Read an Excerpt

Love of Worker Bees

Virago Press Limited

Vasilisa Malygina

I

Vasilisa Malygina was a working girl of twenty-eight, employed in a knitter's workshop. She was a real city girl, thin and undernourished looking, with curly hair that had been cropped after a typhus attack. In her plain Russian blouse and with her flat chest you might, from a distance, have taken her for a boy.

She wasn't exactly pretty, but she did have the most wonderful, perceptive brown eyes: just to look into those tender eyes of hers made people feel more cheerful.

Vasilisa was a communist, and had joined the Bolsheviks when war had broken out. She loathed the war, and while everyone else was busily making up garments to send to the front, frantically working overtime for Russia's victory, Vasilisa obstinately argued with them. War was a bloody business, she said-who needed it? It was nothing but a burden to people. And for all those young soldiers going off like lambs to the slaughter it was an outright tragedy!

Whenever she came across groups of soldiers in the street, marching in military formation, she'd turn her back on them. How could they march along so jauntily, singing and yelling at the top of their voices, going off to their deaths as though off on holiday! It wasn't as if they had to go, they could easily have refused. If they'd just said we're not going off to be killed or to kill other people like us there wouldn't have been a war at all.

Vasilisa was well read; her father was a typesetter and he'd taught her to read early. She loved Tolstoy, especially his folktales.

She was the only pacifist in the workshop, and would have lost her job if they hadn't needed workers so badly. As it was, the foreman just gave her a good talking to. Everyone soon knew about her pacifist views, and she was nicknamed the 'Tolstoyan'. All the other women at work tended to keep their distance from her, for hadn't she renounced her country and betrayed Russia? 'A lost cause!' they sighed whenever her name was mentioned.

It wasn't long before her reputation reached the ears of the local Bolshevik organizer, who sought her out. He soon realized that this girl was reliable, sure of her opinions and well suited to Party work. So Vasilisa was gradually drawn towards the Bolsheviks. Not all at once, of course, not by any means. At first she had argued with the committee members, asking question after question, and invariably storming out of meetings in a rage. But eventually she began to understand their position more clearly, and in the end it was she who suggested that she start working properly for them. That was how Vasilisa became a Bolshevik.

She proved herself to be a passionate and assertive public speaker. She was never at a loss for words and could debate skilfully with Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries alike. The other women at work were shy and tongue-tied, but not Vasilisa; she always spoke up when she had to, and she talked sense too. In no time at all she had gained the respect of her Party comrades, who decided to adopt her as their candidate in the town Duma during Kerensky's provisional government.

This made the women workers very proud of her, and from then on, whatever she said was law for them. She got on well with the more conservative women too. And even if she did shout at them and cajole them, they felt that she knew best, for hadn't she been working in a factory ever since she was a young girl.

She felt if she didn't try and understand their needs, nobody would! However, it was not so easy to make her Party comrades see reason about these women. 'You should drop them,' they'd tell her. 'We've got more important things to be thinking about now.' This attitude would utterly infuriate Vasilisa, who would lash out at her Party friends, confront the Party secretary, and insist on her demands being met. Why should women's matters be considered any less important than other things? Women had always been treated like that! It wasn't surprising they were so conservative! How could you ever hope to have a successful revolution without enlisting women? They were crucial. 'Winning over the women, that's half the battle,' was what Vasilisa always said.

She knew what she wanted, and she stuck by it. In 1918 she was a real Bolshevik fighter. Over the years so many people had lost heart, stayed at home, given up. But she was always at work, making speeches, debating, organizing, generally getting things done – she was absolutely indefatigable. It was hard to imagine where she got so much energy, she was so pale and skinny. People always responded to those wonderful eyes of hers though, warm, brown and attentive.

One day a letter arrived for her at her small garret. This was the letter she'd been longing for, a letter from her darling husband and friend from whom she's been separated for so many lonely months. Not, of course, that there was anything to be done about it, what with the civil war and then the industrial Front, for which the Party mobilized all its members.

Vasilisa knew that the revolution was not a game and that everyone had to make sacrifices. That was why she'd lived on her own all those months, away from her husband; that was her sacrifice to the revolution. When they'd been flung to opposite ends of Russia her women friends tried to reassure her by saying 'It will all be for the best, you'll see. This way he'll go on loving you longer and you won't grow bored with him.' They might well have been right, but she didn't care; she was still utterly wretched without him and missed him constantly.

True, she actually had very little time to herself, and was busy from morning until late at night with her work for the Party and the local soviet, one job just piling on top of another. And vital and fascinating work it was too. But nevertheless, when the day was over and she returned to her little room – her garret, as they would have called it in her parents' village – a chill wind would freeze her heart and she longed for her husband. She would sit down to her tea, immersed in gloomy thoughts. Nobody really needed her, she had no real friends, no proper goal to work for. Did other people care about her? Because if they did, she received precious little sign of it from them.

She had been particularly depressed recently because an important project of hers – her communal house – had just been wrecked, and now everyone was going around insulting and criticizing each other. Nobody seemed to realize how important it was to try and live collectively now; or could it be that they just weren't capable of it? The people in the house had insulted her, begrudging her her extra rations as a privileged worker. 'To hell with my rations!' she'd said. 'I can manage quite well without them!' Eventually her Party comrades had calmed her but by then her head had been literally spinning with exhaustion and frustration.

That was how her winter had passed. She would often sit in her room at night, leaning her elbows on the table, nibbling on a fruit drop to save sugar, and thinking over the day's tribulations. She felt there was no hope for the revolution, nothing but an endless series of frustrations, backbiting and losing battles.

If only her Volodya had been there she could have poured out her troubles to him and he would have embraced and caressed her. She could remember times when he'd said, 'What are you fretting about now, Vasya? Whenever I see you out there in front of other people you look such a tough little thing! "I'm not afraid of anything!" you say. But just look at you now, all huddled up like a ruffled sparrow under the eaves!' Then he'd catch her up in his strong arms and carry her round the room, soothing her like a baby. The very thought made Vasya's heart ache with joy and love for her sweet handsome husband who loved her, who loved her so very much....

Whenever Vasya's thoughts turned to him she felt even more dismal and things would seem even bleaker in her lonely attic. But as she cleared up the tea things she reproached herself, what more did she want out of life? Nothing but pleasure? Did she really want her Volodechka constantly by her side, when she had work she loved and the respect of her friends? The revolution isn't a holiday, she'd remind herself sternly, everyone has to make some sacrifices, so aren't you really asking rather a lot, Vasilisa Dementevna? Remember, it's everything for the collective now, everything for the revolution.

She tried to recall how the furore over the communal house had started. This house had nothing to do with her general work for the Party and the soviet. She had long ago decided to set up a model house filled with a genuinely communist spirit. Not just some sort of dormitory where people lived their private lives and went their own ways – that kind of scheme invariably fostered resentment and bad feeling, for people who lived like that would think only of their own needs and wouldn't live collectively. It was something quite different that Vasilisa had in mind.

She'd patiently set about organizing the house, one step at a time. And what setbacks she'd suffered! Twice the house had been taken away from her, but she had been ready to do battle with anyone, and had finally succeeded in getting her own way. So the house was set up with its communal kitchen, its laundry, its creche and its dining room. This dining room was Vasilisa's pride and joy, and well it might be, with its curtains in the windows and its potted geraniums. There was a library too, which was used as a meeting room.

To begin with, everything went wonderfully well. The women living there would shower her with kisses, calling her their 'little treasure'. 'You're our guardian angel!' they'd say. 'We're so happy here, and it's all thanks to you!' But then imperceptibly things started to go wrong.

People began quibbling with the rules. There really seemed to be no way to make people clean up after them, and there was constant bickering in the kitchen over the washing-up. The laundry was always being flooded and people had trouble pumping out the water. As one argument followed another and quarrelling and confusion reigned, Vasilisa became the target of everyone's resentment – as though she was the housekeeper and wasn't seeing to things properly! She'd been reduced to imposing fines, which had made the lodgers furious. Some of them had moved out, and more arguments and disagreements followed.

When this confusion was it its worst, a particularly malicious couple called the Feodoseevs decided to really stir up trouble. They found fault with everything, they nagged, they harangued, first it was one thing, then another – there was simply no pleasing them! They had some authority in the house as they'd been amongst the first to move in there; consequently many people tended to regard them as proprietors and followed their example. But as for what they wanted and what was bothering them, there was no way of really knowing! All Vasilisa knew was that they were the bane of her life, and each day they managed to provoke another unpleasant incident.

Vasilisa finally almost broke down and sobbed, she was so tired and angry. But seeing that the whole thing might quite easily fall to pieces, she decided to make a new rule; everything was to be paid for cash down – water, electricity, rates, taxes, everything. She'd then worn herself out seeing to all these new arrangements, but nothing came of them. What could you do if nobody had enough money? The new economy was all very well, but you couldn't get far if you didn't have money!

She was absolutely determined, however, to go on fighting for her precious house – she couldn't bear to see it collapse, and besides, she wasn't the sort to let go of something once she'd committed herself to it. So she'd gone to Moscow, spent several days knocking on office doors, talking to the bosses, and managing to make out a good case for the house. Eventually they were so impressed by her accounts of it that she was given a subsidy for repairs, which meant that she could claim a household allowance.

She'd returned home beaming with pleasure, only to be confronted by the spiteful Feodoseevs, who met her with a dour look. They seemed to suggest by their sullen malevolence that she'd betrayed them in some way by pleading for the house. It was then that they'd started up a new line of attack, putting out scandalous rumours that Vasilisa had been rigging the household accounts to put a bit by for herself! She could hardly bear to think of all the things they'd made her endure!

She badly needed a close friend with whom to talk things over, and it was then that she'd decided to write to Vladimir asking him to come. But he'd written back explaining that he too had important work to attend to which he just couldn't leave. He'd been promoted to a new job and had to straighten out the finances of the firm where he'd previously been employed as a clerk. That winter had been one long uphill struggle for him too, apparently, and he simply couldn't tear himself away at this point; the firm depended on him.

So Vasilisa had to bear the whole squalid business on her own. And what hurt her most about it was that it was the workers, her friends and allies, who were the cause of everything. If they'd been bourgeois anticommunists she wouldn't have cared nearly so much!

Mercifully, however, the house committee supported her throughout. They hadn't let her bring the case to court but decided that the committee members themselves should sort the whole thing out for her. They'd concluded that it was a clear case of slander, based on nothing but malice and ignorance. But just when they were about to evict the Feodoseevs, the couple had admitted their guilt, pleading for Vasilisa's forgiveness and assuring her how much they'd always respected her. Vasilisa's victory brought her no joy, for she was worn out, worried sick, and hadn't the strength to rejoice.

After all that she'd fallen ill, and although she went back to work almost immediately she felt by then as though something had died inside her. She no longer loved her house – she'd suffered too much for it. It was as if her own child had been sullied in some way, and memories of her own childhood had come back. She remembered her little brother Kolka showing her a sweet, and when she reached out for it he'd laugh spitefully and say, 'Look at me! I'm going to spoil your sweet for you!' Then he'd spit on it and give it to her, saying, 'Here you are, Vasilisa, you can eat your sweet now, it's delicious!'

And Vasilisa would turn away from him sobbing, 'Horrible boy! Why did you do that!'

That was how she'd felt about the house. She just didn't want to be responsible for it any more. She'd go on serving on the house committee, but she couldn't devote herself fully to it now – it could go to rack and ruin for all she cared! Towards the residents she felt nothing but a deep coldness; for hadn't they joined the Feodoseevs in atacking her? She began more and more to keep her distance from people. Before, she'd always been so sympathetic to people's problems, but after everything she'd been through she wanted nothing more than to be left alone, in peace. She was very tired ...

Now the long winter was over. The sun shone, the sparrows chirped under the eaves in the morning, and Vasilisa smiled as she remembered her darling Volodechka calling her his ruffled sparrow. And with the spring, even though her anaemia had got worse and her lungs troubled her, she felt the stirrings of new energy.

Through the window she could see the sky swirling with soft clouds, and the roof of the old ancestral mansion which now housed the Palace of Motherhood. In the garden the buds were just beginning to swell; and her heart was filled with spring. How cold it had been that winter! How alone she'd felt, with all her lonely struggles and anxieties. Today was like a holiday from all that. Nothing in the world could go wrong today, for today she'd had a letter from her lover, her darling Volodya! And what a letter too!

---

Excerpted from Love of Worker Bees by Alexandra Kollontai, Cathy Porter. Copyright © 1977 Cathy Porter. Excerpted by permission of Virago Press Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---