad current of literary Modern
ism the following works are most helpful: Joseph Frank, "Spatial Form in Modern
148 Susan Layton
Literature," The Wandering Gyre (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1963),
58-60; José Ortega y Gasset, The Modern Theme, trans. James Cleugh (New York: W.
W. Norton, 1933), 141-43; and Stephen Spender, The Struggle of the Modern (Berkeley,
1963), 80, 91-92.
14. Petr Chaadaev, “Filosofskie pis'ma, pis’mo pervoe," Sochineniia i pis'ma, ed. M.
Gershenzon (2 vols.; M.; Put’, 1913-14), II, 111-12.
15. Ibid., II, 109. See also his "Apologiia sumashedshego," II, 215, 227.
16. See P. Sakulin, Izistoriirusskogo idealizma (M.:M. Sabashnikov, 1913), 613-14.
17. Cf. Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (New
York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1965), 397-406, and Robert Louis Jackson, Dostoevsky's
Quest for Form: A Study of His Philosophy of Art (New Haven, 1966), 56.
18. Lev Tolstoi, “Neskol’ko slov po povodu knigi 'Voina i mir,”' Russkii arkiv, 6
(1868), 515.
19. Renato Poggioli, "Realism in Russia," Comparative Literature, 3 (1951), 260.
20. See Jackson, 95, and Konstantin Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work,
trans, with introd. Michael A. Minihan (Princeton, 1967), 497.
21. Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-Garde, 53-55, 95-100.
22. Osip Mandel’shtam, "Petr Chaadaev,” Sobranie sochinenii (3 vols.; Washington:
Mezhdunarodnoe literaturnoe sodruzhestvo, 1964—69), II, 327-38.
23. Poggioli, “Realism in Russia," 266.
24. See Donald Fänger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky
in Relation to Balzac, Dickens and Gogol (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 27;
Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 101-03, 125-26.
25. See Jackson, 71-73, and J. van der Eng, Dostoevskij romancier: Rapports entre
sa vision du monde et ses procédés littéraires (SP&R, 13; The Hague, 1957), 44-45.
26. Howe, 19; Stephen Spender, The Destructive Element: A Study of Modern
Writers and Beliefs (London, 1935), 222; and Everett W. Knight, Literature Considered as
Philosophy: The French Example (London, 1957); 36-37.
27. Fänger, 264-06, and Frederick J. Hoffman, The Mortal No: Death and the Mod
ern Imagination (Princeton, 1964), 491.
28. Mihajlo Mihajlov, "Russian Modernism," Russian Themes, trans. Marija Mihajlov
(New York, 1968), 264.
ANCIENT AND MODERN MATHEMATICS IN
ZAMYATIN’S WE
Leighton Brett Cooke
God eternally geometricizes.

Plato
In the introduction to his Mathematics in Western Culture, Morris

Kline advances the notion that the state of mathematical thought in a
given period is a dependable index of the cultural vitality of the civiliza
tion which nourishes it.1 Like the arts, mathematics not only benefits
from the liberation of human nature but itself often serves as an act of
liberation. [Kline, 1953, 10-12.] Such thinking well accords with a
mathematically informed reading of Evgeny Zamyatin’s We. This anti-
utopian novel uses both mathematical concepts and the history of
mathematics as bases for evaluating the dangers posed for human
nature by the Single State. Like its derivatives, science and technology,
mathematics can be misused as a means of establishing totalitarian
control and repressing the human spirit. But Zamyatin’s novel also
reminds us that mathematics and reason, in their proper use, are ex
tremely powerful tools for productive thought; as such, they are inimical
to fixed dogma and, as integral parts of human nature, are ultimately
irrepressible. Zamyatin’s essays often cite the work of such mathema
tical geniuses as Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and Albert Einstein as
models for creative behavior on the part of artists. He notes
mathematics’ potential for shattering common perceptual sets and for
bringing us to a better understanding of reality and a greater degree of
self-expression. Indeed, he followed his own prescription in We with a
unique blend of art and mathematics both to suggest a creative direc
tion for human endeavors and to warn of the danger of failing to take the
path of unceasing inquiry.
Many commentators have noted how the mathematical imagery in
We contributes to the local setting, a utopian society a thousand years
in the future. Some scholars have decoded various concepts to reveal
their ethical, social and political significance.2 Nevertheless, we need to
take a comprehensive view of all the mathematical references, for the
149
150 Leighton Brett Cooke
great mass of mathematical terms found in the novel, when set against
the historical development of mathematical thought, communicates an
authorial vision of great significance in terms of psychology, perception
and epistemology. More than the other symbolic patterns which have
been traced in the novel, mathematics is used by Zamyatin to express
his ideal of human mental function and of the appropriate destiny of the
human race.
Certainly We is replete with mathematical imagery and symbols.
On a superficial level, there are two reasons which account for this. One
is that the utopian society, the Single State, is founded on arithmetical
principles, such as its leaders believe to be the basis for scientific
materialism and a rational social order. The city is composed of
geometrically simple forms, such as squares, circles, rectangles and
their corresponding solids.3 The State’s passion for arithmetic justice is
reflected in the near-absolute standardization of all aspects of life. The
arithmetic design of the society also dictated the replacement of per
sonal names with alphanumerics. Furthermore, the major social institu
tions and cultural monuments express the Single State’s acceptance of
arithmetic stability as virtually the only value.
Secondly, the Single State is a technologically advanced culture.
The buildings are made of glass, as is the Green Wall which protects
the city from the outside world, albeit imperfectly. The citizens subsist
on synthesized food. Although we will find much reason to doubt the
vitality of scientific technological work in the city, the Single State is on
the brink of inter-planetary exploration. Such achievements require
much more than the ability to count on one’s fingers. There is much talk
of mathematics in the society.4 One glimpse we get of education is of a
class in mathematics. Characters often refer to mathematical concepts.
This is especially true for the narrator, D-503, who is the chief engineer
of the city’s first spaceship and, hence, one of its leading mathe
maticians. D-503 sees the world with the eyes of a mathematician. He
describes people as if their faces and bodies were geometrical shapes
and he conceptualizes their actions in terms of the "graceful formulas”
which might define them.5 [96.] He speaks of moments when he "thinks
in formulas” and he provides one example with his postulate that love is
a function of death. [32, 117.] All this is characteristic of a man and of a
society which can regard an ancient railroad timetable as a great piece
of literature. [14]
However, the arithmetic design of the constituent parts of the Sin
gle State and the mathematical indoctrination of its citizens do not
suffice to make the utopia mathematically secure, let alone politically
stable. The chief threat to the Single State does not come from either an
Ancient and Modem Mathematics in Zamyatin’s We 151
anti-mathematical or—we should note this—an anti-rational source.

Various statements made by I-330, one of the leaders of the rebellious
MEFIS, clearly demonstrate that those who oppose the state have a
much deeper understanding of mathematics and its empirical implica
tions than those who support the state. For all the lip-service it pays to
mathematical concepts and great mathematicians, the Single State is
mathematically naive and often ignorant. One clue is the names of
mathematicians actually mentioned in the text. All are from the distant
past, either from the beginnings of mathematics in ancient Greece,
Pythagoras and Euclid, or from the revival of the discipline in the Age of
Reason, Sir Isaac Newton and Colin MacLaurin [19-20, 21, 83.]6 No
names or numbers are cited from the time of the Two Hundred Years
War and the founding of the Single State up to the period depicted in
the novel. It is as if science and mathematical thought have been large
ly defunct for the past thousand years and the Single State is wholly
dependent on theoretical foundations from other eras and cultures,
being unable to produce any of its own.7 The same conclusion is also
suggested by the Single State’s failure to complete the Taylor Table of
Hourly Activities and to eliminate the mettlesome Personal Hours.
Although this should be a simple matter in a totalitarian state, and
D-503 expresses the society’s will to complete the absolute standard
ization of life, he is unable to account for this failure. [15.]
Many of D-503’s comments show that the mathematicians of the
Single State are familiar with modern mathematical concepts up to and
including the discoveries of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Janos Bolyai and
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, for he mentions such concepts as cal
culus asymptotes, n-dimensional spaces, multiple unknowns, transfi-
nite numbers and non-Euclidean geometries. However, the ideologists
of the Single State, to judge by D-503’s statements, are only comfort
able with simple notions, such as were developed at the beginning of
mathematics. These include the four rules of arithmetic, integers,
straight lines, circles, geometrical solids, and Euclidean geometry in
general, especially in terms of two-dimensional spaces. Evidently, more
advanced notions are considered to be threatening and, consequently,
are largely ignored. Indeed, one of the chief plot concerns is D-503’s
developing awareness of the implications of the knowledge he has
always had available to him.
Notably, the rebellious MEFIS are very well versed in such ad
vanced concepts as transfinite numbers, infinite functions and
n-dimensional spaces. Indeed, I-330 refers to these concepts to justify
their revolt—which, as a result, should not be construed to be
anti-rational. Rather, she seems to wish to liberate mathematical
thought, the most powerful and efficient tool for logical induction, from
the bonds improperly placed on it by the obscurantist Single State.
Indeed, as Zamyatin noticed in the discoveries of Lobachevsky and
Einstein, modern mathematics served to liberate the imagination from
the bonds of three-dimensional Euclidean “reality” into a free realm of
infinite dimensions and forms.8 We should also note that D-503 associ
ates such other "advanced" notions as imaginary and complex
numbers, curve equations and multiple unknowns with the MEFIS.
The Single State and Pythagoreanism
The problem with the Single State’s naive mathematics is not so

much its low level of development as it is the State’s confidence that the
four rules of arithmetic—addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division—suffice to account for all phenomena in the universe and,
thus, can serve as the theoretical foundations for the entire social
enterprise. Both the simplicity of its mathematics and its confusion of
mathematical dogma with what amounts to religious devotion demon
strate a close link between the Single State and the tenets of another
matho-cratic society, the ancient school of Pythagoras, which
flourished in Southern Italy from the late 6th century B.C. to the middle
of the 4th century B.C.
The Pythagoreans were a secretive mystical cult which revered
arithmetic concepts as keys to the mysteries of the universe. Remem
bered largely for the Pythagorean Theorem, they exerted a great influ
ence on Greek philosophy and a continuing one on modern science.
With the help of mathematics, they extended the Ionian concepts of
universal laws of nature and, hence, an ordered cosmos. The abstract
study of mathematics began with their assumption that “all natural
phenomena and all social or ethical concepts were in essence just
whole numbers or relationships among whole numbers.” [Kline, 1967,
60.] Mathematics was henceforth regarded as the most accurate and
dependable tool for revealing essential truths, since it was believed
that, as Anaxagoras stated, “Reason rules the world." [Kline, 1967,
188.] This was true not just for Plato and Euclid but also for
seventeenth-century mathematicians like Descartes and Newton. In
both eras, God was regarded as a great geometer. Mathematics and
science could be practiced as a religious devotion, one of reading the
second divine book, nature. However, the epistemological certainty of
mathematics was dispelled by the discovery of non-Euclidean geomet
ries and, later, by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.9
Ancient and Modern Mathematics in Zamyatin's We 153
There is no direct evidence to suggest that Zamyatin intentionally

patterned the arithmetic dogma of the Single State after the tenets of
Pythagoreanism: indeed, there are points of contrast, such as the
State’s scientific materialism and the Pythagorean belief in
reincarnation.10 However, Pythagoras and his hypotenuse are men
tioned in the novel. [19, 81.] Furthermore, there are many similarities
between the two societies. The Single State is also organized as if it
were a secretive religious cult with knowledge and power in the hands
of a select group. D-503 compares the revered Multiplication Table to
an "icon,” because it never errs. [14.] He speaks of the divine beauty”
of his “algebraic world” and refers to the Jehovah-like “Well-Doer” as
the “Number of Numbers.” [59, 33, 123-124.]11 According to one
legend, Pythagoras himself claimed semi-divine status: The Pythago
rean belief in the one-ness of all things, i.e., in a symmetrical, ordered
cosmos, is reflected in the geometrically proportioned design of the
State, which includes its circular Green Wall, the square grid of the
large part of its street plan, the rectangular architecture of its glass
buildings and the sixty-six concentric rows in the Square of the Cube.12
Notably, the State attempts to enforce this one-ness by standardizing
all activities according to the Taylor Table. D-503 speaks of all citizens
washing themselves “mono-millionedly.” [14.] Furthermore, the rigid
organization of both groups reflects their thorough opposition to democracy.
The Single State's special reverence for the number four may
well be traced to the Pythagoreans, who associated it with justice,
given that it is the first integer to be the product of equals.14 Notably,
when the citizens of the Single State promenade, they do so in orderly
rows of four to the “March of the Single State,” producing a spectacle
which D-503 describes as “square” or, better, “quadratic harmony.” [8,
9.] This and a poem which D-503 reads on the theme of 2 x 2 = 4 recall
Dostoevsky’s Underground Man, who associated such a “finalized”
equation with the negation of free will.15
Most significantly, both groups base their dogmas on whole
numbers, i.e., integers, or on fractions which are relationships between
whole numbers. Notably, such fractions as 0.2 = 1/5 are known as
“rational numbers.” The Pythagoreans tried to “rationalize” all numeric
al relationships, including the square root of two, which is unreducible to
a fraction and, hence, constitutes an “irrational number.” The Single
State shows a similar preference for whole numbers. The letter-number
names it gives to each of its citizens always involve whole numbers. It
avoids the psychological implications of imaginary and irrational
numbers. Furthermore, the Single State builds a space ship called the
"Integral” with the intention that the rocket will “integrate" the infinite
universe.
Pythagorian mathematico-religious tenets influenced other

aspects of social life, many of which are emulated in the Single State.
Pythagorian numerology defined odd numbers as “masculine” and
even numbers as "feminine.”16 Notably, the characters in We are num
bered according to this dichotomy. Meanwhile, D-503 notes that all
music in the Single State is composed according to mathematical
formulae. [18-19.] Significantly, it was Pythagoras who discovered the
numerical relationships between notes in the octave scale. Noting the
inverse relationship between the length of a string and its vibrating
frequency, i.e., musical pitch, Pythagoras found that the frequency of a
given note is precisely twice that of the same note an octave lower—a
discovery which would likely apply to the "quadratic harmony” practiced
in the Single State. [19-20.]17 Because of its apparent mathematical
basis, the Pythagorians used music as a form of psychotherapy to
purge the soul. Simple arithmetic and quadratic harmony have much
the same effect in the Single State. D-503 solves problems to relax his
mind. [36, 38.] He also describes the blank faces of those who are
promenading to the "March of the Single State” as not showing any
trace of thought. [8.]
The most striking parallel between the two groups is their common
advocacy of mathematical rules as the basis of social ethics.18 Indeed,
the Single State establishes its morality on an even simpler basis than
did the Pythagorians, the four rules of arithmetic. [15, 61,93, 100-101.]
These purportedly will suffice to ensure eternal and "mathe-
matically-infallible happiness." [5.] Nevertheless, the Single State's de
finition of what is ethical might strike us as quite exotic. Love is
“mathematized.” [22.] D-503 blissfully describes the triangle in which
he and R-13 both share sexual access to 0-90, while scornfully disdain
ing twentieth century notions of exclusive sexual possession. [8.] D-503
wastes no pity on ten workers killed in an accident at the launching pad.
He cites an equation to justify his callousness—this we may envision
as:
Workers killed in accident _ 10 _ 1

Population of Single State 10,000,000 100,000,000
According to his reasoning, the workers constitute too infinitesimal a

proportion of the total population to warrant his attention. [17, 93.] Else
where he formulates ethical statements in the form of crude mathema
tical equations, which we may formulate as
Ancient and Modern Mathematics in Zamyatin’s We 155
As Envy approaches zero,

_________ = Happiness.
Envy Envy Happiness goes to infinity.
and as:
Freedom = Crime Rate. If freedom equals zero, so does

the crime rate. [23, 34]
Notably, the arithmetic ethics of the Single State are embodied in two of
Plato’s solids. First, D-503 describes this morality as a pyramid of
justice. [100.] Secondly, that justice is celebrated and enforced at the
Square of the Cube.19
The mathematical seeds of destruction are remarkably similar for
both societies. The Pythagorian cult of whole numbers was disrupted
by their own discovery of irrational numbers. According to tradition, this
came about when the Pythagorians attempted to use their famous rule
to measure the hypotenuse of a right triangle when the legs each equal
a unit of one. They tried in vain to “rationalize” the resultant square root
of two units into a whole number fraction. Then they drowned the
discoverer, Hippasus of Metapontam. Meanwhile, D-503 is unsettled by
the square root of minus one, an imaginary or complex number but,
significantly, termed an “irrational term" or “root” in the novel.2°[12, 36.]
Frustrated in his effort to reconcile it with integral numbers, he associ
ates it with I-330 and irrationality, as well with his own developing
dissidence. [36] But he cannot deny its existence; the uncomfortable,
destabilizing concept impels him onto the path to a mathe
matically-inspired revolt against the Single State. [151, 87.]
The mathematical vulnerability of the Pythagorians and of the
Single State to novel mathematical concepts lies in their accepting
grossly inadequate and a priori mathematical rules to be the basic laws
of the universe. They deceived themselves by their misuse of
mathematics. Note how D-503, who is predisposed to see the world in
terms of simple geometrical shapes, commonly describes other charac
ters as squares, circles, triangles, curves and S-shapes. Simple
mathematics works as an illusion, one that prevents a direct perception
of actuality.
Of course, Pythagorian mathematics is vastly preferable to that of
the Single State. For all their dogmas, the Pythagorians retained a great
spirit of inquiry. On the other hand, the Single State uses a limited
arithmetic, tantamount to obscurantism, to exert social control. Such
self-deception is only made possible by a thorough insensitivity to the
real phenomena of the universe: thus the Single State has no true
mathematicians loyal to it. Notably, those that do exist are very prone to
gross errors in matters of simple calculation. For example, D-503 mis
calculates the probability of his being assigned to Auditorium 112 by
erroneously taking the population of the Single State into account; this
we may represent as follows:
Number of auditoriums _ 1,500 _ Probability of D-503

----------------------------------------- --- being assigned to
Total population---------------------- 10,000,000 Auditorium 112. [17]
The correct equation is a simple one of dividing one, the Auditorium

112, by the total number of auditoriums in the Single State, assuming
that they are of roughly equal capacity, given the city’s symmetrical
design.
Probability of D-503
D-503's auditorium
____________ = being assigned to
Number of auditoriums 1,500______ Auditorium 112.
As for the ten workers killed in the launching pad accident, D-503
miscalculates their portion of the population, ten million, to be one
hundred millionth, instead of one millionth.21 [17, 93.] His ensuing com
ment that this portion constitutes an "infinitesimal of the third order"
makes expressive sense but also reveals more loose mathematical
calculation. Such a concept is equal to one divided by the cube of
infinity, i.e., a much smaller, variable quantity, approaching zero as its
limit. A few pages later, he has difficulty calculating whether, if one goes
360 degrees around the world, he would return to his original starting
point, puzzling over the possible distinction between +0 degrees and
-0 degrees.22 [101.] Earlier, he wonders whether the force of gravity is
constant and he speaks of ceaselessly limiting and dividing infinity to
make it more palatable. [83, 59.] Indeed, R-13 accuses D-503 of want
ing to wall-in the infinite. [38.] Thus, there is little wonder that loyal
citizens should have trouble with more advanced concepts and speak
of integrating infinity, as the State Gazette announces in the first para
graph of the novel, an absurd notion. [5.] This thinking is reflected in the
name of their rocketship, "Integral," which refers to the calculus method
for closely limiting what cannot be defined precisely, such as variable
quantities and dynamic processes.23 We should note that the ancient
Greeks regarded the notions of infinity, formlessness and dynamism
with distaste, preferring to see the universe as ordered, finite and static.
[Kline, 1953, 56-58.] Lastly, D-503's neighbor miscalculates the mean
density of an infinite universe to necessarily be zero. He forgets that if

space is infinite, matter could also be infinite.24 [198.] Depending on
how the concept is defined, infinity divided by infinity can be said to
equal infinity or one. More seriously, the proof is miscast; the neighbor
says neither how he determined that the average density is not zero nor
does he attempt to show how this mathematical abstraction relates to
the actuality of the universe.
Modern Mathematics and the MEFIS
Zamyatin’s essays repeatedly refer to the revolution in scientific

and philosophical thought initiated by Lobachevsky and confirmed in
the public mind by Albert Einstein. If the Euclidean three-dimensional
geometry was a persuasive illusion, then the discovery of innumerable
non-Euclidean geometries constituted a massive case of mathematical
and epistemological “ostranenie,” "estrangement,” henceforth, no view
of the universe, no perception of essential truth could be accepted as
certain.25 Whereas the old mathematics had been the most authorita
tive test of truth, the new mathematics became the measure of our
limitations in determining truths. However, the vast realms opened up
for the imagination by non-Euclidean geometries and Einstein’s Theory
of Relativity demonstrated how logical induction could outstrip the
imagination.26 [Kline, 1967, 476, 553.] By citing these breakthroughs,
Zamyatin implicitly exhorted artists to follow the examples set by
Lobachevsky and Einstein by breaking the illusion of classical realism
and opening the way to the innumerable non-Euclidean spaces to be
found in the mind. Furthermore, in the novel, Zamyatin sets this percep
tual revolution as a model for the revolt to be effected by the MEFIS in
the Single State and by mathematical concepts in D-503’s mind. This
Zamyatin does by citing various aspects of mathematics which, like
non-Euclidean geometries, confound our everyday perception.27
Although the mathematicians of the Single State are familiar with
non-Euclidean geometry, for reasons suggested previously, they are
reluctant to think about it. The same is true for D-503, who only men
tions non-Euclidean geometries when unconsciously prompted by one
of the MEFIS. The first reference occurs when R-13 enters a room and
shifts the furniture into what D-503 describes as a non-Euclidean
arrangement. [39.] Later, D-503 is so disturbed by l-330’s transgres
sions that, while the lines on his two-dimensional paper are parallel, "in
another world”—D-503 drops his train of thought, rather than continue
to the evident conclusion: in another dimension, these parallel lines
may intersect.20 [55.] In his essays, Zamyatin links non-Euclidean

geometries with infinity and extra-dimensionality. [A Soviet Heretic,
107.] Notably, I-330 evokes thoughts of imaginary numbers in D-503,
and these in turn lead him into the non-Euclidean spaces within his
psyche.29 [87-88.] Furthermore, D-503 continually gets only fleeting
glimpses of S-4711, who pops in and out of sight as if this Guardian and
covert member of the MEFIS were a four-dimensional being intruding
on D-503’s three-dimensional realm. [20, 53, 59, 75, 77, 122, 136-137,
162-163, 197.]
A perceptual acceptance of non-Euclidean space being too great a
quantum leap for D-503 to attempt, the MEFIS try to convert him to their
cause by appealing to his mathematical reasoning with bits and pieces
of the new mathematics. A good example is how I-330 gets him to admit
that there is no final number; by analogy, she reasons that there is no
final revolution.30 Historical progress has not come to a culmination, as
the Single State would have him believe; rather, it will inevitably evolve
new social forms, etc.31 Thus, due to his conditioning in the Single
State, D-503 is anxious over the possibility that infinity might strike the
glass city like a series of meteorites. [111]
Another related mathematical concept which I-330 describes to
D-503 is that of the infinite spiral. She leads up to this notion but does
not actually mention it in her discussion of Galileo’s “mistake." As she
explains it, the orbit of the Earth is not a circle but—and here the reader
can fill in her ellipsis with the obvious conclusion—an unending spiral.32
[101.] As in D-503’s meditation on Columbus, the Earth may move 360
degrees around the Sun, but it does not return to its starting point, as in
0 degrees = 360 degrees = circle.33 [100-101.]
During the course of a year, the Earth has also moved, along with the
rest of the Solar System—to say nothing of the entire galaxy—in yet
another dimension. Hence, the Earth comes to a point 0 degrees quite
displaced from the original point 0 degrees. Therefore:
0 degrees =/= 0 degrees: a spiral.
One of the fallacies of the Single State is that it constantly represents

spiral actions to be circular. This helps to clarify one of the reasons why
days cannot be completely standardized according to the Taylor Table.
One day may trace a similar pattern of twenty-four hours to that of
another, but they are not identical—the passage of yearly time, the
seasons, etc., ensures that they are quite different.
Spirals figure prominently in Zamyatin’s essays where he uses

them to represent paths of escape from the “dead circles” of dogma
and artistic convention, such as are embodied in the Single State.34
Zamyatin infers that it is a simple matter to escape from a circle: all one
has to do is to enter an extra dimension. [A Soviet Heretic, 81,82, 84,
104.] This reasoning holds true for the circular and purportedly im
penetrable Green Wall: birds fly over it and the MEFIS have a tunnel
under it. Meanwhile, D-503’s mental paths of escape are associated
and stimulated by processes involving time, which was identified by
Einstein as the fourth dimension of his space-time continuum. As with
orbital paths, time is described in the novel in terms of spirical motions;
furthermore, it is experienced in terms of historical development, sexual
generation and memory. D-503 says that “history ascends in circles,”
by which he obviously has spirals in mind.35 [101.] Near the end of the
novel, anxious to see I-330, he runs up the "endless staircase” of her
building, once again, probably spirical in form. [188.] Furthermore,
D-503 often associates such extra-dimensionality, be it the fourth
dimension, or in two-dimensional contexts, the third—such as Zamyatin
links with spirals in his essays—with his subconsciousness, which pre
serves his memory. [78, 81, 87-88.] All these forms for change are
dangerous to the Single State and none can be repressed forever.
Indeed, D-503 twice describes himself as a compressed spring: a spiral
forced virtually into the shape of a circle. [180, 190.] With the MEFIS
upsetting his ordered environment, I-330 and 0-90 appealing to his
sexual and reproductive instincts, and mathematical concepts like the
square root of minus one stimulating his memory and his desire for
making contact with his past, thereby causing him to delve into the
infinite expanse of his subconscious, D-503’s mathematically inspired
drive for a future of revolutionary changes promises an all but inevitable
explosion. His only successful and tangible expression of this is
Zamyatin's novel; notably, its author described art as a spiral equation.
[A Soviet Heretic, 81, 82.]
The novel We is concerned with the uses and abuses of
mathematics, insofar as they affect mental functions. The Single State,
of course, uses mathematics and other tools to control and ultimately to
destroy all but the most basic mental functions. The MEFIS, on the
other hand, strive to restore and improve these atrophied and en
dangered mental functions. Some commentators have noted how the
MEFIS work to restore intuition and instinctual drives to mankind in the
Single State. However, the MEFIS also strive to restore rational
faculties, such as have long been defunct in the Single State.36 Their
battle is fought out in the streets of the glass city and in the mind of
D-503. The MEFIS do seize his mind by rational argument, for D-503
does regain his faculties of mathematical perception and creativity. In
the thirty-ninth entry, D-503’s neighbor states that the Single State will
prevail because he has proved that the Universe is finite. Thanks to
l-330’s tutoring in mathematical argumentation, D-503 crushes this
absurd concept with a tart question:
And out there, where your finite universe ends?

What's out there—further?37 [198.]
Of course, D-503’s victory is only a Pyrrhic one, for he is seized

and forced to undergo the operation for removal of his fantasy.30 But
the sudden cutting off of D-503’s promising development into a revolu
tionary is an obvious device for ensuring that the same development
will go on in the reader’s mind, carried on by its momentum.39 The
reader is impelled in the direction set out for D-503 by the MEFIS, one
of continuing mathematically-inspired inquiry and speculation,
“further,” ever “further.”
Notes
1. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1982 annual meeting of the
American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages in Chicago. I
wish to thank Peter Schubert, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere and Gerhard Gietz for their
suggestions.
2. These include White, 1966, who focuses on the significance of imaginary numbers
and infinity in the novel. Edwards, 1982, touches on a variety of mathematical topics, as
well as mathematical thinkers, including some speculations as to the derivation of the
alphanumeric names of Zamyatin’s characters. Barker, 1977, Borman, 1983, Shane,
1968, 161n, and Warrick, 1975, also try to account for the names, both by reference to
possible numerical interrelationships and, in the first two studies, by reference to the
Bible. Many other commentators also mention the novel's pervasive mathematical
imagery, which, indeed, is difficult to ignore.
3. Both Aldridge, 1977 and Gregg, 1973, trace this symmetry to the Christian view of
the New Jerusalem.
4. Carolyn Rhodes says that D-503's unusual lexicon reflects “both his professional
training and his values, the ideals of a world of men who aspire to be automatons."
[Rhodes, 1976, 33.)
5. All text references to the novel refer to My, New York. 1973, and will be cited by
page number only. All translations are my own, although some have been influenced by
Bernard Gilbert Guerney's translation, Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, London, 1970.
6. A possible addition to this list is Brook Taylor, an eighteenth century British
mathematician. While most of the novel’s references to Taylor, the ideological godfather
to the Single State, seem to refer to Frederick Winslow Taylor, the American scientist of
industrial efficiency, Zamyatin might well have had the mathematician Taylor, important in
the development of calculus and curve or non-linear equations, in mind when D-503
mentions "Taylor's formulas." [19.] F. W. Taylor used very few formulas and generally
confined himself to prose. See Taylor, 1919, 109, and Edwards, 1982, 193-194.
7. That Zamyatin should depict the Single State as being only at the brink of space a
thousand years hence probably reflects more his low estimation of the State’s scientific
and technological abilities than low expectations on his part for the actual development of
rocketry—as Gordon Browning suggests. [Browning, 1968, 18.] After all, by 1919 rockets
had already been developed and Zamyatin, more than most people in his time, was
acutely aware of the ongoing scientific and mathematical revolution. T. R. N. Edwards
also notes the "old-fashioned" scientific/mathematical ideological foundations of the
Single State which he says is refuted "partly on the grounds of modern scientific and
mathematical theory." [Edwards, 1982, 55-56.] Meanwhile, E. J. Brown finds that the
Single State’s "primitive regimention” is an apparent anachronism in combination with the
society’s level of educational and technological development, such as would, in all
likelihood, presuppose "a sophisticated if not highly moral human community.” [Brown,
1964,34.] These considerations give us some reason to speculate that the Single State is
progressively losing its hold on what was once a substantial culture. Indeed, the dramatic
events of the novel demonstrate its increasing vulnerability due to this de-evolution.
At the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that the primitive people living
outside the Wall are hardly more creative than the law-abiding inhabitants of the Single
State. These primitives do not seem to have contributed any new Einsteins to mankind
either.
8. To judge Zamyatin’s essays, he does not appear to give recognition to the claims
of Janos Bolyai and Carl Friedrich Gauss to be the founders, or, at least, the co-founders
of non-Euclidean geometry. Bolyai had developed his non-Euclidean geometry by 1823,
but he published his findings only in 1832. Lobachevsky announced what turned out to be
a similar system in 1826 and published a more thorough treatment of the subject in 1829.
However, both had been anticipated by Gauss, who apparently developed a
non-Euclidean geometry before 1799, but who, fearing a hostile public response, chose
not to publish his discovery. There is a continuing controversy as to whether this consti
tutes a case of what is equivalent to simultaneous discoveries. Because Lobachevsky's
and Bolyai’s studies were ignored until Gauss’ notes and letters were published post
humously in 1855, it is not possible to determine how much information was conveyed
along the indirect personal contacts that existed amongst them; Gauss was a friend and
colleague of both Bolyai's father and one of Lobachevsky’s teachers. See Kline, 1972,
877-879.
9. Ivan Karamazov notes the effect of non-Euclidean geometries on religious belief in
Book 5, Chapters 3 and 4 of The Brothers Karamazov. Meanwhile, we should note that
there was some opposition to mathematics, astronomy and physical sciences in early
Christianity. [Kline, 1980, 31 ff.] As St. Augustine warned,
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all who make empty
prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant
with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bounds of Hell.” [cited in Kline,
1967, 1.]
Quite possibly, this helps account for the derivation of the name for the
revolutionaries, MEFIS, given their association with higher mathematics.
10. Zamyatin was familiar with the activities of the school of Pythagoras beyond their
mathematical discoveries. For example, in his essay, "On language," Zamyatin also
mentions their “theory of the transmigration of souls." [A Soviet Heretic, 176.] Because
only a few fragmentary texts survive from the heyday of Pythagoreanism, modern scho
lars are forced to cope with often legendary accounts of Pythagoras and his school.
Nevertheless, their continuing influence is based on these legends and not necessarily on
fact. With so little evidence available, either about Pythagoras or about Zamyatin's im
pressions of him and his school, we can only base our comparison of Pythagoreanism
and the Single State on what Zamyatin would likely have known from a cursory acquaint
ance with classical antiquity and appears to have included in his novel. Hence, our
comments on Pythagoreanism generally are based on common encyclopedia entries and
histories of mathematics.
11. For other religious aspects of the Single State, see Gregg, 1973, Aldridge, 1977,
and Borman, 1983.
12. The Pythagorean love of symmetry and proportion is also reflected in D-503’s
aesthetic values; presumably, these were inculcated in him and other citizens by educa
tion in the Single State. He speaks of the “geometric beauty" of the Single State and
terms its standardized architecture “divine.” [151, 9.] In a tender moment with 0-90,
D-503 speaks of the beauty of the square, the cube and the straight line. [20.] During the
open strike at the end of the novel, he mourns—perhaps, prematurely—the destruction of
“the greatest and most rational civilization in all history." [197.] Camille R. La Bossiere
traces these aesthetics to the “espirit de geometrie” prevalent in the French
enlightenment. [La Bossiere, 1973.] Notably, Benjamin Farrington links the Pythagoreans
to the beginnings of Greek town planning. [Farrington, 1980, 45.]
13. The Pythagoreans did not regard one as a number "in the full sense,” because,
as Morris Kline says, “unity was opposed to quantity." Significantly for our study of the
Single State, the Pythagoreans identified the number one with reason, “for reason could
produce only a consistent whole." [Kline, 1953, 77.]
14. A cursory review of literature on the history of mathematics suggests that the
equation, 2 x 2 = 4, is the most common demonstration of the perceived immutability of
arithmetic rules. Indeed, Zamyatin’s Single State and Dostoevsky's Underground Man
seize upon it and not some other equation. However, as a description of empirical reality,
the equation did not survive the reform of number theory which was conducted during the
latter part of the nineteenth century, when the very notion of what constitutes a unit was
called into question. For example, the addition of two clouds plus two clouds not does not
necessarily result in four clouds. Other dramatic results occur with sexual activity and
reproduction, as is demonstrated in the novel. Due to D-503’s passion for I-330, he notes
how the “two" of them have become “one." [64.] The activities of the four central
characters, D-503, 0-90, I-330 and S-4711, culminate in the projected birth of O-90's
child. This we might possibly see as an illustration of the Underground Man’s postulate
that:
2 x 2 = 5 = “a very sweet little thing” (i.e., free will) [Dostoevsky, 1956-58, IV, 161.]
To see a possible rationale to Dostoevsky's equation, we need to recall that each
character in We is neither an integer nor a rational number, but, rather, a complex
number, one which includes an imaginary component, such as D-503 associates with his
psyche; we could represent each character as being equal to 1i. Now, given some
scholarly license to delve into pseudomathematics, we could split up these numbers
temporarily. First, we could add up the four integers, resulting in a sum of four. Then, if we
envision the inter-relationship of the imaginary components as i4, we get a product of one:
i4 = (i)(i)(i)(i) =(-1)(-1) = 1
This product, added to the integer equation, would now yield a new sum, five.
However, this is hardly a regular procedure in mathematics.
15. For discussion on how Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground influenced
Zamyatin’s We, including the use of this equation, see Jackson, 1958, Warrick, 1975, and
Morson, 1981.
16. Another possible parallel consists in how the Pythagorean "table of ten
opposites” suits the conflict between D-503's loyalty to the Single State and I-330. This
could be read as a reflection of six of the paired “opposites”: limit—unlimited (i.e.,
finite—infinite), odd—even (per the characters’ alphanumeric names), male—female,
rest—motion (i.e., entropy—energy), straight-curved and good—evil (a possible anticipa
tion of the ethical values given ironical expression in the novel, as in the struggle between
the MEFIS and the Single State with its Guardians). The novel’s antimony of I—WE bears
similarity to the “opposite" of one—many, and we could ponder the possible
psychoanalytical implications of right—left and light—darkness. However, it is difficult to
force square—oblong into this scheme. The Pythagoreans envisioned these dualistic
"opposites" as complementary, cohesive forces in their society. While I-330 and her
cohorts appear to be divisive, their activities could be interpreted as an attempt to forge
these antinomous forces into a new synthesis. She speaks of uniting the two halves of
humanity, the citizens of the Single State with the primitives living outside the Green Wall.
[140-141.]
17. According to Zamyatin’s memoir on Andrei Bely, the poet regarded music as
audible mathematics. [A Soviet Heretic, 243.] Meanwhile, we should note that the Single
State's arithmetic aesthetics are extended to other spheres of art. Not only is there the
poetic drivel on 2 x 2 = 4, but D-530’s diary is an attempt to write a “graceful and rigid
mathematical narrative poem” in praise of the Single State. [89.]
18. Steeped in Pythagorean thought, Plato advocated mathematical training for the
leaders of his projected Republic [Kline, 1967, 36.] However, besides Plato and the
Pythagoreans, there are other possible antecedents to the Single State's proponents of
arithmetical ethics. Patricia Warrick notes how Leibnitz attempted to create such a value
system by combining mathematics with law. [Warrick, 1975, 65.] Meanwhile, T. R. N.
Edwards sees here intimations of Bentham's "felicific calculus.” [Edwards, 1982, 59.]
19. The association of "square” with "justice” derives from the Pythagorean practice
of conceptualizing numbers in geometric arrays of stones. The number four, which they
associated with "justice," was represented by a square. See Kline, 1953 77.
Quite possibly, this monument is also modelled after the holy Ka’aba (“Cube") in
Mecca, which is situated in the middle of a square and worshipped by devout Moslems
who surround it in roughly concentric circles.
20. Significantly, D-503’s association of the square root of minus one with his
non-rational self is so strong that he uses the adjective, “irratsional’nyi”’ ("irrational”),
when the correct modifier is “mnimyi” (“imaginary”), as in the term for an imaginary
number, “mnimoe chislo."
21. On only one occasion does D-503 admit his own mathematical fallibility, and this
he adduces to l-330's disruptive influence. [46.]
22. Edwards sees this as a false distinction. [Edwards, 1982, 61.] However, it is
necessary to take the motion of the Earth into account—as D-503 seems to realize.
23. Sharon M. Carnicke notes the incongruity of the Single State attempting to use
calculus "to create a static world." This contrasts with Zamyatin's appropriate use of
calculus to describe life processes. [Carnicke, 1983].]
24. In fact, this reflects the Newtonian view of the universe, "an infinitude of stars
scattered through infinite Euclidean space." An alternative view was posed during the
nineteenth century, one which proposed a finite ’island’ universe, floating “in the immensi
ties of infinite and 'empty' space." [Clark, 1972, 267.] Indeed there are certain points of
similarity between the neighbor’s construct of the universe and that proposed by Einstein
in 1917. Both men envision a finite, curved universe, and both work in a similar manner,
carrying on their speculations into mathematical physics in anticipation of experimental
data. However, Einstein’s theory is not at all so simplistic as the neighbor's; furthermore, it
only concerned the knowable universe, one which he regarded to be boundless. Due to
the influence of gravity, light is not able to escape the stellar universe, rather, it takes a
curved path, eventually returning to its source. Meanwhile, this theory had apparent flaws
and had to contend with Willem de Sittier's view of an expanding universe, one which is
closer to the contemporary consensus in astronomy. Although in 1930, Einstein admitted
his miscalculations in the face of accumulating observational data, his theory did help
pave the way to contemporary theories, such as the Big Bang. [Clark, 1972, 267-271,
523-526.]
25. In 1921, on the basis of these discoveries, Einstein declared, "So far as the
theories of mathematics are about reality, they are not certain; so far as they are certain,
they are not about reality.” [Cited in Kline, 1967, 473.]
Whether or not Zamyatin knew of these remarks—which was quite possible, given
the public furor then raging over Einstein and his discoveries—they are certainly antici
pated in essays like "On Synthetism,” “The New Russian Prose,” and “On Literature,
Revolution, Entropy and Other Matters,” where similar ideas are clearly associated with
the shattering of conventional perceptual sets. Layton, 1973, and Edwards, 1982, 55,
discuss Einstein’s influence on Zamyatin’s aesthetics.
26. Indeed, as George Cantor noted, “The essence of mathematics is freedom."
[Cited in Kline, 1967, 474.] Alfred North Whitehead said that, “The science of pure
mathematics may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit." [Cited in
Kline, 1967, 546.] Of course, it is not uncommon to speak of mathematics as an art,
applying such concepts as “symmetry" and "beauty"—as happened with Einstein’s
discoveries. Like art, pure mathematics involves a search of sorts for some notion of
"truth,” such as would be applicable on a universal scale. A spirit of discovery is com
bined with self-expression. Furthermore, achievement in mathematics is obtained by the
high-order resolution of disparate elements, such as Marshall Bush finds to be an
ego-gratifying characteristic of the formal symmetry of a great work of art. [Bush, 1967,
33.]
27. Understandably, Zamyatin does not expect the uninitiated reader to comprehend
how Lobachevsky proved that through a point P not on line L more than one line could
exist which is parallel to line L that, even when extended infinitely, would never intersect
with line L. Non-Euclidean geometries are conceptualized as being somewhat "curved."
Meanwhile, Einstein accomplished much the same in physics by dispelling traditional
notions of stable “time" and "space," replacing them with the speed of light as the one
universal constant, then by describing how the path of light is affected, i.e., bent, by the
force of gravity. However, he did this with the help of the elliptic geometry developed by
Bernhard Reimann in the mid-nineteenth century, in which all lines intersect, as opposed
to the hyperbolic geometry of Lobachevsky, Bolyai and Gauss, which envisages multiple
non-intersecting lines, i.e., parallels. Zamyatin admitted that while the world of Euclid is
easy to imagine, it is difficult to visualize the world of Einstein. [A Soviet Heretic, 112.]
Notably, the aspects of non-Euclidean geometry and Einsteinian space which Zamyatin
cites in the novel generally involve curvature, infinity and the displacement of planes—as
in the extra-dimensionality of infinite spirals.
28. Although the only non-Euclidean pioneer that Zamyatin mentions in his essays is
Lobachevsky, Zamyatin here refers to the elliptic geometry of Reimann, wherein all
parallel lines intersect. [A Soviet Heretic, 107.]
29. See fn. 20.
Ancient and Modern Mathematics in Zamyatin’s We 165
30. Apparently Zamyatin was quite enamored of this lesson, for he cited it as an
epigraph to “On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Matters." [A Soviet Heretic,
107.]
31. Notably, the notion of finite historical time apparently is adopted by the Single
State, as I-330 implies with her lesson on the infinity of revolutions. The idea of historical
development coming to a halt, when society will reach "perfection,” is also projected both
in Marxism and traditional Christianity.
32. In fact, recent developments in astronomy demonstrate that the actual movement
of the Earth is much more complex than Zamyatin apparently implied. Not only does the
Earth orbit a Sun moving through the Cosmos but the Sun’s path is a spirical orbit around
the center of the Milky Way, which is itself moving through the Universe. However, it is
apparently too early to determine whether the Milky Way's path is itself a spiral around the
presumed center of the Universe. Yet, contemporary astronomers generally agree that
the Universe is expanding; hence, the Milky Way's path is at least an infinite one.
33. Of course, it was Columbus who conclusively demonstrated that the Earth is not
two-dimensional and bounded but constituted an unbounded three-dimensional sphere.
In so doing, he shattered a dogmatic perceptual set in much the same manner as did
Lobachevsky and Einstein. Notably, D-503 compares Columbus to a poet and he speaks
of his visit beyond the Wall in terms of discovering a new continent. [60, 137, 13.]
34. In announcing the fantasiectomy operations, the State Gazette propounds the
value of circular philosophies. [153.]
35. In his essay on Belyi, Zamyatin mentions the latter’s theory of the "spiral
movement" of history. [A Soviet Heretic, 244.]
36. Many commentators see the Single State as the embodiment of rationality and
the MEFIS as being opposed to rationality, on the premise that, as Robert Louis Jackson
says, "man is essentially an irrational being." Jackson, 1958, 151. Also see Jackson,
1958, 154, 157; Layton, 1973, 279, 281,285; Brown, 1964, 37; Brown, 1976, 46; Collins,
1966, 127, 130, 131 ; Collins, 1973, 77; Aldridge, 1977, 74; Hillegas, 105; Lopez-Morillas,
1972, 60-61; Warrick, 1975, 69; Russell, 1973, 45. However, this view of a
“mathematically-perfect" society ill accords either with the Single State’s poor work in
arithmetic or with the MEFIS’ creative usage of mathematics, the major language of
reason. [Warrick, 1975, 67, 69.] Indeed, on this basis Edwards calls the Single State,
“one of the least rational of States." [Edwards, 1982, 68.] Given Zamyatin's career as an
engineer and as a professor, the pervasive and intricately-developed references to
mathematics in the novel, as well as the citation in the essays of Lobachevsky and
Einstein as models for creative behavior, it is hardly reasonable to regard Zamyatin as a
mathophobe and set him against reason. Indeed, following his common use of Hegelian
dialectics, a better reading would be to regard reason and irrationality as thesis and
antithesis which will be fused into the synthesis of a properly integrated man. See Shane,
1968, 141; Aldridge, 1977, 74; Miksell and Suggs, 1982, 92; Richards, 1962, 59;
Rosenshield, 1979, 62n.
37. For other passages in which D-503 uses mathematics to think in a similarly
creative manner, see 88, 101, 116—117, 126.
38. There is disagreement as to D-503's fate. Some commentators claim that D-503
voluntarily submits to the operation to remove his fantasy. See Jackson, 1958, 155;
White, 1966, 75; Warrick, 1975, 67, 68, 76; Richards, 1962, 56; Barker, 1977, 552; Gregg,
1973, 208. Jackson, 1958, 155, even claims that by doing this, he "survives his spiritual
crisis.” Such a pessimistic reading is difficult to accept, and, to my mind, overplays the
weakness of D-503’s “human nature." True, D-503 does go to the Bureau of Guardians
with the intention of volunteering himself for the operation. However, intention neither
constitutes nor represents the totality of his psyche, and we should carefully note what
happens afterwards. D-503 encounters S-4711 there and decides to make a confession
of his dissident thoughts and activities. He learns that S-4711 is actually a MEFI and,
disoriented by the news, he leaves the office, taking refuge in a public lavatory. At this
juncture, he has the conversation with his neighbor which apparently includes a sudden
turn-about on his part towards independent thought. While Zamyatin never says what
D-503 would have done on his own after these developments, his question suggests that
D-503 changes his mind with regard to undergoing the operation. Notably, the penulti
mate entry is broken off with the sound of people running down towards him and in the
last entry he explicitly says that he was seized, “vzyali," and taken to an auditorium,
where he was strapped to a table and subjected to an operation. [197-199.] This is also
noted by Beauchamp, 1973, 292; Beauchamp, 1977, 93; La Bossiere, 1973, 42, and
Rosenshield, 1979, 59. Another bone of contention is the fate of the MEFI rebellion.
According to some commentators, it is crushed and the Single State emerges victorious,
as D-503 predicts in his closing words, "Because reason must conquer.” [200.] See
Miksell and Suggs, 1982, 91, 96; Collins, 1966, 127, 131; Richards, 1962, 56; Morson,
1981, 132, 142; Pitcher, 1981, 253; Woodcock, 1956, 88-89, and Parrinder, 1973, 23.
However, this is to accept D-503's words as authoritative, an especially doubtful practice
after his operation. Notably, he is only predicting a victory for the Single State and he
mentions continuing strife and chaos, as well as a temporary barricade which the forces
of the Single State have erected in the middle of the city. Obviously, as Jackson, 1958,
156, Brown, 1964,63, and Conners, 1975, 120, 121 have pointed out, the battle is still in
progress and the issue is left hanging in the balance at the end of the novel, as Zamyatin
denies his reader the security of a conclusion.
39. This device is also noted by Shane, 1968,145, and Miksell and Suggs, 1982, 92.
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_____ , 1970, A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin, edited and translated by
Mirra Ginsburg, Chicago.
_____ , 1973, My, New York [1920 edition].
Influences and Comparisons
A NEGLECTED SOURCE OF ZAMYATIN’S
NOVEL “WE”
Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor
In their search for the literary and philosophical ancestors of

Zamyatin’s novel We, critics have mentioned many names, but it seems
none has connected the description of society in the Single State with
an essay by Jerome Klapka Jerome, “The New Utopia,” published in
1891 as part of a book entitled Diary of a Pilgrimage (and Six Essays).
It is possible that the “Essays" had appeared previously in some
journal.
The first of the essays is entitled “Dreams” and treats of literary
Utopias in general, and of a Utopian world where everything will be
done by electricity. Finally, says Jerome, people “will grow to hate
electricity.” “The New Utopia” describes the perfect socialist state that
came into being after “the great social revolution of 1899.”
The hero and narrator of "The New Utopia” falls asleep for one
thousand years in 1889 after a succulent dinner at the National Socialist
Club. He awakes in 2889 to find that men and women are dressed alike
and distinguished only by numbers. People eat, sleep, work, and rest
by the bell. Meals are taken in common. There are no private homes
and no families. Sex life is strictly regulated, as is the birth rate. The
number of children is limited by the needs of the State and children are
trained to perform their duties as required. Men with a superior intelli
gence must undergo a brain operation that brings them to the average
level. The first impression of the narrator when he walks with a guide in
the streets is that everyone looks like a policeman. The final one is that
humanity has been turned into a breed of cattle. It is a short story: 22
pages (with illustrations). Looking to the past, Dostoevsky’s Devils com
es to mind—but did Jerome read Dostoevsky? Looking forward, it can
be seen that Zamyatin has all the features mentioned above in his
novel.
I am not suggesting plagiarism: in “Dreams” Jerome expresses the
conviction that no writer can imagine anything absolutely new. He can
only “alter, vary and transpose” and should not be accused of plagiar
ism if he uses material already used by others.
171
172 Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor
Jerome was very popular in Russia, mainly as a humorist. Tolstoy

noted in his diary in 1904 that he was reading him and strongly dis
approved of his manner of treating jokingly such sacred matters as
goodness, morals, God. Bulgakov mentions Jerome in a sketch,
“Psalm,” and seems certain that his readers would guess what story by
Jerome he had in mind. He was probably alluding to the same “Six
Essays.”
There had been at least three editions of Jerome’s collected works
in Russian before 1917. I remember reading “The New Utopia” in 1918
in the University Library in Odessa. It probably was in the 1912 edition.
When I read We many years later, I remembered Jerome's story, but
could not find it because I was searching under "fiction” titles. Once I
found it, I decided that it might interest students of Zamyatin and en
courage people to do more research on the sources of Russian satire in
the early twenties.
Jerome’s “New Utopia” and the fact expressed in “Dreams” that
“ideas are in the air" might also offer an explanation of the similarities
between We and Brave New World. A. Huxley insisted that when he
wrote Brave New World he was not acquainted with Zamyatin's novel.
But both authors may have once read "The Six Essays."
ADDENDUM: THE NEW UTOPIA
Jerome K. Jerome
I had spent an extremely interesting evening. I had dined with

some very "advanced” friends of mine at the “National Socialist Club.”
We had an excellent dinner: the pheasant, stuffed with truffles, was a
poem; and when I say that the ’49 Chateau Lafitte was worth the price
we had to pay for it, I do not see what more I can add in its favour.
After dinner, and over the cigars (I must say they do know how to
stock good cigars at the National Socialist Club), we had a very instruc
tive discussion about the coming equality of man and the nationalisa
tion of capital.
I was not able to take much part in the argument myself, because,
having been left when a boy in a position which rendered it necessary
for me to earn my living, I have never enjoyed the time and opportunity
to study these questions.
But I listened very attentively while my friends explained how, for
the thousands of centuries during which it had existed before they
came, the world had been going on all wrong, and how, in the course of
the next few years or so, they meant to put it right.
Equality of mankind was their watchword—perfect equality in all
things—equality in possessions, and equality in position and influence,
and equality in duties, resulting in equality in happiness and
contentment.
The world belonged to all alike, and must be equally divided. Each
man’s labour was the property, not of himself, but of the State which fed
and clothed him, and must be applied, not to his own aggrandisement,
but to the enrichment of the race.
Individual wealth—the social chain with which the few had bound
the many, the bandit's pistol by which a small gang of robbers had
thieved from the whole community the fruits of its labours—must be
taken from the hands that too long had held it.
Social distinctions—the barriers by which the rising tide of human
ity had hitherto been fretted and restrained—must be for ever swept
aside. The human race must press onward to its destiny (whatever that
might be), not as at present, a scattered horde, scrambling, each man
173
174 Jerome K. Jerome
for himself, over the broken ground of unequal birth and fortune—the
soft sward reserved for the feet of the pampered, the cruel stones left
for the feet of the cursed,—but an ordered army, marching side by side
over the level plain of equity and equality.
The great bosom of our Mother Earth should nourish all her
children, like and like; none should go hungry, none should have too
much. The strong man should not grasp more than the weak; the clever
should not scheme to seize more than the simple. The earth was man's,
and the fulness thereof; and among all mankind it should be portioned
out in even shares. All men were equal by the laws of Nature, and must
be made equal by the laws of man.
With inequality comes misery, crime, sin, selfishness, arrogance,
hypocrisy. In a world in which all men were equal, there would exist no
temptation to evil, and our natural nobility would assert itself.
When all men were equal, the world would be Heaven—freed from
the degrading despotism of God.
We raised our glasses and drank to EQUALITY, sacred
EQUALITY; and then ordered the waiter to bring us green Chartreuse
and more cigars.
I went home very thoughtful. I did not go to sleep for a long while; I
lay awake; thinking over this vision of a new world that had been pre
sented to me.
How delightful life would be, if only the scheme of my socialist
friends could be carried out. There would be no more of this struggling
and striving against each other, no more jealousy, no more
disappointment, no more fear of poverty! The State would take charge
of us from the hour we were born until we died, and provide for all our
wants from the cradle to the coffin, both inclusive, and we should need
to give no thought even to the matter. There would be no more hard
work (three hours’ labour a day would be the limit, according to our
calculations, that the State would require from each adult citizen, and
nobody would be allowed to do more—I should not be allowed to do
more)—no poor to pity, no rich to envy—no one to look down upon us,
no one for us to look down upon (not quite so pleasant this latter
reflection)—all our life ordered and arranged for us—nothing to think
about except the glorious destiny (whatever that might be) of Humanity!
Then thought crept away to sport in chaos, and I slept.
Addendum: “The New Utopia” 175
When I awoke, I found myself lying under a glass case, in a high,

cheerless room. There was a label over my head; I turned and read it. It
ran as follows:
"MAN-ASLEEP.
"PERIOD—19th CENTURY
"This man was found asleep in a house in London, after the great social
revolution of 1899. From the account given by the landlady of the house, it would
appear that he had already, when discovered, been asleep for over ten years (she
having forgotten to call him). It was decided, for scientific purposes, not to awake
him, but to just see how long he would sleep on, and he was accordingly brought
and deposited in the 'Museum of Curiosities,’ on February 11th, 1900.”
"Visitors are requested not to squirt water through the air-holes."
An intelligent-looking old gentleman, who had been arranging

some stuffed lizards in an adjoining case, came over and took the cover
off me.
“What's the matter?” he asked; “anything disturbed you?”
“No,” I said; “I always wake up like this when I feel I’ve had enough
sleep. What century is this?”
“This,” he said, “is the twenty-ninth century. You have been asleep
just one thousand years.”
“Ah! well, I feel all the better for it” I replied, getting down off the
table. “There’s nothing like having one’s sleep out.”
“I take it you are going to do the usual thing,” said the old gentle
man to me, as I proceeded to put on my clothes, which had been lying
beside me in the case.
“You’ll want me to walk round the city with you, and explain all the
changes to you, while you ask questions and make silly remarks?"
“Yes,” I replied, “I suppose that’s what I ought to do."
“I suppose so,” he muttered. “Come on, and let’s get it over,” and
he led the way from the room.
As we went downstairs, I said:
“Well, is it all right, now?”
“Is what all right?" he replied.
“Why, the world,” I answered. “A few friends of mine were
arranging, just before I went to bed, to take it to pieces and fix it up
again properly. Have they got it all right by this time? Is everybody equal
now, and sin and sorrow and all that sort of thing done away with?”
“Oh, yes,” replied my guide; “you’ll find everything all right now.
We’ve been working away pretty hard at things while you’ve been
asleep. We’ve just got this earth about perfect now, I should say. No
body is allowed to do anything wrong or silly; and as for equality,
tadpoles ain’t in it with us.”
(He talked in rather a vulgar manner, I thought; but I did not like to
reprove him.)
We walked out into the city. It was very clean and very quiet. The
streets, which were designated by numbers, ran out from each other at
right angles, and all presented exactly the same appearance. There
were no horses or carriages about; all the traffic was conducted by
electric cars. All the people that we met wore a quiet, grave expression,
and were so much like each other as to give one the idea that they were
all members of the same family. Everyone was dressed, as was also
my guide, in a pair of grey trousers, and a grey tunic, buttoning tight
round the neck and fastened round the waist by a belt. Each man was
clean shaven, and each man had black hair.
I said:
“Are all these men twins?”
“Twins! Good gracious, no!” answered my guide. “Whatever made
you fancy that?”
“Why, they all look so much alike," I replied; “and they’ve all got
black hair!”
"Oh; that’s the regulation colour for hair,” explained my
companion: “we’ve all got black hair. If a man’s hair is not black
naturally, he has to have it dyed black."
“Why?” I asked.
“Why!” retorted the old gentleman, somewhat irritably. “Why, I
thought you understood that all men were now equal. What would
become of our equality if one man or woman were allowed to swagger
about in golden hair, while another had to put up with carrots? Men
have not only got to be equal in these happy days, but to look it, as far
as can be. By causing all men to be clean shaven, and all men and
women to have black hair cut the same length, we obviate, to a certain
extent, the errors of Nature.”
I said:
"Why black?”
He said he did not know, but that was the colour which had been
decided upon.
"Who by?” I asked.
“By THE MAJORITY,” he replied, raising his hat and lowering his
eyes, as if in prayer.
We talked further, and passed more men. I said:
“Are there no women in this city?"
Addendum: "The New Utopia" 177
“Women!” exclaimed my guide. “Of course there are. We’ve

passed hundreds of them!”
"I thought I knew a woman when I saw one,” I observed; “but I
can’t remember noticing any.”
"Why, there go two, now,” he said, drawing my attention to a
couple of persons near to us, both dressed in the regulation grey trous
ers and tunics.
“How do you know they are women?” I asked.
“Why, you see the metal numbers that everybody wears on their
collars?”
“Yes: I was just thinking what a number of policemen you had, and
wondering where the other people were!”
“Well, the even numbers are women; the odd numbers are men.”
"How very simple,” I remarked. “I suppose after a little practice you
can tell one sex from the other almost at a glance?”
“Oh yes,” he replied, “if you want to.”
We walked on in silence for a while. And then I said:
“Why does everybody have a number?”
"To distinguish him by,” answered my companion.
"Don’t people have names, then?”
“No.”
"Why?”
“Oh! there was so much inequality in names. Some people were
called Montmorency, and they looked down on the Smiths; and the
Smythes did not like mixing with the Joneses: so, to save further bother,
it was decided to abolish names altogether, and to give everybody a
number.”
"Did not the Montmorency’s and the Smythes object?”
“Yes; but the Smiths and Joneses were in THE MAJORITY.”
“And did not the Ones and Twos look down upon the Threes and
Fours, and so on?
“At first, yes. But, with the abolition of wealth, numbers lost their
value, except for industrial purposes and for double acrostics, and now
No. 100 does not consider himself in any way superior to No.
1,000,000.”
I had not washed when I got up, there being no conveniences for
doing so in the Museum, and I was beginning to feel somewhat hot and
dirty. I said:
“Can I wash myself anywhere?”
He said:
“No; we are not allowed to wash ourselves. You must wait until
half-past four, and then you will be washed for tea.”
"Be washed!" I cried. “Who by?”

“The State.”
He said that they found they could not maintain their equality when
people were allowed to wash themselves. Some people washed three
or four times a day, while others never touched soap and water from
one year’s end to the other, and in consequence there got to be two
distinct classes, the Clean and the Dirty. All the old class prejudices
began to be revived. The clean despised the dirty, and the dirty hated
the clean. So, to end dissension, the State decided to do the washing
itself, and each citizen was now washed twice a day by
government-appointed officials; and private washing was prohibited.
I noticed that we passed no houses as we went along, only block
after block of huge, barrack-like buildings, all of the same size and
shape. Occasionally, at a corner, we came across a smaller building,
labelled “Museum,” “Hospital,” “Debating Hall,” “Bath,” “Gymnasium,”
“Academy of Sciences,” “Exhibition of Industries,” “School of Talk,”
&c.; but never a house.
I said:
“Doesn’t anybody live in this town?”
He said:
“You do ask silly questions; upon my word, you do. Where do you
think they live?”
I said:
“That’s just what I’ve been trying to think. I don’t see any houses
anywhere!”
He said:
“We don’t need houses—not houses such as you are thinking of.
We are socialistic now; we live together in fraternity and equality. We
live in these blocks that you see. Each block accommodates one
thousand citizens. It contains one thousand beds—one hundred in
each room—and bath-rooms and dressing-rooms in proportion, a
dining-hall and kitchens. At seven o’clock every morning a bell is rung,
and every one rises and tidies up his bed. At seven-thirty they go into
the dressing-rooms, and are washed and shaved and have their hair
done. At eight o'clock breakfast is served in the dining hall. It comprises
a pint of oatmeal porridge and half-a-pint of warm milk for each adult
citizen. We are all strict vegetarians now. The vegetarian vote in
creased enormously during the last century, and their organisation
being very perfect, they have been able to dictate every election for the
past fifty years. At one o’clock another bell is rung, and the people
return to dinner, which consists of beans and stewed fruits, with
rolly-polly pudding twice a week, and plum-duff on Saturdays. At five
Addendum: “The New Utopia“ 179
o’clock there is tea, and at ten the lights are put out and everybody goes
to bed. We are all equal, and we all live alike—clerk and scavenger,
tinker and apothecary—all together in fraternity and liberty. The men
live in blocks on this side of the town, and the women are at the other
end of the city.”
“Where are the married people kept?” I asked.
"Oh, there are no married couples,” he replied; “we abolished
marriage two hundred years ago. You see, married life did not work at
all well with our system. Domestic life, we found, was thoroughly
anti-socialistic in its tendencies. Men thought more of their wives and
families than they did of the State. They wished to labour for the benefit
of their little circle of beloved ones rather than for the good of the
community. They cared more for the future of their children than for the
Destiny of Humanity. The ties of love and blood bound men together
fast in little groups instead of in one great whole. Before considering the
advancement of the human race, men considered the advancement of
their kith and kin. Before striving for the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, men strove for the happiness of the few who were
near and dear to them. In secret, men and women hoarded up and
laboured and denied themselves, so as, in secret, to give some little
extra gift of joy to their beloved. Love stirred the vice of ambition in
men’s hearts. To win the smiles of the women they loved, to leave a
name behind them that their children might be proud to bear, men
sought to raise themselves above the general level, to do some deed
that should make the world look up to them and honour them above
their fellow-men, to press a deeper footprint than another’s upon the
dusty highway of the age. The fundamental principles of Socialism were
being daily thwarted and contemned. Each house was a revolutionary
centre for the propagation of individualism and personality. From the
warmth of each domestic hearth grew up the vipers, Comradeship and
Independence, to sting the State and poison the minds of men.
"The doctrines of equality were openly disputed. Men, when they
loved a woman, thought her superior to every other woman, and hardly
took any pains to disguise their opinion. Loving wives believed their
husbands to be wiser and braver and better than all other men. Mothers
laughed at the idea of their children being in no way superior to other
children. Children imbibed the hideous heresy that their father and
mother were the best father and mother in the world."
"From whatever point you looked at it, the Family stood forth as our
foe. One man had a charming wife and two sweet-tempered children;
his neighbour was married to a shrew, and was the father of eleven
noisy, ill-dispositioned brats—where was the equality?"
"Again, wherever the Family existed, there hovered, ever

contending, the angels of Joy and Sorrow; and in a world where joy and
sorrow are known, Equality cannot live. One man and woman, in the
night, stand weeping beside a little cot. On the other side of the
lath-and-plaster, a fair young couple, hand in hand, are laughing at the
silly antics of a grave-faced, gurgling baby. What is poor Equality
doing?
"Such things could not be allowed. Love, we saw, was our enemy
at every turn. He made equality impossible. He brought joy and pain,
and peace and suffering in his train. He disturbed men’s beliefs, and
imperilled the Destiny of Humanity; so we abolished him and all his
works.
“Now there are not marriages, and, therefore, no domestic
troubles; no wooing, therefore, no heartaching; no loving, therefore no
sorrowing; no kisses and no tears.
“We all live together in equality, free from the troubling of joy or
pain.”
I said:
"It must be very peaceful; but, tell me—I ask the question merely
from a scientific standpoint—how do you keep up the supply of men
and women?”
He said:
“Oh, that’s simple enough. How did you, in your day, keep up the
supply of horses and cows? In the spring, so many children, according
as the State requires, are arranged for, and carefully bred, under
medical supervision. When they are born, they are taken away from
their mothers (who, else, might grow to love them), and brought up in
the public nurseries and schools until they are fourteen. They are then
examined by State-appointed inspectors, who decide what calling they
shall be brought up to, and to such calling they are thereupon
apprenticed. At twenty they take their rank as citizens, and are entitled
to a vote. No difference whatever is made between men and women.
Both sexes enjoy equal privileges.”
I said:
“What are the privileges?”
He said:
“Why, all that I’ve been telling you.”
We wandered on for a few more miles, but passed nothing but
street after street of these huge blocks. I said:
"Are there no shops nor stores in this town?"
"No," he replied. "What do we want with shops and stores? The
State feeds us, clothes us, houses us, doctors us, washes and dresses
us, cuts our corns, and buries us. What could we do with shops?”
I began to feel tired with our walk. I said:
“Can we go in anywhere and have a drink?”
He said:
“A ‘drink!’ What’s a ’drink’? We have half-a-pint of cocoa with our
dinner. Do you mean that?”
I did not feel equal to explaining the matter to him, and he evidently
would not have understood me if I had; so I said:
“Yes; I meant that."
We passed a very fine-looking man a little further on, and I noticed
that he only had one arm. I had noticed two or three rather big-looking
men with only one arm in the course of the morning, and it struck me as
curious. I remarked about it to my guide.
He said:
“Yes; when a man is much above the average size and strength,
we clutch one of his legs or arms off, so as to make things more equal;
we lop him down a bit, as it were. Nature, you see, is somewhat behind
the times; but we do what we can to put her straight.”
I said:
“I suppose you can't abolish her?”
“Well, not altogether," he replied. "We only wish we could. But," he
added afterwards, with pardonable pride, “we've done a good deal.”
I said:
“How about an exceptionally clever man. What do you do with
him?"
“Well, we are not much troubled in that way now,” he answered.
“We have not come across anything dangerous in the shape of
brain-power for some very considerable time now. When we do, we
perform a surgical operation upon the head, which softens the brain
down to the average level.”
“I have sometimes thought,” mused the old gentleman,” that it was
a pity we could not level up some times, instead of always levelling
down; but, of course, that is impossible.”
I said:
“Do you think it right of you to cut these people up, and tone them
down, in this manner?”
He said:
“Of course, it is right.”
“You seem very cock-sure about the matter,” I retorted. “Why is it
‘of course’ right?”
“Because it is done by THE MAJORITY.”
“How does that make it right?” I asked.
“A MAJORITY can do no wrong,” he answered.

“Oh! is that what the people who are lopped think?"
"They!” he replied, evidently astonished at the question. “Oh, they
are in the minority, you know.”
"Yes; but even the minority has a right to its arms and legs and
heads, hasn't it?”
"A minority has NO rights,” he answered.
I said:
“It’s just as well to belong to the Majority, if you’re thinking of living
here, isn’t it?"
He said:
"Yes; most of our people do. They seem to think it more
convenient.”
I was finding the town somewhat uninteresting, and I asked if we
could not go out into the country for a change.
My guide said:
"Oh, yes, certainly;” but did not think I should care much for it.
"Oh! but it used to be so beautiful in the country,” I urged, “before I
went to bed. There were great green trees, and grassy, wind-waved
meadows, and little rose-decked cottages, and —”
"Oh, we’ve changed all that,” interrupted the old gentleman; "it is
all one huge market-garden now, divided by roads and canals cut at
right angles to each other. There is no beauty in the country now
whatever. We have abolished beauty; it interfered with our equality. It
was not fair that some people should live among lovely scenery, and
others upon barren moors. So we have made it all pretty much alike
everywhere now, and no place can lord it over another.”
"Can a man emigrate into any other country?” I asked; “it doesn’t
matter what country—any other country would do.”
"Oh, yes, if he likes,” replied companion; “but why should he? All
lands are exactly the same. The whole world is all one people
now—one language, one law, one life."
"Is there no variety, no change anywhere?" I asked. “What do you
do for pleasure, for recreation? Are there any theatres?"
"No,” responded my guide. "We had to abolish theatres. The his
trionic temperament seemed utterly unable to accept the principles of
equality. Each actor thought himself the best actor in the world, and
superior, in fact, to most other people altogether. I don’t know whether it
was the same in your day?”
"Exactly the same,” I answered, “but we did not take any notice of
it."
“Ah! we did,” he replied, "and, in consequence, shut the theatres
Addendum: "The New Utopia" 183
up. Besides, our White Ribbon Vigilance Society said that all places of
amusement were vicious and degrading; and being an energetic and
stout-winded band, they soon won THE MAJORITY over to their views;
and so all amusements are prohibited now.”
I said: “Are you allowed to read books?”
"Well,” he answered, “there are not many written. You see, owing
to our all living such perfect lives, and there being no wrong, or sorrow,
or joy, or hope, or love, or grief in the world, and everything being so
regular and so proper, there is really nothing much to write
about—except, of course, the Destiny of Humanity.”
"True!” I said, “I see that. But what of the old works, the classics?
You had Shakespeare, and Scott, and Thackeray, and there were one
or two little things of my own that were not half-bad. What have you
done with all those?”
“Oh, we have burned all those old works,” he said. “They were full
of the old, wrong notions of the old, wrong, wicked times, when men
were merely slaves and beasts of burden.”
He said all the old paintings and sculptures had been likewise
destroyed, partly for that same reason, and partly because they were
considered improper by the White Ribbon Vigilance Society, which was
a great power now; while all new art and literature were forbidden, as
such things tended to undermine the principles of equality. They made
men think, and the men that thought grew cleverer than those that did
not want to think; and those that did not want to think naturally objected
to this, and being in THE MAJORITY, objected to some purpose.
He said that, from like considerations, there were no sports or
games permitted. Sports and games caused competition, and competi
tion led to inequality.
I said:
“How long do your citizens work each day?”
"Three hours,” he answered; “after that, all the remainder of the
day belongs to ourselves.”
"Ah! That is just what I was coming to,” I remarked. “Now, what do
you do with yourselves during those other twenty-one hours?”
“Oh, we rest.”
“What! for the whole twenty-one hours?”
“Well, rest and think and talk.”
“What do you think and talk about?”
“Oh! Oh, about how wretched life must have been in the old times,
and about how happy we are now, and—and—oh, and the Destiny of
Humanity!”
“Don’t you ever get sick of the Destiny of Humanity?”
“No, not much.”

“And what do you understand by it? What /s the Destiny of
Humanity, do you think?”
“Oh!—why to—to go on being like we are now, only more
so—everybody more equal, and more things done by electricity, and
everybody to have two votes instead of one, and—”
“Thank you. That will do. Is there anything else that you think of?
Have you got a religion?"
“Oh, yes.”
“And you worship a God?”
"Oh, yes."
“What do you call him?”
“THE MAJORITY.”
“One question more—You don’t mind my asking you all these
questions, by-the-by, do you?”
“Oh, no. This is all part of my three hours’ labour for the State.”
“Oh, I’m glad of that. I should not like to feel that I was encroaching
on your time for rest; but what I wanted to ask was, do many of the
people here commit suicide?"
"No; such a thing never occurs to them.”
I looked at the faces of the men and women that were passing.
There was a patient, almost pathetic expression upon them all. I won
dered where I had seen that look before; it seemed familiar to me.
All at once I remembered. It was just the quiet, troubled, wondering
expression that I had always noticed upon the faces of the horses and
oxen that we used to breed and keep in the old world.
No. These people would not think of suicide.
Strange! how very dim and indistinct all the faces are growing
around me! And where is my guide? and why am I sitting on the
pavement? and—hark! surely that is the voice of Mrs. Biggies, my old
landlady. Has she been asleep a thousand years, too? She says it is
twelve o-clock—only twelve? and I’m not to be washed till half-past
four; and I do feel so stuffy and hot, and my head is aching. Hulloa! why,
I’m in bed! Has it all been a dream? And am I back in the nineteenth
century?
Through the open window I hear the rush and roar of old life’s
battle. Men are fighting, striving, working, carving out each man his own
life with the sword of strength and will. Men are laughing, grieving,
loving, doing wrong deeds, doing great deeds,—falling, struggling,

helping one another—living!
And I have a good deal more than three hours’ work to do to-day,
and I meant to be up at seven; and, oh dear! I do wish I had not smoked
so many strong cigars last night!
ZAMYATIN’S WE, THE PROLETARIAN POETS;
AND BOGDANOV’S RED STAR
Kathleen Lewis and Harry Weber
Zamyatin’s brilliant novel We continues to exert a lasting

fascination. There have been useful studies on the patterns of imagery
in the novel, on the use of Dostoevskian themes, on Biblical myths, and
on the work as political statement.1 Source studies have pointed to the
works of Tsiolkovsky, and H.G. Wells as antecedents. Jerome K.
Jerome’s "The New Utopia,” in particular, has recently been cited as a
direct source for certain details in the book.2 Soviet reactions to the
novel are nearly non-existent; whatever commentary can be found
deals with the book’s political aspects. For example, Gorky is on record
as saying that "We is hopelessly bad, a completely sterile thing.” And
Voronsky’s extensive essay terms the novel "a lampoon ... not con
cerned with communism,” adding that "Everything here is untrue.” His
opinion was essentially repeated by M. Kuznetsov in New World in
1963.3
This article addresses itself to one vital aspect of the novel which
the authors believe has been neglected: the relationship of this novel to
the literary milieu of the years immediately following the Revolution,
specifically the proletarian poets and Bogdanov’s novel Red Star
(Krasnaia Zvezda). We believe that Zamyatin parodied the excesses of
the proletarian poets through ridicule of their characteristic language
and ubiquitous themes. Furthermore, Zamyatin underscores the parody
by borrowing the hero and a number of key plot situations from Red
Star (1908), written by A.A. Bogdanov, chief theoretician of the
Proletkult.
The most outspoken expression of Zamyatin’s negative attitude
toward the proletarian poets is to be found in his essay "Paradise”
(1921),4 in which he inveighs against their meaningless use of
hyperbole, inhumane glorification of the instruments of war, intolerance
and arrogance, and the urge toward "monophonism” in the new state.
Many passages in the novel are identical in tone to verses quoted in
Zamyatin’s essay as exemplary of the bad taste or ineffective hyperbole
of the new poets. Further, a close reading of the novel reveals clear
186
We, the Proletarian Poets, and Red Star 187
echoes of specific themes, poetic cliches, and imagery then current in

the endeavors of the proletarians.
I: \Ne and the Proletarian Poets
The most important proletarian poets were V.D. Alexandrovsky,

M.P. Gerasimov, A.K. Gastev, V.T. Kirillov, V.V. Knyazev and S.A.
Obradovich, who occupied a very prominent position in early Soviet
cultural life. Their official organization, the Proletkult, was founded by
A.A. Bogdanov (Malinovsky), theoretician on art and the artist, in 1917,
and was supported by Lunacharsky, the People’s Commissar of
Education.
The Proletkult saw as its task the creation and encouragement of
new literary and cultural cadres from the ranks of the workers and
founded its famous “litstudios” for that purpose. It developed a wide
spread net of “urban, provincial, district, regional, and factory
proletkults, which aimed at leadership, not only of literature, but of all
branches of proletarian art. Special sections dealt with the theater,
painting, music, workers' clubs, etc. ... in 1919 about 80,000 people
took part in the work of the studios.”5
Directives and progress reports were given in nearly twenty Prolet
kult journals, such as The Forge (Gorn), The Smithy (Kuznitsa), Pro
letarian Culture (Proletarskaia Kultura), Factory Whistles (Gudki),
Create! (Tvoril), The Coming Days (Griadushchee) and the local pro
letarian organs. The works of the proletarian poets were frequently read
at the meetings of the local Proletkult. A review of its activities reports
public readings from the works of Gastev and Kirillov on May 1, 1918;
and the Moscow Proletkult report for 1919-1921 speaks of perform
ances by a speaking choir of Kirillov’s “We” and the works of
Alexandrovsky.6
The very title of Zamyatin’s We is, as E.J. Brown notes, an ironic
reference to the glorification of collectivism by the proletarian poets.7
Kirillov, Gerasimov, Alexandrovsky, and Kraisky wrote poems entitled
“We,” and the word occurs as part of the title in the verse of Malyshkin,
Malakhov, Samobytnik, and Maznin, as well as in several of Gastev’s
poems—“We Grow from Iron,” “We Are Together,” "We Have
Encroached,” and “We Are Everywhere.”8 All of this accords with
Bogdanov’s view of the function of art as “the most powerful weapon for
the organization of collective forces. . . . The former artist saw in his
work the expression of his individuality; the new artist will understand
and will feel that in him and through him a great whole is creating—the
188 Kathleen Lewis and Harry Weber
collective.”9 And so in Record 1 of We D-503 promises to transcribe

"only the things I see, the things I think, or, to be more exact, the things
we think.” Zoshchenko’s remark about his own art comes to mind: “The
fact is that I am a proletarian writer. Or rather, I am parodying with my
things that imaginary, but genuine proletarian writer . . . ”10
Zoshchenko’s erstwhile teacher Zamyatin may well have invented this
idea, embodying it in the figure of the mathematician-turned-writer com
posing paeans to the utopian future which sound suspiciously like the
literary products appearing daily in the new Soviet state of 1917-1920.
The overall tone of the novel is one of parody, and a closer look at
language, themes, and imagery will bear out this view.
Zamyatin was extremely careful to use suitable diction and speech
proper to the milieu which he was describing, as his essay “On
Language” (1919-20) indicates. Propagandistic rhetoric is common in
the works of the proletarian poets:
Orchestras—louder, banners—higher,
Glorify the Great Workers' Union,
Glorify the legions of world fighters,
The army of blue soiled shirts.
Long live the First of May!

May the last ices vanishll
Let the whistle blow! Tell the whole world
That we will all die or return with victory!
"Get up, arise, working people!
Your mortal enemy is at the gates!"11
This propagandistic and didactic language is echoed in We, in such

lines as “Long live the Well-Doer!!!" (We, Record 1,4), and the "poetry”
of the State Poets.12 Demian Bedny is perhaps the clearest representa
tive of “agit-poetry" and, as Lvov-Rogachevsky says, “In 1920 it might
seem that all literature had become Demian Bedny-like.” Paperny de
scribes Bedny's poetry as dealing with “the most everyday themes—a
trait, as we shall see, which is particularly important for the literature of
those years.”13 Camilla Gray indicates that artists during this period
participated in public agit-displays on hygiene, or even on such topics
as “how to breathe."14 This mundane, practical, and edifying subject
matter is clearly mocked in We, especially in the titles of literary works:
the versified “Mathematical Norms,” “Thorns,” “Daily Odes to the
Well-Doer,” “Flowers of Court Sentences,” "the immortal tragedy
‘Those Who Come Late to Work,"’ and “the popular book, ‘Stanzas on
Sex Hygiene!'” (We, Record 12, 65).
Zamyatin also deals with the concept of poetic inspiration. Bogda

nov himself had once written that “In the sphere of artistic creation the
old culture is characterized by the vagueness and unconsciousness of
its methods (’inspiration,' etc.).”15 In We (Record 4) the lecturer tells his
listeners that their ancestors “could create only by bringing themselves
to attacks of inspiration, an extinct form of epilepsy,” and contrasts this
condition with the superior method of cranking out three sonatas an
hour on the newly-invented musicometer. One suspects that it was this
mechanical quality which led Trotsky to complain: “But weak and, what
is more, illiterate poems do not make up proletarian poetry, because
they do not make up poetry at all.”16 In Record 12, D-503 tells us that
“in the same manner, we domesticated and harnessed the wild element
of poetry. Now poetry is no longer the unpardonable whistling of
nightingales, but a State Service! Poetry is a commodity” (65). We
know from Zamyatin’s own article “I Am Afraid” (1921) that this idea is
antithetical to his own that the poet must be a dreamer and a madman.
(SH, 57).
Zamyatin’s article “Paradise” is useful here, too, because it dis
plays a satirical tone which is also apparent in We. In the article
Zamyatin speaks of a return to the state of paradise—lack of
freedom—and says, “There shall be no more polyphony or
dissonances. There shall be only majestic, monumental,
all-encompassing unanimity . . . And so, it is clearly on this granite
foundation of monophony that the new Russian literature and the new
poetry are being created ...” After quoting examples from the proleta
rian poets he continues, ”... hymns are the natural, logical, basic form
of paradisiac poetry . . . And the same label prevails as had once pre
vailed in relation to laldebaoth and the High Personages of earth: We,
Ours, All-Blessed, All-Merciful” (SH 61 ). In We, R-13 takes up the same
themes (Record 11): “The Well-Doer, the Machine, the Cube, the Gas
Bell, the Guardians—all these are good. All this is magnificent,
beautiful, noble, lofty, crystalline, pure . . . how about a little paradisiac
al poem like that, eh?” (My, 56). The capitalized titles, the similar
metaphors (Paradise, hymns), and similarity of diction (“majestic,”
“paradisiac”) show the close relationship between the two passages.
Another passage in We, the description of the Day of
Unanimity—“Even if one supposes the impossible, i.e., some kind of
dissonance amid our usual monophony ...” (We, 119)—also indicates
the same satiric tone that is openly displayed in “Paradise” and
directed specifically against the proletarian poets.
We deals in large part with four clusters of motifs: technology, the
individual vs. the collective, the “mystery” of labor, and cosmism. Vir
tually all the proletarian poems of this period deal with these same
motifs, and they vary primarily only in the proportion which each motif
occupies in each poem. The most satisfying example of a nearly obses
sive use of all of these themes is the work of Alexei Gastev
(1882-1941), a figure whom Lunacharsky called "perhaps the most
outstandingly gifted proletarian poet” and Pletnev termed "the pioneer
of proletarian poetry.”17 Gastev's most popular work, "Shockword
Poetry," (1918) “was sold out in a short time, it was constantly quoted,
referred to, republished.”10 There were six editions in all by 1926. Pert-
sov also notes that his poems, including the popular “We Grow from
Iron,” “Factory,” “Whistles,” “Rails,” and "Tower,” were printed in
1918-19.19 Viktor Nekrasov recalls that as a schoolboy in 1923, the
literary studies for the fifth “group" consisted only of Radishchev’s
“Journey from Petersburg to Moscow” and Gastev’s "Shockwork
Poetry."20 What is most striking is not Gastev’s poetry, however, it is his
view of the world of the future, which is as bizarre as some of the
elements of Zamyatin’s We. In a statement on proletarian culture writ
ten in 1919, Gastev speaks of human psychology:
The mechanization, not only of gestures, not only of production methods, but of
everyday thinking, coupled with extreme rationality, normalizes to a striking degree
the psychology of the proletariat. It is this very feature which gives the proletarian
psychology a striking anonymity, which allows one to qualify the individual proleta
rian unit as A, B, C or as 325.075 and 0, etc. . . . The manifestations of such a
mechanized collectivism are so alien to personality, so anonymous, that the move
ment of these collective-complexes approaches the movement of things so that it
seems that there is no longer an individual human being, but even, normalized
steps, faces without expression, a soul without lyricism, emotion measured not by a
cry or a laugh, but my manometer and taxometer... In this psychology, from one
end of the world to the other, flow potent massive streams, creating one world head
in place of millions of heads. This tendency will next imperceptibly render individual
thinking impossible, and thought will become the objective psychic process of a
whole class, with systems of psychological switches and locks.21
Gastev’s enthusiastic interest in production processes led him naturally

to the works of Frederick W. Taylor, the American efficiency expert, and
in the same article for Proletarian Culture, quoted above, the poet
attempted a “taylorized” chart of four kinds of workers in the
metal-working industry (pp. 38-41). Lunacharsky wrote that Gastev "is
heralding the beginning of an epoch of pure technology and, following
Taylor’s footsteps, is introducing the idea of subordinating people to
mechanisms, of the mechanization of man.22 In the twenties, Gastev
was made the director of the Central Institute of Labor (TsIT). Ernst
Toller’s bemused account of his visit to Gastev's training workshops in
1926 is worthy of any scene in We, for Gastev literally practices the
mechanization of human beings.23
This mentality is reproduced by Zamyatin in We. D-503 expresses
his admiration for Taylor early in the novel, and his thoughts are some
times reminiscent of Gastev: "Up to now my brain was a chronometri
cally tested, sparkling mechanism ..." (We, Record 7, 31). Zamyatin
develops the same idea in the parable of the Three Forgiven Ones: "for
hours they repeated those motions which they had been used to mak
ing during certain hours of the day and were a requirement of their
organism” (We, Record 34, 168).
One of the clearest cases of parody of proletarian poetry in We
involves the proletarians’ cliche-ridden images of metal, factory, and
forge. The motif is monotonously common:
We are of iron, or steel ...
... The hammers sing:

from morning to night
The smiths forge happiness.
Long ages forged

the steel strength of his steps.
Boldly in "The Smithy” we forge

Our will, thoughts, feelings:
Collectively we create
Proletarian art.
Beside the forge, lit by a bright-shining fire

I forge with a hammer a piece of white-hot steel ...
In this world, in this world, you alone created all,
Untiringly day and night you forged and forged and forged ... 24
Kirillov apotheosized the “divine” mission of iron in his poem “Zheleznyi

Messiia” (1918). But, even more than his fellow poets, it was Gastev
who was drawn to metallic images. His poems speak of “iron” choirs,
"forged” space, "iron” blood, the "steel” will of labor, and "steel, forged
will.”25 Gastev's overuse of such imagery was even parodied by a
fellow proletarian poet, Kiselev, who accused him of weighing down his
contemporaries with his "iron iambs” and ended, "Oh, how heavy are
these iron days!"26
Zamyatin wryly refers to this stock of images in his essay "New
Russian Prose” (1923) by saying that in "The Smithy" and "Forge"
several poets had been "hammered out" ("vykovalos”). In We, D-503
hears just such an “iron” poem about Prometheus: “(he) harnessed fire
to steel machine,/And enchained [zakoval] chaos with the Law.” D-503

continues: "Everything is new, steel: a steel sun, steel trees, steel
people . . . One could not have chosen more instructive and beautiful
images” (We, Record 9, 43). This is a clear case of parody of proleta
rian poetry. It is particularly reminiscent of Sadovev’s “conquering dark
chaos,/We rule the world collectively” and Gastev’s “Boldly I called to
battle dark once-terrible, evil elements: I conquered, tamed, enchained
[zakoval] them.”27
Two other favorite images of the proletarians were the railroad
engine and the wheel. Gastev, for example, entitled one work
"Express” and lines such as the following are common:
The insatiable running of wheels is our banner . . .
. . . our train rushes on . . .
The express rushes on . . .
... the train, bending its back rushing headlong ... 28
In We, D-503 writes in Record 3: “The Tables transformed each one of

us, actually, into a six-wheeled steel hero of a great poem” (13). This is
clarified by Zamyatin’s remarks elsewhere. In a letter to Yury Annenkov
in 1921, he told him in essence about We: “People are greased with
machine grease.”29 Again, in “I Am Afraid” he chided, “The proletarian
writers and poets are diligently trying to be aviators astride a
locomotive. The locomotive huffs and puffs sincerely and assiduously,
but it does not look as if it can rise aloft” (SH, 56). Thus the reference in
We seems clearly related to the use of an engine as a major motif in
proletarian poetry.
Gastev’s “manifesto” of 1919, and Lyashko’s statement of 1922,
claim the primacy of the collective over the individual, and the image of
the one versus the “millions” constantly recurs: “Millions of voices sang
these songs to me,/Millions of blue-shirted, strong, bold smiths.”30
These mass activities are particularly striking in Gastev’s “Factory
Whistles” (“Gudki”), one of his most popular works, cited in 1918 by
Bogdanov as a superior example of proletarian art:
When the morning factory whistles blow in the worker's districts,

It is no call to bondage. It is the song of the future.
Once we worked in miserable workshops and began
work in the morning at different times.
But now, at eight in the morning, the whistles
sound for the whole million.
\Ne, the Proletarian Poets, and Red Star 193
Now minute for minute we begin together.

The whole million takes the hammer at the very same instant.
Our first blows sound together.
Of what do the factory whistles sing?
They are the morning hymn of unity.31
This prose poem is closely paralleled by a passage in We, in which the

ideas of the "million,” or the “million-armed” body, and insistence on
perfect simultaneity recur:
Each morning, with six-wheeled precision, at the very same hour, at the very same
minute, we, millions, arise as one. At the very same hour, millions as one, we begin
work—millions as one we finish it. And merging into a single, million-armed body, at
the very same second, designated by the Tables, we raise the spoons to our
mouths, and at the very same second we go out for a walk and go to the auditorium,
to the hall of Taylor exercises, and go to sleep. (We, Record 3, 17).
Gastev elevates labor to the status of a divine ritual—"But silence—a

sacred moment: we put on our working shirts” (“Miracles of
Labor”)32—and his “hymns” to labor find counterparts in the novel’s
“hymn of the United State" and the "solemn liturgy for the United State”
(Record 9, 42).
Proletarian poems are not only hymns, but also triumphal marches:
In advance we rejoice and trumpet

And we ll begin work with a march of victory ...
With a victory march we’ll drill into the clouds

of the dark day ... 33
Zamyatin makes much of this in We: “The pipes of the Music Factory
thundered out harmoniously a March—the same daily March” (Record
7, 34). This March recurs frequently:
As always, the music factory was playing the March of the United State with all its
pipes. With measured steps, by fours, exaltedly keeping time, the numbers
walked—hundreds, thousands of numbers, in light-blue units, with gold badges on
the chest—the State number of each, male or female. (Record 2, 8).
This passage parodies the victory march, the anonymous masses, the
sameness, and particularly the music of machinery which is omnipre
sent in the verse of the proletarian poets:
iron scales, choirs of iron rumbling ...

the steel round-song of machines . ..
by the machines singing songs . . .
From the Iron Mont Blanc there came to our working masses the poem raised by us
... the exalted cry of the machine, the triumphant song of forged metal.34
The concept of “cosmism,” or conquering the universe and

spreading the revolution to other planets and the stars was developed
primarily by the proletarian poets of the Smithy group. Gastev had
anticipated them with such lines as:
Ever try to forge and forge, ever try to raise and push
heavy steel rails into the endless, unknown, mute
atmosphere to neighboring, still unknown, strange planets.
. . . they will enchain and girdle the universe with swift, strong rails of will.
through the air came a burning poem of metal, a voice

was heard, coming from earth through the beams
past the clouds to the stars.
This theme is continued by the Smithy poets:
We’ll boldly fly up into the sky

Like a thunder-roaring comet
We’ll slice through Milky Ways.
Cosmic millions,
We will plunge ourselves into the old world constellations.
In the white star-clusters of Orion
We’ll light the fire of insurrection.
(Gerasimov, “We shall conquer, the power is simmering," 1918)
and
And now we come out in orderly ranks,

Victoriously greeting the heights.
Participants in a great change .. .
And with the songs of the proletariat
The paths of the universe will be decked.
Fellow-singers, make haste
To shape the factory rumble into a hymn.
(Ftodov, "Proletarian Poets," 1920)35
Trotsky wrote sarcastically of the Smithy: “The idea here is that

one should feel the entire world as a unity and oneself as an active part
of that unity, with the prospect of commanding in the future not only the
earth, but the entire cosmos. All this, of course, is very splendid, and
terribly big. We came from Kursk and Kaluga, we have conquered all
Russia recently, and now we are going on towards world revolution. But
are we to stop at the boundaries of ‘planetism’!”36
The opening page of We is filled with the same theme: “One
thousand years ago your heroic ancestors subjected the whole earth to
the power of the United State. A still more glorious task is before you:
the integration of the infinite equation of the Cosmos by the use of the
glass, electric, fire-breathing Integral" (We, Record 1,3). This passage
is surely nothing less than a parody of the proletarian’s idea of cosmic
revolution, given an “objective correlative” in We in the projected flight
of an actual spacecraft.
Zamyatin draws still another parallel to the proletarian poetry in his
depictions of the building of the Integral. There is great similarity be
tween the Taylorized precision of Gastev’s factories and the construc
tion of the spacecraft:
Gastev: We:
The factory... completely full of its steel, I saw how the people below bent, unbent,
invincible pride, threatens the elements turned around according to the Taylor
of earth ... sky ... universe and it is system evenly and swiftly, in time, like
hard to understand, where machine is the levers of one huge machine ... I saw
and where man. We have merged with how the transparent-glass monster
our iron comrades, we have reached an crane rolled slowly along the glass rails,
accord with them, together we have cre and, just like the people, obediently
ated a new spirit of movement... 37 turned, bent, thrust their loads inward,
into the bowels of the Integral. And it was
all one: humanized machines, mecha
nized people. It was the greatest, most
stirring beauty, harmony, music ... (We,
Record 15, 73).
The “monster” machines appear both in Gastev and in We.30 Machines

are humanized in both—the Integral “meditates” on its future (Record
15) and Gastev’s “Express” "wants” to melt small souls to create one
large one (PP, 170). Two other passages in We parallel those in “We
Grow from Iron”:
Gastev: We:
. .. Girders and angle bars .. . Obviously, the balls of the regulators

Bend to the right and left. rotated, cranks, glittering, bent to the
The rafters in the domes, like a giant's right and left: the beam proudly shook its
shoulders, hold the shoulders . . .
whole iron building. (Record 2,7)
I merged with the iron of the building. And it seemed to me that not past
I rose. generations, but I myself had won a vic
I push my shoulders against the tory over the old god and the old life, that
rafters, the upper beams, the I myself had created all this. I felt like a
roof. tower: I was afraid to move my elbow,
My feet are still on the earth, lest the walls, the cupola, and the
but my head is above the building .. . machines should fall to pieces. (Record
An iron echo covered my words, 2, 7).
the whole building trembles with
impatience ... 39
In these lines one also finds an echo of Gutsevich’s line “In this world, in
this world, you alone created all." A few lines before those quoted
above from We, Zamyatin's "you rise ever higher into the dizzy blue"
parallels Vasily Kazin’s "I rise into the blue heights."40
Finally, one might also point to the ending of We and its note of
assurance: "And I hope we shall prevail. More than that. I am sure we
shall prevail. Because reason must prevail.” Gastev is equally
self-assured at the conclusion of "We Grow from Iron”: "We shall
prevail!”
In We Zamyatin holds up to ridicule an entire complex of ideas
which are intimately connected with the poetry of the proletarians: its
emphasis on collectivism, the mechanization of humans, cosmism, the
apotheosis of labor and the glorification of the State. And the pages of
We also resound with the incessant din of the motifs of metals, forges
and locomotives. Zamyatin’s essays show clearly that he was a close
reader of the poems produced by this group of poets, and his
re-creation of their religious tone and use of their industrial images point
persuasively to the proletarians as the targets of some of the satirical
shafts of the novel.
II: We and Bogdanov's Red Star (Krasnaia Zvezda)
Several years ago E.J. Brown made note of the general connec
tion between We and the proletarian writers, although he made no
extensive analysis of this connection. Collins, too, notes this, and sug
gests that “We may be regarded as a satire on Wellsian utopia” to

some degree.41 There is no doubt that some of the urban setting and
tone of the novel were surely suggested by Wells. The first part of this
article has tried to show the many links between We and the language
and themes of the proletarians. But evidence also suggests that both
the hero D-503 and the overall parameters of the novel were inspired by
another proletarian work, A.A. Bogdanov’s utopian novel Red Star
(1908). The details, themes and images common to both novels are too
numerous to be accidental. Zamyatin mentions Bogdanov’s novel in his
1922 article on H.G. Wells as one of the very few examples of science
fiction in the Russian tradition.42 His disclaimer that it “has more journa
listic than literary value” may have been intended to forestall suspicions
of any connections between his and Bogdanov’s novels. Bogdanov’s
second utopian novel Engineer Menni (1912) also has some relevance
to We.43
Red Star, in brief, concerns the visit of an Earthling to the more
advanced civilization of Mars. The hero, 27-year-old Leonid, is invited
to join an “expedition" by a Martian working in disguise in the ranks of
the Russian revolutionaries under the conspirational name of Menni.
The purpose of Leonid’s inclusion in the crew of the expedition is to
serve as the liaison between the two worlds, to bring them closer
together. The trip is marred by one event: an accident in the laboratory
of the spacecraft during the journey to Mars pierces the skin of the craft,
and a master chemist, Letta, sacrifices his life to save Leonid’s. This
incident earns Leonid the hatred of Sterni, Mars’ leading
mathematician, who deplores the loss of such a brilliantly-trained mind
for the sake of an apparently inferior one. For in spite of his scientific
training, Leonid finds himself unable to comprehend many of the tech
nical achievements which the Martians have made. A series of scenes
acquaint Leonid and the reader with the world of the future some 300
years hence: a tour of the eteronef, or spacecraft, Menni’s Martian
home, a factory, a children’s home, an art museum, and a hospital.
Leonid becomes involved in a love triangle and falls ill in the fruitless
attempt to retrain his Earthly mind to function in the Martian world. He
becomes seriously unbalanced when he learns by chance of Sterni’s
proposal to exterminate Earth’s population, in order to prepare the
planet for its colonization by Mars. In a fit of rage Leonid kills the
mathematician and is returned to Earth in a kind of coma. He remem
bers nothing of the return trip and regains consciousness in a hospital in
the far north of Russia. But in the last few pages of the novel Leonid
escapes from the hospital and goes to the “Mountain region,” where
“serious events have now begun” (Preface). At the end of the novel the
hospital director, Dr. Verner, is sending Leonid’s notes to “litterateur

Mirsky” so that they may be published. Verner himself has abandoned
his hospital to search for Leonid. In the doctor's opinion, "the object of
(Leonid's) flight is an attempt at indirect suicide. It is the result of that
same mental illness ...”
There are many important parallels between the experiences of
Leonid in Red Star and D-503 in We. Consider first Leonid’s character
and intellect. Bogdanov portrays Leonid as a scientist interested in the
problem of the structure of matter, and a man of letters who writes for
the children’s journals (7). Zamyatin depicts D-503 as both engineer
and inchoate man of letters. During the trip to Mars, Menni (who turns
out to be the captain of the eteronef) explains why Leonid was chosen
for this assignment. It was necessary to find someone in “your country
where life is moving most energetically and vividly, where people are
forced more than elsewhere to look to the future . . . We needed a man
whose nature contained as much as possible of health and flexibility,
talent for rational labor, as few personal ties on Earth as possible, as
little individualism as possible. Our physiologists and psychologists
reckoned that the transition from the conditions of life of your society,
sharply fragmented by a constant internal struggle, to the conditions of
our organized, ‘socialist’ (as you would say), society, that this transition
would be very harsh and hard for an individual human and would de
mand a particularly propitious organization” (29-30).
Zamyatin begins his novel in almost identical fashion, with D-503
as the seemingly perfect product of his conditioning in a highly organ
ized society, an individual with a minimum of individual traits and
desires. This proves to be true, for in spite of temporary aberrations,
D-503’s ultimate inability to overcome the effects of his conditioning,
i.e., his “other self,” is a parallel to Leonid’s discovery later in the novel
that he is unable to accustom himself to the Martian way of life.
The complex love relationships are extremely important in both
novels. In the first chapter of Red Star Leonid tells of his Terrestrial
relationship to an Anna Nikolaevna, and of their disagreement on “the
subject of love and marriage. Whereas Ann wished one true faithful
marriage, (Leonid) even held that polygamy as a principle is higher than
monogamy, since it is able to provide people with both a greater rich
ness of personal life and a greater diversity of combinations in the
sphere of inheritance . . . (and) that the future here must bring a pro
found reformation” (8-9).
Eventually Leonid undergoes a transformation. When his inability
to master Martian mathematics literally sickens him, a Martian doctor,
Netti (also a member of the expedition to Earth), attends him. Neither
name nor dress are reliable indices of sex, according to the novel, but
Leonid had always felt a special attraction to Netti. When Netti admits
then, that she is, in fact, a woman, “Lightning flashed before my eyes
and everything around me darkened, and my heart literally stopped
beating ... In a second, like a madman, I crushed Netti in my embraces
and kissed her hands, her face, her large, deep eyes, greenish-blue as
the sky of her planet” (89). Netti, in turn, feels Leonid’s “despotism, his
egoism, his desperate thirst for happiness—everything was in your (sic)
caresses” (89).
Their passionate affair is short-lived. Netti is sent to Venus on
another extended interplanetary expedition, and Leonid is left behind in
the company of Enno, a young astronomer-poet whom he first met on
the eteronef. Enno, it turns out, is also a woman who has long been in
love with Leonid, and she is only too happy to spend with him the “long
winter evenings together in scientific studies, conversations and some
times in walks in the environs" (97-98). Enno relates that she has once
been Menni’s wife and had passionately wished a child from him, but
that Menni was unable to father a child. As time passes, “as it were, of
itself, without an onrush (of passion) or without struggle, our intimacy
led us to a love affair. . . (Enno) simply decided not to have children by
me” (99).
Shortly afterwards, in speaking with Netti’s mother Nella (a matron
in the Children’s Home), Leonid learns that Netti formerly had been the
wife of both Letta and Sterni simultaneously. He is profoundly
disturbed: “But where does my troubled puzzlement come from and the
senseless pain which makes me want either to scream or to laugh? Or
am I unable to feel exactly as I think? It seems so. And what of my
relations with Enno? Where is my logic there? And just what am I,
myself? What a stupid situation!” (103). Leonid mediates on these
feelings which seem to arise “under the influence of the moment and of
spontaneous forces of the past which always lurk in the depths of the
human soul ..." (104). Later in the novel, after the murder of Sterni
(104), Leonid’s “I” disappears completely. Leonid and Enno must part,
and Enno promises Leonid no other personal entanglements.
These passages are quite sufficient to indicate the close parallels
between the members of the love triangles in both novels. D/Leonid’s
passionate, stormy love for l/Netti is opposed to the calmer, comfort
able arrangement with O/Enno. Since some attention has been given in
the scholarship to the significance of the letter names,44 perhaps it is
not too farfetched to point out that Zamyatin may have acknowledged
his source by using the last letter of the names of each of Bogdanov’s
characters for the "names” of his own, and by arranging them in a
similar love triangle in We: Netti-Leonid-Enno = l-D-O. Zamyatin surely

wished to use the Latin letter “I” rather than the cyrillic “i"; however, in
order to underscore the mathematical significance of i as the symbol for
irrational numbers, just as the “D" and “O” represent important mathe
matical concepts, as Shane has pointed out.45 Zamyatin left some of
the details intact; for example, like Leonid, D-503 has an irrepressible
passion for 1-330 and desires exclusive sexual privileges. On the other
hand, Enno’s desire for a child from Menni has been modified slightly to
O's desire for a child by D, a change which eliminates a counterpart for
the figure of Menni in Zamyatin’s novel. Zamyatin has also reproduced
Leonid and Enno’s “scientific studies" in We (Records 4 and 8) by
having D and O engage in chit-chat about geometrical figures and
constructively solving mathematical problems during the personal hour.
We makes much of the importance of the concept of irrationality to
D-503 and the trauma he suffered as a boy when he was introduced to
the square root of minus 1. Leonid was similarly traumatized as a child
by a French mathematics book which tortured him because he “did not
have that logical discipline and practice of scientific cogitation . . . ”
(93). However, he did understand the concepts of “limit" and
“derivative" so difficult for his fellow-students. In We, D-503 functions
best when hedged about by limitations. As the records in We advance,
D’s feelings of personal ownership of I grow apace, and his original
amusement at the bizarre and atavistic ideas of “my” and “mine” is
displaced by a terrifying and immediate realization of their existence. A
parallel discussion can be found in Red Star, not in connection with
Leonid’s love affairs, but at the Children’s Home. In the midst of general
play, one of the little Martian girls takes a toy boat and runs away with it.
Nella, the Directress, says: “Well, look there, at the strength of the past
. . . It would seem that we have complete communism; we almost never
have to deny the children anything. Where does this feeling of personal
property come from? But here a child comes and declares: “my” boat,
"I myself” did it. And this happens very often . . . Nothing can be done. It
is a general law of life: the development of the organism repeats on a
small scale the development of the species; the development of the
individual likewise repeats the development of society.” Nella suggests
that perhaps the training of the children in history by means of illus
trated lectures (obligatory for the city dwellers in We) may be
responsible. For the lectures show a world which “awakens with its
pictures of struggle and violence vague echoes in the atavistic depths
of childish instincts” (63).
Nella emphasizes the general “Martian” value system of the enor
mous faith in the collective and group life. She refuses to consider the
possibility of a reduction of the birthrate, because it is a betrayal of the

faith in collective achievement. If that faith disappears, “The sense of
life of each of us will also be lost, because in each of us, little cells of the
great organism, there lives the whole, and each lives by means of this
whole.” Indeed, each individual wishes to “fuse with this whole, to
completely dissolve in it his consciousness and to grasp it with his
consciousness” (73). These ideas are recreated in Records 2 and 7 in
We: “I see myself as part of an enormous, vigorous, united body,” (32)
as well as the “million-armed body” referred to earlier in this essay, in
Record 3. And we recall how common the theme is in all the proletarian
poets.
Both Leonid and D-503 suffer from hallucinations. As Leonid’s in
tensive and unproductive hours of study lead him to nervous
exhaustion, he begins to have both visual and acoustical hallucinations.
He has a vision of Anna Nikolaevna which parallels l-330’s appearance
to D-503 in Record 18. The difference is minor: Anna Nikolaevna
"dissolves in the air” (85), while D-503 screams and awakens himself.
Zamyatin seems to have transferred a number of details of Martian
civilization to his utopian city. Two of the adjectives characterizing Mar
tian life and nature, “clear” (“iasnyi”) and "transparent”
(“prozrachnyi”), are also used as D-503’s leitmotifs. The material from
which Martian clothing is made is transparent, at least until dyed; much
of the body of the eteronef is glass; the Martian factory has a glass
ceiling and networks of glass parquets supported by iron beams (53);
Letta’s casket is transparent (48). Martian houses all have a blue-tinted
glass roof, which, as in We, gives their cities, when seen from an
approaching spacecraft, the configuration of blue spots on the Martian
topography. Martians in this fashion relax with their friends in bluish
light, chosen specifically (like the dwellings in We) because of the tran
quillizing effect of blue light on living organisms (50). We see that
Zamyatin has taken many of these details and has made a much more
consistent use of them in his anti-utopia than Bogdanov did. Some
alterations are obvious. Menni, for example, lives in a small, individual,
two-story house, while all the inhabitants of Zamyatin’s city live in com
munal Crystal Palaces, whose glass, transparent cages stretch in all
directions. The light effect—filtered, quieting, even sunlight—is like that
in Bogdanov’s Martian parlors. The bird’s eye view of Zamyatin’s city
buildings, the blocks of bluish ice, seems closely related to the Martian
cities (Record 21) just described: "The icy blue relief map of the city”
(Record 34, 184). Zamyatin seems to have borrowed this detail, but has
transformed its meaning by subordinating it to his pattern of images
(including ice, blue, and squares) which signify entropy.
Zamyatin’s Utopians are feeding on petroleum food, a detail which

may have been suggested by Bogdanov’s novel. Since a food crisis
impends, the Martians institute a crash program to produce a food
substitute from albumen, and eventually they attempt to manufacture
albumen from inorganic material (72 and 123).
The first section of this essay has pointed out the frequency with
which the proletarian poets treated lyrically the theme of the machine.
Bogdanov, too, informs Martian technology with esthetic qualities: at
the factory the machines “cut, sawed, planed, drilled the huge pieces of
iron, aluminum, nickel, and copper. The levers, like gigantic steel
hands, moved evenly and smoothly . . . The very sound of the
machines, when the ear became somewhat used to it, began to seem
almost melodic . . . ’’ (54). Compare this with the beautiful passage in
We which prefaces D-503's meditations on the beauty of the dance as
"unfree movement.” Like Bogdanov, Zamyatin personifies the various
machines which are working “with closed eyes, in self-forgetfulness,”
"bending,” "moving their shoulders,” and "squatting” (We, Record 2,
7).
As for the workers themselves, “In the expression of their faces
was no tense concern, but only calm attention” (540). We recall that in
We, D-503 contentedly records that during the daily march, “our faces
are unclouded by the insanity of thoughts” (Record 2, 7). “More intangi
ble and invisible from the side were those threads which connected the
tender brain of people with the indestructible organs of the mechanism”
(Red Star, 54-55). Zamyatin also ties humans together with threads:
based on his perception of “threads” D-503 suspects relations between
I and S, between I and R-13. But then Zamyatin unexpectedly uses the
metaphor to reveal a negative aspect of the political hierarchy in the
City. He transforms the idea into the grotesque image of the spider web
in which they all have been caught and are awaiting the arrival of the
spider, the Well-Doer, on the Day of Unanimity (We, Record 24, 121).
D-503 is the spokesman for the principle of rationality, a principle
which the novel ultimately rejects. Bogdanov, however, makes it the
basic axis of the Martian civilization. For example, suicide is permitted
because there is no rational reason why it should not be permitted. And
so a special room is provided for this purpose for those who have
become incurably ill. Force, as a principle, is also permitted. Leonid
asks for specifics, but the answer is given with only one example;
“What rational being would reject violence, for example, for
self-defense?” (76).
Leonid finds these values further elucidated in the exhibits at the
art museum, and he perceives that the esthetic standards expressed
there are part of the everyday life in the utopian future. Life and art
become one. He sees that the early works of the past express harmony.
Art works of the “transitional epochs” express plosion, passion, disturb
ing struggle; the art of the socialist epoch expresses “harmonious
movement, the calm manifestation of strength, of movement alien to the
morbidity of effort, striving free of worry, a lively activity permeated with
the consciousness of its well-proportioned unity and its unsuperable
rationality” (68).
Leonid also discovers that on Mars monuments are no longer
erected in honor of people; rather they are commissioned to commemo
rate great events such as the first attempt to reach the Earth; the
elimination of a fatal epidemic disease, or the discovery of the break
down and synthesis of all the chemical elements (70). This reminds us
of the occasions on which poetry is composed and recited in We: R-13’s
poeticization of the Death Sentence (Record 8, 40).
Bogdanov's second novel Engineer Menni (1912), allegedly a se
quel to Red Star, has far less relevance to We than its predecessor. We
are told in the introduction that Leonid is once more “with them,” and
that his translation from the Martian into Russian of a historical novel
was mysteriously delivered to Leonid’s old friend, Dr. Verner. Engineer
Menni illustrates the transition of the economic and social system from
capitalism to socialism predicted earlier by the famous Martian eco
nomist Ksarma. It is essentially a pedestrian novel about the construc
tion of the famed Martian canals. But Bogdanov’s external futuristic
frame seems, so far as we have been able to determine, truly original.
Zamyatin borrowed Bogdanov’s idea to say that his “author” D-503 was
writing for his ancestors—i.e., the Russians of the 1920s.
The plot development of both Bogdanov’s and Zamyatin’s novels
seem basically parallel: they concern the futile efforts of a man to retrain
his mind. Bogdanov’s hero is an idealistic socialist who finds that he is
not equipped intellectually or emotionally to cope with the demands of a
more advanced culture. Yet even Bogdanov does not present a com
plete utopia, for things still “happen” there: the struggle with nature
continues; a food crisis is imminent; and there is disagreement about
how to live in a pluralistic universe, about whether to coexist peacefully
or exterminate one’s planetary neighbors. Leonid becomes profoundly
sick and betrays his own principles of logic in the intense jealousy he
feels both in his relationship with Netti and in his murder of Sterni. At the
end we are told specifically that the Doctor suspects that he is seeking
death in the form of “indirect suicide” in the battles in the “Mountain
region.” Leonid is betrayed by his humanity, by his Earthly value sys
tem and his Earthly nature.
We is essentially a restatement of this plot. D-503 is an enthusias

tic supporter of the United States, which has yet to "perfect" itself. The
personal hours must yet be eliminated, and, on the cosmic front, the
Earthlings must face the possibility that they may have to lead recalcit
rant Venutians and Martians to happiness by force. As D's value sys
tem is progressively shattered by his excrudescent individualism (his
urgent and specific desire for 1-330), he also agonizes over the possibil
ity that he is seriously ill. The theme of suicide is met repeatedly
throughout We; and at the end we see that in the sacrifice of his fancy,
D-503 has, indeed, killed the most human part of himself and has been
reduced to a mechanism.
The differences in the treatment of the same motifs are very
important. The love triangle in We is much more satisfying as an esthe
tic device than it is in Red Star. In Bogdanov’s novel the love theme
functions to show Leonid’s human traits, but it is not integrated with the
other themes of the novel—e.g., Leonid’s intellectual deficiencies, or
the murder of Sterni. Zamyatin, however, used the love theme to trigger
the initial temptation to betray the United States, as the catalyst for D’s
illness, and finally, in his indifference to the torture and execution of
1-330, as an index of the degree to which D has ceased to function as a
human being.
Bogdanov's novel suffers from the didact’s need to show the de
tails of the future society with its technological wonders. Its rambling
discussions of philosophical ideas are unrelated to Leonid's mission to
Mars or to his personal crisis. The episodes are therefore only casually
related, arranged in interchangeable order. Zamyatin, on the other
hand, incorporates all his borrowings successfully in the play of themes
arranged as polar opposites (fertility-sterility, poly-monotonality,
sickness-health, passion-rationality, eccentricity-regularity). The result
is that the main themes of We and the central plot situation are all tightly
interwoven and characterize the main protagonists consistently.
But what kind of “hero" did Zamyatin intend in D-503? We suggest
that Zamyatin set himself the task of satirizing proletarian verse whose
revolutionary lyricism lent itself to parody through its extremism, and the
lyrical proletarian “I’s" who strive to deprive themselves poetically of
their individuality. He mocked the former with some bad doggerel
(Record 12, 63), and the latter by concocting the persona of a futuristic
“proletarian” scientist and writer. Tonally, D-503 is as much an expo
nent of the United State as the lyrical “we” is of the proletarian poems of
1917-20. As Frank has convincingly shown, this device was practised
earlier by Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground, where the
Underground Man is the satirical representation of the "men of the
V\fe, the Proletarian Poets, and Red Star 205
sixties.”46 Dostoevsky’s satire is doubly devastating because the

Underground Man is personally such a sick human being that his claim
ing that he shared the advanced views of the younger generation had to
be insufferably insulting to the nihilists. Zamyatin has done the same
thing in We. He has taken the ideas of the proletarians, including
Bogdanov’s, to their extreme, in order to dramatize their implications of
dehumanization. Zoshchenko’s parody of the persona of a proletarian
writer might well have applied to D-503: “I am parodying in my works
that imaginary, but genuine proletarian writer... I am only parodying. I
am temporarily substituting for the proletarian writer.”47
Zamyatin’s satire is made particularly salient by the choice of
Bogdanov's own hero Leonid as D-503’s prototype. Zamyatin created
D-503 out of the language, themes, and ideology made familiar by the
proletarian poets and Bogdanov in the first years of the Soviet period. It
seems that Zamyatin’s particular targets in this work are Gastev and
Bogdanov.
Some readings of We tend to dwell exclusively on its bleak,
anti-utopian vision of the future. But, although there is no doubt of the
philosophical gravity of the work, this essay has tried to show the valid
ity of another, generally neglected reading. We is a topical novel which
grew consistently and naturally out of the literary models and practices
predominating in the immediate post-Revolutionary period.
Notes
1. Some of the best and most extensive discussions of these issues are the following:
on imagery: Carl Proffer, "Notes on the Imagery in Zamiatin's We,” Slavic and East
European Journal, VII, No. 3 (1963), 269-73; on Dostoevsky’s influence: Robert L.
Jackson, Dostoevsky's Underground Man in Russian Literature (The Hague, 1958),
150-57; Richard A. Gregg, "Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal Palace: Dostoevsky, the
Bible and We,” Slavid Review, XXIV, No. 4 (1965), 680-87; on Biblical themes: Gregg's
article just noted, and James Billington's brief discussion in The Icon and the Axe (New
York, 1966), 509-11; as political statement: D. Richards, "Four Utopias,” Slavonic and
East European Review, XL (1961), 220-28.
2. E.J. Brown mentions Tsiolkovskii's and Wells' popularity in Russia at this time in
Russian Literature Since the Revolution (New York, 1963), 74, and Elizabeth
Stenbock-Fermor treats the matter of Jerome K. Jerome in “A Neglected Source of
Zamiatin's Novel We,” The Russian Review, 32, No. 2 (April, 1973), 187-89.
3. M. Gorkii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XXX (M. 1955), 156: "And Zamyatin is too
intelligent for an artist and should not allow his reason to direct his talent to satire. We is
hopelessly bad, a complete sterile thing.” A. Voronskii, Na styke (M-P/Ann Arbor,
1923/1968): "But (We) is not a utopia; it is an artistic pamphlet in the present, and at the
same time an attempt at a prognosis of the future ... To write an artistic parody and
depict communism as some kind of super-barracks under a glass cover is nothing new”
(70-71). M. Kuznetsov, "Socialist Realism and Modernism," (“Sotsialisticheskii realizm i
modernizm"), Novyi mir, (Aug., 1963), 230-33.
4. Quotations from Zamyatin's critical articles are taken from Mirra Ginsburg's
translation, A Soviet Heretic (Chicago, 1970). References hereafter are abbreviated SH
with page number added. English quotations form the novel are taken from the Zilboorg
translation and are denoted by "We,” followed by Record number and page number.
Minor changes have been made in the Zilboorg translation when it was felt that a more
literal translation was necessary. Quotations from the Russian text are based on the
Inter-Language Literary Associates edition (New York, 1967), denoted as "My," followed
by pagination.
5. Proletarskie poety pervykh let sovetskoi epokhi, ed. Z.S. Papernyi, (L. 1959), 21.
This is a basic anthology for the poems of this period. Subsequent citations are given by
PP and page numbers.
6. Sovetskii teatr, dokumenty i materialy: Russkii sovetskii teatr, 1917-21, ed. A.Z.
lufit (L. 1968), 336-38.
7. Brown, op. cit., pp. 75, 77. Brown makes the same point in his "Zamjatin and
English Literature,” American Contributions to the Fifth Congress ofSIavists (The Hague,
1963), 35.
8. Other such poems to be found in Papernyi’s anthology are: B.D. Aleksandrovskii’s
"My" (1921); "My umeem vse perenosit’ ..." (1921); M.P. Gerasimov’s “My vse
voz'mem, my vse poznaem ...” (1917); A.P. Kraiski's “My-odno" (1918; I.S. Loginov's
“My—pervye raskaty groma ..." (1919); F.S. Shkulev’s "My, Proletarskie poety" (1922).
Many additional examples may be found in the proletarian journals Kuznitsa and Gorn.
9. This was Bogdanov's formal resolution “Proletariat i iskusstvo," passed on
September 20, 1918 at the First All-Russian Conference of Proletarian
Cultural-Educational Organizations. See Uteraturnye manifesty, Vol. I, ed. N.L. Brodskii
(M./München, 1929/1969), 130.
10. Mikhail Zoshchenko, “O sebe, o kritikakh i o svoei rabote," in Mastera sov-
remennoi literatury; Mikhail Zoshchenko, Stat’i i materialy (L. 1928), 12.
11. Kirillov, "Pervomaiskii gimn" PP, 232; Kniazev, “Pesnia o ledokhode" PP, 266;
Bednyi, "Revolutsionnyi gudok," Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 18.
12. This is a common theme in the early period of the regime. Camilla Gray's The
Great Experiment (New York, 1962) shows a photograph of an Agit-lnstructional train on
which can be read: "Da zdravstvuet edinaia mirovaia trudovaia sem'ia" (p. 160).
13. V. L'vov-Rogachevskii, Ocherki proletarskoi literatury (M. 1926), 168. The
second quote is PP, 6.
14. Gray, 217.
15. A.A. Bogdanov, in Uteraturnye manifesty: “Proletariat i iskusstvo," 130, and "Puti
proletarskogo tvorchestva," 139—40.
16. Leon Trotsky, Uterature and Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1968), 202.
17. A.V. Lunacharskii, “Ocherki russkoi literatury revoliutsionnogo vremeni," from R.
Shcherbina, ed., “A.V. Lunacharskii: Neizdannye materialy," Uteratumoe nasledstvo,
Vol. 82 (M. 1970), 235. For Pletnev, see Gorn, No. 4 (1919), 30.
18. L’vov-Rogachevskii, 128.
19. V. Pertsov, “Sovremenniki," Novyi LEF, SP 91, III, No. 8-9 (1927), 78.
20. Viktor Nekrasov, "V zhizni i pismakh" (M. 1971), 7.
21. A. Gastev, “O tendentsiiakh proletarskoi kul'tury,” in Uteraturnye manifesty,
132-33. This article first appeared in Proletarskaia kul'tura, Nos. 9-10.
22. Lunacharskii, Uteratumoe nasledstvo, 235.
23. Ernst Toller, Quer durch, Chapter 8: “ZIT,” 121-24.

24. Aleksandrovskii, “Vavalivai bol'she na nashi spiny,” (1918), PP, 79; Berdnikov,
“Kuznetsy Kuiut" (1918), PP, 142; Gerasimov, "Truba kak posokh ispolina” (1917), PP,
190; N. Degtiarov, “Kuznetsy,” Kuznitsa, No. 1 (1920), 8; Gutsevich, “Shum zavoda,”
Gorn, Nos. 2-3 (1919), 7.
25. See PP, 233. The last two phrases are Gastev's "Bashnia” (1913-17), PP, 152,
and "Rel'sy" (1913), PP, 154.
26. See the parody in Alexander Kaun, Soviet Poets and Poetry (Berkeley, 1943),
137, "Zhelezo, zhelezo, zhelezo,” Russian version in L’vov-Rogachevskii, p. 132.
27. For Sadov'ev, see Kaun, p. 140; for Gastev, see PP, 154.
28. Gastev, "Ekspress” (1913-17), PP, 161-72; Gastev, “Oratoru” (1917-19), PP,
176; Gastev, "My vmeste” (1913-17), PP, 160; Obradovich, "Iz okna vagona,” Gorn, No.
4 (1919), 12; Nepaev, “Rassvet," Kuznitsa, No. 2 (1920), 7.
29. Quoted in lurii Annenkov, Dnevnik moikh vstrech, Vol. I (New York, 1966), 258.
30. V. Kirillov, 'la podslushal eti pesni blizkikh radostnykh vekov,” (1917), PP, 227.
31. PP, 149.
32. PP, 179.
33. Gastev, "Kran" (1913-17), PP, 157; Aleksandrovskii, “Vavalivai bol'she na nashi
spiny” (1918), PP, 80.
34. Gastev, “Bashnia" (1913-17), PP, 152; "My vmeste" (1913-17), PP, 160.
Aleksandrovskii, "V zakate," Gorn, Nos. 2-3 (1919), 11; Gastev, “Nash prazdnik"
(1913-17), PP, 175. It is startling to run across the Musical Tower in actuality, or nearly
so. In an article entitled “Gudki," headed by Gastev's poem, Gorn, No. 9 (1923),
Avraamov tells of actual whistles symphonies and gives directions for constructing a
steam whistle which will perform the Internationale. Whether or not Zamyatin knew of
similar activities, it seems possible that Gastev provided the impetus for both the steam
whistle and the Musical Factory in We. In fact, Avraamov suggests that if the apparatus is
still in good condition after the concert, it can be used very often, even for daily whistles to
and from work. He also tells of a vast “symphony” involving steamships, engines, artillery
and cannon, which was carried out on May Day in Baku in 1922, and of earlier attempts in
the same vein. The Day of Unanimity in We with its patriotic pageantry may be a satire of
these grandiose May 1 celebrations.
35. The first three examples are from PP, 155; the fourth, Gerasimov, PP, 197; and
the fifth, Semen-Rodov, "Proletarskie poety,” Kuznitsa, No. 1 (1920), 5.
36. Trotsky, 210.
37. Gastev, “My vmeste," PP, 160.
38. Gastev, “Bashnia," 151, "Kran," 156, and “Ekspress,” 162. In My the “chudo-
vishche" appears in Record 15, 73 and Record 31, 155.
39. PP, 148.
40. A. Gutsevich, "Shum zavoda," Gorn, No. 2-3 (1919), 7; and Kasin, “Da zdrav-
stvuet V.l. Lenin,” Kuznitsa, No. 1 (1920), 4.
41. Christopher Collins, Evgenij Zamjatin, (The Hague-Paris, 1973), 45.
42. Zamiatin, SH, 290.
43. The texts used are A. Bogdanov, Krasnaia zvezda, Izd. Petrogradskogo Soveta
Rabochikh i Krasnoarmeiskikh Deputatov, (1918) and Inzhener Menni, Knigoizdatel'stvo
Moskovskii rabochii (1922), 5th ed. Page numbers are given in parentheses after the
quotations. The translations are my own (H.W.).
44. See the Gregg article referred to in footnote 1.
45. Alex M. Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin, (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1968), 161.
46. Joseph Frank, “Nihilism and Notes from the Underground, Sewanee Review,
LXIX (1961), 4, 12.
47. Zoshchenko, 12.
BRAVE NEW WORLD, 1984, AND WE: AN
ESSAY ON ANTI-UTOPIA
E.J. Brown
1. Introduction
The researcher approaches the work of Zamyatin with some

misgiving. It is not easy to treat as an object of literary investigation a
figure so deeply identified with a certain political (or apolitical) position.
A Russian writer the roots of whose literary art are basically Russian,
drawing their original sustenance from Gogol, Leskov and Remizov,
and whose influence has been felt in other literatures perhaps more
than that of any other Soviet writer, Zamyatin has still not attracted the
attention he deserves from Russian scholars. This was perhaps
understandable, since his name very early came to stand, in a ritual
idiom which was perhaps more common in the twenties than it is today,
as a representative of the “inner emigration.” Articles about him
appeared during the twenties, and some of these are important and
valuable. But many, perhaps the majority, do not criticize but vituperate,
and some of them come under the general heading of what has recently
been called “simulated scholarship.” In the West, to which Zamyatin
emigrated in 1931, he has fared no better. Though his novel We (My)
appeared first in an English translation as early as 1924, there was until
1968 no major study of his work by any Western Slavic scholar. Nor is
this surprising. The Western view of Zamyatin tends also to be cramped
by cliché. He is known even to scholars, for the most part, only as the
author of the novel We, and of the short tales concerned with revolution
ary Petersburg, such as “The Dragon” (“Drakon”), "Mamai,” and “The
Cave” (“Peshchera”). These are understood—mistakenly according to
the present writer—as a literary polemic with the revolutionary regime.
The real nature of a stimulating and original literary figure has been
obscured by generalizations having very little to do with him as a writer,
some of which are patently absurd. The present study will attempt to
deal with Zamyatin and his work as an important part of contemporary
literary history, to indicate the nature of his thematic interest and stylis
tic behavior, and to trace certain key themes through his own work and
209
210 E. J. Brown
that of the English writers who have an affinity with him. The rela
tionship of his own work with that of H.G. Wells, a topic of considerable
interest in itself, will then be briefly indicated. In order to establish the
scope and nature of his work it will be necessary to state briefly what he
wrote and when. The brief descriptive survey which follows deals only
with belles lettres and aims to mention everything important.1
2. Zamyatin’s Literary Production
His first story appeared in November, 1908, in the magazine

Education (Obrazovanie), whose literary editor at the time was
Artsybashev. On this story Zamyatin offers only the modest comment:
“When I now meet people who've read that story I feel just as uncom
fortable as I do when I meet an aunt of mine whose dress I wetted when
I was a two-year-old"—a remark which is not only a good comment on
the story but reveals Zamyatin’s freedom from the normal puritanism of
the printed page. He entered Russian literature with the story
“Provincials" (“Uezdnoe”), published in Legacy (Zavety, V, 1913), a
novella with its setting in the far provinces and featuring characters who
live on the bare subsistence level of culture and morality. This work
drew to the author the attention of Remizov and Prishvin, and when it
came out in a separate edition (Petrograd, 1915) it was widely noticed
and reviewed. His next important appearance was with the story “Three
Days” (“Tri dnia,” 1914), a subjective, fragmented, and impressionistic
account of the Potemkin mutiny in Odessa, which he had witnessed.
The events and characters of the mutiny are simply material for artistic
treatment, rather than for social or political generalization. A scandal
arose over his next work, “In the Backwoods” (“Na kulichkakh"), which
also appeared in Legacy (III, 1914), and caused confiscation by the
censorship of the number that carried it. Its theme is the idiocy not so
much of rural as of military life; and its inferno of debased human types
offended the censor as a comment on Russian military prowess in the
Far East, where the action of the story was located. The story “The
Womb” (“Chrevo”) appeared in Russian Notes (Russkie zapiski, IV,
1915) and “Alatyr" in Russian Thought (Russkaia mysl', IX, 1915). The
latter story, along with “Provincials” and “In the Backwoods” deter
mined the nature of Zamyatin's pre-revolutionary reputation with the
Russian reading pubiic. The central characters are again rural grotes
ques from the world of minor officials, described in the “skaz” manner
of Leskov. The stories “The Elder” (“Starshina”) and “April” (“Aprel”’)
also appeared in 1915, the first in Monthly Journal (Ezhemesiatsnyi
Brave New World, 1984 and We: An Essay on Anti-Utopia 211
zhurnal, I), and the second in The Contemporary (Sovremennik, IV).

Zamyatin’s fairy tales, later published under the collective title Tales for
Grownup Children (Bol’shim detiam skazki, Petrograd-Berlin, Grzebin,
1922), were almost all written and published between 1916 and 1918.
Some of these were published in Gorky's Chronicle (Letopis’, IV,
1916). "Dormidon,” a delightful and devastating satire on the enforcers
of salvation, was published in New Life (Novaia zhizn’, 1918), also
edited by Gorky. The "tales" are brief, pointed fables featuring human,
divine, and animal characters. Some of them are pessimistic philo
sophic fragments, others tolerant comments on human foibles; and still
others, the "Tales of Fita” ("Skazki pro Fitu”), for instance, are bitter
Swiftian satires on pompous official fools. There also appeared in 1916
the stories "In Writing" ("Pis’menno") and "The Diehards” ("Kriazhi”),
as well as "Afrika,” which treats with gentle irony the human search for
promised lands, a not infrequent theme in his work.
We now come to Zamyatin’s work published at the time of or after
the revolution. Islanders (Ostrovitiane), a short novel written in part
during his stay in England during the First World War, and published in
Petrograd in the Scythian Almanac (Almanakh Skify, II, 1918), is an
amusing impressionistic satire on the patterned rigidity of bourgeois
standards of respectability. The novella is a kind of preliminary sketch
for We, written in 1920 and first published in an English translation in
1924.2 The literary method and the basic thematic content of Islanders
is developed further in We, where the rigid patterns of London life have
become the utopian laws of a state of the twenty-ninth century. Fisher
of Men (Lovets chelovekov), published in House of Arts (Dorn iskusstv,
II, 1922), is also concerned with London and the English character. Its
principal personage is an outwardly respectable gentleman who is en
gaged in blackmailing young couples in love.
"The Sign" ("Znamenie”), which also appeared in 1918, moves
from the asphalt certitudes of London back to Zamyatin’s preferred
habitat, the cultural wilderness. An amazingly potent and original verbal
artifact whose theme is the creation of a saintly legend, it lends to
primitive and uncivilized religious emotion an exotic appeal. A brief
piece called "Real Truth” ("Pravda istinnaia”), published in New Life
(1917) is a letter from a servant girl in town to her mother in the country
in which, in her naive and provincial idiom, she expresses her grief at
having to live in the city. The stories "Mamai” and "The Cave”
(1921-1922), published, respectively, in House of Arts and Notes of a
Dreamer (Zapiski mechtatelei), are both laid in Petrograd during the
winter of revolution and civil war, but in those stories the city has shed
its rational integument of streets and squares and has become—in
212 E. J. Brown
“The Cave," for instance—a prehistoric area where human beings in
habit the cold caves of their apartments. The brief sketch “The
Dragon," published in 1918 is, like “Mamai" and "The Cave," a subjec
tive apprehension of the winter of revolution, when life assumed forms
that were strange and terrible. It is hardly defensible to interpret these
stories as political commentary on the revolution, as is sometimes
done.
“The North" (“Sever," 1922), one of Zamyatin’s most powerful
works, contains in a small compass many of the themes that most
intrigued him, and is almost a textbook model of his “skaz" technique.
The play The Fires of St. Dominic (Ogni sviatogo Dominika, 1922), laid
in Spain at the time of the Inquisition, presents in dramatic form the
sympathy for heretics and rebels that he expressed in essays and
articles written in the same period. The story “How the Monk Erasmus
was Cured" (“O tom kak istselen byl inok Erazm," 1922) is in the form
of a monastic chronicle reminiscent of church literature. It tells how a
wise elder cures a novice, who happens to be an artist, of his power to
infect others. It was published with drawings by B. Kustodiev. Efforts to
read a topical message into this story produced some of the more
amusing kur’ezy of the twenties. Rus', 1923, is a kind of narrative
meditation on the native Russian character types represented in a set
of drawings by Kustodiev, presented as a text to accompany the
drawings. “A Story about the Most Important Thing" (“Rasskaz o
samom glavnom,” 1924), is, as we shall see, the most philosophical of
Zamyatin's stories, and expresses the relativity of all values. “How Ivan
Built the Church of God” (“Kak Ivan postroil tserkov’ Bozhiiu,” 1924) is
a parable on the barrenness of good intentions which use evil means.
The story “Iks” (1926) is a narrative tour de force couched in a provin
cial idiom and relating in mock-heroic manner serious and even tragic
events, which become ridiculous in the telling. "Comrade Churygin Has
the Floor” (“Slovo predostavliaetsia tovarishchu Churyginu,” 1927) is a
stylistic experiment in the form of a public speech, setting forth the
reminiscences of a comrade for whom the use of formal Russian gram
mar and syntax is a new and not fully mastered skill and who preten
tiously distorts forms and misunderstands meanings. The method is
basically “Leskovian” in that it involves the distortion of “foreign” or
“learned” language by an ignorant native speaker, but in Zamyatin’s
work much more than the language is distorted: a whole complex of
philosophical concepts and moral values is ruined by way of translation
into Churygin’s idiom. “The Flood” (“Navodnenie," 1929), regarded by
many as one of Zamyatin’s best tales, deals with the themes of death
and life and the dialectical connection of the two, and in its complex
Brave New World, 1984 and \Ne: An Essay on Anti-Utopia 213
structure of human relationships seems to be offering a serious though

somewhat obscure philosophic statement.
Zamyatin wrote, in addition to The Fires of St. Dominic, three other
plays. The Flea (Blokha), based on the folk-tale about the smiths of
Tula and on Leskov’s Lefty (Levsha), was presented by MKhAT in 1925
and was still running successfully in 1929, when it was removed from
the repertory. Society of Honored Bell-ringers (Obshchestvo pochet-
nykh zvonarei), a dramatization of Islanders, was presented in Lenin
grad in 1925. Attilla, completed in 1928, was never presented or pub
lished in Russia.3 A novel, The Scourge of God, (Bich Bozhii), based
on the theme of that play was published posthumously in Paris in
incomplete form. In both the play and the novel Zamyatin attempted to
present a broad philosophy of history, showing that the days of Attila
were much like our own times, “a period of great world wars, and of the
collision of the already dying culture of the west with a wave of fresh
barbarian peoples.” In spite of the great difference in subject matter
there is, as we shall see, a striking similarity in basic philosophy be
tween The Scourge of God and We.
Zamyatin’s writing after he left Russia in 1931 is rather sparse and
much less important than his earliest work or than his stories of the
twenties. He wrote a number of short stories, some of which were
translated into French. They are for the most part brief satiric anecdotes
whose humor and linguistic power are relatively mild. He wrote articles
for the French press, but these are beyond the scope of the present
study.
3. Zamyatin’s Chief Theme
While Zamyatin’s range of thematic interest seems at first sight

very wide, reaching from a military outpost in the Far East to a study of
social organization in a state of the distant future, a closer inspection
reveals his organic attachment to one particular theme. Zamyatin might
be characterized as a writer who persistently negates "the city" and
who finds his own most congenial matter for esthetic formulation among
the precivilized and the primitive. Not only does he describe people like
Baryba in “Provincials,” who has hardly a trace of civilized moral sense,
who steals from his benefactors and bears false witness against his
friends, or a Potifona in “Alatyr,” or Captain Arancheev in "In the
Backwoods,” that fantasy of lust and gluttony; but he takes literary
interest also in naive and charming primitives, the fisherman Fedor
Volkov in "Afrika” where “Elephants? But why not: you just sit on him
214 E. J. Brown
and he takes you wherever you want to go. He'll be running along, then
he plays on a silver trumpet and the way he plays you just can’t hear
enough of it, and he carries you off to undiscovered lands," and of
course the wonderfully appealing Marei in “The North" with his
animal-like mate Pelka. In the story “Rus’" the characters and scenes
upon which Zamyatin's imagination lingers are “No prospects mea
sured off by Peter’s ruler—no: that's Petersburg, 'Rossiia.' Here you
have the real Russia (Rus’), narrow little streets that go up and down so
the noisy kids will have a place to slide in winter—alleys, streets that
lead nowhere, gardens, and fences, lots of fences." And Zamyatin's
enthusiastic appreciation of Jack London, published as a preface to the
Universal Literature (Vsemirnaia literatura) edition of London’s works,
reveals the characteristic preoccupation of Zamyatin himself:
Our city life is already obsolete. Cities, like old men, bundle up against the bad
weather in asphalt and iron. Cities, like old men, fear excessive movement and
substitute machines and push-buttons for all healthful muscular work ... But if a
man still has his young blood burning in him and if the hard iron power of his
muscles is looking for a way out, for struggle, then that man runs away from the
decrepit cities .. . runs wherever his eyes lead him, anywhere: to the field, or the
forest or the sea, to the north or to the south.4
It should surprise no one that those lines came from the pen of the man
who wrote Islanders and We. The “city” when it does occur in
Zamyatin’s writings is a monster of mechanical efficiency, London in
Islanders or the “city-state" in We, or else it is the fog-bound
snow-covered haunt of mammoths, dragons, and cave-dwellers. The
possibility of a normal “realistic” city is never admitted in the art of
Zamyatin. And always, in those impossible, dream-like cities, there are
characters who rebel against them and try to find their way to the free
air “outside the wall.” There is in his work a long series of escapes or
attempted escapes from one level of organized life to a lower, less
organized and supposedly more free level. This notion of escape is a
constantly recurring theme and is deeply characteristic. O’Kelley and
Didi, the bohemian individualists in Islanders, resist the pressures of
the bourgeois world and remain outside its pale of respectability in a
kind of half-world of their own.^ln We, I-330 and her lover D-503 similar
ly attempt to escape the conventions of their time by finding their way
outside the glass wall to the hairy creatures who still live among the
“debris” of nature. On a much lower level the primitive fisherman Marei
attempts an escape with his mate from the world of the merchant
Kortoma, who, in burlesque form, embodies “Piter” and rational
organization: “Kortoma's accounts are in strict order—not just any old
way, but by a system of triple bookkeeping. ‘It’s time we lived in accord

ance with the West European nations,' such was Kortoma’s favorite
saying.” Similar to these escapes is that of Fedor Volkov, for whom
“Afrika” is Canaan and Goshen. Dashutka’s letter home describing the
cultural wonders of city life is full of simple yearning for the country:
“How I would like to go out now barefoot into the garden, and have the
dusty ground under my feet.” These words might have served as a
motto for the revolutionaries in We.
Though Zamyatin described himself as a "neo-realist” it will be
obvious that his characteristic thematic interest might rather be labelled
“romantic.”
4. Zamyatin’s Philosophy
Zamyatin’s work before the revolution offers no evidence of a con

sistent philosophical position, other than a vaguely Rousseauistic urge
toward the unspoiled primitive. And Zamyatin’s Rousseauism is much
more esthetic than it is philosophical. He is drawn to the primitive and
the prerational because the life he finds—or, better, imagines—outside
the “wall" offers both piquancy of dialect and novelty of character. In
Zamyatin's subjective apprehension, with which he completely infects
the reader, Marei and Pelka are more interesting than Kortoma,
O’Kelley and the music-hall girl Didi than Vicar Dooley; and D-503’s
atavistic hair lends to him a possibility of irrational adventure that should
not exist for the good citizen of a well-ordered state.
The manner in which Zamyatin utilized fugitive subjective impress
ions of reality in creating both character and situation he revealed him
self in the essay “Backstage” (“Za kulisy”)5: “I woke up at some little
station near Moscow and raised the shade. Right in front of my window,
just as though in a frame, the physiognomy of the station policeman
floated past me: a low overhanging forehead, little bear-like eyes, jaw
bones frightfully square. I managed to read the name of the station:
Barybino. Right there the novella “Provincials” and its hero Anfim Bary
ba took form.”
In view of this frank statement it is unsound to assume that Baryba
in Zamyatin's story has anything in common with that actual police
official whom the author chanced to glimpse, or even that his story tells
us anything useful about provincial police officials as a class, and it is
risky to interpret the work of such a writer in tendentious or topical
terms. And when Mr. Richards in his excellent book on Zamyatin offers
the opinion that “the final picture of the drunken Baryba, rejected by the
216 E. J. Brown
father and mocked by the onlookers as he blunders along, heavy,

grunting, and helpless, symbolizes the state, not only of provincial life
but of old Russia itself," one should, it would seem, view such an
interesting idea with great reserve.
As a leading member of the Serapion Brothers in the early twenties
Zamyatin insisted that literature be free of social or political tendency,
and while it has been suggested that this apolitical position was a mask
for political hostility, it seems not unlikely that Zamyatin, in spite of his
early membership in the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party,
was genuinely indifferent to actual political events and the philosophies
that motivated them. He wrote two stories dealing with the events of
1905, but one could not assume from a mere reading of the stories that
the author of them was involved in politics. He wrote two novellas, the
setting of which was England during the First World War, but there is no
allusion whatever to the war in Islanders, and the Zeppelin raid in
Fisher of Men is a noisy and colorful interlude in the story whose
function in the plot is to break down Mrs. Lory’s cool reserve and make
her accessible to her lover. The First World War as an event of some
historical importance was simply not part of Zamyatin’s artistic con
sciousness at the time he wrote those stories. And in the stories he
wrote about Petrograd at the time of the revolution and the civil war his
attention is directed to the poignant but petty tragedies of individual
human beings rather than to the tremendous historical event, whether
viewed as triumph or as tragedy. Contemporary history provided him
with material for artistic treatment, but as an honest artist he refrains
from direct political or philosophical commentary.
Yet Zamyatin’s work of the twenties has given rise to the idea that
he is an important philosophical writer. The literary works that contain
his thought are We (1920), The Fires of St. Dominic (1922), “A Story
about the Most Important Thing” (1924), Attila (1928), and the post
humously published unfinished novel The Scourge of God (1939). Let
us consider them briefly as philosophical statements. We, as we have
seen, is closely related to Islanders, and its basic theme is rebellion
against a rigid and universally enforced code of correct behavior. In
both novels this rebellion is given philosophic motivation as an effort to
free human emotions from their confinement in a rigidly rational social
structure. The London Vicar Dooley’s plan for “universal salvation" is
mathematically perfect, involving the rational organization of every hu
man activity. The electric iron which the character Campbell would buy
Didi for their establishment is a symbol of conventional propriety, as
well as of a life neatly pressed and patterned. The Sunday gentlemen
strolling properly in a proper British uniformity are an early sketch for
the citizens of We marching in ranks on their daily walk. The intellectual

preoccupations of Zamyatin are essentially the same in Islanders as in
We, where one of the gods of rationalism is the American industrial
efficiency expert F.H. Taylor.6
But there is an important difference between Islanders and We. For
the latter work Zamyatin, perhaps influenced by the polemical ambi
ence of the period, has devised an explicit philosophical statement,
which is expressed in the impassioned speeches of the revolutionary
young woman I-330. Statements very much like hers appear in the
article “Tomorrow” (“Zavtra”), written at approximately the same time,
and in the article entitled “On Literature, Revolution and Entropy” (“O
literature, revoliutsii, i entropii”), published in 1924 as part of the collec
tion Writers About Literature and About Themselves (Pisateli o litera
ture i o sebe).7 To summarize in a rational system the points made in
that essay would do violence to the spirit of the work. It is a series of
subjective aperçus, each one a fragment of thought, the whole bound
together by a central subjective intuition expressed in the terminology of
the science ("Nova,” entropy, relativity) and the philosophy (Hegelian
dialectics) contemporary to Zamyatin. It is highly personal and
poetic—is, as a matter of fact, a literary production, and is directed in
the main against the dogmatic rationalism which Zamyatin felt was
developing in the Russia of his day. Against the ruthlessly mechanical
rationalism of the dogmatists Zamyatin urges the view, neither original
nor unfamiliar, that the life process proceeds by way of dialectical
movement, that all "established” values are relative, and that in human
societies heretics are the necessary agents of change.
Fiery, crimson, and deathdealing is the law of revolution; but the death it brings
is the embryo of new life, of a new star. Cold and blue as ice, blue as the icy
interplanetary infinities is the law of entropy. The flame that was crimson becomes
pink and warm—no longer deathdealing but comfortable; the sun ages into a planet
suitable for roads, stores, beds, prostitutes and jails: such is the law . . .
Let the flame grow cold tomorrow or the day after tomorrow (in the Book of
Genesis days equal years, centuries). But someone should see today what’s about
to happen tomorrow, and speak heretically even today about tomorrow. Heretics
are the only medicine (a bitter one) against the entropy of human thought . . .
All truths are mistaken; the dialectical process means precisely that today’s
truths are tomorrow's errors; there is no final number.
The play The Fires of St. Dominic, like the essays mentioned and
the two novels, provides a telling commentary on dogmatic authority
and in the person of the Spanish Inquisitor shows the extent to which
such authority corrupts human beings. Brilliantly and courageously
218 E. J. Brown
Zamyatin dissects the motivations and the mode of operation of a police

power responsible only to itself. As we have already seen, the story "A
Story about the Main Thing” presents in symbolic form a statement
about the relativity of all values.
In the play Attila and in the novel The Scourge of God Zamyatin
has transferred to an actual historical setting his single, idiosyncratic
literary theme, and given it a philosophic motivation. Attila and his
Huns, a new and fresh force from the outer limits of the civilized world,
are contrasted with the effete and enervated Romans of the “City,”
whose minds and bodies have grown soft with decay/As in the novel
We, Zamyatin has here contrived a situation in which vital and primitive
beings violently disturb the entropie calm of the arch-City itself. J
To summarize, Zamyatin’s philosophy, a mixture of his basic
romanticism with modern scientific vocabulary and Hegelian dialectics,
does not appear in his work until the twenties. The earliest attempt to
formulate that philosophy is the novel We, and perhaps its clearest
literary formulation is the novel The Scourge of God. That philosophy
seems to the present writer to have been an artificial intellectual super
structure developed in answer to the insistent demand upon
writers—even by the most liberal of critics—that they take a definite
ideological position. It is not a connected or coherent system but a
series of brilliant poetic insights. Stated in the simplest terms, it was a
philosophy designed to uphold the independence and integrity of the
artist by insisting on his right to be a heretic.
5. Zamyatin’s Art
Zamyatin on at least two occasions attempted to analyze and ex

plain his own creative processes. The lectures he delivered in the
House of Arts in 1920, two of which have been published,8 and an
article appearing in the collection How We Write (Kak my pishem)
reveal with unusual clarity and originality not only his own approach to
the craft of writing, but the philosophical assumptions and esthetic
theories of the group with whom he identified himself: the “neorealists.”
Students of Soviet literature have pointed out that Zamyatin’s lectures
in Petrograd on the art of writing were an important seminal event in the
history of Soviet prose of the twenties. It should be emphasized that the
“craft” he taught was not that of the realistic writers nor of the symbol
ists or futurists, but almost exclusively of the “neorealists.” The exam
ples of literary language and device which he uses come from a rather
narrow range of Russian authors, and the names which occur most
frequently are those of Bely, Remizov, and Zamyatin himself. Zamyatin

uses their works as textbooks of modern literary form, just as he would
have taught modern physics from the works of Einstein.
In the lecture entitled “Contemporary Russian Literature”
(“Sovremennaia russkaia literatura”) Zamyatin traces a dialectical de
velopment from the realists, whose attention was focused on men as
particular earth-bound facts, through the symbolists, who saw “man in
general” as part of some higher reality, and at last to the “neorealists,”
who represent a kind of unity of opposites in that they attempt gener
alization while still dealing with concrete human reality (byt). The
scheme he sets up is both interesting and suggestive and is character
istic of the Hegelian forms in which his mind operated. Those he lists as
neorealists in some, at least, of their works are—in addition to Bely and
Remizov—Sologub, Sergeev-Tsensky, Prishvin, Alexei Tolstoi, and
Zamyatin himself.
He observes that the attraction to provincial life and language, his
own principal theme, is characteristic to some extent of all the neoreal
ists and Zamyatin explains this interest of theirs in terms which apply
equally to himself:
Life in big cities is like that in factories: it de-individualizes, makes people somehow
all the same, machine-like. And so it happened that many of the neo-realists, in their
urge to create the most striking images, turned their faces away from the great city
and looked to the provinces and backways.
Other characteristics of the neorealists are their search for a more

“real” reality through fantasy and distortion, their tendency to an im
pressionistic style, and their use of popular dialectic material. And in
their technique there is a kind of co-operative effort on the part of writer
and reader, the former furnishing fragmented thoughts and impressions
which the latter actively “creates.”
Zamyatin’s remarks on the psychology of creativity reveal his con
viction that the rational part of man plays only a secondary role in
artistic creation, which, he maintains, takes place in the sphere of the
subconscious. In his essay "Backstage” Zamyatin compares the condi
tion of a mind disposed to creative activity with a railway sleeping-
compartment lighted only by the blue night lamp, when objects are
visible but not in their normal daylight shapes and colors. In such a state
the “fantasy” creates dreamlike images that have at the same time a
quality of vividness denied to objects seen in rational daylight.
In the materials that we have Zamyatin did not attempt a detailed
analysis of the psychological factors operating in literary creation, but
220 E. J. Brown
from the examples he gives of his own experience the literary images
he characteristically created were the result, not of any conscious cere
bral purpose, but of a complex interaction of memory and association
with passing impression and subjective feeling. A conscious philo
sophic and perhaps polemic purpose entered, as we have seen, into
the creation of certain important works of the twenties, and the psycho
logical factors at work in them might be the subject of analysis.
Zamyatin’s stylized language is his own most original esthetic
resource. His stories of the provinces probably do not provide an accu
rate account of provincial speech, and on his own admission he knew
nothing of the actual locale and personnel portrayed in the story “In the
Backwoods." But in their selection of occasional local words (or even
words strange to the literary ear), by the generous employment of
forms, diminutives for instance, which are felt as non-literary, and by
simplicity and colloquial casualness of syntax, those stories do artfully
contrive to produce in the sophisticated reader an illusion of immediate
contact with the deeply primitive. Similarly, the stories “The Sign” and
“The Monk Erasmus” suggest that language of church chronicles, the
former in an extremely primitive form. The stories “Afrika” and "Ela”
contrive an impression of the dialect spoken in the fishing villages of the
far north; and in the story Islanders, as Zamyatin has said, the language
is deliberately stylized so as to suggest a translation from English. And
in the novel We with its clipped telegraphic manner and swift ellipses he
attempts to suggest the rationalized thought and simplified language of
the twenty-ninth century, disturbed, it's true, by constant interference.
The delight experienced by readers of Zamyatin is to a large extent
bound up with the consciousness he conveys of linguistic vigor, variety,
and possibility. The style he cultivated is, of course, skaz, and his
closest contemporary Russian relatives were Remizov and Bely.
We have seen the attraction of Zamyatin to the primitive and pre-
rational in the matter of his stories; it is now clear that a similar preoc
cupation governed his manner. He avoids in them the organized
method of rational statement in favor of impression, suggestion, and
image, conveyed in a language as free as possible of syntactic
complexity.
6. Zamyatin's English Relatives
Zamyatin’s first image of a modern society organized along effi

cient rational lines was London; and it is not surprising, therefore, that a
similarity should be observed in two English writers who followed him
Brave New World, 1984 and \Ne: An Essay on Anti-Utopia 221
and whose novels develop in new forms the themes of Islanders and
We, though only the latter work could have been known to them.
Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984 share certain basic
assumptions with We, but differ from that book in important ways. Let us
look first at the similarities. Some of these are surface and obvious; for
instance, Zamyatin’s benevolent dictator appears in Huxley’s work as
the World Controller and in Orwell’s as Big Brother; the “mephi” outside
the wall in We have their counterpart in Huxley’s “savage reservation"
and in Orwell’s “proles.” What is more important and perhaps not so
obvious is that all three books share an implicit assumption: that the
more complex and highly organized a society becomes, the less free
are its individual members. All three works assume the direction of
modern European society is toward larger and more complex
organization, and that the regimented world of Ford, Taylor, or the
proletarian extremists will result at last in the disappearance of the
individual human being in favor of the mass.
The assumption is never explicitly stated, and of course never
criticized; yet it will hardly withstand serious examination. Zamyatin’s
strictures on England, particularly, are pointless if taken as referring
specifically to England, since regard for individual liberty and the indi
vidual human person is characteristic, not so much of primitive and
backward societies, as precisely of those that are technologically and
culturally more advanced—England, for instance. A society that, like
Zamyatin’s city-state in We, had attained complete control of the en
vironment would surely have reached such a level of education that the
primitive regimentation he imagines would seem to be an anachronism.
And Huxley’s world organization can hardly be imagined if the mass of
human beings are to remain on the level of vulgar prejudice and vulgar
uniformity he foresees. The high level of co-operation and technological
knowledge in all these states presupposes a sophisticated if not highly
moral human community. That such societies should hold the individual
human being as of no importance is not beyond the bounds of
possibility, but it cannot be accepted as the premise of the argument,
and is not borne out by the history of human societies as we know it.
All three works assume that certain indispensable human
values—respect for the individual person, love, honor, and even
poetry—are “somehow” (and this somehow conceals another logical
trap) preserved on the lower and less well-organized levels of life while
they disappear from the higher. “If there is hope for humanity,” says
Orwell’s Winston, “it is in the proles,” who have not forgotten how to
sing; the hairy creatures "outside the wall” in We must revivify the effete
automatons of the City; and in Huxley’s novel the romantic theme of the
222 E. J. Brown
“noble savage” appears in its most naive form: his savage knows the
great myths, feels his dignity as a human being, hungers for religion,
and even reads Shakespeare (I). There is no adequate attempt in any
of these books to examine the concrete social or economic factors that
would lead to the debasement of human values: they offer only an
abstract argument in favor of the simple and primitive as against the
complex and cultivated. Reason is of course uncomfortable with the
belated Rousseauism of the three novels; but it was never the intention
of the authors that reason be accommodated.
The satiric intent of all such novels was neatly expressed by
Zamyatin himself in his essay on H.G. Wells.9 Speaking of Wells he
says “He makes use of his social fantasies almost exclusively for the
purpose of revealing defects in the existing social order." The same
observation might be made of the three novels under discussion, all of
which are legitimate heirs of the “anti-utopias” of Wells. All three pre
sent images of tendencies present in the society of their own day. We
draws on the experience of modern Europe with its rationalized produc
tion and great cities, and on the recent nightmare of war and civil war
during which human beings had indeed become “units.” And its satire
is directed also at the collectivist mystique present in the Russia of his
own day, at the “planetarity" of proletarian poets and the crude philoso
phy of the “mass” to which Mayakovsky referred in the lines:
The Proletcultists never speak

of "I”
or of the personality.
They consider
the pronoun "I”
a kind of rascality.
But in my opinion
if you write petty stuff, you
will never crawl out of your lyrical slough
even if you substitute We for I.10
Huxley's Brave New World is a bitterly satirical image of the mass

culture of his own day, which he sees as vulgarly triumphant in the
future. Psychology in his utopia is debased to “emotional engineering,”
medicine to painkilling, education to “hypnopaedia,” and the English
language has become the vehicle of cheap journalism, propaganda,
and advertising jingles. Music is the accompaniment of sexual orgies.
The future world he offers to the imagination is one completely con
quered by the “popular" journalism, literature, and music, and by the
popular prejudices (including “class” prejudice) of the early twentieth

century.
Orwell’s work, published in 1948, is much more obviously topical
and contemporary than the others. The London of 1984 with its
shortages, discomforts, drabness, wartime regimentation and occa
sional rocket bombs is the London of the 1940s, during and immediate
ly after the Second World War, with a Stalin-type dictatorship superim
posed upon it; and in Winston’s furious rebellion against the "state” of
the future and that image of Big Brother which suggests both Stalin and
Hitler, one can sense Orwell’s own irritation at the conditions of his own
life.
All three works purport to project into the future in satiric terms the
philosophy by which the society of their own day is dominated. In We,
reason is the court of highest appeal; and no area of life is left out of the
benevolent government’s planned scientific calculus, the purpose of
which is to make men happy and secure. The Benefactor expresses
this philosophy in terms which are a conscious echo of Dostoevsky’s
Grand Inquisitor, as many students have pointed out.
In Huxley’s utopia a kind of utilitarianism seems to be dominant
and the World Government, fashioned to produce the greatest happi
ness for the greatest number of people, has found it necessary to
sacrifice to this goal not only freedom, but truth and beauty. Like the
Benefactor in We, Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, patiently ex
plains his philosophy: "Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the
emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass pro
duction demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels
steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t.”
Orwell’s book departs radically from the other two in its notion of
the philosophy motivating the rulers of his world. In that world no Grand
Inquisitor or Benefactor works and thinks tirelessly for the benefit of
mankind. Orwell, who lived through the years of the European
dictatorships, presents his Party leaders as men nakedly enamored of
political power, who do not justify themselves by claiming that they use
that power to advance human welfare. The leaders of 1984 are philo
sophical descendants, not of the Grand Inquisitor, but rather of Shiga-
lyov and Pyotr Verkhovensky in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed.
If the three works are compared as literary products it is obvious
that We is very different from its descendants not only in structure and
style, but particularly in its quality of ironic humor. Huxley’s novel is
heavy-handed and obvious by comparison, and Orwell’s pictures of the
new world do not amuse us, as Zamyatin’s do for the most part, but
rather terrify and warn us. The difference is simply that Orwell was
224 E. J. Brown
afraid of his enemy, exaggerated his power, and tried to communicate

to the reader his own apprehension. Zamyatin's mood is one of ironic
contempt for collectivists and cosmists.
Along with ironic humor, Zamyatin’s book draws upon deep springs
of optimism which arise, no doubt, from his basically Hegelian notion of
historical processes. His anti-utopia simply does not contain the fright
ening prophecy regarding the human prospect which has sometimes
been ascribed to it. The Benefactor does not really have complete
control. There are many revolutionaries; in fact, almost all the charac
ters we meet are in the movement—and rebellion is still in progress with
the issue in doubt as the novel ends. In spite of its flagrant
anti-rationalism, We is a truly great book, which will probably outlive its
relatives in the genre. It is a confident and triumphant satire of any and
all Establishments, religious or social, bourgeois or communist, that
seek to enforce their particular and temporary values on all human
beings as eternal verities.
7. The Legacy of H. G. Wells
That confidence in the human future world which Zamyatin ex

pressed even in his pictures of a dehumanized society may be partly
explained by an intellectual affinity for H.G. Wells, and an early admira
tion for the work of that English writer. Zamyatin's articles on Wells are
subtle and perceptive. He is completely at ease in dealing not only with
the whole corpus of Wells’s work, but with the complex topic of science
fantasy itself and the relationship of Wells to the writers of utopias and
anti-utopias. His own attraction to the genre he calls “social-fantastic"
may derive in part from his interest in Wells. As he points out, the novel
We has many predecessors and contemporary relatives in the genre of
the anti-utopia, among them Jack London’s The Iron Heel; but its most
important immediate ancestors were Wells's fantastic novels.
In his article on Wells Zamyatin does not allude to an interesting
fact in the development of Wells’s outlook on the human future. It can, I
believe, be shown that between the writing of The Time Machine (1895)
and The World Set Free (1914) Wells’s fantastic novels often express a
pessimism that we find also in Huxley and Orwell. A Modern Utopia
(1904), The World Set Free and the later Men Like Gods (1923) are
evidence of a conscious rejection by Wells of such attitudes, and of an
effort to imagine human affairs directed by the human reason rather
than drifting at the mercy of retrograde evolution (The Time Machine),
or of irrational and insatiable avarice (The Sleeper Awakes). Of The
Sleeper Awakes Wells said in an introduction prepared for a new edi

tion in 1921 :
Will such a world ever exist?

I will confess I doubt it. At the time when I wrote this story I had a considerable
belief in its possibility but later on, in Anticipations (1900), I made a very careful
analysis of the causes of town aggregation and showed that a period of town
dispersal was already beginning. And the thesis of a gradual and systematic en
slavement of organised labor presupposes an intelligence, a power of combination,
and a wickedness in the class of rich financiers and industrial organizers, such as
this class certainly does not possess and probably cannot possess ... The great
city of this story is no more than a nightmare that was dreamt nearly a quarter of a
century ago. It is a fantastic possibility no longer possible. Much evil and suffering
may be in store for mankind; but to this immense, grim organization of servitude our
race will never come.
The World Set Free and We are strikingly similar in basic theme. In
both novels the “evil and suffering” that man may have to face are
presented in terms of a world-wide atomic war in the course of which
the great centers of civilization are destroyed. Wells, it is true, described
the great atomic war itself in what Zamyatin called “Goyaesque” im
ages of widespread and wanton cruelty, while the war figures only as
the prehistory of the city-state in We. In both novels reason then takes
control of human affairs to order them for the security and happiness of
the survivors. Here the similarity ends. For in Wells’s novel the "little
French rationalist” Le Blanc, a warm and positive character, succeeds
in drawing together the surviving human brains and talent, now chas
tened by disaster, to fashion a world governed by justice and reason,
with no impairment of essential human freedom. The ending of the
novel is a happy and even a triumphant one; and though Wells’s optim
ism would surely be described as out of date, his argument about the
possibility, indeed the inevitability, of such a world still has the ring of
plausibility.
In We, on the contrary, “the little French rationalist” who conceives
and organizes a world government has been transformed into that
enormous, metallic, absolute ruler whose minions operate a “Gas Bell”
to force confessions and who atomizes dissidents. Though both Wells
and Zamyatin imagine a secure and happy world from which the irra
tional has been eliminated, that world for Zamyatin is an infernal
paradise, and he looks for hope to the uncivilized and unorganized
creatures who still (“somehow") preserve essential human qualities.
Yet, as we have seen, the total effect of the novel is, if you like,
"optimistic.” Like the Huns in Roman times, the Mephi are the antith
esis of the frozen, formal civilization of the One State (Edinoe
226 E. J. Brown
gosudarstvo); and since in history nothing is permanently frozen, one

leaves Zamyatin's great novel with the hope of new upheavals, a new
synthesis, and a new stage.11
Notes
1. The work of D.J. Richards, Zamjatin (London, Bowes and Bowes, 1962), is an
interesting recent contribution. A thorough and objective study of Zamyatin is Alex M.
Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin (Berkeley, 1968). This work contains an
extensive and apparently complete bibliography.
2. We, translated by Gregory Zilboorg (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1924).
3. It was published in Novyi zhurnal, No. 24 (1950).
4. Dzhek London, Syn volka i drugie rasskazy. Pod redaktsiei i s vystupleniem
Evgeniia Zamiatina (Petrograd, Vsemirnaia Literatura, No. 13).
5. Published in Kak my pishem: sbornik state/ (Leningrad, Izdatel’stvo pisatelei,
1930).
6. Evidence of intense interest in Taylor's system during the time Zamyatin was
writing We is provided in an article by N. Krupskaia, "Sistema Teilora i organizatsiia
raboty sovetskikh uchrezhdenii," published in Krasnaia nov', No. 1 (June, 1921), pp.
140-146. Krupskaya praises the Taylor system as applied to factory organization in the
United States, especially the division of labor and rationalized accounting of time, and
urges its application in the Soviet Union. Mathematicians of my acquaintance have ques
tioned my interpretation of the "Taylor" references in We. To some of them the context
suggests that the reference is to Brook Taylor (1685-1731), the English mathematician
whose works formed the basis for differential calculus. Zamyatin has given us no help on
this.
7. Pisateli o literature i o sebe (Moscow, Krug, 1924). Reprinted in the collection
Litsa, pp. 245-257.
8. The lectures entitled "Contemporary Russian Prose" (“Sovremennaia russkaia
proza”) and “The Psychology of Creativity" ("Psikhologiia tvorchestva”) were published
in Grani, No. 32 (1956). In addition to these items that issue contains the story "The
Flood," and two excellent articles on Zamyatin, A. Kashin, "Artist and Man" ("Khudozhnik
i chelovek"), and N. Andreiev, "Zamiatin's Heresy" ("Eres' Zamiatina”).
9. Gerbert Uells, Èpokha, 1922. Reprinted in Litsa, pp. 103-147.
10. Vladimir Maiakovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, IV (Moscow, 1957), 122.
11. Among the materials published on Zamyatin should be mentioned lurii Annenkov,
“Evgenii Zamiatin (Vospominaniia)," Grani, No. 51 (1962), pp. 60-97. The article is of
prime importance for Zamyatin's biography. It contains, not only Annenkov's own re
miniscences of Zamyatin, but documents touching Zamyatin’s relations with both the
Tsarist and the Soviet police, material on literary life in the twenties in the Soviet Union,
and a number of letters from Zamyatin to Annenkov. Material on Zamyatin appears in
Mosty, No. 9 (1962): "Videnie,” and "O moikh zhenakh, o ledokolakh, i o Rossii.” Also of
interest is Boris Souvarine, "Le souvenir de Zamiatine,” Preuves, Juin 1962, and Christ
opher Collins, "Islanders," in Major Soviet Writers; Essays in Criticism, Edward J. Brown,
ed., New York, 1973, pp. 209-220. An original and stimulating analysis of We is Richard
Gregg, "Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal Palace: Dostoevsky, the Bible and We,”
Slavic Review, December, 1965. Some interesting insights are to be found in Christopher
Collins, Evgenij Zamjatin. An Interpretive Study. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.
An earlier version of my essay "Brave New World, 1984, and We" ("Zamjatin and
English Literature") appeared in American Contributions to the Fifth International Con
gress of Slavists, Vol. II, Literary Contributions (The Hague: Mouton, 1963).
MATHEMATICAL IMAGERY IN MUSIL’S
YOUNG TÖRLESS AND ZAMYATIN’S WE
John J. White
Evgeny Zamyatin’s We (My, 1920), was written in the U.S.S.R. but

has never appeared there because of its anti-utopian sentiments. It was
first published in an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg.1 With its
description of a future world, the work has often been seen as a forerun
ner of both George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New
World, and in many ways an influence on them. Orwell was familiar with
We and had written a review praising it prior to writing 1984.2
The scene of We is the Single State nine hundred years from now.
Life is controlled by the Benefactor, Big Brother’s antecedent, in the
interests of rationally governed happiness. It is because Zamyatin’s
novel, like those of Huxley and Orwell, so clearly prefigures many of the
ills of modern totalitarianism, indeed of life in any twentieth-century
society, that criticism of We has mainly been concerned with its place in
the history of ideas and has discussed it in the context of utopian, or
rather anti-utopian, novels alone. Edward J. Brown’s "Zamyatin and
English Literature”3 rightly remarks that "the novel My has many prede
cessors and contemporary relatives in the genre of anti-utopia, among
them Jack London’s The Iron Heel." He goes on to draw analogies
between We and H.G. Wells’ writings of the period between The Time
Machine (1895) and The World Set Free (1914). Zamyatin’s novel, as
Henry Gifford points out,4 "takes from Dostoevsky its main
principle—that of the right to irrationality" (one thinks in particular of
Raskolnikov or the hero of the Notes from the Underworld); the oppos
ing force of the planned restriction of an ordered life is also an inheri
tance from the same writer: "the blue-print for the Single State can be
found in Dostoevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor." R.L. Jackson,
in his Dostoevsky's Underground Man in Russian Literature,5 has also
shown how much the dialectic of rational and irrational powers in We
owes to Dostoevsky. Yet, at another level far divorced from that of
influences, We can be examined in connection with a very different
stream of literature.
In a letter to André Gide, Paul Valéry once suggested that
228
Mathematical Imagery in Young Törless and We 229
Descartes' Discours de la méthode could well serve as a model for a

novel, for the time had come when someone should write about the life
of a theory, rather than that of a passion. Zamyatin’s We and Robert
Musil’s Young Törless belong to that small group of novels that have
embodied abstract concepts symbolically into their subject matter.
Neither We nor Young Törless has divorced the history of a passion, to
use Valéry’s terms, from the history of a theory.6 Both have made the
two forces combine to test another. 1984, on the other hand, is
concerned—as, indeed, is most science fiction—with the end product
and byproducts of scientific processes rather than with the underlying
principles in abstracto. This latter approach demands both a more
sophisticated character as a lens and a greater degree of cerebral
participation on the reader’s part. The theory, in both Young Törless
and We, is mathematics and the novels are concerned with the position
of the subject in relation to the interpretation of reality. The turning point
for both novels is the idea behind the square root of a minus number.
I have taken, as a concrete starting point for this comparison, the
juxtaposition of two classroom incidents. The first is in Young Törless,
the short novel about an adolescent’s school experiences written in
1906 by Robert Musil. The center of interest in this passage is the
problem raised in a mathematics lesson.
For some days past he [Törless] had been following lessons with special interest,
thinking to himself: "If this is really supposed to be a preparation for life, as they say,
it must surely contain some clue to what I am looking for, too.”
It was actually of mathematics that he had been thinking, and this even before
he had had those thoughts about infinity.
And now, right in the middle of the lesson, it had shot into his head with searing
intensity. As soon as the class was dismissed he sat down beside Beineberg, who
was the only person he could talk to about such things.
"I say, did you really understand all that stuff?”
"What stuff?"
"All that stuff about imaginary numbers.”
"Yes. It's not particularly difficult, is it? All you have to do is remember that the
square root of minus one is the basic unit you work with."
"But that’s just it. I mean, there's no such thing. The square of every number,
whether it's positive or negative produces a positive quantity. So there can't be any
real number that could be the square root of a minus quantity.”
"Quite so. But why shouldn’t one try to perform the operation of working out the
square root of a minus quantity, all the same? Of course it can't produce any real
value, so that’s why one calls the result an imaginary one ..."
"But how can you, when you know with certainty, with mathematical certainty,
that it's impossible?" [pp. 97-98).
230 John J. White
The two schoolboys go on discussing the implications of imaginary

numbers for some time, until the hero, Törless, comes to the
conclusion:
That sort of operation makes me feel a bit giddy, as if it led part of the way God
knows where. But what I really feel is so uncanny is the force that lies in a problem
like that, which keeps such a firm hold on you that in the end you land safely on the
other side [p. 98].7
These words on the uncanny power behind the concept of irrational

numbers have an ironic note, since earlier in the novel Törless had
used all the logical arguments of an atheist to deride his friend’s belief in
God.
Turning to We, we find that the hero, D-503, also has his basic
beliefs in the logicality of life put in question by the idea of an “irrational
root" (p. 198). This also occurs during a mathematics lesson.
This happened so long ago, during my years at school, when this befell me.
Everything is so clear, so deeply engraved in my memory: sphero-hall flooded with
lights, hundreds of round little-boy heads—and Plyappa, our mathematics instructor
. . . One day Plyappa told us about irrational numbers—and, I remember, I cried,
pounding my desk with my fists and wailing: "I don't want this square root of minus
one! Take this square root of minus one out of me!" This irrational root had become
ingrown as something alien, outlandish, frightful; it was devouring me; it could not
be rationalised, could not be rendered harmless, inasmuch as it was outside any
ratio [p. 198].e
The square root of minus one takes on, for the previously rationally
orientated D-503, just as it does for Törless, an emotional quality of a
very personal nature. It becomes something outside his consciously
controllable image of the world. There is an open conflict with the
former superego. When, like Winston in 1984, D-503 falls in love with a
member of a resistance group and commits the crime of failing to report
for work at the appointed hour, the square root of minus one becomes
for him a symbol of his irrational behaviour.
And now there was this V^T all over again. I have looked over my entries [the novel
is made up of the hero's log-book entries in the interests of rational self-analysis]
and it is clear to me that I was being foxy with myself, that I was lying to
myself—anything not to perceive that VT” [p. 198].
A further point of close similarity between Young Törless and We is

the way in which the Kantian concept of mathematical infinity is used as
an image, an “Open Sesame" for both heroes to the caverns of the
Mathematical Imagery in Young Törless and \Ne 231
irrational, or rather the superrational. Again, as with the idea of the

square root of minus one, the idea is both a reagent, as far as later
developments are concerned, and yet at the same time symbolic of the
seeds of antirationalism already within the characters.
“Infinity!" Törless had often heard the word in mathematics lessons. It had never
meant anything in particular to him. The term kept on recurring; somebody had once
invented it, and since then it had become possible to calculate with it as surely as
with anything real and solid. It was whatever it stood for in the calculation; and
beyond that Törless had never sought to understand it.
But now it flashed through him, with startling clarity, that there was something
terribly disturbing about this word. It seemed to him like a concept that had been
tamed and with which he himself had been daily going through his little circus tricks;
and now all of a sudden it had broken loose. Something surpassing all
comprehension, something wild and annihilating that had once been put to sleep by
some ingenious operation, and suddenly leapt awake and was there again in all its
terrifying strength [pp. 83-84],
Musil’s metaphor of being put to sleep by some ingenious operation

becomes reality in We. Towards the end of the novel we hear that the
Single State is now able to perform an operation, a “fantasiectonomy,”
which removes that part of the brain that is responsible for the imagina
tion or any manifestation of the irrational. To free himself from his
conflict, D-503 undergoes this more physical kind of brainwashing.
To appreciate the basic difference in conflict in the two novels, it is
well to remember the times at which they were written. Young Törless is
the product of turn-of-the-century Austria, when at least superficially the
structure of society still functioned, even if it did suffer a great deal of
fin-de-siècle unrest beneath the surface. We, written in 1920 in postre
volutionary Russia, has an entirely different conception of society as a
background. A Marxist, Zamyatin thought in terms of teleology and
could project his warnings against ossification into the Single State one
thousand years into the future in order to give his criticism of the poten
tial weaknesses he perceived around him a strong historical framework.
In Young Törless the conflict is much more personal and is devoid of
such large social and historical dimensions, which were first to come
with The Man Without Qualities.
It is with this reference to the teleological background of Zamyatin’s
novel in mind that we can turn to the way the concept of infinity is given
a political twist in We. The Single State is explicitly founded on a mathe
matically precise logic (Taylor’s Law of a planned program of daily tasks
is one example of this logic). If mathematics is forced to admit the
concept of infinity, then why does not the Single State allow for it? Using
232 John J. White
this argument, E-330, the resistance fighter to whom D-503 is so

strongly attracted, asks him why the dialectic of progression—the strug
gle between entropy and energy9—should ever end:
". . . you’re a mathematician . . . Even more—you’re a philosopher, because of your

mathematics. Well, then: name the ultimate number for me."
"What do you mean? ... I don’t understand—what ultimate number?”
"Why, the ultimate, the supreme, the greatest number of all."
“Come, E-, that's preposterous. Since the number of numbers is infinite, what
number would you want to be the ultimate one?”
"Well, and what revolution would you want to be the ultimate one? There is no
ultimate revolution—revolutions are infinite in number. The ultimate
revolution—that’s for children. Infinity scares children, yet it is necessary for children
to sleep soundly at night" [p. 305],
D-503 is forced to admit that E-330 is theoretically right, but in practice

he is unwilling to accept the implications. Törless accepts the view that
life is “as if he must work out an unending sum in long division with a
recurring decimal in it” (p. 87); D-503, on the other hand, decides to tear
up all the calculations that go beyond the logic of empirical reality and
has them erased by operation from his memory. But, despite the diffe
rent solutions, the mathematical starting point of the two heroes' prob
lems is very similar.
For a third point of comparison, I have chosen the idea of a "soul,”
the very antipode of the mathematical empiricism in which the two
characters previously believed, and hence the motivating power behind
the whole conflict. It is at this point of deliberation that the two heroes
part, either accepting or forcibly negating this new-found irrational ele
ment within them.
In Musil’s novel, Beineberg, Törless’ school friend, brings up the
idea in relation to the subject of irrational numbers.
. . . that little peculiarity in mathematics, that example of the fact that our thinking
has no even, solid, safe basis, but goes along, as it were, over holes in the
ground—shutting its eyes, ceasing to exist for a moment, and yet arriving safely at
the other side. Really we ought to have despaired long ago, for in all fields our
knowledge is streaked with such crevasses—nothing but fragments drifting on a
fathomless ocean.
But we do not despair. We go on feeling as safe as if we were on firm ground. If
we didn’t have this solid feeling of certainty, we would kill ourselves in desperation
about the wretchedness of our intellect. This feeling is with us continually, holding
us together, and at every moment protectively takes our intellect into its arms like a
small child. As soon as we have become aware of this, we cannot go on denying the
existence of the soul [p. 155],
The hero’s thoughts at one point in We are comparable in essence,

if not in mode of expression, with Beineberg’s diagnosis of Törless’
problem. But Zamyatin links the concept of “soul” with the more striking
image ofV^L As he again identifies himself more and more with the
superego imposed by the Single State, D-503 is more hostile than
Törless to the thought of having a soul.
It appeared to me that I was seeing, through some sort of thick glass, an infinitely
enormous and, at the same time, an infinitely small scorpiod, with a hidden yet
constantly sensed minus sign for a sting. But then, perhaps this was nothing but my
soul [p. 248].
The root of minus one, infinity as a mathematical idea in relation to life,

and the idea of having a soul, the three points chosen for a comparison
between the imagery of the two novels, all occur here at D-503’s mo
ment of genuine self-recognition.
The mathematical symbolism in Young Törless and We differs
greatly in nuance. In Young Törless the range of mood is narrower and
does not admit a comic element. From the metaphysical question that iP
raises for Törless, “Is it a universal law that there’s something in us
stronger, bigger, more beautiful, more passionate than ourselves?” (p.
123), it can descend to a rationally heartless level of thinking, where the v
thief, Basini, is seen as “a random creation outside the order of things”^
(p. 74). "People like Basini . . . signify nothing—they are empty
accidental forms” (p. 78).
The hero of We can also be callous in his objectivity when a numer
ical appraisal of a situation involves treating people as if they were
inanimate objects. For example, when ten people are accidentally killed
by the exhaust of the rocket he is working on, he muses:
Ten numbers represent hardly 1/100,000,000th of our One State; for the purpose of
practical calculation this is an infinitesimal of the third order. Pity based upon mathe
matical illiteracy was something that was known only to the ancients: we find it
mirth-provoking [p. 252].
Yet the knife is turned, with an ironic distance reminiscent of one of

Zamyatin’s favorite writers, Gogol; and we find the gropings of D-503
"mirth-provoking ” as he tries to rationalize his emotions upon falling in
love with E-330.
There was some sort of strange, irritating X about her, and no matter how much I
tried I could not capture it, could not give it a numerical formulation [p. 172].. . This
woman had the same unpleasant effect upon me as an irrational component which
strays into an equation and cannot be analysed [p. 174],
234 John J. White
Poor D-503 realizes from time to time he is slipping: “Why, now I was
living noi in our rational world but in the ancient delirious world consist
ing of \AT’s” (p. 228).
This account of the mathematical principles underlying the imagery
of Young Törless and We is far from exhaustive. There are many exam
ples left unquoted in Musil’s novel; and in We, where one can discern a
closely knit pattern of mathematical images, one would need to quote
almost the whole of the novel to illustrate the frequency of this mathe
matical imagery. This is consonant with Zamyatin’s theories: "If I be
lieve firmly in an image,” he wrote in an essay for the anthology, How
We Write (Kak my pishem),w "it inevitably gives birth to a whole series
of derivative images, it thrusts its roots through the paragraphs and
pages.” Nothing could be truer of the mathematical imagery that occurs
in We. It is largely due, it might be added, to this insistence of the
numerical imagery that We achieves its satirical notes of
anti-utopianism, "the quality of ironic humour” that Brown notes11
whereas with Musil the images are only one series of a number of
gateways for Törless into the complexities of reality.
There seems to be no reason why one should suppose a direct
influence of Musil’s novel on Zamyatin’s imagery, even though the
square root of a minus number is a striking idea to be incorporated into
two novels of the same generation of writers. Although written in 1906,
Young Törless was known only to a small group of admirers of Musil
even in 1920. The imagery seems rather to be the result of the general
mathematical interests of both novelists. Musil was trained as an en
gineer and took a great interest in mathematics through his whole life.
Writing with reference to Törless, Frank Kermode once remarked that if
Joyce had "the mind of a grocer’s assistant. . . transformed by manic
literacy, Musil’s is a mathematician’s mind similarly transformed.”12
Zamyatin, also a mathematician and engineer, lectured on marine
architecture for many years at the St. Petersburg Polytechnical
Institute.
More interesting than any speculations on genesis, however, is the
symptomatic way in which the accepted, traditional image of the
“outsider” in German literature, or the so-called "superfluous man” in
Russian literature, as being either a nobleman or an artist figure is
enlarged by the pictures of the scientist learning—through the princi
ples of his own field—the contradictions of the world he lives in, and the
way this affects the vocabulary of the modern novel.
Notes
1. New York, 1924.

2. See Christopher Hollis, A Study of George Orwell. The Man and his Works
(London, 1956), pp. 198 ff.
3. American Contributions to the Fifth International Congress of Slavists. Sofia,
September 1963. Volume Two: Literary Contributions (The Hague, 1963), p. 38.
4. The Novel in Russia (London, 1964), pp. 162 f.
5. The Hague, 1958, pp. 150-157.
6.1 cannot agree with Brown when he says that "that philosophy [of We] seems... to
have been an artificial intellectual superstructure developed in answer to the insistent
demand upon writers—even by the most liberal of critics—that they take a definite ideolo
gical position”; op. cit., p. 31.
7. Quotations from Musil’s Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless are from the
translation by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser, Young Törless (Harmondsworlh, 1961).
8. Quotations from Zamyatin’s My are from the translation by Bernard Guilbert Guer-
ney in An Anthology of Russian Literature in the Soviet Period: From Gorki to Pasternak
(New York, 1960), pp. 168-353.
9. Zamyatin has written an essay on this subject: “O literature, revoliutsii, i entropii,"
in Pisateli o literature i o sebe (Moscow, 1924).
10. Quoted from D.J. Richards, Zamyatin—A Soviet Heretic (London, 1962), p. 25.
11. Op. cit., p. 37.
12. “A Short View of Musil," Puzzles and Epiphanies (London, 1962), p. 95.
ZAMYATIN AND THE STRUGATSKYS: THE
REPRESENTATION OF FREEDOM IN WE AND
THE SNAIL ON THE SLOPE
Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.
Forty years passed between the completion of Zamyatin’s We and

the appearance of the Strugatskys’ first stories. In that span, few artisti
cally interesting works of scientific fantasy were produced in the Soviet
Union. The Stalinist “doctrine of limits" proscribed futuristic projecting
beyond the fulfillment of the next Plan, and the literary experimentation
of the twenties, when writers frequently played variations on Wellsian
themes, was suppressed (Suvin, Metamorphoses 264). In its place
came the socialist realist project novel. The cosmic struggles of the
human species against “external” and human nature were replaced by
the national struggle to modernize and collectivize, while fending off the
agents of foreign enemies. With the repudiation of Stalin in 1956 came
also the successes of the Soviet space program, the apotheosis of
science as the only social practice not subject to ideological control,
and the repudiation of the doctrine of limits. As if the liberation from the
“cult of personality” had liberated them from terrestrial gravity, science
fiction writers immediately set their hands to recovering the cosmic
utopian tradition of the twenties. The first major work of the new style
was Ivan Efremov's immensely popular Andromeda in 1958. In 1959,
the best of Efremov’s followers, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, began a
career that has produced the most significant oeuvre of science fiction
in the Soviet Union.
Highly technological societies evidently require, and produce, a
large and constant supply of quasi-mythic stories about the possible
fate of the complex relationship between scientific culture and humane
values. The history of Soviet science fiction differs from its Western
counterparts, U.S. and British science fiction, because of the central
role that a clearly defined philosophy of science plays in Soviet Marxism
(Graham 9-23).1 Since Marxism-Leninism is held by Soviet ideologists
to be both proven by science, and the full elaboration of the underlying
laws of nature in social life, there is little leeway for pfaying with
philosophical-scientific ideas or speculating on “other realities.” In se
236
Zamyatin and the Strugatskys 237
vere times, deviations from the official word on the nature of things or
scientific practice are quickly construed as veiled attacks on the founda
tions of Marxism-Leninism. As Soviet censors know very well, science
fiction is an inherently critical genre. Even the Western pulp space
opera that treats science as the magic of a corporate technocracy
“unconsciously” criticizes actual science for not being magic, for not
making our fondest wishes come true. In the West, this critical overtone
may actually promote loyalty to the ideology of technological develop
ment independent of social and political forces. But in the Soviet Union,
science is not considered an autonomous force. For the Soviet state,
Soviet science is a servant of Marxist-Leninist goals. The orthodox
argument is obviously circular: science proves, and hence legitimates,
the Soviet political order; therefore Marxist-Leninist political practice is
the only scientific approach to reality. The writings of Marx and Engels,
however, allow for a much more open-ended and dialectical concept of
science (Graham 24-68). As a result, it is possible to write philosophic
al speculations consonant with Marxism that are as critical of Soviet
science as any right-wing tract. Speculation on the other realities by
Soviet scientific fantasists inevitably draws attention to the disparity
between the dialectical adventures of the human species promised by
Marx and Engels, and the concrete practices of a repressive nationalis
tic and bureaucratic elite.
Zamyatin’s We adapted the Dostoevskian theme of defining hu
man freedom in a world ruled by the ideal of the total rationalization of
life to scientific fantasy. We established the new parameters of this
theme, in the collision between two topoi: the One State, representing {
totalitarian rationalization, and the Mephi’s world beyond the Green
Wall, representing the desire for freedom. Just setting up the antithesis
in these terms insured that Zamyatin’s book would be suppressed by
the revolutionary authorities trying frantically to establish their legitima
cy during the civil war and under extreme economic hardship. Later
regimes also felt that Zamyatin’s shoe fit too well. Consequently,
Zamyatin’s book has never appeared in the Soviet Union other than in
samizdat; it was not even printed in Russian as a book until 1952, more
than thirty years after its completion.
The Strugatskys, by contrast, benefited from the liberalization of
science under Khrushchev. They wrote comic fables, ao utopian
socialists, idealizing the ongoing dialectical progress they believed
would continue post festum, when terrestrial class struggle has ended,
and humanity can turn its collective energies to its struggle with external
nature (Suvin, "Introduction" 3—4). But with the post-Krushchev chill,
and the repression of the liberal scientific establishment in the Brezh-
238 Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.
r nev years, the Strugatskys also joined the tradition of speculating about
scientific rationality as a way to explore the problem of freedom in a
i despotic world. In their critical works of the mid and late sixties, the
Strugatskys adopted a paradigm similar to that of We. One work in
particular, their first "underground" fiction, The Snail on the Slope,
bears a striking formal, as well as thematic, resemblance to Zamyatin’s
satire.
Knowing this, we would nonetheless be right to expect great differ
ences between Zamyatin's and the Strugatskys’ treatments. Zamyatin's
work emerged from the avantgardisme and expressionism of the
twenties. Zamyatin himself was a cultural phenomenon inconceivable
v in contemporary Soviet society. The radical individualism he preached
has little resonance in a culture that has taught two generations of its
children to view individualism as a vice and the collective as the origin
and goal of all value. We must also keep in mind that before they
became critical writers, the Strugatskys were the most popular writers
of scientific fantasy in Eastern Europe, the first writers to have been
read in space, and the literary spokesmen for the scientific “generation
of the sixties." They did not abandon the socialist utopianism of their
early work; indeed, as Darko Suvin writes, their critical works can be
read as parables of the Soviet intelligentsia’s struggle to maintain a
utopian morality in an increasingly totalitarian world (“Introduction”
3-4).
In the following pages, I will offer an analysis of the paradigm of the
struggle between rationalization and freedom in We and The Snail on
the Slope. Then I will attempt to show how The Snail on the Slope might
be read as a critique of Zamyatin’s ambiguous representation of
freedom, from the standpoint of the utopianism of the “generation of the
sixties.” My argument has two parts. In the first, I offer a reading of
Zamyatin’s depiction of freedom rather different from the usual reading:
I will argue that the idea of freedom in We is purely formal, and therefore
empty, and that We is actually a micromyth about the conflict between
two aspects of determining nature outside human control and
responsibility. In the second part, I will propose a way to read the
Strugatskys’ novel as a response to Zamyatin, and an attempt to re
solve the problem of the absence of freedom which appears to be
implicit in the antithetical paradigm of the novels. The Strugatskys'
resolution, I propose, will be the attempt to depict a dialectical third
term: the committed intellectual.
Zamyatin’s We has been justly considered the model of twentieth

century anti-utopian fiction. In that book, Zamyatin set up the dystopian
norm for future writers, by reversing the axiological terms of
nineteenth-century utopian fiction. Modern utopias had represented the
liberal vision of historical struggle. On one side of the conflict was
despotism, associated with the arbitrary rule of individuals whose au
thority derived from two quintessentially irrational sources, birth and
force. On the other side was the (sometimes revolutionary) desire for
freedom. For liberals from More on,2 the consummation of human free
dom from feudal arbitrariness was the vision of a rational, equitable and
peaceful social life for all humankind. In this way, the liberal ideal of the
rationally self-ruled individual was conflated with millenialism, and
synthesized in the vision of a rationally self-ruled society. Zamyatin
turned this value-hierarchy upside down. We's One State is the fantas
tic logical extension of a victorious naive socialism. The One State
depicts the despotism of rationality applied to even the smallest en
deavors of each member of the collective. The revolutionary Mephi on
the other hand embody the counter-rational, counter-equitable, and
counter-peaceful society of Nietzschean individuals.3
Zamyatin often expressed the idea that human history is one of
oppositions and reversals, in which only the contradiction of accepted
norms creates value. In We, Zamyatin illustrates the process through a
dynamic “turn of the turn,” the reversal of the new terms (i.e., the
identification of despotism with rationality and of freedom with
irrationality) into inchoate, newer terms. This transformation sets the
novel in motion. We observe the One State on the verge of collapsing
under its own contradictions. The “integration of the ultimate equation
of the universe” (We 1) has little future after D-503’s fantasectomy;
since his genius is an aspect of his imagination, very little of the former
may be left after the excision of the latter. In any case, one can doubt
whether anyone will be left to appreciate the vision of the integrated
happy cosmos after the mass lobotomization of the Numbers. By the
same token, the Mephi may be in the process of “entropizing” itself.
The organization of the nomads into a revolutionary shock force fighting
for the abstract goal of freedom from totalitarianism may be the first
step toward the inevitable transformation of the movement’s energy into
entropy, foretold by I-330 (We 176).
Zamyatin infuses these formal reversals of ideological antinomies
with life by weaving political, sociological, and psychological ideas into
a mythic web. He takes ostensibly distinct, and even contradictory,
ideas from different realms of experience, and makes them aspects of

the conflict between two informing, abstract essences, for which 1-330
gives thermodynamic names: "energy" and “entropy” (We 164). The
One State embodies not only the totalitarian political state, but also the
entropy of social thought, and "psychological entropy:” the incapacity
for creative thought. By identifying mental entropy with the desire for
happiness, Zamyatin makes even humanity’s intangible spiritual de
sires reflect the same process as material social and physical
tendencies. Each of these realms has entropy in common. In each,
energy is so minutely hyperorganized that it cannot get out of its one
steady state, and thus can no longer work for the progress of the
species. The idea of energy implies the same identity of realms of
experience. Politically, it is manifest in revolution; socially, in
individualism; psychologically, in erotic desire and poetic inspiration;
spiritually, in the desire for freedom. All share the natural world's
“negentropic” effusion of organic life, the creation of new conditions.
The threads are drawn so tight, that each action, image and ellipsis
in D-503’s narrative reveals some aspect of the eternal collision of the
two essences. In Zamyatin’s universe, impersonal material forces re
place spiritual forces. Although they have physical names, they resem
ble the oppositions-in-tension of Heraclitean metaphysics. Every
aspect of human life is ultimately naturalized, by being made an aspect
of physical (and hence, meta-physical) laws.
Zamyatin constructed We as an ideological micromyth, in
Levi-Strauss’s sense of the term myth: an ideal resolution of contradic
tions perceived in reality, through their displacement into more man
ageable oppositions (Structural Anthropology 224). Kathleen Lewis
and Harry Weber have shown the extent to which We parodies the
hyperbolic language of the Proletarian poets and A.K. Gastev, the poet
and soon-to-be director of the Taylorist Central Institute of Labor
(254-66). Zamyatin considered his sociofantasy to be part of an
artistic-political polemic he was waging with the proletarian writers. He
considered his work as a species of "warning literature” and he consis
tently referred to the writer as an oracle, whose duty is to make the
present aware of its possible evolutions, and to counteract the smug
ness of the present. He considered the conflict of artistic wills and
interests between the Proletkultists and the experimentalists as an im
portant moment in the broader political conflict between philistine con
formism and creativity. In We, this conflict is displaced to the level of
metaphysical conflict between iron laws of the universe manifest in, and
symbolized by, psychological, social and political experience.
In dualistic myths, the two forces of the duality are seldom treated
completely equally. Even though they are formally commensurate in

power, one side is generally considered affectively more worthy of
devotion than the other. In the eternal struggle of Zoroastrianism be
tween the dark Ahriman and the light Ahura-Mazda, for instance, it is
usually the latter to whom devotion is due. In We, as well, readers
generally feel a strong preference for I-330 and the freedom party,
especially in the conflict with totalitarianism that most readers take to be
the villain of the book. When read closely with Zamyatin’s own
pronouncements, it is tempting to interpret the conflict between the One
State and the Mephi as a struggle between good and evil, true freedom
versus false happiness, irrational-creative-life affirming passion versus
dehumanized-deathly-mechanical tyrrany. Mephi good, One State bad;
energy positive, entropy negative. Zamyatin himself invites this view in
his essays of the late^eens and early twenties, where he sometimes
warns of the threat of entropy, and sometimes announces the inevitabil
ity of energy’s revolutions.
But the dualism must not be ignored. Even though Zamyatin con
stantly hints at the superiority of "freedom” over "happiness,” within the
structure of We these affirmations are empty. For We does not repre
sent freedom at all. Why so many readers consider the book to be a
passionate defense of individual freedom deserves a discussion in its
own right. In this space, I can offer only one possible explanation.
Zamyatin's technique is characteristic of what has been called insinuat
ing satire. This mode implicates the reader in making a satiric judgment
on folly without that judgment ever being made manifest in the text. In
essence, the reader is seduced, simply by trying to decode a highly
indirect narrative, into recognizing the “correct” point of view. Zamyatin
is a brilliant seducer. He plays on the reader’s need to supply the terms
of passion ("freedom”)—eroticism, lust, primitivist nostalgia, poetic
inspiration, etc.—from his or her own experience, in order to fill in the
ellipses D-503 does not want to fill in, and hence to “complete” D-503’s
character. Since it is the reader who must dig the names of these
passions out of what D-503 keeps back and unnamed, the reader is
seduced into co-operating with the story (i.e., accepting its
assumptions) just as D-503 is seduced into co-operating with Mephi. As
readers of the book, we have very little information for deciding
whether, by identifying with D-503’s desire, we are gaining the
“author’s” insight into the human condition (authoritative wisdom), or
being used by the persona, “Zamyatin,” for the immediate polemical
purpose of undermining the Taylorites and the Proletkult. Even if, as
Lewis and Weber suggest, D-503 is a parody of the Proletkult artists in
the way Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man is a parody of the "men of the
sixties” (275), we are still left uncertain about how to evaluate 1-330 and
the Mephi. In the same way, as completers of D-503’s character, we
have no way of determining whether 1-330 authentically cares for D-503
as a subject (an “I”), or whether her behavior is dictated by the overrid
ing need to gain access to the Integral. As readers, we are kept active
by having to fill in the narrative's ellipses, as D-503 is driven to fill
1-330’s gaps—both activities feel better than speculating on the deter
mining forces of the world. Yet both Zamyatin and 1-330 may only be
playing ironic games with our commitments.
Given the indeterminacy of We’s narrative, we have no ethical or
axiological basis for preferring the romantic revolutions of the Mephi to
the totalitarian state, in spite of the distaste we may feel for the fan-
tasectomizing One State. The two sides of the conflict are formally
equal. The immediate success of the Mephi rebellion depends on the
success 1-330 has in dominating D-503; and the suppression of the
rebellion appears to depend on the Benefactor’s ability to do the same
thing. We is a brilliant ironic title—for D-503 can never be an “I.” His
identity is a function either of the State, or of 1-330. He is always “we."
The power of the Mephi, no less than that of the One State, derives
from its capacity to captivate the reader’s surrogate. As the physicalistic
terms imply, "energy” and “entropy” refer to power, not to ethical
values. The One State is beyond good and evil, just like the Mephi. And
the Mephi's claim to freedom is as sham as the Benefactor's claim to do
good. Rather than liberating D-503 from domination and encouraging
him to develop his own autonomy, 1-330 and the Mephi offer him only
another we-state. They provide him with an entrance into uncertainty,
but with no way to choose.
In his essays, Zamyatin liked to link his thinking with Hegel’s. He
specifically associated his idea of the heretic who denies the present in
the interest of the future with the move in Hegel's dialectic called the
negation of the negation.
Today is doomed to die, because yesterday has died and because tomorrow shall
be born. Such is the cruel and wise law. Cruel, because it dooms to terminal
dissatisfaction those who today already see the distant heights of tomorrow; wise,
because only eternal dissatisfaction is the guarantee of unending movement
forward, of unending creativity. He who has found his ideal today, has already
turned into the pillar of salt as was Lot's wife, has already grown into the earth and
moved no further. The world lives only by heretics: Christ the heretic, Copernicus
the heretic, Tolstoy the heretic. Our creed is heresy: tomorrow is infallibly heresy for
the today which has been turned into the pillar of salt, for the yesterday which has
crumbled into dust. Today negates yesterday, but tomorrow is the negation of the
negation: always the same dialectical path, which carries the world into infinity along
a grandiose parabola. Thesis yesterday, antithesis today, synthesis tomorrow.
(Quoted in Shane 23)
At least in terms of We, however, Zamyatin’s invocation of Hegel is

inappropriate. One important element of the dialectic is lacking in We:
the progressive universalization of freedom. In what way the future
foretold by 1-330 or Zamyatin’s heretic-prophets is freer than the
present, Zamyatin does not say. He indicates only that it is ‘other’ than
the present. Zamyatin's fascination with the contestation of social
norms leads him to describe history as a process in which abstract
forces oscillate in power; the ‘content’ of one becomes the other, but
like Yeats’ gyres, they do not cease to be formally, and essentially, what
they were from the beginning. They are always “conformity” and
“contestation.” Movement into the future is not progressive here, in the
dialectical sense. The achievements of Christ, Copernicus,
Tolstoy—not to speak of 1-330 and the Mephi—do not increase the
general freedom of humanity. On the contrary, Zamyatin implies that
whenever their views are incorporated by the mass of
“world-maintaining individuals” (to use Hegel’s phrase), their energy is
dissipated: "all truths are false: the essence of the dialectical process is
that today’s truths become errors tomorrow” (Quoted in Shane 23). The~
heretical figures are embodiments only of formal opposition, not car- >
riers of freedom. Past, present and future are merely empty r
abstractions. What gives value to Zamyatin’s great scientists and artists /
is, ultimately, their mere formal opposition to the presents in which they/
lived.
Opposition of heresy to orthodoxy does not by itself produce prog
ressively more freedom; and We does not go beyond this unmediated
opposition. Because Zamyatin does not really represent the negation of
the negation, he does not represent the Hegelian dialectic, either.
Rather than motivating synthesis—and the possibilities of
‘freedom’—by raising reality to a qualitatively new level, Zamyatin’s
artist-scientist acts as an opposite eternally linked to that which it
opposes. Hegel describes unmediated opposition like this:
Positive and negative are supposed to express an absolute difference. The two
however are at bottom the same: the name of either might be transferred to the
other. Thus, for example, debts and assets are not two particular, self-subsisting
species of property. What is negative to the debtor, is a positive to the creditor. A
way to the east is also a way to the west. Positive and negative are therefore
intrinsically conditioned by one another, and are only in relation to each other. The
north pole of the magnet cannot be without the south pole, and vice versa. If we cut
a magnet in two, we have not a north pole in one piece, and a south pole in the
other. Similarly, in electricity the positive and negative are not two diverse and
independent fluids. In oppositions, the different is not confronted by any other, but
by its other. (Quoted in Graham 56-7)
Unmediated opposition may create a universe of powerful

transformations; but for Hegel and Marx both, freedom can emerge
only with the transcendence of mere oppositions in society. Zamyatin
provides only a return of opposition through an exchange of "content."
The energy party and the entropy party exist in the same way. They
have value only in relation to one another. They may exchange their
"content,” but they will always exist formally as mutually defining
opposites. To prefer one over the other is as absurd as to prefer a
positive over a negative pole.4
We is not, then, a moral lesson about freedom in satiric guise. It is a
micromyth about eternal, ahistorical oppositions that have little, if
anything, to do with human responsibility or choice. The values
attached to each side are results, not causes. In elaborating 1-330’s
famous analogy of happiness and freedom to entropy and energy (We
165), Zamyatin shows how little responsibility this putative freedom
provides:
The law of revolution is not a social law. It is a cosmic, universal law—like the laws
of the conservation of energy (entropy). Some day, an exact formula for the law of
revolution will be established. And in this formula, nations, classes, stars—and
books—will be expressed as numerical equations. ("On Literature, Entropy, etc.,”
Ginsburg 107-8)
The terms in which the ostensibly anti-authoritarian polemic is cast

preclude the notion of autonomy. Like the vulgar Marxists he opposed,
Zamyatin claims only that history and culture will behave in such and
such a way, not that one should behave in a certain way based on
ethical considerations. This way of imagining political freedom bears an
odd resemblance to the way Zamyatin’s powerful adversary, Gastev,
expressed his vision of the totally rationalized utopia, which was one of
the sources for Zamyatin’s One State.
The mechanization, not only of gestures, not only of production methods, but of
everyday thinking, coupled with extreme rationality, normalizes to a striking degree
the psychology of the proletariat. It is this very feature which gives the proletarian
psychology a striking anonymity, which allows one to qualify the individual proleta
rian unit as A, B, C or as 325.075 and 0, etc.. . . The manifestations of such a
mechanized collectivism are so alien to personality, so anonymous, that the move
ment of these collective-complexes approach the movement of things so that it
seems there is no longer an individual human being, but even, normalized steps,
faces without expression, a soul without lyricism, emotion measured not by a cry or
a laugh, but by manometer and taxometer.... In this psychology, from one end of
the world to the other, flow potent massive streams, creating one world head in
place of a million heads. This tendency will next imperceptibly render individual
thinking impossible, and thought will become an objective psychic process of a

whole class, with systems of psychological switches and locks. (Quoted in Lewis
and Weber 259)
Although they begin from radically different positions, Gastev and

Zamyatin both subsume human actions to physics, and an "objective
psychic process.” It is plausible that Zamyatin formulated his revolu
tionary hyperbole specifically to answer Gastev’s eschatology. If so,
then in the heat of the polemic he expressed his position with the same
mythopoeic scientistic premises as his opponent. In neither Gastev’s
nor Zamyatin’s visions does individual, or even collective, responsibility
for history play a part. Zamyatin wished to ridicule the machine-society
of Gastev’s myth by subjecting the “paradise” of uniformity to the phy
sics of conflict. He believed he was defeating mechanical statics with
thermodynamics. The classical thermodynamics Zamyatin learned
from Meyer, however, does not provide for freedom within the system.
Whether Zamyatin presented freedom in this way in We because
he did not think through the implications of his scientific analogy, or
because he intended to create a thematic contradiction in the novel, is
beside the point. (Even so, it is a very interesting question.)5 We is a
rhapsody of interlocking oppositions; Zamyatin’s paradoxes are so
acute that they destroy his protagonist. Entropy and energy are mutual
ly dependent and defining concepts in the same universe of discourse;
they form a duality, neither term of which is "free” of the other. In the
same way I would argue, that Gastev’s Factory-State and Zamyatin’s
“law of revolution” are also mutually dependent and defining concepts
in the same universe of discourse. In the same way Zamyatin’s insist
ence on the poetic artist’s role as a prophet creates a de-personalizing
paradox. Against the Proletkult vision of a whole class as a single
subject, Zamyatin extolls individualism without a subject. By inflating
the poetic subject, which is the supposed incarnation of spontaneity
and freedom, Zamyatin in effect arrives at the same deter
minism—although by cosmic, and not human, laws. For the poet can
only speak in accordance with iron laws. While Gastev depersonalizes
the mass, Zamyatin depersonalizes the individual.
I do not intend these remarks as denigrations of We. I consider the
novel a great work. But not of humanism. Rather, I find it most intelligi
ble as Nietzschean satire on the morality of mores. I wish only to show
here that the antithetical topology of We presents problems in the repre
sentation of freedom for writers like the Strugatsky brothers, who feel
obligated to present their public with images of correct ethical action.
II.
Boris and Arkady Strugatsky came to immediate prominence dur

ing the youth-centered literary exuberance of the post-1956 de-Stalini-
zation. At first, they merely modified the conventions of socialist realist
adventure fantasy for science fictional purposes. Their theme was the
adventure of the dialectic, and their special talent was for imagining
new dialectical oppositions (or nova)6 confronting the "thesis-world."
They would focus on the personal dilemmas and cognitive ambiguities
that even true-minded socialist humanists might face, simply because
they are human. The Strugatskys’ ability to portray ambiguous
philosophical-scientific situations was unprecedented in Soviet science
fiction, and they often used the science fictional novum as a way to go
beyond the doctrinaire limits placed on science fiction before them.
They were among the first Soviet writers to depict nonhumanoid aliens,
alien intelligences superior to the human, and even the catastrophic
effects of scientific research not necessarily linked to the “negative
science" of capitalism.
In these early works, the Strugatskys represented the idealism of
the confident, youthful corps of scientists and engineers, and the stu
dents beginning their scientific educations, in the early sixties. For the
generation of the Sputnik, science had become the consummate uto
pian activity. Its methods seemed to embody the ideals of honesty and
truthfulness, and hence the heroic humanistic challenge to the immoral
ity of the personality cult and Lysenkoism. Its achievements seemed to
be creating the material means for fulfilling the conditions of utopian life
in the future. And its organization seemed to exemplify the ideal of
communal work on an international scale.
By the mid-sixties, however, the Strugatskys had become less
interested in depicting heroic adventures of cognition in the external
world of nature. They turned to the theme of the confusion within the
social practice of science resulting from the bureaucratization of re
search and the vitiation of science’s original utopian goals. Contempor
ary models for such confusion were not hard to come by. The actual
conditions of the Soviet scientific intelligentsia in the early sixties had
fostered a double-bind. On the one hand, most of the Lysenkoite press
ures to subject research to the power and doctrine of the Party were
eased, and many scientific institutions were liberated, in a series of
administrative reorganizations, from direct accountability to the Party.
At the same time, Lysenko retained Khrushchev’s enthusiastic support,
and the new scientific administrators doubted the lastingness of the
reforms. The Party, moreover, which could never be ignored, continued
to maintain that science was to be guided by the Party and its

philosophers.7
The deposing of Khrushchev in 1964 (and of Lysenko immediately
afterward) brought on a new series of "reforms” and a new double-bind.
To limit further damage to the new leadership’s authority, and to insure
efficiency after the debacles of Khrushchev’s “pragmatic” regime, con
trols were tightened on the scientific institutions, and the Party gradually
regained direct control over the scientific establishment. In reaction to
the liberalization of Eastern Europe and its widespread support among
Soviet scientists, the ideological correctness of scientists once again
became a matter dear to the authorities. Thus, the repudiation of the
ideological distortion of scientific theory (i.e., Lysenko’s “Michurinist
biology” and the concept of “socialist science”) led paradoxically to the
intensified repression of scientific practice, particularly the extension of
censorship and the curtailing of foreign travel. Some highly respected
academicians might protest the deepening reaction with the hope of
moral support from the West. Most scientific workers faced quick and
severe reprisals for ideological deviation.
The cultural chill and enforced conformism of the Brezhnev-
Kosygin regime came as a defeat for the generation of the sixties.
Beginning in 1966, the Strugatskys abandoned their post festum topos
and its idealism. Influenced by the Polish fantasist, Stanislaw Lem, and
the newly translated works of Kafka, their fiction became less
“extrapolative,” and increasingly “analogical” (Suvin, “Introduction” 5):
they wrote less about the golden future of the species than about the
present’s strenuous struggle to maintain its integrity. In 1968, at the
height of their popularity, and under attack from influential conservative
critics, the Strugatskys penned what Suvin has called their credo:
“Each scientist must be a revolutionary humanist; otherwise the inertia
of history will shunt him into the ranks of irresponsible scoundrels lead
ing the world to its destruction” (Quoted in “Introduction” 19).
The Snail on the Slope was the first of the Strugatskys’ works to be
suppressed in the Soviet Union. It consists of two independent and
complementary narratives, each of which was published once in the
Soviet Union, and subsequently republished abroad in unauthorized
editions.8 The tales are set, respectively, in a vast, archetypal Forest,
and in the labyrinthine, fantastically bureaucratic scientific institute, the
Forest Research and Exploitation Authority, known as the Directorate.
The first tale tells of a romantic humanist named Pepper, who has come
to the Directorate as a sort of visiting fellow. Pepper represents the
literary intellectual. He is treated as a sad clown, brought in to entertain
the aimless Directorate personnel with his idealistic antics. He
approaches the Forest with a romantic's longing to commune with un

mediated Nature; and he is partly right—the Forest does function as an
inscrutable Other, resembling the mysterious sentient planet in Lem’s
Solaris. The Directorate, however, with its absurd routines and all
powerful but always absent Director, is not interested in learning about
the Forest. It wants only to destroy the Forest’s mysteries. Unable to
acquire permits to visit the Forest or leave the Directorate, Pepper
finally abandons his hopes for a moral world-transformation through the
Forest. He discovers one day that he himself has been made,
inexplicably, the Director. He acquiesces to the tradition based ‘‘in the
depths of time” of issuing at least one new order every day, including
one proclaiming involvement with chance a crime.
The second tale centers on Kandid, a microbiologist from the
Directorate’s bioresearch station. After his helicopter has crashed in the
Forest, Kandid is adopted and nursed back to health by a village of
aboriginal Forest dwellers, who even provide him with a very young
wife; thus they include Kandid in their society, even though they believe
he is their mental inferior, a “dummy.” Most of the villagers appear to
have lost their capacity for reflection, and live with no sense of the
future or the past, perpetually repeating their words and acts. Kandid
too finds he must exert great effort just to maintain a train of thought.
This befuddlement seems to be linked to a mysterious transformation of
the Forest’s geography and climate, which is known to the villagers as
"the Accession.” In the course of a dogged journey to return to the
biostation, Kandid discovers that the Accession is the present phase of
a grandiose project to reshape the Forest and to destroy the
Directorate, guided by the "splendid Maidens,” a society of former
native women who have acquired the power of parthenogenesis. They
also control various experimental life-forms, viruses, organic machines,
zombies, and a mysterious lilac fog.
Although they view men as an evolutionary mistake, the Maidens
are not murderously hostile to Kandid when he stumbles on a “troika” of
them near their strange omphalic city shrouded in a lilac fog. They
believe he might be reeducated to serve them. But after his girl-wife has
been taken off by her mother, now a Maiden, Kandid escapes and
returns to his village. With a scalpel found on his journey, Kandid de
fends his village from the zombie-like "deadlings" used by the Maidens
to abduct the village women. He remains intent on returning home, but
for the moment he accepts solidarity with the villagers who healed and
nurtured him. Kandid acknowledges that the Maidens, with their tech
nology and pure female communism, may be an evolutionary
necessity. To resist them may be to resist natural law. But he decides
that the values of human respect and compassion may demand pre
cisely such resistance, the assertion of individual autonomy in the face
of historical necessity.
The allegorical topoi of The Snail on the Slope, the Forest and the
Directorate, are familiar. They correspond to the antithetical worlds of
We: the One State’s city of rationality and the florid wilderness beyond
the Green Wall. Like We, The Snail on the Slope divides the world into
two warring regions of force: a locus of “entropy”—self-enclosed,
overrationalized, masculine, intent on subduing organic processes with
technologies of control; and a locus of “energy”—fluid, organic,
feminine, the source of the forces that will ultimately invade and disrupt
the sterile order of utopia. Since We's city satirizes the ideal of a totally
rationalized society, it retains some of the attractions of the ideal; it has
its cool beauties, its radiant glass, its reflecting pavements, its ice-blue
clarity. The Strugatskys’ Directorate, by contrast, satirizes the actual
result of trying to enact this ideal.9 The Directorate is a Kafkaesque
mess—always dark, muddy, and dusty. The Directorate’s ostensible
object of observation, the Forest, is not even visible from it. Walls and
buildings block the view at every turn. The staff is always in a muddle,
fiddling with make-work. No one has any idea of what to do, beyond the
abstract—and impossible—goal of eradicating the Forest. Nothing
works right. Nothing changes. The real purpose of the Directorate is not
to study the Forest, but to extend its patriarchal, bureaucratic authority
over it, and to impose the reason of rationalization into the heart of
Nature. (Resembling in this the goal of sending the rocket-ship Integral
to far galaxies in order to subjugate their peoples to “the bénéficient
yoke of reason” (We 1)). Even this goal is stymied by the bureaucracy’s
obsession with its self-complicating procedures and the staff’s genius in
evading them. Ultimately, everything in the Directorate is inspired by
the desire to prevent change. The sign over the door in the Directorate’s
office reads “No Exit."
Zamyatin’s and the Strugatskys’ entropotopias share certain sym
bolic qualities as well. Most important is the identification of entropy in
both books with the putatively masculine desire to establish hierarchies,
rationalize all processes, and to dominate Nature with technological
violence. Zamyatin’s gender-typing leaves no doubt that the One State
is absolutely partriarchal. The Directorate is also dominated by men.10
The Forest is a more difficult constellation of symbols to explain, for
its allegorical significance is not clear. It might be read as the fluid
ground of being, the source of all that changes according to the laws of
nature and history, where new things are created and the old
destroyed. Its fluid topography changes so quickly that Directorate's
maps of it are always already obsolete. Its life forms are so plastic that
there is no way to distinguish animal from plant, or even the animate
from the inanimate. There is no determining the direction of the drastic
natural metamorphoses that are constantly occurring.
In both We and The Snail on the Slope, the forces of creative
energy are associated with femininity: with 1-330 and the Maidens,
respectively. Symbolically, this creative power is manifest in both books
as female lubricity.11 The power of these feminine forces is in their
ability to undermine male rationality, analogous in both novels with
castration. In her role as femme fatale, I-330 is an archetypal vamp.
D-503 never tires of alluding to her “bite smile” and association of
blood. Her manipulation of D-503 to gain control of his rocket, in order
to liberate the city (and perhaps even to blast it with the rocket’s burners
(We 174)), underscores that the success of the Mephi rebellion de
pends on the destruction of patriarchal power through a woman’s
appropriation of its main symbol and tool. The Maidens' power is simi
larly threatening to the association of male potency and positivistic
science. But in The Snail on the Slope there is the significant difference
that there is very little male potency left to threaten. The Maidens’
organic science is clearly superior to that of the Directorate’s men. The
Maidens’ name for the Directorate, the “White Rocks” (Snail 182), is an
appropriate metaphor for the sterile evolutionary vestige the Maidens
are leaving behind.12
But there are other differences between the Mephi and the
Maidens. Just as the Directorate shows that the entropy of the One
State leads not to the beauties of a Crystal Palace, but to rotten
banality, so the Maidens represent the glorious Nietzschean Mephi as a
society of quasi-Stalinist projectors. Their forest transformation resem
bles closely Stalin’s All-Union Program for the Transformation of
Nature, which was to include changing the climate, eliminating deserts,
and constructing gigantic water projects (Medvedev, Soviet Science
61-2). Their indifference to the Forest dwellers, along with the snatches
of their rhetoric that Kandid catches (Snail 52), indicates that the
Maidens are hardly the purveyors of universal freedom. By separating
their work and society from the humanity of the past, the Maidens
deprive the reader of the only source of intelligibility and meaning s/he
has. For Kandid (and through him, the Strugatskys) the Maidens’ Forest
represents not freedom, but unintelligible change.
In The Snail on the Slope, the Strugatskys transmute Zamyatin’s
transmutations. They too depict antithetical worlds of competing super
powers closely associated with energy and entropy, freedom (to trans
form nature) and happiness (in conformity). But unlike the world of We,
in which, as I tried to show, the ethical deadlock is beneath the surface,

the absence of morality and freedom in The Snail on the Slope is
glaring. As we have seen, the Strugatskys consider themselves
spokesmen for "revolutionary humanism.” They view their science fic
tion in the Eastern European liberal tradition as a form of public
literary-moral instruction. They attempt to solve the problem of moral
circularity implicit in the two-world topology through a third term with no
counterpart in We: Kandid, the image of personal autonomy gained
through commitment.
The character of Kandid allows the reader to construct a position
simultaneously in the midst of things and on the sidelines of the super
power conflict. At the novel’s conclusion, Kandid meditates on the
amorality of the historical necessity that creates the Maidens and the
Accession, and recognizes that he himself is not “outside morality”
(Snail 242). The Accession confronts him with the choice between
accepting pure necessity (and hence, pure power) and the perhaps
quixotic solidarity with a nearly helpless humanity. Kandid suddenly
recognizes that he has begun to view the world “from the side” (Snail
243), and this estranged point of view is the necessary issue of his
existential estrangement from both power-centers. It is this alienation
that provides Kandid with the conditions for a choice, the opportunity to
exercise his autonomy.
Thus, whereas We seduces and plays with the reader, ultimately
reducing strangeness to interminable oppositions, the Strugatskys
point to a place on the margin of oppositions. Suvin has called The Snail
on the Slope an open-ended parable (“Introduction” 6). It is important
to set this mode against Zamyatin’s myth of eternal opposition and
exchange. For although Kandid cannot immediately influence the con
flict between the Maidens and the Directorate, or save the old Forest
society, he preserves traditional humane values while observing his
antagonists. The conclusion of the struggle cannot be extrapolated
from the conclusion of the novel—hence its open-endedness. But the
presence of Kandid allows for the possibility, even if only the possibility,
that human freedom may influence the future. In We, the
physical-historical cycle allows for no future significantly different from
the present. A tertium non datur holds.
Kandid represents the possibility of synthesis. He is less than a
force, yet curiously more complex than the Directorate or the Forest. He
contains elements of both topoi. He originates from the biostation,
which is on the cusp of the two. His specialty is microbiology, the study
of the smallest beings’ relation to the living whole—a perspective sing
ularly lacking both in the Directorate's bureaucracy and the Accession’s
grandiose engineering. In a novel that foregrounds gender symbolism

to such a degree, his status is peculiar. Although he is a man, he
refuses to dominate women, or to be dominated by them (as Pepper is).
In a world where masculine “hard” technologies wrestle with feminine
“soft” ones, Kandid has his particular tool: the scalpel. Perhaps left
specifically for him by a former male biostation colleague now serving
the Maidens, the scalpel is conventionally associated with masculine
attributes. It is inorganic and, of course, emphatically phallic. It is the
symbolic tool of analytical reason, the knife with which organic tissue is
cut to lay the interior bare, and for excising diseased tissue. Its immedi
ate function for Kandid is the negative one of keeping the villagers from
dying out. With it, he destroys the otherwise indestructible “deadlings,”
and thus prevents the Maidens from abducting the villagers’ future. He
is a counter-castrator, using a masculine tool to protect his community.
Moreover, the scalpel is only a tool of small-scale defense. It is not an
alternative to technology. It is only effective against one of the
Accession’s vehicles, and probably has no power against swampings,
viruses and the lilac fog. Kandid then can only preserve the autonomy
of his own beleagured community, wait, and observe. He cannot stand
as an alternative to the historical process that divides reality into two
inhuman power blocs. He is neither revolutionary nor a power-protected
positivist.
Darko Suvin has interpreted the tales of The Snail on the Slope as
parables about the two paths available to the modern intelligentsia. “In
relation to the other human characters,” Suvin writes, “as well as to the
overriding and unmanageable presences of the Forest and the
Directorate, Pepper and Kandid finally come to stand for the two horns
of an alternative facing modern intellectuals (as the text sees it):
accommodation and refusal" (“Introduction” 13). I would add this to
Suvin’s point. Pepper’s “accommodation” re-enacts D-503’s submis
sion to the Benefactor. For Pepper, the desperate need for meaning
and community, and his feeling of exclusion from the primal reality of
the Forest, are so great that he is ultimately willing to accept the Direc
torship as a surrogate. And the Directorate is perfectly willing to make
submission palatable. By making Pepper its executive, the Directorate
satisfies his need to be above the norm, without losing any of its actual
power—which, in fact, lies precisely in its capacity to make the abdica
tion of choice seem like the goal of freedom. Pepper is a parody of
autonomy. Unable to find true reason, he settles for rationalization.
Kandid, on the other hand, does not succumb to despair. His
"refusal” is made easy by the fact that he has been forcibly and
accidentally uprooted from his milieu. He enacts the role of the
free-floating intellectual, whose interests correspond not to those of a

particular class, nation, or sex, but to the ideal social life: utopia. Since
the values of the ideal are based on the best qualities of the past
selected from the chaos of history, Kandid is a “conservative”; his
appropriate commitment is to the oldest “organic” culture in the novel,
the villagers’. (It is interesting to note, in this regard, that Kandid’s tale
can be read as a Mannheimian commentary on Lukacs’ ideas in History
and Class Consciousness. The possibility of alliance with the
“emergent class” is wide open for Kandid. The Maidens offer him the
opportunity for a reorientation of his gifts; and there’s evidence that at
least one of Kandid’s former Directorate colleagues (Karl Etinghof) has
chosen that path (Snail 149-52). Instead, Kandid chooses to uphold
ideal social and spiritual values and the actually existing traditional
community. The Maidens’ Stalinist language and project leave little
doubt that this emergent class is completely amoral, and absolutely
hostile to the humanist ideal. From the Maidens’ side, since they are no
longer completely “human," in the usual sense, the usual “humanism”
means nothing to them.)
The Snail on the Slope thus reverses the political-axiological rever
sal Zamyatin had effected in We. The Strugatskys’ return to the liberal
ideal, now seen as a limited, temporary holding pattern. When both the
global forces of the superpower struggle are hostile to human freedom,
the book seems to say, then the agent and locus of freedom must be
the one that liberalism has traditionally maintained: the moral individual.
This liberalism is not, of course, the possessive individualism usual in
the West. It harks back rather to the pre-revolutionary Russian tradition
of the socially conscious intelligentsia, which believed that it mediated
between the masses and the ruling classes through its “disinterested”
regard for truth in the service of the nation.
But whether this moral of individual rectitude is effectively repre
sented in the novel may be disputed. Few works of science fiction in
any culture are as indirect as The Snail on the Slope. This obliqueness
leaves unclear whether we can speak of an assertion of anything at all,
or whether the novel is ultimately “about” the profound ambivalence
and confusion of its own conditions of creation. One reads the novel
with the feeling that the contradictions and problems of the Forest and
the Directorate are not really intelligible at all—to anyone. Kandid’s
humanism, the only element of rest and hope in the confusion, cannot
compete in vividness with the grotesque transformations of the Forest's
nature or the Directorate’s paralogisms. We pay less attention to
Kandid’s hard-won tentative conclusion and Pepper’s “fall into power”
(“Introduction” 13), than to the virtuosity of the Strugatskys’ incompre
hensible inventions and the psychoanalytic questions about the book's

gender symbolism. Nor does the association of the quasi-Stalinist
world-transforming project with historical necessity and evolutionary
transformation give confidence that the authors themselves have much
faith in Kandid’s defense of human values.
This sense that the unintelligibility of the superpower struggle is the
more interesting problem than Kandid’s resolution to the problem of
freedom, is reinforced by the curious literary provenance of Kandid’s
tale. The parabolic, science-fiction fantasy about confronting alien reali
ties takes shape, ironically, in the venerable pattern of the liberal politic
al novel developed by Walter Scott in his historical novels. Scott char
acteristically treats the theme of the young representative of a new
culture growing into moral and political awareness by participating in
the collision of radically different historical cultures. The unremarkable
hero usually allies himself, at first, with the culture fighting against his
own native culture; or, alternatively, he is only thought to have joined
“the other side.” In the course of the conflict, one side proves itself to be
anachronistic, while the other—the hero's own—shows itself to be in
tolerant and arrogant, even though it is historically necessary. In Scott’s
plots, the romanticized archaic culture must inevitably perish, but the
young hero usually learns to respect its ancient codes of honor.
Through a marriage with a woman of the moderate faction of the other
side, the hero symbolically synthesizes whatever still remains to be
synthesized of the two cultures.
The Strugatskys cannot have been unfamiliar with this mode.
Scott’s work is highly regarded in the Soviet Union; it can even be
argued that some of the formal models for socialist realist fiction derive
from Scott’s technique of mixing sociological realism of background
detail with a romance plot mythicizing the mergent social order.13 Many
characteristics of this romantic historical realism are evident in The
Snail on the Slope in displaced form. Rather than a conflict between
two sociocultural value systems, The Snail on the Slope depicts the
struggle of three worlds: the Maidens, the Directorate, and the villagers.
Further, it is the "meta-organic” society of the Maidens that appears
superior to the abstract relations of the Directorate. This reverses the
historical hierarchy of Scott's mythology of the ascendance of the
rationalistic bourgeoisie over “organic” feudalism. Kandid does not ally
himself with the Maidens, even though the option is open to him. We
see Kandid smack in the middle. If he is destined to return to the
Directorate with a synthesis, we have no information about it. We only
know that he has begun to gain the ironic perspective of the outsider.
Scott usually goes on from there. His historical myths are all comic, for
all the conflicts are resolved in a synthesis of sociocultural interests.

The Strugatskys could not have allowed the conventional synthesis via
marriage, with which Scott “synthesized” English liberalism and the
ideology of conservative nationalism. No Maiden is likely to marry
Kandid. The Maidens are, a priori, those who do not amalgamate the
past; their parthenogenic chastity corresponds to the breaking of con
tact with society. Thus there is nothing to make the emergence of the
new evolutionary prodigies seem palatable, necessary and intelligible.
While this open-endedness may create a sense of greater com
plexity than Scott’s realistic comedy, in other ways it creates greater
problems. The Strugatskys have the reader ally with a positive hero,
capable of existing outside his conditions. He carries rectitude in his
heart, while the world disintegrates around him. His determination to
return to the Directorate may be a vestige of the original tale, which
appeared in 1966, and thus may have preceded the completion of
Pepper’s tale (which appeared two years later).14 But whatever the
issue might be for Kandid, the reader, who has been privy to Pepper’s
story, knows that the Directorate has nothing to offer in opposition to the
Accession. Kandid is consequently a character without any other possi
ble home than homelessness. In proposing a moral, however tentative,
the Strugatskys depict profound ambivalence. While they represent the
density of a fantastic reality with great inventiveness, they do not
achieve a moral design. They leave their moral agent "lost in the
Forest.” Not until their masterpiece, Roadside Picnic, in 1972, do the
Strugatskys master this ambivalence, by allowing themselves to be
carried with it into complete uncertainty.
Zamyatin did not encounter these problems. The moral-political
message of We is only one aspect of the myth of the eternal conflict of
energy and entropy, which Zamyatin writes with brilliant economy.
While the Strugatskys write about global confusion, and create confu
sion while representing it, Zamyatin created a myth of the conflict of
forces destined to act eternally in the same way—a destiny that invites
artistic clarity and brilliance, if little moral and political guidance.
Notes
This essay is an expanded version of a paper presented at the Utopia and its
Discontents: Zamyatin, Orwell, Mayakovsky conference held at Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York, in April of 1984.
1. Other works of importance on the subjects are Popovsky, Buccholz, and the two
books by Zhores Medvedev.
2. The inclusion of More in the company of liberal Utopians bears some explanation.
More's Utopia is more ironical and indeterminate (if such a modern phrase may be used)
than its descendants. I do not think a sound case can be made now for More's advocacy
of utopian social relations. But liberal and socialist advocates of utopia who come after
More consider him their precursor, which has led to detaching Utopia from its complex
social and literary context. More was, of course, neither anti-clerical nor anti-feudal per
se. The strongest critiques of arbitrariness in Utopia are levelled against nascent capital
ist landowners who enclose their lands.
On the ideology of liberalism, see Mannheim 219-29 and Ruggiero.
3. Zamyatin considered Nietzsche—along with Dostoyevsky and Schopen
hauer—one of his models ( “On Literature, Revolution, etc." Ginsburg 110). It is surprising
that so little has been written about Nietzsche’s influence on Zamyatin and We, which can
be easily interpreted as a fable of Nietzschean problems. Also interesting in this respect is
the Strugatskys' ambivalent fascination with the amorality of evolutionary prodigies, who
are nonetheless justified in their contempt for the deadly conformity of philistine civiliza
tion (the Maidens in The Snail on the Slope, the Zursmansors/“slimies" of The Ugly
Swans (1972), and the Visitors of Roadside Picnic (1972)). The whole of
twentieth-century science fiction might in fact be read as an ongoing commentary on
Nietzschean philosophy. (One need only think of how many major science fiction writers
have treated the theme of superman/superwoman: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Cordwainer
Smith, Bester, Sturgeon, Stapledon, Dick, LeGuin, Russ, Efremov, Savchenko, Snegov,
Lessing, Kubrick, Spielberg, the list goes on).
4. In this context, I want only to show that neither Zamyatin's conception of the
dialectic, nor his conception of freedom are consonant with Hegel’s philosophy, and that
the invocation of Hegel is a sign of the philosophical immaturity of Zamyatin's thinking
about freedom. A more interesting question, for another context, is the closeness of
Zamyatin’s satirical notion of “happiness" exemplified by the One State to Hegel’s con
ception of "freedom" as the full self-conscious rational self-determination of the individual
in accordance with objective laws and institutions that are rational and universal. See
Richard L. Schacht, "Hegel on Freedom," in MacIntyre (289-328).
5. We is particularly interesting for contemporary criticism because of the obvious
split between its formal-psychological information and the social-political information.
Zamyatin may well have been aware—even if only to ignore—that basing a fiction on
paradoxes cannot yield any other message than paradox. One need not invoke the
language of deconstructive criticism to show that We’s schizophrenic journal-narrative
can never be reconciled through a “holophrenic" point of view. It is in the nature of the
book's cosmos—because it is inscribed in the narrative technique—that the duality can
not be dissolved, or even balanced. And yet, not even the plot can be deciphered without
the reader positing precisely such a point of view transcending the flux of oppositions.
Even the title breaks itself free of decideable meaning. "We" can be taken to properly
signify any number of distinct combinations of "consciousness:” D-503 and the One
State, D-503 and I-330, I-330 and the Mephi, D-503 and “the reader," "the reader" and
“the author," “the reader" and "the critic," etc. This relentless shifting simultaneously
enables interpretation (since meaning must be shared) and satirizes it (since every
we-state in We is based on ego-less self-subjugation to power). The analagous relentless
shifting of interpretations of the text, from the acceptance of responsible “authority" to a
recognition of a responsible duality and back again, generates the ideological contradic
tions inscribed in the novel as the (moral?) superiority of freedom/energy over
happiness/entropy versus the formal equivalence (in power) of energy and entropy. Be
cause Zamyatin never does define or represent freedom, however, the opposition be
tween the two value-structures is less “in the text" than between the reader’s desires and
the novel's pseudo-cognitive myth.
6. The best application of Ernst Bloch's idea of the novum to science fiction is Suvin's
discussion in Chapter 4 of Metamorphoses.
7. For discussions of the administrative reforms of the sixties, Medvedev, Soviet
Science Chapter 7, and Greenberg.
8. According to Diana Greene, the two stories do not appear together before Myers'
English version. Possev (Munich) republished Pepper's tale under the title Ulitka na
sklone (The Snail on the Slope) in 1972. Kandid’s tale was republished by Ardis (Ann
Arbor) in 1981, under the title Les. When the Kandid section appeared in 1966 for the first
time in the anthology Ellenskii sekret, "the Strugatskys described this part as 'fragments’
of 'the novella [povest'] on which we are presently working,' and explained that the
completed work might 'appear unusual because essentially it represents, as it were, two
novellas in one and contains two totally independent plots.’" Greene 2-3; 18.
9. The Directorate may also stand for the actual cities of reason developed by
Khrushchev in the late fifties and early sixties, the so-called Science Cities, like
Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, where over 60,000 scientists, technicians and support
staff were emplaced in an effort to centralize research and development. The Soviet
press hailed these Science Cities in language resembling D-503’s panegyrics at the
beginning of We. Popovsky provides an example, from a report by one of his colleagues,
Yuri Krelin, on a visit to Akademgorodok in 1968.
As you drive around the city you marvel and rejoice at the beauty of everything—the
houses among the conifers, the central complex consisting of the hotel, post office,
shops and film theatre. All round the outskirts are delightful-looking villas inhabited
by academicians and doctors of sciences. And the institutes, the nerve centers of
the place, are beautiful too. It is hard to say what is so attractive: the buildings are
the same as elsewhere in the country, the homes, shops, and places of work are no
different, but everything is beautiful nevertheless. It may be because of the woods,
or because you feel that all these common everyday houses are blessed with a
spirit of their own—a sense of truth and of the future, a spirit of science and of the
intellect. . . . You walk about the city, into the shops and among the crowds—yet
“crowd" is the wrong word. ... I have never seen such an almost unbroken succes
sion of intelligent, sensitive faces. The feeling grew on me that every woman I saw
was beautiful and that the men were all clever, athletic, and handsome. [Quoted in
Popovsky 160],
Ironically, by 1968, many of the science cities were becoming alienated compounds,
ridden with alcoholism and class discrimination. A hotbed of protest against the show
trials of dissident writers and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Akademgorodok was pulled
to a short leash in 1970, and placed under the municipal supervision of Novosibirsk, thus
losing its autonomy. (Popovsky Chapter 7; see also Medvedev Soviet Science 75-7).
10. In We, there are only four women characters (including the first dissident in Entry
22, whom D-503 mistakes for I-330). Two of these are "dissidents" (I-330 and the false
I-330); one 0-90, ultimately defies and leaves the One State to bear her illicitly conceived
child. The only woman upholding the city's laws is U-, and she is a woman manque. She
is associated with repressed sexuality (she is unable to tell the difference between a
threat of sex and a threat of murder) and perverted motherhood (she believes cruelty is
the greatest show of love for children). The Benefactor and the Guardians are men; and
the ultimate symbol of state power is the phallic rocket, the Integral. The only
vaginal-uterine (or even simply curved) object of state is the Gas Bell, an instrument of
torture. At the Directorate, there is an ethic of violently subjugating women sexually
(exemplified by the driver Acey's nostalgic reminiscences of rape), corresponding to the
researchers' desire to rape the Forest. Furthermore, the Directorate's few women (most
of whom occupy markedly servile positions in the hierarchy) seem to have internalized the
male dominance in sinister ways.
The best analysis of the grotesque gender-typing in The Snail on the Slope can be
found in Greene.
11. l-330’s power is not just fluid, it is liquid. She is associated with sap and fiery
sexual juices, with red blood and green liqueur. The Maidens carry this association even
further. They effect parthenogenesis in steaming, amniotic lakes; in their experimentation,
they particularly favor "swamping” previously dry areas, or submerging villages under
lakes; they make the atmosphere extremely humid; and their most powerful weapon is the
lilac fog (doubtless a cousin of D-503's yellow fog). The Maidens make the Forest so
liquid, it invariably swallows the Directorate’s exploratory phallic machines (e.g., Kandid's
helicopter, Acey's motorcycle). Unlike Zamyatin, the Strugatskys depict this female lubric
ity as repulsive and threatening. Greene 9-12.
12. For all its political and sociological interest, the most interesting aspect of The
Snail on the Slope may be its gender symbolism. Few non-feminist works foreground
sexual politics in such an elaborately displaced way—all the more interesting, in that the
authors may not have been aware of the political dimension of their representation of
women and men. It is plausible that, in their desire to describe rationally indecipherable
phenomena, they "allowed” themselves more unconscious symbolism, including uncon
scious valuations of sexual relations, than they might have otherwise. (There is a prece
dent for such a practice: Stanislaw Lem's Solaris was also written "unconsciously”
(correspondence with author) and also reveals a deep ambivalence about the relations of
men and women, through the love affair of Kelvin and Rheya.)
13. Georg Lukâcs' admiration for Scott is well-known. See The Historical Novel
30-63.
14. A question perhaps only the Strugatskys can answer is whether the Kandid and
Pepper tales were written simultaneously and only published two years apart, or whether
the stories' appearances roughly coincide with their completion. If the latter is the case, it
has a significant bearing on the interpretation of the book as a whole. In 1966, the year
Kandid's tale appeared in Ellinskii sekret, many people in the Soviet Union perceived a
power-struggle between the "moderates” and the hard-line Stalinists for the state and
party leadership. This fear of "re-Stalinization" may have inspired the depiction of the
"splendid Maidens.” By 1968, the year Pepper’s tale appeared in Baikal, the Strugatskys
had clearly become demoralized about the regime’s measures to suppress the influence
of European humanist Marxism on the Soviet intelligentsia—which led ultimately to the
invasion of Czechoslovakia in the same year. If the two tales were completed two years
apart, it is possible that Kandid's hopes from the Directorate were originally intended as a
glimmer of hope, a true destination for the intellectuals in a city of reason. Pepper’s tale, of
course, depicts the Directorate as a version of Kafka's Castle, and thus transforms
Kandid's hope into dark delusion.
Works Cited
Buccholz, Arnold. "The Role of the Scientific-Technological Revolution in

Marxism-Leninism.” Studies in Soviet Thought 20 (1979).
Ginsburg, Mirra, ed. A Soviet Heretic. Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1970.
Graham, Loren R. Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union. New York: Knopf, 1972.
Greenberg, Linda Lubrano. “Soviet Scientific Policy and the Scientific Establishment.”
Survey August, 1971.
Greene, Diana. "Male and Female in The Snail on the Slope by the Strugatsky Brothers.”
Boris and Arkady Strugatsky: A Collection of Critical Essays (Starmont, 1988).
Lem, Stanislaw. Solaris. New York: Berkley, 1971.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books, 1963.
Lewis, Kathleen and Weber, Harry. "Zamyatin's We, the Proletarian Poets, and
Bogdanov’s Red Star." Russian Literary Triquarterly, 12 (1975).
Lukâcs, Georg. The Historical Novel. Boston: Beacon, 1963.
MacIntyre, Alasdair, ed. Hegel. A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City:
Anchor-Doubleday, 1972.
Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, no date.
Medvedev, Zhores. The Rise and Fall of D. T. Lysenko. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1972.
______ Soviet Science. New York: Norton, 1978.
Popovsky, Mark. Manipulated Science. The Crisis of Science and Scientists in the Soviet
Union. Garden City: Doubleday, 1979.
Ruggiero, Guido. The History of European Liberalism. Boston: Beacon, 1959.
Shane, Alex. The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1968.
Strugatsky, Boris and Arkady. Roadside Picnic. New York: Pocket, 1977.
______ The Snail on the Slope, transi. Alan Myers. New York: Bantam, 1980.
_ ____ The Ugly Swans. New York: MacMillan, 1979.
Suvin, Darko. “Introduction" to B.&A. Strugatsky. The Snail on the Slope. New York:
Bantam, 1980.
______ Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We. transi. Mirra Ginsburg. New York: Avon, 1983.
NEW ZAMYATIN MATERIALS
THE PRESENTISTS
Evgeny Zamyatin
The Futurists are dead. There are no more Futurists: there are
Presentists.1 It is true that they still call themselves Futurists, and that a
“Futurist Gazette” was recently published in Moscow, but this is nothing
more than the last swing of momentum. The same momentum which
forced the Bolsheviks to steal the venerable name of socialists and
democrats for such a long time, until having such a name became
absolutely indecent for them. Most likely, the Futurists will soon con
vene a Futuro-Congress of Futuro-Soviets and announce: "Henceforth
we are Presentists. Indeed, from the newspapers of the former Futur
ists it is indisputably clear: for them futurum has become praesens, the
future—the present; their beautiful “Somewhere-out-there ” has been
found, and it is our present, mighty, glorious, noble Republic of Soviets.
Indeed, it is now in particular that the “days of freedom for all,” the
"sunny days of freedom” (an article in "Proletarian Art”) have arrived.
Now in particular it is clear to everyone: "the joyous light of freedom has
spread everywhere” ("Address to Young Artists” by Burlyuk). Now in
particular we have at long last lived to see that happy time, when
Our valiant
Life, like an ocean’s wing,
Has spread simply-miraculously-very simply.
(“Stenka Razin," V. Kamensky)
And truly: Does not everything take place very simply in the
Somewhere-out-there discovered by the Presentists? So good-
naturedly and simply, as people do swatting at mosquitoes; so
good-naturedly and simply, pulling chunks out of Russia as they would
from a free pirog. If only somewhere, even in a dog house, there would
remain that happy, free, Somewhere-out-there.
Until the Futurists became Presentists, one could admire them as
the Don Quixotes of literature. If Don Quixote happened to be
funny—his funniness was beautiful. The mop-headed quality of theirs,
their recalcitrance and their very absurdity were all fine: all of this was
stormy youth and genuine rebellion.
263
264 New Zamyatin Materials
But that was the Futurists. The Presentists, however, long to wear
on their forehead a formal stamp: “Comrade-pioneers of proletarian art,
pick up and try at least two books: Mayakovsky’s “War and World” and
Kaminsky’s "Stenka Razin,” and we are convinced that you will com
mand the People’s Commissar Soviet to publish millions of copies of
these public books in the name of the triumph of proletarian art.”
The Futurists in their “Manifesto” demand the “destruction of pri
vileges and control in the area of art." But in this same "Manifesto" the
Presentists in Red Guard fashion are checking the trustworthiness of
the authors: “As before, the theaters are staging ‘Judean’ and other
'Kings’ [the works of the Romanovs].” Henceforth, only the poorest
peasants have the privilege of writing and staging plays: right? And only
from the courtly life of the—people’s commissars?
The Presentists, employing the style of the "Red Gazette” and the
Red-Gazetteered Blok, cry out in their “Manifesto”: “October has
thrown the bomb of Socialist Revolution beneath the feet of capital. Far
off on the horizon appear the fat asses of the fleeing factory owners.”
The Futurists would not hesitate to complete this picture with the
figures of the people’s commissars, longing to shake hands with these
fat asses (see Lunacharsky's interview). And the Futurists would know
that a fat ass is not the face of just the “fleeing factory owners," but that
a fat ass is the face of every proprietor, for man does not beautify his
environment, but environment beautifies and remakes the man.2
The Futurists, of course, would give this “face” a wonderfully con
temptuous kick, but the Presentists would kow-tow to the proprietors:
“You who have taken up Russia’s heritage, who will become (as I
believe) the proprietors of the whole world, of you I ask this question:
With what fantastic buildings will you cover the sites of yesterday’s
fires? . . . You realize, for our necks, for the necks of the Goliaths of
labor, there are no suitable sizes in the garderobe of bourgeois collars”
(“An Open Letter,” Mayakovsky).
For the Futurists, truly, there were not suitable collars, and only for
the sake of constant rebellion against traditional clothes did they wear
the yellow jackets of uniforms and words. The Presentists chose the
cast-off clothes of the "poorest peasantry,” dressing up in decrees and
printing “Decree No. 1 about the democratization of art: dirty literature
and indecent art.” The Futurists created style, the Presentists follow
style. With the Futurists, everything was their own; with the Presentists,
it was already an imitation of the government samples, and, like every
imitation, their decrees could not, of course, surpass the divine, charm
ing stupidity of the originals.
And was it worth it for the Futurists (today's Presentists) to take
The Presentists 265
part in this competition? Indeed, the Futurists had Mayakovsky, but this
was a very talented one, who created his own unique, weighty, coarse
poetic music, a parallel to the music of Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite”
(see Mayakovsky’s “Our March” in the newspaper Futurist Gazette).
The Futurists had quite a vernal, spontaneous person with V.
Kamensky, in his “Kolibaiki” and his “Zemlyanka.” The Futurists were
always unique, and this was their greatest strength. Why in the world do
the Presentists want to be like the thousands of others? The Futurists
ran as a crowd; why in the world do the Presentists run behind the
crowd? So our lives pass so quickly that the Futurists have already
grown old, already grown tired of being unique, already become impo
tent in rebellion and are rotting with the senile passion of the “urtsing” to
the embraces of Lunarcharsky? Are the Futurists sharing the fate of the
Russian Scythians who have begun to live a peaceful, sedate life? Is it
really flattering for the Futurists to drink from one cup with the old man
they have met, Heironym Yasinsky?3 Do the Presentists really need to
remember Burlyuk’s lines ("My Friends”):
It is not you, perennial toadies,

Who challenge the world to quarrel.
Translated by Joe Denny
[“Delo Naroda” No. 9, March 31, 1918, p. 4

signed Mikh. Platonov]
Notes
1. In translation: Futurists = "those who will be," Presentists = “those who are."
[The Russian here is futuristy-budushchniki, presentisty-nastoiashchniki. Trans.]
2. A twist is given to the Russian proverb: “Environment does not beautify the man,
but man his environment."
3. Yasinsky—a nineteenth-century naturalist novelist, one of the first established
writers to join the Bolsheviks after 1917.
FOUR LETTERS TO LEV LUNTS
Evgeny Zamyatin
Zamyatin knew Lev Lunts as a pupil in his literary studio (1919-20)

and thereafter as a member of the Serapion Brothers. In June 1923,
Lunts left Russia to seek medical treatment and see his parents, who
had emigrated to Hamburg. He spent the summer in a sanatorium near
Frankfurt and then returned to Hamburg, where he stayed in the uni
versity hospital. He died there on 10 May 1924.
During his 11 months abroad, Lunts corresponded with friends in
Russia and received many letters from other writers. All of these were
kept over the years by his sister Genia Hornstein (née Evgeniia Lunts).
In 1966, 52 letters from the correspondence were published in Novyi
zhurnal (New York) Nos. 82 & 83. Among them were 4 letters from
Zamyatin, translated below. The originals are kept in the Lunts Archive,
Beinecke Library, Yale University.
G.K.
1.
St.P.1 13-XI-1923
Hamburg.
Eppendorferkrankenhaus.
Herrn L. Lunz.
Dear Lev Lunts. In the first lines—I very much love you—although
you have forgotten the great Russian language: one cannot (as you)
write “liubeznaia metrsha”—there is no such word, but one must write
“liubeznaia metressa” (who greets you).2 And second: I cried over your
ashes when I read your letter. I felt so sorry for you, so sorry: smoking is
forbidden! Without smoking, we tobacco-fiends are ashes.
I smoke up no less than a fourth of my riches—and so I’ve scrib
bled something else. During the summer and autumn I wrote two
stories. One is big, about two printer’s signatures—it's hard, damn!
(dramatis personae: a worm, muzhiks, Red Army men, creatures on a
266
Four Letters to Lev Lunts (1923-24) 267
certain star; title: “Story About the Main Thing”).3 The other is small, but
indecent, like "Erasmus” (written in the summer, and in the heat—as
you know—the lecherous demon is strong)4 And also—an article (“On
Literature, Revolution, Entropy and on Other Things”).5 I think that this
article will prove to be a camel (Voronsky—the article is for “Krug”—will
be the eye of the needle).6 As for my novel, the censorship has
"disastrously sat” on it—archpriesto-avvakumily speaking; so for the
time being it will appear only in English (probably in November) in New
York.7
I am preparing to emulate the great Lunts—and soon I will sit down
to write a play. It’s shameful that "Outside the Law”—turned out to be
outside the law: a good play, God grant good health to the author!
My innocence and morality are very carefully guarded, and there
fore I regularly do not receive letters from abroad—so I did not receive
your first letter. Write via Lidochka.8
Without your supervision Nikitin has completely sonofabitched
something, Zoshchenko has extolled himself; Slonimsky and Fedin are
flowering.9 Fedin, evidently, does not want to get stuck at a "transfer
station,” as I predicted he would in my article.10 About this article of
mine—Sventsitsky said some curses in the supplement to “The Red
Gazette”: he took offense on behalf of Semenov.11
Metressa, I, Mishka and Rostislav—await your letters.12
E.Z.
Dear Lev Natanovich, well, will you be coming to us soon? Your

play “Outside the Law” is being taken by the film studio “Rus’.” A copy
of the play was sent to Moscow.
L.Z.132
2.
[1 Feb. 1924]
Dear Lunts. What Fedin read—your work—today—was very

good.1 Maybe you are lying down, but you’re not standing in the same
place. The Serapions are sitting—in a mess: Alphonse sat them there.
Let them tell you themselves.2
Kisses. Metressa—also
E.Z.
3.
St.P. 21-11-1924
Dear famous European Lunts!
We Asiatics are flourishing: the other day Tikhonov1 arrived from

Moscow and brought permission for a journal—fat like Shchegolev. The
name for it: “Russkii Sovremennik.” On the editorial board:
abroad—Gorky, in Russia—Tikhonov, I, A.M. Efros and maybe
Chukovsky?2 Publication is irrevocably private. For four days already I
have been sitting up to my ears in manuscripts and conferences on the
journal, I’ve forgotten what snow smells like. The first No. will come out
at the end of March: “Reminiscences of Lenin” by Gorky and a story by
him; maybe—my novel (if they wind it through all the barriers); stories
by Leonov (a very good writer, sticks up his nose at the Serapions),
Pasternak and Pilniak; letters of Dostoevsky, memoirs of Stanislavsky;
articles by Shklovsky, Eikhenbaum, Tynianov, Radlov, A. Benoit und
. . . And at the end—"Panopticum Pathetic" (“Revealed panopticum
pathetic”—Blok)—to be honest, it’s merry. The Panopticum will be
managed by Prutkov, Rastopyrka or some other personage;3 you,
Lunts, should be the nose, finger, phallus—whatever you want in this
personage. I heard your anniversary epopee to the Serapions—it was
superb. In the “Panopticum” will be placed the apt utterances of great
and small people (such like “horseshoeing all four feet”), there will be
literary parodies, a fantastic literary chronicle and so on. Add your bit,
Lunts. Afterwards: there will also be a serious literary chronicle (after
“Panopticum”)—about Russian lit. and art—give material for this. Also:
articles from you of the "Querschnitt” type may appear, short,
sharp—2-3 pages each; send them. And finally: a story, play.—Good
health to you and don’t cultivate gigantic fingers.4 The story about Nik.
Nik. and how the Serapions got in a mess—you probably know. Write.
E.Z.
Greetings and love from me, Misha and Rastopyrka! We remem

ber you always and regret that you are not with us. Get well soon and
for good and come back to Russia. Life is boring somehow, there are no
good books, no theater, it’s empty.
L.Z.
4.
[Leningrad. 7 May 1924.]1
Great Lev Lunts!
Before me lies issue No. 1 of “Sibirskie Ogni” for 1924, in it—an article
by la. Braun about the “troupe of Serapion Brothers"—and about the
great Lunts, of course, about “Outside the Law” and “Bertran de
Born.”2 Is it known to you, citizen, that your “Bertran” was announced in
the repertoire of the Bolshoi Dramatic Theater for next season? I must
confess that this happened against all my wiles, for I insistently tried to
convince the Boldrama that “Bertran” couldn’t stand comparison with
"Outside the Law” and advised that precisely “Outside the Law" should
be staged. To this I received the answer that "Outside the Law” actually
is outside the law, and here nothing may be written.3
Irritated by the failure of my designs, and likewise by the scent of
the laurel leaf emanating from you, I decided to copy you, great
Lunts—and soon I will be delivered of twins: I’m writing two plays, one
for the 1st Studio of the Moscow Art Theater, the other—maybe for
them, but maybe for somebody else. One play they forced me to write
with the threat that they would break up my “Islanders” and draw out of
it a play; for the other I myself committed the larceny by breaking up
Leskov—from this piece, it seems something very funny will come.4
And after this—we’re contemporizing. Not an easy business. A
precious child looks at you with the eyes of a gazelle—ah, if only you
could cover her with kisses—but instead you hand her back her
manuscript. Or this: how can you write to the beloved Lunts, what has
happened to the play begun during his journey on a hospital bed—can’t
anything be done? As for the “Journey”—write it and send it; I think it
will turn out interesting—and not outside, but within the law.5
So then . . . incidentally, "so then” is a plagiarism: this is Misha’s
formula—invariable—when he has sat out his time with me, he pre
pares to leave, glances at his wristwatch: “So then. Time to get

moving.” And he knows that I know this formula, and every time he
suffers unbearably—for he can't (for a whole year already) think up a
new formula. Unfortunate canonist!6
Fedin is occupied with pediculture and a novel. Between Nik. Niki
tin and the brothers coitus, it seems, has been smoothed a bit.
Whereupon farewell. Metrsha, Misha and Rostislav send their
regards.
Your E.Z.
Notes
No. 1
1. Postmark: Helsinki.
2. The word metressa means mistress. Lunts suffered a stroke in August 1923 and
for some months thereafter could not write properly: evidently he sent a letter to Zamyatin
with misspellings.
3. “Rasskaz o samom glavnom” was published in Russkii sovremennik No. 1, 1924.
An English translation is found in The Dragon: Fifteen Stories by Yevgeny Zamyatin
(Random House: New York, 1966), trans, by Mirra Ginsburg.
4. The story is apparently “O Chude, proisshedshem v Pepel’nuiu Sredu," pub. in
Novaia Rossiia No. 1, 1926. Trans, by Ginsburg as “The Miracle of Ash Wednesday.”
5. “0 literature, revoliutsii, èntropii i o prochem,” pub. in the collection Pisateli ob
iskusstve i o sebe ("Krug": Moscow-Leningrad, 1924).
6. Voronsky was on the editorial board of the publishing house “Krug” (Circle).
Others were A. Arosev, Nik. Aseev, Vs. Ivanov, Vas. Kazin, Nik. Nikitin, B. Pilniak and K.
Fedin.
7. Zamyatin refers to We: the first English version appeared in 1924, the first full
Russian text in 1952 (Chekhov Pub. House: New York).
8. Probably Lidiya Khariton, one of the “Serapionic maidens” who reported on the
group's meetings to Lunts. She was perhaps Lunts’s girlfriend.
9. Literary jokes. Nikitin—probably a reference to his travel essays, ridiculed by
Zamyatin in a review “Seichas na Zapade," Russkii sovremennik No. 2, 1924, 287-8.
Zoshchenko was working for a satirical journal Drezina (Trolley). Fedin wrote the
prize-winning story “The Orchard."
10. Zamyatin's review of the Serapion Brother almanac (1922), expanded into the
article “New Russian Prose” (1923). English version available in A Soviet Heretic: Essays
by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Chicago, 1970), trans, by Mirra Ginsburg.
11. V. Sventsitsky was a literary scholar. Zamyatin made fun in his article of the novel
Golod (Hunger) by the proletarian writer Sergei Semenov (1893-1943).
12. Mishka and Rostislav are probably teddy bears or dolls. Rastopyrka (mentioned
later) is one or another of them (the name means “legs flopped out"). Zamyatin thought
Lunts looked like his teddy bear (see the review of the Serapion Brothers).
13. Lyudmila Nikolaevna Zamyatina. Nothing was ever heard of a film version of
"Outside the Law."
No. 2
1. Lunts sent parodies of the Serapion Brothers for the annual Feb. 1st celebration
(the "birthday” of the group). The work, Khozhdeniia (Pilgrimage), was published in Novy/
zhurnal No. 83, 1966.
2. Lunts predicted various humorous fates for the Serapions: Nikitin became an
"Alphonse” (Russian word for a kept man). As it happened, the Serapions had just had a
big squabble over a newspaper notice on the death of Lenin; they believed Nikitin had
tricked them into pronouncing their dedication to Lenin alongside the proletarian writers.
Hence their joy at Nikitin's fate in Lunts’s parody. Zamyatin's note is only one of the twenty
on the group letter to Lunts.
No. 3
1. Alexander Tikhonov, not the Serapion Nikolai.

2. These men were indeed the editors. The journal Russkii Sovremennik (The Rus
sian Contemporary) is considered the last fully private literary journal in Russia. Four
issues came out in 1924 in Moscow and Leningrad.
3. The idea seems to be that a fictional person will be listed (Prutkov is the fictional
author of humorous poems by A.K. Tolstoi and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers).
4. Lunts sometimes had swollen limbs.
No. 4
1. Dated by the envelope. The letter may have arrived after Lunts's death.
2. In the article, "Desiat' strannikov v osiazaemoe nichto,” Iakov Braun compared the
Serapion Brothers to a troupe of actors.
3. The play displeased Voronsky and other influential people. It was announced for
the Aleksandrinsky Theater in Petrograd, but suddenly removed from the repertoire.
4. The play Blokha (The Flea), based on Leskov’s story "Levsha,” was performed by
the 2nd Studio in 1925 and was a big success. The other play, Obshchestvo pochetnykh
zvonarei (Society of Honorable Bellringers), based on Zamyatin’s own Ostrovitiane, was
performed in the same year by the Mikhailovsky Theater.
5. "Journey on a Hospital Bed” is Lunts’s last work. It, the two dramas and other
works will appear in English in Lev Lunts, Things in Revolt (Ardis).
6. The particular Misha is not known: probably Mikhail Zoshchenko, but possibly
Mikhail Slonimsky.
A LETTER FROM EHRENBURG TO ZAMYATIN
12/1 [26]
64, av. du Maine, Paris 14e
Dear Evgeny Ivanovich:
I have received the manuscript of We from Vienna. I want to

arrange a translation in “Nouv. Revue Franc.” or with S. Kra. But I need
the English translation for this (the publishers don't know Russian, but
everyone here reads English). Write them to send it to me right away. I
read We. In my view the idea is magnificent. It’s an outrage that the
book was not published after its writing. I think that now you would write
much of it differently, leaving out some of the topical passages (The
Grand Inquisitor and the like). The episode about the "soul" is forceful
and convincing. In general the tonality of this book is very close to me
now (romanticism, the protest against mechanization and the rest).
Only the rhythm surprised me. Its chaoticness and mobility come more
from the Russia of 1920 than from the glass city.
Did you receive [one word illegible, ed.J The Grabbier? I am still
waiting for your judgment. My new novel (The Summer of 1925) is
finished and dispatched. Perhaps it will share the same fate as The
Grabber!
I’m preparing to come to Russia in March or April for a half-year.
Write me.
Cordially yours,
Ilya Ehrenburg
272
EXCERPTS FROM UNPUBLISHED LETTERS
TO HIS WIFE
Evgeny Zamyatin
American scholars such as Alex Shane, Edward J. Brown, and

Christopher Collins have testified that Zamyatin’s widow, Lyudmila
Nikolaevna, was remarkably reticent about his and her biography.
Apparently none of his letters to her has ever been published before,
and it has generally been assumed that Zamyatin’s efforts to leave the
USSR all related to the summer of 1931 when he wrote his well-known
letter to Stalin. The following letters show that, like Bulgakov, with
whom he was on very good terms, and with whom he consulted on the
matter of such letters, Zamyatin wrote a letter of petition to go abroad as
early as 1929.
7 VI 1928
. . . Yesterday afternoon was (had supper) at Bulgakov’s place.

(He returned from the Caucasus earlier [indeciph.] due to the prohibi
tion of his play).1 By 7 1/2 rode to the Union: the federation had
arranged a meeting there with Gorky. Stuffiness, tedium [?], pails of
slop speeches (Gladkov, Bakhmetiev, Libedinsky, Koltsov and the
rest;2 no one spoke for the Union), boredom.
Thursday. 29-VIII-1929
(Koktebel)1
. . . today during dinner (I dine here all the time, at the Voloshin
dacha) Veresaev2 dashed up, strayed into the flower bed (to Voloshin’s
horror) and stuck in my hand the No. of Komsomol'skaia pravda from
27/VIII. A few minutes later Adrianov ran up with the edition of Lit. Gaz.
from the 26th and Vech. [indeciph.] also from the 26th. General panic:
everywhere—articles directed at Pilnyak and me: why was Pilnyak’s
novel Mahogany, proscribed by our censorship, printed in Petropolis,
and why was the novel We printed in Volia Rossii?3 All this is connected
273
with the campaign against the Union of Writers begun in Lit. Gaz.—no
small matter. I'll go after tea, at about 6, and talk it over with Veresaev;
this time I may have to answer in the paper . . .
28-IX-1929 (Moscow)
. . . Well, then—yesterday, finally, I was at Gorky’s. I stayed at his

place a long time—at first [indec.], then after dinner. He was very kind
and considerate—I was also kind—by coincidence. Gorky gave me two
documents: his letter to the editors of Lit. Gaz. and an application—with
reasons—for a trip abroad. In about three days he will talk about this
application with various Soviet personages.
My “letter to the ed.”—now a new and more extensive one (written
on Thursday)—concludes with my declaration of resigning the Union
. . . The letter is already known to writers’ circles.1
24/X-1929
. . . Was at Gorky’s on Mon. and yesterday. Very considerate.

Results are these: on Tuesday he spoke with Stalin—gave him a copy
of my answer (to Al. Max.)1 And he spoke (a second time) with
Yagoda.2 At long last the latter [?] said: “Well, if he will insist—we’ll just
let him go, but we won't let him back . . . ”3 This matter (as G. said) must
be begun in the normal way.
Yesterday: . . . evening at Mikh. Af.4 He has some kind of heart
seizures, took some valerian, lay in bed . . .
“Letter to the ed."—it seems I won't print it.
Wednesday, 29-1-1930 (Moscow)
. . . I've seen all kinds of people. Among whom I caught Polonsky

and spoke with him about An. A.1
Things aren't good with her: now they’ve begun to remove the
“non-active" from acad. security: they removed, for ex., Chulkov2 and
A.A.—also I learned about this the day before yesterday, and yesterday
I accosted Polonsky.3 He promised to speak about it with Khalatov4 and
somebody else. Maybe I will learn the results as soon as today.
Yesterday I had dinner and sat a while at Ek.P.5 Tomorrow or the
next day she’ll see Yagoda and have a talk with him.
. . . Tomorrow evening—probably, there will be a little soiree at
Simonov’s,6 which I and Mikh. Af.7 will attend (but maybe it will be on
Saturday).
Excerpts from Unpublished Letters to his Wife (1929-30) 275
Better not to talk with Anna Andr. about her affairs: maybe things
will get straightened out . . .
Trans, by G.K.
Notes
Letter of June 7, 1928
1. At this time all of Bulgakov's plays (Days of the Turbins, Zoya's Apartment, Flight,
The Crimson Island) were having problems, so it is difficult to say which one is meant
here—though it is probably Days of the Turbins.
2. Fyodor Gladkov, author of Cement; Vladimir Bakhmetiev (1885-?); Mikhail Koltsov
(1898-1942); Yury Libedinsky (1898-1959).
Letter of August 19, 1929
1. Poet Voloshin's home in Koktebel was the resting place for many writers, including
Bulgakov (and his wife Lyubov Evgenievna).
2. V.V. Veresaev, well known author of A Doctor's Notes, Pushkin scholar,
Bulgakov's friend and collaborator (at first) on Last Days.
3. Zamyatin and Pilnyak were, respectively, the chairmen of the Leningrad and
Moscow sections of the Union of Writers at this time. The Russian Association of Proleta
rian Writers (RAPP) launched, with this article, a full scale attack on the Union's leaders
for their political, or apolitical, stances, and the fact that they had both published works
abroad which could not be published in the USSR. As Zamyatin noted in his letter of reply,
they were attacking him for events which were at least two years old—and for a publica
tion which he had attempted to stop.
Letter of September 28, 1929
1. The letter to the editor was dated September 24, 1929 and was published in
Literatumaia gazeta, No. 25 (October 7, 1929). A translation is published in Mirra Gins
burg (ed. and trans.), A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Chicago, 1970),
301-304.
Letter of October 24, 1929
1. Alexei Maximovich (Peshkov) = Gorky.

2. Yagoda (1891-1938), future head of the NKVD.
3. Zamyatin left the Soviet Union in November 1931. According to one source, the
only important writer who dared to see him off was Anna Akhmatova.
4. Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov.
Letter of January 29, 1930
1. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova.

2. Georgy Chulkov, a poet, translator and critic.
3. Vyacheslav Polonsky (Gusin), 1886-1932, Party critic, editor and censor.
4. A.V. Khalatov was the head of the State Publishing House.
5. Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova (1876-1965), Gorky’s wife, from whom he was
separated. She often interceded for writers.
6. Ruben Nikolaevich Simonov (1899-), an actor and director.
7. Bulgakov.
Intro, and notes by Ellendea Proffer

THE MODERN RUSSIAN THEATER
Evgeny Zamyatin
This work was first read as a lecture (in Russian) in Prague on

December 20, 1931, a month after Zamyatin left Russia. At that time it
was reviewed in Prague and in Russia and stirred up considerable
controversy. Written up as an essay, the work was published in
German, French and Serbo-Croatian translations in 1932 (see Alex
Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin, 82-89). The Russian
text has not been located.
The present text is based on a typed English manuscript with
numerous revisions in Zamyatin's own hand. The English of this manu
script is fluent, but riddled with problems—Russian word order, Ger
manic transliterations, British spellings, and errors in grammar. In pre
paring the manuscript for publication, therefore, I was faced with this
choice: either reproduce the author's text and satisfy the archivist, or
make the obvious corrections and interest the general reader of Rus
sian literature. I took the second approach, reasoning that the archivist
could go to the archive to learn about Zamyatin’s English. For the
general reader, then, this is a “reading version’’ of the manuscript. All
the changes I made were minor (mostly word order and verb tense),
and in no case was the meaning altered. I have also added some
notes.
I wish to thank Alex Shane, who provided bibliographic
information; Nina Berberova, who directed my attention to the
manuscript; and the Princeton University Library, which granted per
mission to use the manuscript.
G.K.
Moscow ... A strange city, entirely unlike any European capital.

America growing through the ancient walls of the Kremlin, the geomet
rical Lenin mausoleum next to the multi-colored Asiatic Saint Basil, a
moth-eaten droshky next to the newest Hispano-Suisa, both stopping at
277
the command of a policeman’s white stick, the policeman wearing Euro

pean white gloves and having an obviously Mongolian face with high
cheekbones and narrow eyes; large shop windows displaying caviar
and sturgeon and on the opposite side of the street a long queue of
people waiting to buy herring or grain . . .
But on entering the Hotel Metropole on Theater Square, all this is
left behind and one finds oneself in a comfortable and respectable
European atmosphere: this is a hotel for foreigners only, this is
"abroad,” the "chervonets” is not accepted here, one must pay with
foreign currency.
One summer evening in 1931, as I was dining there with the
well-known American film producer Cecil B. De Mille, our talk drifted to
these astonishing Moscow contrasts—and then, of course, to the
theater.
“Your theater,” said De Mille, "is now, of course, the most interest
ing one in Europe and America. Your actors and producers are the best
in the whole world, but . . . ”
Let this “but” remain for the time being in the wings of our article. I
mention this remark of an American producer about the Russian theater
in order not to be in the uncomfortable position of a man who praises
what is his own.
Yet I believe I could just as easily have cited any of the readers of
this article, for who in the most cultured circles in Europe has not seen
the Russian theater, or at least has not read enthusiastic reviews about
it? Who does not know the names of Stanislavsky, Diaghilev,
Meyerhold, Anna Pavlova, Chaliapin, Mikhail Chekhov, Kachalov? And
if someone decided to arrange the Olympics of the World Theater, the
majority would certainly vote for the Russian theater. History, I think,
has already counted these votes, and in today’s world competition the
Russian theater emerges the winner.
There is a saying: “The winner is not judged.” But this saying, like
so many others, should have been turned the other way round a long
time ago. It ought to be said: “Only the winner should be judged.” The
winner can hear the truth—and can bear to hear it, which is not so easy.
The theater—I mean the genuine one—is definitely the result of COL
LECTIVE work, a creative melting of three fundamental elements: the
playwright, the producer and the actor.
The most fundamental difference between the Russian and the
modern European theater, and the secret of the Russian theater’s
success, lies in the fact that its foremost leaders understood (I would
rather say, felt) this collective principle and carried it out in practice.
Their collective buildings are of very different, very dissimilar styles. But
The Modern Russian Theater (1931) 279
the important thing is that each of the foremost Russian theaters has a
clearly expressed countenance, has its own focus, where all the rays
converge as in a burning glass and thus obtain the power to set fire to
the spectators. In no Russian theater of any importance today can one
see something that is happening in many theaters in Berlin and Paris,
and is considered a most usual procedure there, namely the changing
of the cast for each new play. At one time this was as impossible for the
Meiningen Theater as it is now for the Stanislavsky, the Tairov, or the
Meyerhold.
The tendency of the European theater to rely on the talent and art
of one or various individual actors is its chief weakness, while the
tendency of the Russian theater to rely on a permanent ensemble of
actors, who are united by a single school, is its greatest strength.
After the Revolution in Russia, acting schools and studios sprang
up like mushrooms after the rain. Especially in Leningrad: there were
the theatrical schools of the militia, the firemen, the sailors, the
students, the clerks of different commissariats . . . But all these studios
disappeared as quickly as the mushrooms. Only a few serious theatric
al schools continued, such as the Institute of Scenic Art (ISI) in
Leningrad, the same Institute in Moscow and Kharkov. But even these
schools produce no more than the raw materials for the real actors’
schools, which some of the Russian theaters are now. The existence of
such schools guarantees the long life of the theater, for it makes the
theater independent of individual masters, it secures the succession of
the actor’s art.
In this respect, Stanislavsky’s school—the Moscow Art Theater
(“the First MKhAT”)—is most typical. At one time it seemed that this
theater owed its success to a happy chance, which united so many
first-class actors in one group. But in the last few years the old masters
have gradually left the scene, and not because their talent is on the
wane, but because this talent no longer finds suitable material in the
new plays of the revolutionary repertory. When, for instance, the splen
did Kachalov, with his mild gestures, his velvety voice, appears on the
stage playing the part of a muzhik, a “red partisan” (in Ivanov’s play The
Armored Train), one is reminded of an Arabian steed harnessed to a
cart loaded with timber. The Arabian steed, of course, can draw the
cart, but it is not the most pleasant sight. Some of the Art Theater’s
other old “stars” found themselves in the same position as Kachalov,
so bye and bye they disappeared from the playbill skies, and it seemed
as if the twilight of the theater were near.
Nothing of the sort happened. The school, the collective spirit of
the theater had done its work: new stars rose in the place of old ones.
Among his young pupils Stanislavsky found actors of great talent quite
worthy of taking the place of the old masters (young actors like
Yanshchin, Khmelyov, Livanov). And besides this, the former studios of
Stanislavsky’s theater had already grown strong roots by this time, and
these studios quickly became independent first-rate theaters like the
Second Moscow Art Theater (“the Second MKhAT”) and “Vakhtan
gov's Theater.”
The history of the Second Art Theater is an interesting example of
what I have said above about the way the work of actors is organized in
Russia. One of the founders of this young theater and later its manager
was Mikhail Chekhov (the nephew of the famous writer).1 In Moscow
during the last few years before he left Russia, he was indeed the god
of the theatergoing public, and the public was not mistaken in its choice:
Chekhov is in fact the greatest of contemporary Russian actors. In
order to be a genius an actor must be, so to speak, a woman: he must
be able to give himself completely to his part. This is what Chekhov did.
On the stage he did not exist as a man who firmly, quite manlike,
asserts himself. On the stage there was either Khlestakov in Gogol's
The Inspector General, or Hamlet, or the comical Fraser in Berger’s
The Flood,2 or the touching old Kaleb in The Cricket on the Hearth
based on Dickens’ story,3 and every one of these characters was abso
lutely unlike the other. But Mikhail Chekhov was not only the leading
actor, he was the heart of the theater. And when he left Russia several
years ago and stayed abroad to work, it seemed that the pulse of his
theater would stop beating and that the theater would die of artistic
anemia. But the wonderful regenerating capacity of a well-organized
collective body helped in this case as well. Although not all at once. The
Second Art Theater got over the loss, it did not perish, and it continues
to occupy one of the leading positions in Moscow.
An even more demonstrative case is that of two opera
houses—the “Mariinsky” in Leningrad and "The Bolshoi Opera” in
Moscow. These two theaters, which up to 1917 were “Imperial" ones,
lost their theatrical Emperor Chaliapin, but they had the strength to
maintain their former high artistic level. This applies to the ballet casts
of these theaters as well.
To sum up, I should say that in the modern Russian theater "the
autocracy” of separate great actors has been replaced by the "republic
of actors,” and in most cases the theaters have gained because of it. I
shall mention only two exceptions: "The Maly Theater" in Moscow and
the "Alexandrinsky” in Leningrad. These two well-known dramatic
theaters, both formerly “Imperial” also, had very good casts which
depended not so much on unity as on separate brilliant units, and
because of this they have now lost their former significance and be
come theaters of the eclectic type.
Hr Hr *
The “republic of actors” certainly could not exist without a

“president” who writes and directs them by a single artistic will, that is to
say without a producer.
There are many capable and talented producers now in Russia,
but the mathematics of art are paradoxical: the sum of these many
producers is equal to two: Stanislavsky plus Meyerhold. Indeed, the
work of these two men determines the new era of the Russian Theater,
and these two well-known names represent two opposite poles to which
all the other producers’ lines converge. It now seems impossible, but as
a matter of fact there was a time when these two opposite poles,
Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, met at one point. There was a time
(before the war) when Meyerhold was an actor in Stanislavsky’s theater
. . . Still, did not Luther spring from the Catholic Church in order to
become its most irreconcilable enemy? Thus Meyerhold came out of
Stanislavsky’s theater in order to become its artistic antagonist and to
build his theatrical work on principles quite opposite to Stanislavsky’s.
Meyerhold, the illegitimate son of Stanislavsky, is a legitimate grandson
of Gozzi, his theater is undoubtedly a theater of masks, it is above all a
game, a game with the spectators, based on the unmasking of theatric
al illusion. A game allowing every kind of anachronism, eccentricity,
dissonance, things which are quite inconceivable in Stanislavsky’s
theater. As a rule, the spectator at one of Meyerhold’s productions must
not for a single moment forget that he is watching actors, who are only
“acting.” And as a rule in Stanislavsky’s theater the spectator must not
for a moment think that he is watching a play and not a slice of real life.
Meyerhold calls Stanislavsky’s work, without much respect, “looking
through a keyhole into a stranger’s house.” Meyerhold’s work seems
like circus work to Stanislavsky. And indeed the word "circus” (with the
+ sign, of course) can often be heard during Meyerhold’s lessons with
his pupils. He builds his work on the exercise of the human body, on its
development to the utmost limit—including acrobatics. Stanislavsky
tries to obtain from his pupils the utmost development of their psycholo
gical abilities, including a complete transformation into persons who live
in the given play, and it is quite comprehensible that during his lessons
(at least in former times) he used a terminology taken from yoga. In
short, Meyerhold takes the “material” of the theater as a basis, and
Stanislavsky takes the “spirit.”
It would seem that in a country where materialism is something like

a state religion, Meyerhold would be certain of a long-lasting and
guaranteed success. But strange as it may seem, in recent years
Meyerhold’s position has proved much more difficult than
Stanislavsky's. This will seem more comprehensible if one considers
Meyerhold’s biography as a producer. Well before the Revolution and
Civil War he started his career as a theatrical rebel fighting against the
dubious theater of Leonid Andreev. And 20-25 years later, in our days,
he suddenly came face to face again with a dubious and sermonizing
theater, although now with a different coloration. This meeting, in spite
of the greatest good will and mutual sympathy, could not be amicable
because of the deep, inrooted, organic differences between the two. A
strong propagandistic pathos is incompatible with the pure Meyerhol-
dian principle of the theater as a “game.” This meeting could be suc
cessful in only one domain, that of high satire. But precisely in this
domain there was a creative draught, no harvest in the repertory due to
the frost of censorship. Meyerhold most often seeks refuge from all
these contradictions in the fortresses of classical works, well protected
from the political attacks of the over-Marxed critics. Meyerhold, with his
sixty years, is still young, and he wants the classics to be as young on
his stage. Therefore, without the slightest hesitation, he sews monkey
glands into them. Without the slightest pity, he performs operations on
them as cruel as those in H.G. Wells’s novel The Island of Doctor
Moreau. Luckily the patients of Doctor Meyerhold are much more obe
dient and cannot rise against him, although some of them, perhaps,
have quite a legitimate right.
Of all the classics which Meyerhold has rejuvenated (he has pro
duced the works of Ostrovsky, Gogol, Griboedov), perhaps only Gogol,
whose genius is most closely related to Meyerhold, could thank him for
the production of The Inspector General.4 Meyerhold managed to turn
this play, which had always been treated as an amusing comedy, into
an unusual, almost terrifying spectacle. And the remarkable thing is that
this was attained without changing the original text, unless one counts
the introduction of several musical numbers, and the new divisions
made in the acts of the play.
As might be expected, the most ardent followers of Meyerhold
have turned out to be more Meyerholdian than Meyerhold himself, and
they have been trying even more hazardous experiments with the
classics. The Alexandrinsky Theater in Leningrad, for instance, not long
ago produced a rejuvenated Tartuffe. The comedy takes place in
super-modern surroundings: on board a transatlantic ship, in motor
cars and even ... in the gondola of an airship. The actors, naturally, are
dressed in modern clothes, and to his astonishment the spectator sees

before him, among other characters, an orthodox priest, a mulla, a
rabbi, the Pope, Pilsudsky and MacDonald . . . Luckily these characters
are silent and appear only during the pantomime intermezzos. Another,
no less dangerous experiment was tried out at the Vakhtangov Theater
in July of this year, namely the re-interpretation of Hamlet. We are told
that for all these centuries everyone was mistaken—Hamlet is by no
means a tragic hero, disappointed in life, he is a gay, life-loving, skeptic
al and cynical fellow rather remindful of Falstaff. Ophelia certainly could
not have lost her reason over an unhappy love-affair, it is simply that
she was returning home after some festive dinner and everything she
says is not due to madness but under the influence of drink . . .
These anecdotal facts are an illustration of Meyerhold’s influence
on modern Russian producers: Meyerhold’s method has until now been
the dominant one. Stanislavsky laid the foundation for several excellent
new theaters, he also trained a number of brilliant young actors, but
strange as it may seem, he did not give us one single producer worthy
of himself. Vakhtangov, who died at the beginning of the Revolution,
was perhaps the only exception (he was the originator of two most
wonderful productions: Dybbuk5 in the Moscow Jewish Theater
“Habima" and Turandot6 in the Moscow Vakhtangov Theater).
And yet, in the last two or three years, while art in general has
abandoned the extreme left positions, Stanislavsky has again come to
the fore. The time is gone when the public, blinded by Futurism, Supre
matism and Constructivism, accepted everything put before it. There
are few snobs left today who have seen everything in their lifetime and
seek something quite extraordinary, “épatant” on the stage. The new,
less sophisticated spectator demands above all from the theater illu
sions of real life, stronger and deeper impressions than even the most
brilliant “acting.” This explains the recent turn of the Russian theater
audiences towards Stanislavsky and theaters related to his, such as
The Second MKhAT and Vakhtangov’s Theater. Last year this turn was
confirmed, so to say, by official seal: Stanislavsky’s theater was taken
under the special patronage of the Kremlin, the “red director” of this
theater (a Communist appointed by the government) was recalled and
Stanislavsky became again the sole and all-powerful director-manager
of this theater. By the way, the Bolshoi Opera Theater in Moscow has
received the same grace.
This certainly does not mean that Meyerhold’s importance in the
Russian Theater has come to an end. He has left too deep an imprint in
the formal life of the theater for it to disappear. This cannot happen also
because the closest followers of Stanislavsky, such as Vakhtangov’s
Theater and The Second MKhAT, no longer employ Stanislavsky’s

methods in their pure form, but with a mixture of Meyerholdism. If I, a
heretic, were allowed to use Marx’s (or rather Hegel’s) terminology, I
would call Stanislavsky’s work the “thesis” and Meyerhold’s the
“antithesis,” and I believe that the near future belongs to the synthesis
of both these influences and that this synthetic line will be the basis of
Russian productions.
And now the producer of this article returns to its first scene:
Moscow, Theater Square, Hotel Metropole. And the unfinished reply of
Cecil B. De Mille:
“Your actors and producers are the best in the whole world, but. . .
where are your new plays worthy of them? In America we follow you
with the greatest interest, we want to learn about your new life built
along quite different lines and—to draw our own conclusions, but in
stead we are given ready-made conclusions, a sermon. This isn’t of
much interest to us, and I doubt if it’s of any interest to you."
The American producer had a right to be doubtful on this score, for
indeed, the repertory is now the weakest spot in the Russian theater. It
seems that something quite inconceivable has taken place: it was much
easier to move the tremendous weight of economics and industry than
a seemingly light and ethereal substance—such as dramatics. But this
seems inconceivable only at first glance, the whole matter lies in the
simple laws of mechanics: the heavier and more solid a mass is, the
greater the effect of a blow. It is easy to imagine the result of a blow on a
gas cloud!
In Russia they have tried in recent years to conquer this law of
mechanics and to force the gaslike cloud of dramatics to advance with
the same speed as the rolling iron ball of industry. Of course, the effect
has not been very cheerful for dramatics: the cloud has been
dis-concentrated, dispersed, and the result has been a number of wat
ery plays à thèse, whose life was not of long duration. What new Rus
sian plays, in fact, were successful and kept long on the posters? In
Stanislavsky’s theater, Vsevolod Ivanov’s Armored Train has been
shown for several seasons. This is a play based on the Civil War, its
dramatic technique is not the best, still the producer managed to turn it
into a good show.7 In the same theater, Bulgakov’s play The Last Days
of The Turbins (based on the Civil War in the Ukraine) was shown very
successfully and later forbidden by the censor.8 And finally Kataev's
play The Squaring of the Circle, a very well-written farce on the life of
Soviet students.9 In the Second Art Theater, The Flea, a play by the
author of this article, is being shown for the sixth season. This play is an
attempt to renew the Russian folk comedy.10 This theater has also
produced Afinogenov’s play The Strange Man, a fortunate Soviet varia
tion of Chekhov’s plays.11 The "mascotte” of the Vakhtangov Theater
was Lavrenyov’s psychological drama, again based on the rich theme
of the Civil War: Falling Apart.12 Two more plays should be mentioned:
Trenyov’s Lyubov Yarovaya13 and Kirshon’s The Railway Lines Are
Humming.14 Both these plays held the public’s attention for a long time,
but both did so mostly because of the novelty of the subject: Lyubov
Yarovaya was the first play about the Civil War, and Kirshon’s play was
the first one to deal with a factory and factory life. And finally Erdman’s
The Mandate, which had a record run in Meyerhold’s theater. This play
was one of the few examples of a new high satire, for the development
of which, as has been said above, the literary climate in Russia is not
very favorable at present (The Mandate was shown 6-7 years ago).15
I have mentioned so far only the Moscow theaters, because these
theaters are the real test for plays. Plays that have passed this test
afterwards make a tour of all the important provincial theaters. Such
was the case with all the above-mentioned plays. But it may be
observed that among these plays there was only one that treated of
current problems such as industrialization, the kolkhozes, etc. When
Russian playwrights, spurred on by the official critics, hurriedly took
these as yet unformed, everchanging matters, the result was something
which can only be called a dramatic abortion: quite a number of hastily
written, raw plays appeared. Like all abortions, they had dispro
portionately large heads, filled with the best ideology, and thin weak
bodies, too weak to bear the weight of this ideology. Like all abortions,
they needed to be artificially fed, the critics nourished them as much as
possible, and still they perished very quickly. The failure of these plays
did not lie in the mediocrity of their authors. Some playwrights who had
shown their talent in other plays tried these themes, but the results were
no better. For instance, the author of The Squaring of the Circle,
Kataev, came forward with a play called The Avant-Garde, which was
saved but for a short period by the excellent production of the Vakhtan
gov Theater. (Translated into German, it lasted for only 4-5 perform
ances in Berlin.) The author of the very successful Lyubov Yarovaya
wrote a weak kolkhoz play Yasnyi Log (produced at the Maly Theater in
Moscow, 1931). The rather talented writer Nikolai Nikitin gave a very
weak play The Line of Fire, concerning which the Soviet critics had to
admit that in spite of the excellence of the ideology, the play was, from
the point of view of art, a failure (Tairov’s Theater, Moscow).16 And so
on. Of all these hasty and false works only Afinogenov’s play Fear
ought to be put aside. It had a great success, first in Leningrad and then
in Moscow. This play has for its theme the same everlasting “complot”
of the “vrediteli"—the “harmers,” but there is also the everlasting ethic
al question of the rights of the Revolution to make use of terror. This is
what guaranteed the play a long run.17
This tendency toward pure publicists, "industrial” themes spread
from the dramatic theater to the opera and ballet. During the 1930-31
season, the Mariinsky Theater produced the ballet The Bolt. On the
stage, of course, we were shown a factory, there was a dance of the
workmen at the furnaces, a dance of the “vrediteli," a dance of the
“kulaks,” and a sort of dance "apotheosis”—dances of different parts of
the Red Army, including Red Cavalrymen who galloped wildly . . . while
sitting on chairs. The result was by no means an apotheosis, the first
night of the ballet happened to be its last. The opera Ice and Steel,
shown at the same theater, met with the same fate. At the same time
the Moscow Bolshoi Opera Theater was showing an “industrial” opera
The Prophet which would have been more aptly named “The Failure.” If
I am not mistaken, it was also taken off after the first performance.
Stalin, who had assisted in the first production, gave an unfavorable
opinion and the fate of this opera was sealed.
Perhaps not only this particular opera was doomed. The govern
ment finally took notice of the epidemic and took measures to amelio
rate the theatrical repertory. It was at this moment that the Bolshoi
Opera Theater and Stanislavsky’s Theater received their new
constitution. The critics were given new orders to start a campaign
against “red khaltura”—against “red nonsense” in dramatic literature.18
Several plays were removed from the list of librorum prohibitorum,
these plays had little in common with the questions of the day but had
much in common with genuine art. Because of an order from above, the
ban on Bulgakov’s play The Last Days of the Turbins was lifted. The
formerly prohibited play by the same author, Molière,''9 and Erdman’s
The Suicide20 were also allowed. The season of 1930-1931 was a
season which revived classical plays on the stage, especially in the
opera and ballet. The campaign against “red nonsense" is apparently a
serious one, and will, let us hope, result in better conditions for the work
of playwrights. The very talented young playwright Olesha has summed
up the situation very well in one short phrase: “The writer must have
time to think.”
***
Until now I have mentioned only the professional, acknowledged

theater, which presently only continues the work started long before the
Revolution. But there are several theatrical forms which had no
pre-revolutionary ancestors. They are the more interesting because, as
far as I know, they have no equivalent in the European theater.
The inculcation of politics into everyday life and everybody’s life in
Russia gave birth to the “Living Newspaper.” As the name itself shows,
this is a theatrical "feuilleton,” based partly on general political events
and partly on more particular themes taken from the lives of different
factories. This form of theater sprung from the workmen’s amateur
theater clubs at the beginning of the Revolution. The "Living
Newspaper” is even now very often run by amateurs, but professional
young actors are more and more joining them, they form small “living
newspaper” casts. While having a permanent cast, these theaters do
not have a permanent stage, and usually they make the rounds of the
different factory club theaters. This branch of the theater is, of course,
only a utilitarian, publicistic form. But then the “Living Newspaper”
makes no pretensions to anything greater. The material for these
“newspapers” is supplied to their own authors, whose names remain
unknown. Until now no well-known author has tried to express himself
in this theatrical form.
The so-called “TRAMs” (Theaters of the Working Youth) also
sprang from the amateur workmen’s clubs at the beginning of the
Revolution.21 Little by little they are turning into theaters of the profes
sional type, all the while keeping their own plays and their own
traditions. The casts of these theaters consist almost exclusively of
young workmen who first discovered their histrionic talents on their own
homemade stages. And if somewhere the "industrial” plays do not
seem to sound a false note, it is in these “TRAM” theaters. For these
actors grew up in industry, they know it thoroughly and its interests are
of true value to them. It is interesting to note that the plays of these
“TRAMs” remain within their own walls, none of them ever appear on
the greater professional stages. Contrary to the professional theater,
which is undoubtedly superior in Moscow to that of Leningrad, the
“TRAMs” of the former capital are of a much greater artistic value than
those of Moscow.
And now let us leave the four walls of the Theater and come
outside—to the theater under the open sky, the "theater of the square.”
Officially there is no such term as yet, perhaps it has never even
appeared before this article, which is not extraordinary as there is really
no such theater, there is only its embryo. What I mean by this "theater
of the square” is the few experiments of mass spectacles made during
the so-called “revolution festivals.” And here again Leningrad has the
better of Moscow. From the Moscow experiments of this sort, only one
may perhaps be made use of someday, namely the tremendous and
almost wild idea of a young musician who tried to regale the city with a
symphony . . . played on the factory whistles. The “orchestra” had to
give its concert after only one rehearsal; the experiment was not suc
cessful and has been forgotten for the time being. But many of the
Petersburg theatrical audiences still remember the spectacle, whose
stage was the enormous porches and staircase of the Petersburg
Exchange. The play was some hastily written agitational piece, but the
play mattered little, what mattered were the scale and size of the
theater. Instead of the gong at the beginning of the performance—a
six-inch gun, instead of the footlights—searchlights, instead of
scenery—tremendous white columns, with the silky blackness of the
sky as a background. The crowds of many thousands on the shore of
the Neva—formed the audience of the stalls, and those on the ships at
the shore—the audience in the boxes. This was indeed a great theatric
al spectacle, it was not a pity to have spent several hundred million to
produce it (the most humble unit in those times was a million). Later on
one had to learn to count in tens and hundreds, great expenses for such
spectacles became impossible and the few experiments of this sort had
to be done on a much smaller scale, and hence the result was not
successful. But perhaps these failures are only the beginning of a new
road, a road which may lead us back to the long forgotten Greek
. ' 22
oryopa.
Notes
1. Mikhail Chekhov, together with Boris Sushkevich, assumed leadership of the

First Studio of the Moscow Art Theater in 1922, after the death of Evgeny Vakhtangov. In
1924 the First Studio was renamed the Second MKhAT. Chekhov emigrated in 1928.
2. The Flood (Russian title Potop) by Henning Berger was presented in the First
Studio in December, 1916, directed by Vakhtangov.
3. The Cricket on the Hearth (Russian title: Sverchok na pechi), adapted by Sush
kevich and directed by Leopold Sulerzhitsky, was the hit of the First Studio’s 1914
season.
4. Revizor premiered on December 9, 1926, in the Meyerhold Theater.
5. Dybbuk by S. An-sky (pseudonym of Solomon Rappoport) was first produced in
1922. It has been played throughout the world with Vakhtangov’s staging.
6. Princess Turandot by Carlo Gozzi was staged three months before Vakhtangov’s
death in 1922.
7. Bronepoezd 14-69 by Vsevolod Ivanov, a dramatization of the story of the same
name, was first produced in 1927. See RLT No. 2, 1972 for a translation of the story.
8. Dni Turbinykh by Mikhail Bulgakov adapted from his novel The White Guard
(Belaya gvardiya), premiered on Oct. 5, 1926. It was banned at various times and finally
revived in 1932.
9. Kvadratura kruga by Valentin Kataev was first shown in 1925-1926.
10. Blokha, based on Nikolai Leskov's story Levsha, was directed by Alexei Diky. It
premiered on Feb. 11, 1925.
11. Chudak by Alexander Afinogenov was produced by the Second MKhAT in 1929
and the State Dramatic Theater in 1930.
12. Razlom, usually translated as "The Break," by Boris Lavrenyov, was first pro
duced by the Bolshoi Dramatic Theater in 1927.
13. Lyubov Yarovaya by Konstantin Trenyov premiered in the Maly Theater on Dec.
22, 1926. It ran for 200 performances there, and then was taken up by the Moscow Art
Theater.
14. Relsy gudyat by Vladimir Kirshon was given in the Theater MGSPS and the
Leningrad Academic Theater of Drama in 1928.
15. Nikolai Erdman's Mandat, which ran over 100 performances, premiered at the
Meyerhold Theater on April 20, 1925. It caused a political scandal. See the article on
Erdman in RLT No. 2, 1972.
16. Nikitin’s Liniya ognya was performed in Tairov's Kamernyi Theater and the
Leningrad Bolshoi Dramatic Theater in 1931.
17. Strakh was first produced by the Moscow Art Theater in 1929. The word vrediteli
is usually translated into English as "the wreckers"—meaning all those saboteurs,
schemers and malingerers who endanger the Revolution.
18. The word khaltura might better be rendered by the words “potboiling, claptrap,
bilge."
19. Permission for the production of Molière was granted in 1932, but the play was
not staged until Feb. 15,1936, at the Moscow Art Theater. It was blasted in the press and
closed after seven performances.
20. Both the Moscow Art Theater and the Meyerhold Theater tried to get permission
for the play The Suicide (Samoubiitsa). After a private showing of excerpts in the latter
theater in 1932, however, permission was refused. The play has never appeared in
Russia. Versions have been published in Russian (Novyi zhurnal No. 112 & 113, 1973)
and in English (RLT, No. 7, 1973).
21. TRAM = feafr rabochei molodyozhi ("Theater of the Working Youth”).
22. Agora—the square or marketplace in an ancient Greek city.
THE FUTURE OF THE THEATER
Evgeny Zamyatin
This essay was written shortly after Zamyatin left the Soviet Union
(November 1931). A French translation appeared in the Parisian jour
nal Les Moins (May 1932); the Russian text was first published in
America (1973). Zamyatin’s autograph copy is kept in the Princeton
University Library.
I wish to thank Nina Berberova, who directed my attention to the
essay, and Alex Shane, who provided bibliographic information.
G.K.
There is an excellent way to make predictions without the slightest

risk of error: predict the past. This is done very simply. Suddenly you
recall: “Was I not right? Did I not say five years ago that ...” Chère
confrère, you did say that, but you also said many other things which
definitely did not come about, and it is your good fortune that the reader
is distracted and forgetful, otherwise you could never have entered the
professional union of prophets.
I am not a member of this union and therefore consider myself
entitled to take risks and make errors. Besides, an error is more useful
than truth: truth is a thought suffering from arteriosclerosis.
And so, the problem of the theater’s future. And the most radical
solution to this problem: might there soon be no theater at all? Is it not
strange to speak of the theater at a time when people politely deliberate
how they will or will not kill each other tomorrow? Is it not absurd for
people to concern themselves with the theater (and how!) in a country
bearing the telegraphic code name of U.S.S.R., where there are not
enough pants and bread? Is it not unconscientious to think of the thea
ter in countries where thousands of unemployed live on handouts from
the state or its less unconscientious citizens?
No, it is not strange, absurd or unconscientious. Once, at a time far
removed from ours (and yet very close), the time of "crises” in Rome,
the hungry crowd cried out in the streets: “Panem et circenses!" Bread
and the theater were placed side by side as two indispensable
items—and so they will remain forever. Le théâtre—ni passe, ni lasse,
290
The Future of the Theater (1931) 291
because it satisfies man’s organic need for a play, a need as organic as

hunger. A pilot who no longer fears the air begins to play with it, to fly
loop the loops. A writer who no longer fears the word begins to play with
it, just as the pilot with the plane. Play is the natural expression of man’s
conquest of something, just as a cry is the natural expression of pain.
The most serious play is playing with fate, which conceals in its
pocket the long imprinted schedule naming the day and the hour of the
tragic end of us all. The peaceful, lazy time which gave birth to the
theory that tragedy is for heroes only has long since passed. The princi
ple of mechanical mass production is in effect everywhere, and fate,
which once labored endlessly with its primitive implements to manufac
ture only one Oedipus, now with the aid of gases produces Oedipuses
by the set, the series, the shelf. How many Lears, betrayed and forgot
ten by all, have revolutions sent out into the world? And are not the
payment dates moving up on Ivar Kreuger1 more terrifying than the
Birnam wood of Macbeth?
Tragedy, it would seem, is the most legitimate theatrical form for
our time. And yet there is still no new tragedy—not even in Russia,
where they are convinced that the Birnam wood is as good a material
for construction as any other wood. The trouble is that with the use of
the machine one can very easily manufacture as many Oedipuses, as
much raw material for tragedy, as he likes, but for the manufacture of
rare, complex apparati, capable of processing this material and its
would-be Shakespeares, the machine civilization does not suffice.
Evidently many are already beginning to suspect that it is time to bridle
the raging herds of machines. We have not long to wait for this, and so
we have not long to wait for our Shakespeares.
But in the meantime we have “wartime bread” instead of real
bread: we have melodrama instead of tragedy.
It was not by accident that I referred above to Russia. This is a
country stubbornly trying to leap into the future over a barrier of some
fifty years. When deciding the problem of the future in any field, one
should take a look into that laboratory—even an opponent of
vivisection.
It is very curious that in Russia the intimate love drama has practi
cally disappeared from the stage. This theatrical genre, often arranged
with great talent and taste, represents a peek through the keyhole into
someone else’s apartment; it is one of the legitimate forms of
shamelessness. This should by no means be understood as a
reproach: shamelessness is also an organic need of man, and in other
areas forms have been found for it which enjoy universal respect, such
as marriage. In the Russian laboratory this problem is resolved in a way
that provides almost no material for collisions or, consequently, theat

rical play. Obstacles are needed for play, and here there are none as
yet.
But, of course, this is only "as yet.” I do not know how many
decades it will take, but someday the first pages of all the newspapers
will be filled with reports on the international Geneva conference on
problems of state anthropoculture: just as now one argues about the
calibre of instruments, so in the future one will argue about the calibre of
mothers and fathers permitted to produce children in the world. Having
organized the material basis of life, the state must inevitably concern
itself with problems of eugenics, the perfection of the human race, and
this will provide the richest material for the new love drama. This drama
will not be played out within the little triangle of adultery: it will be
founded on the collision of the individual with the state, which crushes
the human ants in its path as sternly and mercilessly as fate. And this
will raise the love drama to a higher plane: tragedy.
I do not want to be a prophet of doom, but it seems to me that the

one human absolute—the precious metal, the gold which fears neither
rust nor time—is human stupidity. The golden sparks of stupidity will
shine forth in people after all revolutions, and so, no matter how the
theater may change, there will always be a place for the farce, for
vaudeville. This is the simplest kind of comedy—fools playing wise
men. It is founded on the same basic principle of play as an expression
of conquest: the spectator, somewhat unhappily situated in regard to
stupidity, laughs at a farcical fool and unfailingly feels superior to him;
he goes to bed peacefully, a conqueror. ..
The high genre of comedy, the satire, apparently must vanish.
Strangely enough, it is precisely in connection with such a merry sub
ject as comedy that one is obliged to recall something serious—politics.
Whether we approve it or not, whether we want it or not, the world is
clearly moving from democracy toward dictatorship, be it to the left or to
the right. For the theater the consequences are the same: the degen
eration of satire. High satire is the magnificent spectacle of little David
attacking Goliath. Only in this combination does satire give the specta
tor a real comedic catharsis. But the effect of the Biblical experiment
helps the Goliaths of our time to come to the right conclusion: Davidian
jokes are dangerous in wartime.
The materials of the Russian laboratory best known to me only
confirm this theoretical conclusion. In the Russian theater today there
The Future of the Theater (1931) 293
are no examples of a new, large-scale satire; large satiric presentations

there are created only out of classical material taken from the museum,
like Molière’s comedies or Gogol’s The Inspector General. Perhaps
new Gogols do exist, but their tongues are kept on a leash.
To the spectator who has lived through a social revolution, the
contemporary European type of satire fails to provide the necessary
material. When Bernard Shaw overturns the parliamentary apple cart
with a groan (The Apple Cart), what emotions can this arouse in, say, a
Russian spectator? At best—pity for a groaning old man. His ancient
profession—shocking the bourgeoisie—proves unnecessary under the
new conditions, and as for shocking the proletariat—he lacks courage.2
* * *
Opera and ballet: here, it would seem, the fruits of the Russian
laboratory are so generally recognized and indisputable that anyone
setting out into the future may pack them without risk into his theatrical
suitcase. Alas, “it would seem.” On closer examination these fruits
prove too ripe to withstand the long haul; one must hasten to eat them
right away.
And apparently they sense this instinctively in Russia. The public
hurries to buy up the tickets to operas and ballets; the opera houses are
full. .. when the classics are playing—Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky,
Moussorgsky. The attempt to construct an opera or ballet out of new
material is doomed to failure from the start. One can undertake the
construction of tractors or the obtainment of chemical fertilizer with the
greatest enthusiasm, but even if Chaliapin began to sing an aria about
fertilizer it would inevitably produce a comic effect instead of
enthusiasm.
The completely artificial, conventional genres of the lyrical opera
and the ballet are seeing their last days in their old form: the nitric acid
of irony, spreading through the blood of the contemporary spectator, is
eating them up. But then technology long ago learned to use the des
tructive force of nitric acid for positive purposes—and the more pers
picacious composers attempt to use this same method of saving the
opera and ballet: they take irony as the motivating force and thereby
disarm the spectator (Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges, the oper
as of Krenek).3
But this will not save the lyrical pathos of the bygone opera. It is
dissolving before our very eyes into the components of music and
words (music and dance in the ballet), united on the stage in an
artificial, mechanical manner. These components will enter the theater
of the future in their pure form; they will give it a firm, indissoluble union
in a synthetic presentation, the creation of which is being considered by
the best theatrical minds of today. The first attempts in this
direction—undoubtedly successful—have already been made, as most
dramatic presentations in the new Russian theater are accompanied by
music. Action and speech in this instance are not hindered by the music
(as in an opera): it forms only a necessary background, it creates a
musical decoration for the performance. And precisely this decoration
belongs to the future.
This essay would not be complete if I said nothing about the

cruelest foe of the theater—the movie, which many see as the theater
of the future. And it would seem that they are right. Today the spectator
votes for the movie by dropping his francs and shillings into the box.
Franc-shilling arguments are too strong not to win. After all, what sense
does it make to the spectator to go and see Don Quixote with Chaliapin
at the theater, when he can see and hear almost the same thing at the
movies for half as much?
Fortunately, the decisive moment in art—the theater included—lies
precisely in this "almost." Fortunately, monetary arguments have force
only for our crepuscular era of crises, but not for the future, when the
development of art will be determined by different motives. The movie is
also only "wartime bread.” As soon as real bread becomes available for
all, the ersatz theater of the movie will find its true place, the area where
it can really be useful: pedagogics—next to the textbook and
blackboard.
Notes
1. Ivar Kreuger—the famous Swedish financier who once controlled most of the
world's match market. In 1931 it became known that he had gone bankrupt, and a year
later he committed suicide.
2. If Shaw had stayed in Russia not nine days, but a long time, he would not have had
occasion to be delighted by the total absence of unemployment there: Mister Shaw soon
would have found himself unemployed. (Crossed out in Zamyatin's Russian text. G.K.)
3. Ernst Krenek—an Austrian composer famous at the time for his jazz opera Jonny
spielt auf.
EVGENY ZAMYATIN’S AUTO-INTERVIEW
In November of 1931 Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin and his wife

Lyudmila Nikolaevna left the Soviet Union for a year's stay abroad with
the idea of traveling to the United States, where Zamyatin had hoped
to stage several of his plays and to screen several of his works with
Cecil B. DeMille. Although the trip to America never did materialize,
Zamyatin spent several months in Riga, Berlin, and Prague before
settling in France, where he chose to live in self-imposed exile until his
death in 1937. On March 4, 1932, shortly after his arrival in Paris,
Zamyatin, along with Henri Barbusse, Ilya Ehrenburg and Ovady
Savich, was a guest of honor at a dinner given by the Groupe des
Ecrivains Prolétariens de Paris. During the next two months he sought
to establish contacts with the various French literary and theatrical
circles in order to arrange for the translation of his fiction, the staging of
plays, and the publication of essays on the contemporary scene in the
Soviet Union. Late in April he was interviewed by the critic Frédéric
Lefèvre, who published an extensive three-column article embellished
with two photographs in the prestigious Les Nouvelles littéraires. The
interview contained an interesting mixture of biography and critical
commentary on Zamyatin's own works in particular as well as on the
Soviet literary scene in general. The question-and-answer format,
especially Lefèvre's substitution of a dash, ellipsis, and question mark
(— . . . ?) for actual questions, undoubtedly inspired Zamyatin’s
“Auto-Interview" in which he presents a concise thematic analysis of
Russian literature under the first five-year plan. The essay was prob
ably written during the last week of April or in early May while Zamyatin
was visiting the Russian artist Boris Grigoriev on the Riviera. Apparent
ly it was not published in French translation. I am indebted to Mme T.A.
Jaba-Velitchkovsky and to the Archive of Russian and East European
History and Culture at Columbia University for granting permission to
publish the text in Russian Literature Triquarterly, No. 2 (1972).
Alex M. Shane
★★*
295
“ Q’’1
“Well, about myself. I already told enough to Mr. Frédéric Lefèvre

recently for his series ‘Une heure avec . . . ' in Nouvelles Littéraires.2 So
now my children can speak for me ... ”
il Q”
“Yes, they’re with me here in France, more accurately—in the

French language. My children are my books, plays: other children I
don’t need. In French my novel has already appeared: Nous autres
(NRF pub.); another novel will probably come out soon—Au bout du
monde; several of my stories are in various Parisian revues.3 And
finally, in your excellent Baedeker—La littérature russe
contemporaine—the literary traveller will find sufficient material about
_ ”4
me.
il Qtl
“The most vital subjects in contemporary Russian literature? This

isn’t such a simple question. Probably you read in Lu not long ago the
translation of an interview with the group of ‘proletarian writers'—‘Le
plan quinquenal littéraire.’5 The author of the interview is right: for the
last 1-1/2 to 2 years the attempt has been made in Russia to apply to
literature the same system of ‘planned economy,’ state-party
regulation, as has been applied to industry.
“But there are laws of mechanics—in the present instance, social
mechanics. If you strike a heavy body with force, let's say a metal ball,
you will impart great speed to it. And the iron ball of industrialization,
once stricken, has rolled with a speed unprecedented in Russia. But if
you try to strike such an ethereal substance as literature or
theater—this substance, perhaps, will only dissipate, thin out from the
blow.
"And this is what happened. Within ‘Le plan quinquenal littéraire’
the task was set to reflect immediately in literature, in the theater, the
processes of the industrial revolution taking place in the country. And
literature for the moment proved itself in no condition to solve this
problem. With isolated, and even then debatable exceptions, no works
of great artistic value have appeared on the subject of industrialization.
Superbly disciplined, like soldiers, writers diligently took up these
subjects, a great number of sketches were published describing various
industries, types of construction, ‘giants.’ But in most cases, next to the
giants these sketches were pygmies which plunged very quickly into
Lethe. And I hasten to add: fortunately, for the authors. Because the
greater part of them, especially from the group of so-called 'fellow
travellers,’ are people very illiterate in respect to industrial technology. I,
as you know, am an engineer, and more than once I have blushed for
Auto-Interview 297
these authors when I read their dilettante sketches. Most likely, for
readers among the workers they sometimes take the place of humor
magazines.
"The machine—this is not paysage and not nature morte: in order
to write about the machine you have to know it, you have to live with it,
you have to love it (or hate it). I think that true writing could be done on
industrial subjects by people who work in industry, who are firmly linked
with it. But. . . and here is the opposite 'but,' the technology of literary
craftsmanship is itself a very fine and complex matter. Qualified special
ists from industry prove themselves dilettantes in the field of literature.
The needed synthesis is not yet in sight...”
H QM
"Yes, of course, there are some very vital subjects which are not so
topical or applied as ‘industrialization.’ For some of these subjects the
literary climate of contemporary Russia is still unfavorable, but as soon
as it becomes less severe—in my opinion—precisely these subjects will
provide a rich harvest.
"One such subject, treated very timidly thus far in Soviet literature,
is the question of the relationship between the person and the
collective, the person and the state. In present practice, this question is
decided entirely in favor of the state, but such a decision cannot fail to
be merely temporary: in a state which sets as its final task the reduction
of state power to naught, this problem sooner or later must certainly
arise in a very sharp form. And precisely this problem—true, set within
the framework of a utopian parody constructed out of a reductio ad
absurdum of one possible solution—provides the basis for my entire
novel Nous autres. Once in the Caucasus I was told a Persian fable
about a rooster which had the bad habit of crowing an hour before the
others: the owner of the rooster got into such awkward situations be
cause of this that eventually he chopped off the rooster’s head. The
novel Nous autres proved to be a Persian rooster: it was still too early
for this question and the raising of it in such a form. And therefore, after
the novel was published (in translations in various languages), the
Soviet critics very much chopped off my head. But evidently I am solidly
built, for as you see I still have my head on my shoulders.
“Another very vital subject at present in Soviet literature, actually
very closely connected with the first one, is that of the artist’s position in
a society organized on new principles. This is a less dangerous, less
explosive subject than the first, and in addition it touches writers more
directly just now, when attempts are being made at state regulation of
‘literary industry.’ Consequently, during the last year there have
appeared several extremely interesting works directly or obliquely con
nected with this theme. Among them, four books have attracted special
attention: Okhrannaia gramota (Safe Conduct)—a novella by
Pasternak, Khudozhnik neizvesten (Artist Unknown)—a novella by
Kaverin, Sumasshedshii korabl' (The Mad Ship)—a novel by Forsh,
and Zapiski Zanda (Notes of Zand) by Olesha.6 The authors of these
books are some of the most talented in the group of so-called ‘fellow
travellers.’ In their works they departed from the orthodox Marxist
theory of creation, so that the ‘attention’ of which I just spoke sounded
more like heavy slaps than applause ..."
“...?’’
"In contrast to European literature, which simply cannot get out of
the triangle de I'amour, questions of sex in contemporary Russian
literature remain in the background. And this is understandable. Herzen
once said something good about writers—about himself: ‘We are not
the doctors, we are the pain.’ The sexual question in Russia today is
decided with the least amount of pain. In fact, in this area the state does
not meddle at all in private life, it is simply the notary public, registering
the facts and keeping watch that the father of a child pays certain sums
for its support. A number of years ago, when all this was still very new
and uncustomary, sexual questions claimed greater interest from read
ers ând writers—unfortunately, mainly second-rate writers who tossed
out rather sensational novels on this subject into the market. Of the
more serious works I could name the short novel by Bogdanov, Pervaia
devushka (The First Girl), although this novel as well, artistically
speaking, is not first-rate.7
"But this theme, of course, is immortal, and I’m sure that in the
more or less distant future it will play for a time a very big role in
literature. It was not a stupid man who said the resounding words: ‘Love
and hunger rule the world.' Imagine that the state rally managed to
solve all the problems of ‘hunger': everyone had enough pants,
firewood, bread, even chocolate, even automobiles. Then the state,
taking upon itself the solution to the problem of human happiness,
would inevitably become interested in the theme of ’love,’ in the first
instance, of course, in the area of eugenics, problems of perfecting the
human race and protecting mankind from degeneration. The logical
conclusion from this—state regulation of childbirth and very complex,
very interesting collisions on this ground between an individual and the
state. For artists of the word this will provide inexhaustible material, but
this—I repeat—lies in the future. So far I recall only two or three feuille
tons of a scientific nature devoted to this subject, published, if I am not
mistaken, last year in the Moscow Pravda. But this, it seems, was only
Auto-Interview 299
the crowing of a ‘Persian rooster’: these questions were not raised

anymore. ‘Industrialization’ has obscured them for the time being . . . ”
Translated by G. K.
Notes
1. The untitled manuscript consists of three sheets with the actual text, in Zamyatin's
now handwriting, covering five and one-half pages.
2. Lefèvre’s extensive interview of Zamyatin, entitled "Une heure avec Zamiatine,
constructeur de navires, romancier et dramaturge," appeared in Les Nouvelles littéraires,
No. 497 (April 23, 1932), pp. 1, 8.
3. B. Cauvet-Duhamel's translation of Zamyatin's novel We was issued by the pub
lishing house of the Nouvelle revue française (NRF) some three years earlier under the
title Nous autres (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1929). "Au Bout du monde," a translation of
"Na kulichkakh," may have been intended for inclusion in a collection of Zamyatin's tales
entitled Récits, which had been announced by NRF as early as 1929, but which,
apparently, was never published. By the end of 1933, at least six stories and four of
Zamyatin’s articles had appeared in French translation in such journals and newspapers
as Europe, Lu, Marianne, Le mercure de France, La revue de France, and Voix
paysanne. For a more complete listing see the bibliography of translation of Zamyatin’s
works in my monograph The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamiatin (Berkeley, 1968),
248-57.
4. The reference is to Vladimir Pozner's Panorama de la littérature russe contempor
aine (Paris: Editions Kra, 1929). Pozner, who himself had been a member of the Serapion
Brothers before emigrating from Russia in the early twenties, devoted several pages to an
analysis of Zamyatin's works and pointed out that "nombre de jeunes écrivains ont appris
leur métier avec Zamiatine" (p. 320).
5. Since the short-lived journal Lu (Paris 1931-33) was not available to me, I was
unable to verify the date and nature of the article mentioned.
6. Yury Olesha's "Something from the Secret Notes of Fellow Traveler Zand"
appeared in January, 1932 (30 dnei, No. 1, pp. 11-17), while the above-mentioned works
of Pasternak, Kaverin and Forsh were published as separate books by the Izdatel'stvo
pisatelei in Leningrad in 1931.
7. Nikolai Bogdanov's popular povest' (tale) about the first girl member of a rural
Komsomol cell appeared in 1928, and in the words of a recent Soviet critic, was imbued
with the "spirit of revolutionary romanticism."
Notes prepared by
Alex M. Shane
SOURCES
I. THE SOVIET VIEW
1. Alexander Voronsky, “Evgeny Zamyatin," trans, by Paul Mitchell, Russian Litera

ture Triquarterly No. 2, 1972, 153-175. Original source: Krasnaia nov' No. 6 (Moscow,
1922), 304-322.
2. Viktor Shklovksy, "Potolok Evgeniia Zamyatina,” in Piaf chelovek znakomykh
("Five People I Have Known,” Tiflis: Zakkniga, 1927), 43-67. The English version pub
lished here for the first time is from pp. 66-67.
From the mention of the forthcoming English translation of We, this article appears to
have been written by Shklovsky in 1924. At this time Shklovsky had taken advantage of a
Soviet amnesty for refugees and had returned to Petrograd. The enfant-terrible
Marxist-baiting critic was on very good behavior at this time, and probably no longer on
good terms with Zamyatin. At a supper to honor H.G. Wells in the same year, Shklovsky
hysterically reviled the visiting Englishman for his lack of Bolshevist spirit, much to the
chagrin of host Zamyatin. (See the memoirs of Yury Annenkov.) Shklovsky's comments
on We are noteworthy in that the Formalist critic attempts to discredit the novel on
aesthetic grounds and excels himself In skimpiness.
3. M.M. Kuznetsov, Sovetskii roman: ocherki (“The Soviet Novel: Essays,”
Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1963), 131-136. The excerpt in English is published here
for the first time.
It would be fun to pick out all the falsehoods in this tirade, but it would probably bore
the reader. Suffice it to say that this is one of those accounts which condemn a book
Soviet citizens are not permitted to read, so that the most interesting thing for them might
well be the citations from the novel. In this respect the account is exceptional, one of the
longest surveys of Zamyatin in Soviet criticism and one of the very few to quote directly
from the detested work (albeit without reference to the source). Aside from this, Kuznet
sov is standard: We has no verbal invention, no Soviet coloration, no outpourings of the
unconscious, etc. He cites Voronsky and Gorky as authorities while upholding the good
ness of Soviet Marxism, neglecting to mention that Voronsky was arrested in 1935 and
executed in 1943, while Gorky perished in 1936 under mysterious circumstances.
4. O.N. Mikhailov, "Zamiatin," Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1964).
This entry in the literary encyclopedia admits Zamyatin’s virtues as a
pre-revolutionary writer and even includes Zamyatin within the tradition of "critical
realism"—i.e., the purported predecessor of Socialist Realism. Beyond this, the critic runs
into trouble: a writer’s critical approach to society was fine before the Revolution, but
“anti-Soviet" afterwards. Mikhailov's factual errors (pub. place of We, name of Aldous
Huxley) are kept in the translation to indicate the level of scholarship on Zamyatin in the
USSR.
301
302 Sources
II. MYTHIC CRITICISM
5. Richard A. Gregg, "Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal Palace: Dostoevsky, the
Bible and We,” Slavic Review No. 4, 1965, 680-687.
Gregg's identifications (footnote 25) at first struck me as far-fetched, but they work
and in time convinced me. Gregg cites Zamyatin's “compounded ironies" as a case of
artistic failure, but must they fit the critic’s scheme to be an artistic success?
6. Christopher Collins, "Zamjatin’s We as Myth," Slavic and East European Journal
No. 2, 1966, 125-133.
7. Owen Ulph, "I-330: Reconsiderations on the Sex of Satan," Russian Literature
Triquarterly No. 9, 1974 (Women’s issue), 262-275.
III. AESTHETICS
8. Carl R. Proffer, "Notes on the Imagery in Zamjatin’s We,” Slavic and East
European Journal No. 3, 1963, 269-278.
One of the first stylistic analyses of the novel. It makes a strong case for yellow, might
have said more about green. I am not convinced that "the novel’s basic image ... is the
image of the cold outer shell. . . covering a hot, seething inner core.” This is one of many
images, including the omnipresent mathematical images.
9. Ray Parrott, "The Eye in We,” Russian Literature Triquarterly No. 16, 1979,
59-72.
Now the eye is the basic image: "Zamyatin's major device of characterization.” Also:
“The eye-symbol serves the dominant function among the aggregate of creative images
10. Gary Kern, "Zamyatin's Stylization," originally read to a graduate seminar at

Princeton University, 1967. Revised for the present publication.
It would have been better to start with the concept of the dominanta and then reveal
its control of artistic devices.
11. Milton Ehre, "Zamjatin’s Aesthetics,” Slavic and East European Journal No. 3,
1975, 288-296.
Raises many questions. What are the essential differences between Belyi and
Zamyatin? What becaome of Neorealism? How does Zamyatin’s aesthetics apply to
literature today?
12. Susan Layton, "Zamyatin and Literary Modernism," Slavic and East European
Journal No. 3, 1973, 279-287.
Skillfully describes Neorealism in the context of Modernism. The central thesis,
however, remains moot: Chaadaev and Tolstoi spoke of the productivity of the void, but
Zamyatin reacted to a different Russian tradition. Zamyatin's Western influences (H.G.
Wells, Anatole France, Jack London) are minimized, while his connections with Gogol
and Dostoevsky are emphasized. Thus he appears to be linked to Chaadaev and Tolstoi
by means of Gogol and Dostoevsky. Also, it was probably inadvertent, but a misnomer to
call Zamyatin an "internal emigre” (a Soviet pejorative). Zamyatin was an activist deter
mined to play a role in his country; when the role was denied him, he elected to leave. He
preferred to be an external emigre, rather than an internal one.
13. Leighton Brett Cooke, "Ancient and Modern Mathematics in Zamyatin’s We,”
originally read at the 1982 annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages in Chicago. First publication.
Unquestionably the most comprehensive study of the math of We. Its central thesis is
most challenging: that Zamyatin intentionally made D-503 make mistakes in math and did
not make slips himself.
Sources 303
IV. INFLUENCES AND COMPARISONS
14. Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor, "A Neglected Source of Zamyatin’s We,” Russian

Review No. 2, 1973, 187-188.
Addendum: Jerome K. Jerome, "The New Utopia’ in Diary of a Pilgrimage (and Six
Essays), London, 1891.
Shklovsky had noted the same source, but only in passing. His remark, however,
suggests that the Jerome piece was known to Zamyatin's circle and most likely to
Zamyatin himself. The obscure piece is appended for the reader’s judgment.
15. Kathleen Lewis & Harry Weber, “Zamyatin’s We, the Proletarian Poets and
Bogdanov’s Red Star," Russian Literature Triquarterly No. 12, 1975, 253-278.
Especially valuable in that the proletarians are not read much anymore.
16. E.J. Brown, Brave New World, 1984, and We: An Essay on Anti-Utopia
(Zamyatin and English Literature), published as a separate booklet (Ann Arbor: Ardis,
1976), 61 pp.
17. John J. White, "Mathematical Imagery in Musil’s Young Torless and Zamyatin’s
We” Comparative Literature XVIII, 1966, 71-78.
Raises the question of connections between the Hapsburg Empire and Russia, and
their writers. A comparison of Zamyatin and Karl Kraus, for example, would be
fascinating. However, it is not customary to call Zamyatin a “Marxist." He did not call
himself one and had difficulties with those so named.
18. Istvan Csicserny-Ronay, Jr., “Zamyatin and the Strugatskys: The Representation
of Freedom in We and The Snail on the Slope," originally read at a conference held at
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in April 1984, on the theme "Utopia and Its
Discontents: Zamyatin, Orwell, Mayakovsky.” Expanded for the present publication.
Another heretical deflation of Zamyatin. This one, by its passion, sounds like a
cast-off lover: seduced so quickly, so easily by Zamyatin’s slick manner, the author wakes
up to find that Zamyatin has left no address for future contact. The future freedom is not
spelled out. Zamyatin doesn’t care—he’s a Nietzschean. But the Strugatskys don’t help
much, as their ambivalence approaches “complete uncertainty.” Yet the article nicely
balances Zamyatin’s relatonship to the proletarians with the Strugatskys’ relationship to
developments in Soviet science.
NEW ZAMYATIN MATERIALS
1. “The Presentists,” translation first published in Russian Literature Triquarterly

(hereafter RLT) No. 12, 1975, 195-196.
2. "Four Letters to Lev Lunts,” Russian text in Novyi zhurnal Nos. 82 & 83, 1966.
English translation—first publication.
3. A letter from Ilya Ehrenburg—Russian text and translation first published in RLT
No. 2, 1972, 468—469.
4. Excerpts from letters to his wife—Russian text first published in RLT No. 7, 1973,
441-443. English translation—first publication.
5. “The Modern Russian Theater," RLT No. 12, 1975, 198-209.
6. "The Future of the Theater," Russian text and English translation in RLT No. 7,
1973, 430-440.
7. “Auto-Interview,” Russian text in RLT No. 2, 1972, 462-466. English
translation—first publication.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by Zamyatin In English translation:
The Dragon: Fifteen Stories, trans, and ed. Mirra Ginsburg. New York, 1967.
A Soviet Heretic: The Essays of Yevgeny Zamyatin, trans, and ed. Mirra Ginsburg.
Chicago, 1970.
The Islanders, trans. T.S. Berczynski, Russian Literature Triquarterly, 2 (Winter, 1972),
1—44.
A God-Forsaken Hole, trans. Walker Foard. Ann Arbor: Ardis, forthcoming (1988).
We, trans. S.D. Cioran in Russian Literature of the Twenties. An Anthology. Ann Arbor,
1987.
We, trans. Mirra Ginsburg. New York: Viking Press, 1972.
We, ed. and trans. Bernard G. Guerney, An Anthology of Russian Literature in the Soviet
Period from Gorki to Pasternak. New York, 1960, 167-353.
We, trans. Gregory Zilboorg. New York, 1924 and 1959.
Works about Zamyatin:
Beauchamp, Gorman, "Of Man's Last Disobedience: Zamyatin's We and Orwell’s 1984,"
Comparative Literature Studies, X, 4 (Dec., 1973), 285-301.
Brooks, Mary Ellen, "Revisionist Ideology of the Self," Literature and Ideology, 7 (1970),
15-24.
Brown, Edward J., "Eugene Zamjatin as a Critic," in To Honor Roman Jakobson, l-lll. The
Hague, 1967, I, 402-411.
Browning, Gordon, "Toward a Set of Standards for [Evaluating] Anti-Utopian Fiction,”"
Cithara, X, I (1970), 18-32.
Collins, Christopher, Evgenij Zamjatin. An Interpretive Study. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.
Connors, James, "Zamyatin's We and the Genesis of 1984," Modern Fiction Studies No.
1,1975, 107-24.
Deutscher, Isaac, "'1984'—The Mysticism of Cruelty," Heretics and Renegades and
Other Essays. London, 1955, 35-50.
Eastman, Max, "The Framing of Eugene Zamyatin," Artists in Uniform: A Study of Litera
ture and Bureaucratism. New York, 1934, 82-93.
Elliott, Robt., "The Fear of Utopia," in The Shape of Utopia. Chicago, 1970.
Fischer, Peter Alfred, “A Tentative New Critique of E.l. Zamjatin," doctoral dissertation,
Harvard University (1967).
Hayward, M., "Pilnyak and Zamyatin: Two Tragedies of the Twenties," Survey, XXXVI
(April-June, 1961), 85-91.
Jackson, Robert Louis, "E. Zamyatin’s We," Dostoevsky's Underground Man in Russian
Literature. The Hague: Mouton, 1958, 150-57.
La Bossière, Camille R., "Zamiatin’s We: A Caricature of Utopian Symmetry," Riverside
Quarterly 5, 40-43.
305
684098
306 Bibliography
Layton, Susan J., "Zamjatin’s Neorealism in Theory and Practice,” doctoral dissertation,
Yale University (1972).
Orwell, G., "Freedom and Happiness," Tribune (London), No. 471 (Jan. 4, 1946), 15-16.
Oulanoff, Hongor, The Serapion Brothers: Theory and Practice. The Hague: Mouton,
1966.
Parrinder, Patrick, "Imagining the Future: Zamyatin and Wells," Science Fiction Studies
I, I (1973), 17-26.
Richards, D.J., "Four Utopias,” Slavonic and East European Review, XL, 94, 220-28.
Richards, D.J., Zamyatin: A Soviet Heretic. New York-London, 1962.
Russell, R., "Literature and Revolution in Zamjatin’s We," Slavonic and East European
Review, vol. 51, No. 122 (Jan. 1973).
Shane, Alex M., The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamyatin. Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1968.
Slonim, Marc, "Evgeny Zamyatin: The Ironic Dissident,” Soviet Russian Literature: Wri
ters and Problems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964, 80-89.
Woodcock, George. "Utopias In Negative," Sewanee Review, LXIV (1956), 81-97.
See also the bibliography of Cooke in the Present volume.

ESSAYS ABOUT THE MAJOR RUSSIAN NOVEL ON
REVOLUTION AND THE STATE
Nearly seven decades since it was written, Evgeny Zamyatin’s

novel We remains a brilliant work of silence fiction political satire
and experimental prose. Its basic plot, whereby a true believer
comes to question the validity of a totalitaiian s’ate. has been
repeated by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, George Orwell m
Nineteen Eighty Four and dozens of writers and filmmakers
subsequently, yet it remains unsurpassed in its artistry, proph--,<c
power and philosophical depth.
We has become standard reading for every course in modern
Russian literature and many courses in political science, history,
science fiction, Utopian literature, and so on. It has been the subject
o! a variety of different, sometimes antithetical, critical approaches,
ye.' the novel has never lost its freshness and remains an exciting
stimulus for discussion. It is revealing that to this day critics cannot
decide about the ending of We: are ihe forces of revolution crushed,
or is that merely a false assertion on the part of the narrator?
Gary Kern has collected the best of the many articles on We
with the intention of providing a handy sourcebook for
interpretations of Zamyatin. The essays include the predominant
Soviet view (the novel was banned there in 1922) and a variety of
Western views, organized into sections on mythic criticism,
aesthetics, and influences and comparisons. This collection, which
should prove invaluable to the reader of We, is testimony to the idea
that one of the marks of a great book is its susceptibility to multiple
levels of interpretation.
Gary Kern has written widely on early Soviet writers and on

Solzhenitsyn. His previous publications include The Serapion
Brothers: A Critical Anthology, Before Sunrise, a translation of
Mikhail Zoshchenko, and Snake Trenn: Poetry and Prose by
Velimir Khlebnikov.
ISBN 0-88233-832-3

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ZAMYATIN’S WE

A Collection of Critical Essay

Ardis, Ann Arbor

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

I. THE SOVIET VIEW 23

1. Alexander Voronsky: Evgeny Zamyatin 25

2. Viktor Shklovsky: Evgeny Zamyatin’s Ceiling 49

3. M. M. Kuznetsov: Evgeny Zamyatin 51

II. MYTHIC CRITICISM 59

5. Richard A. Gregg: Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal Palace:

6. Christopher Collins: Zamyatin’s We as Myth 70

7. Owen Ulph: I-330: Reconsiderations on the Sex of Satan 80

8. Carl R. Proffer: Notes on the Imagery in Zamyatin’s We 95

9. Ray Parrott: The Eye in We 106

10. Gary Kern: Zamyatin’s Stylization 118

11. Milton Ehre: Zamyatin’s Aesthetics 130

12. Susan Layton: Zamyatin and Literary Modernism 140

IV. INFLUENCES AND COMPARISONS 169

14. Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor: A Neglected Source of Zamyatin’s

16. E. J. Brown: Brave New World, 1984 & We: An Essay on

17. John J. White: Mathematical Imagery in Musil’s Young Törless

18. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.: Zamyatin and the Strugatskys: The

New Zamyatin Materials: 261

1. The Presentists (1918) 263

2. Four Letters to Lev Lunts (1923-24) 266

3. A Letter from Ilya Ehrenburg (1926) 272

4. Excerpts from Unpublished Letters to his Wife (1929-30) 273

5. The Modern Russian Theater (1931) 277

6. The Future of the Theater (1931) 290

7. Auto-Interview (1932) 295

Bibliography for Further Reading 305

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications for

Comparative Literature: John J. White, “Mathematical Imagery in

Russian Review: Elizabeth Stenbock-Fermor, “A Neglected Source of

Other published essays and materials first appeared in Russian

Nearly seven decades since it was written, the novel We (Russian

frankness and irony in a letter to the Union of Writers, and resigned

The original Russian manuscript of We has not come to light. In

investigator.” It best captures the hectic, mind-boggling pace of the

It is assumed that purchasers of the present book will be familiar

D503—engineer, builder of the spaceship Integral.

The action takes place in the thirtieth century, a thousand years

terrupted tranquility. All work is performed as a group activity, and all

music-making boxes, and especially her sarcastic manner excite un­

The revolutionary attempt to seize the spaceship fails, but D-503 is

levels of time in the diary: 1) the present tense—the story as it unfolds,

One of the marks of a great book is its susceptibility to many levels

it is subverted by D-503’s fantasiectomy—with a definite artistic impact.

often categorizing the most heartfelt passages of a literary work as

and God contemplates Himself (Hegel), nor will a dictatorship of the

Whatever one's interest in We, it is impossible to ignore its

er society he happened to be in. Pre-revolutionary Russia, wartime

Ever alert to the first signs of monolithic thought, Zamyatin reacted

of speech and thought in the USSR must be regarded as sham. If ever it

Zamyatin’s name may be transliterated in three ways: Evgeny

The example of Zamyatin excellently confirms the truth that talent

language with words which have not become familiar or trite. It is as

Among those inhabitants—needless to say it was inherited from

out-of-the-way place. There is the General—an exceptional glutton, a

able something which is scarcely perceptible to the ear, but which is

After a two-year stay in England during the war years, Zamyatin

Life is a machine, a mechanism, and everything is thoroughly

change matters. A life mechanized according to a timetable; the gleam­

music-making boxes, and especially her sarcastic manner excite un

change matters. A life mechanized according to a timetable; the gleam

In the short story “The Good-for-Nothing” the following conversa

untrue as it is abstract, and therefore untrue as well. There are insignifi

teristic of Zamyatin’s unusual power to bring congruence out of appa

Images similar to this one, representing man’s body as a shell conceal