More Malaparte

Ukraine, Leningrad

This morning thinking about Russia I continue to read Malaparte and his war dispatches entitled The Volga Rises in Europe. Does this passage seem to point to this moment in time? Not quite. The passage points to it’s moment but ours is the grandchild.

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“At one point during that brief skirmish with the Soviet rearguard I had a vivid impression that the machines were behaving like living creatures, almost like human beings, that they had a will, an intelligence. And those men who walked amid the corn, firing at the hard steel shells of the panzers, seemed to me extraneous to that violent episode, to that terrible clash of machines. I walk over to the Soviet dead, I examine them one by one. They are Mongolians, nearly all of them. They no longer fight as once they did, mounted on the scraggy horses of the steppe, armed only with rifles or long lances. They fight with machines, oiling the parts, listening intently to the throb of the engines. They no longer crouch over a horse's mane, they bend over a dashboard covered with instruments. The Stakanovites of Stalin's Army, the udarniki, the authentic creatures of the Pyatlyetki, the product of Lenin's famous formula, 'Soviet + electrification=Bolshevism,' prove their ability to sustain the terrible, bloody struggle against the soldier-workers of the German Army. (The mechanization of armies involves not only the 'specialization' of labour but the technical training of the masses through the industrialization of agriculture. Here is the essential meaning of this war, the essential significance of this conflict between Germany and Russia - a conflict not of men alone but of machines, of techniques, of systems of industrialization; a conflict not only between the engineers of Goring and of Stakanov but between National Socialism, with its stupendous feats of reconstruction and organization, and Soviet Communism, with its Pyatlyetki, its Five Year Plans; a conflict, in short, between two peoples who, through industrialization, or rather through the 'mechanization of agriculture,' have acquired not only technical proficiency but that industrial 'morale' which is indispensable to those called upon to fight in this war. The protagonists in this Russian campaign are two armies consisting primarily and essentially of specialized workers and 'industrialized' peasants.) From the manner in which the Soviet soldier fights it is clear that the modern muzhik too is a skilled craftsman, a typical product of the machine age. This is a conflict - the first in history - between two armies in which the military spirit is allied to the industrial spirit, to 'industrial morale', and in which military discipline is blended with technical discipline, with the technical training of the masses through the industrialization of agriculture. Here is the essential meaning of this war, the essential significance of this conflict between Germany and Russia - a conflict not of men alone but of machines, of techniques, of systems of industrialization; a conflict not only between the engineers of Goring and of Stakanov but between National Socialism, with its stupendous feats of reconstruction and organization, and Soviet Communism, with its Pyatlyetki, its Five Year Plans; a conflict, in short, between two peoples who, through industrialization, or rather through the 'mechanization of agriculture,' have acquired not only technical proficiency but that industrial 'morale' which is indispensable to those called upon to fight in this war. The protagonists in this Russian campaign are two armies consisting primarily and essentially of specialized workers and 'industrialized' peasants.) From the manner in which the Soviet soldier fights it is clear that the modern muzhik too is a skilled craftsman, a typical product of the machine age. This is a conflict - the first in history - between two armies in which the military spirit is allied to the industrial spirit, to 'industrial morale', and in which military discipline is blended with technical discipline, with “technical training of the masses through the industrialization of agriculture. Here is the essential meaning of this war, the essential significance of this conflict between Germany and Russia - a conflict not of men alone but of machines, of techniques, of systems of industrialization; a conflict not only between the engineers of Goring and of Stakanov but between National Socialism, with its stupendous feats of reconstruction and organization, and Soviet Communism, with its Pyatlyetki, its Five Year Plans; a conflict, in short, between two peoples who, through industrialization, or rather through the 'mechanization of agriculture,' have acquired not only technical proficiency but that industrial 'morale' which is indispensable to those called upon to fight in this war. The protagonists in this Russian campaign are two armies consisting primarily and essentially of specialized workers and 'industrialized' peasants.) From the manner in which the Soviet soldier fights it is clear that the modern muzhik too is a skilled craftsman, a typical product of the machine age. This is a conflict - the first in history - between two armies in which the military spirit is allied to the industrial spirit, to 'industrial morale', and in which military discipline is blended with technical discipline, “with the discipline of organized labour, with the discipline of the team of specialists.

From the sociological standpoint too this fact is undoubtedly of singular interest. And I am thinking of the mistake made by those who hoped, at the beginning of the war against Russia, that at the first impact revolution would break out in Moscow - in other words, that the collapse of the system would precede the collapse of the army. These people showed clearly that they had failed to understand the spirit of Soviet society. Rather than the kolkhozi - the great collective farms - rather than her giant factories, rather than her heavy industry, the supreme industrial creation of Soviet Russia is her Army.

Everything in it, from its weapons to its spirit, is the result of twenty years of industrial organization, twenty years devoted to the training of skilled craftsmen. The true essence of Soviet society is the Army - and I say this not because I wish to imply that the regime is fundamentally militaristic in character but because the Army is the sole yardstick by which one can measure the degree of social development and industrial progress achieved by the citizens of this Communist State[…]”

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Later he returns from Italy to Leningrad being imprisoned .

“The Finnish trenches at Byelostrov and Alexandrovka, on the Karelian Isthmus, are situated only ten miles from prologue: the siege of Leningrad the heart of Leningrad, at the very edge of the city's outer suburbs. For various reasons - the extreme proximity of the 'workers' fortress', the possibility of gathering first-hand information, the absolutely authentic character of the verbal details that can be obtained from deserters, prisoners, and those extraordinary Karelian informers who ply between the beleaguered city and the Finnish command-posts - they are unrivalled as a base from which to conduct such an inquiry. For a whole year I observed the tragedy of Leningrad in this way, as from the dress-circle of a theatre. For me, however, it was not a 'play', but a sort of examination of conscience, if I may use such a term apropos of a moral, political and social experience of which I was only a spectator - which, in other words, necessarily unfolded 'outside' me, independently of me, though its impersonal quality did not prevent me from feeling both compassion and the most profound human sympathy for those directly concerned.

From my observations and reflections on Leningrad the reader will in fact see that the experience of the 'workers' fortress' on the Neva, the largest industrial city in the U.S.S.R. and one of the largest in the world, foreshadowed and paved the way for the experience of Stalingrad, the great 'workers' fortress' on the Volga. In the midst of this colossal tragedy of European civilization the intellect has perhaps no other task than that of seeking to anticipate the possible surprises of a war that has proved to be as rich in surprises as any in history. To my mind, Leningrad anticipates the terrible 'surprise' of Stalingrad.

Outside Leningrad, 1943.