May Wickramasuriya
The senior secretary of the Ceylon Mercantile. Industrial and General Workers Union (CMU) has died, after three years of ill health following a stroke. Five thousand people attended the funeral on 16 December.
May Wickramasuriya was the first woman elected to the Committee of the Union, in 1953. After 1959 she worked full-time for the union, becoming its second-most important leader. She was also a long-time supporter of the Fourth International.
May entered the labour force during the second world war, when the British colonial government recruited a large number of women (particularly the Christian and English-educated) to meet their war-time needs.
"In 1956, when the British invaded the Suez, we organised a protest demonstration at very short notice. While at work [at an architectural firm] I would go to the ladies' toilet and draw posters for use by the pickets at lunch time.
"I was sometimes the only person at May Day demonstrations in the early days. People used to shout from the pavement "There's a woman!" - because it was unusual to see a woman take part in our demonstrations.
Teaching herself labour law as she went along, Wickramasuriya represented may clerical, supervisory and allied categories of employers. She was the first woman to directly negotiate with the Employers Federation of Ceylon on behalf of the workers.
The "general socialist" ideas she had held since the time she read Pandit Nehru's autobiography were reinforced by her workplace contact with members of the Lanka Socialist Party (LSSP).
She first met her future husband, labour leader Bala Tampoe, when he came to give a basic Marxism class to the LSSP group
He refused to admit her to the LSSP until she had followed political education classes. Happily, no such barrier prevented their marriage in 1966. [JD] *
4th Congres orthe Fourt Internationa
Transformation and regroupment
Reactions to the current socio-economic crisis all too often take the form of reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial or religious character. Hence the urgent need to rebuild a world-wide movement of anti-capitalist struggle, taking account of the recomposition of the workers' movement which is underway as a result of the double failure of social democracy and Stalinism.
Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries.
In all the countries where such possibilities exist, the organisations of the Fourth
International are ready to be part of the re-groupment process. We consider this as important step towards the recomposition of the anti-capitalist left on a world scale. At the international level, the Fourth International is an active participant in re-groupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism. *
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Booknotes
Bukharin's "Prison Novel" Nikolai Bukharin, How It All Began, translated from Russian by George Shriver. Introduction by Stephen F. Cohen. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 345 pp., $US28.95. Reviewed by Joe Auciello Awaiting a show trial and certain death in Lubyanka Prison, Nikolai Bukharin was interrogated and then programmed by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs - the Soviet secret police) for thirteen months, broken down and force-fed the debasing lies he would be required to repeat before the world when he performed his assigned role as an "enemy of the people."
Yet, Bukharin resisted as best he could, using the limited means available to him. Though he confessed in general to the charges at his trial, he sparred with the prosecutor and denied the specific accusations of planning sabotage, plotting assassinations, conspiring with fascism, etc.
Throughout his months of imprisonment, Bukharin refuted lies and slander by speaking in his own words to posterity. At night in his cell, Bukharin, former editor of Pravda and Izvestia, former Politburo member, chief Party theoretician, and former head of the Communist International, wrote four manuscripts, including this unfinished autobiographical novel of childhood and youth newly published in English.
How It All Began tells the story of Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov and his family from the child's birth in Moscow in the late 1880s to approximately the time of the 1905 revolution. Petrov, nicknamed "Kolya," is the alter ego of the author, Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin.
This barely fictional memoir is presented largely, though not exclusively, from Kolya's perspective. In some later chapters which add an historical framework, Kolya is not present. Generally, though, the novel is written from the point of view of the adult looking back on childhood; the reader witnesses not there-creation of youth but the recollection of it.
Bukharin evokes a richly layered portrait of childhood that is at once subtle, varied, and deep. His stories of Kolya's boyhood experiences at play and in school, and his recounting of family life, are exceptionally sharp, vivid, and poetic. The novel is a tour de force of remembrance.
Bukharin draws a detailed portrait of Moscow at the close of the nineteenth century, showing its streets, neighbourhoods, churches, schools, and its people. from the "lower depths" to the "white collar" working class to the gentry.
Later, as family fortunes decline and the Petrovs are forced to relocate to the provinces, Kolya minutely, and without sentiment, describes the poor and prosperous peasants, the oppressed Jews, regional government officials, and, of course, the Russian countryside.
Not surprisingly, a thread of revolutionary politics winds through the story. From the words of an angry, impovepeasant, Kolya learns that the world is not only divided between adults and children, as he had thought, but also between rich and poor
It is the beginning of a political realisation that will eventually lead him
A chapter at the end of the manuscript features a debate among student followers of the Social Revolutionary party and the Social Democrats, as the Marxists at that time were known. Bukharin forcefully and fairly presents the opinions of both sides and recreates the give-and-take atmosphere of ideological adversaries jousting in smoke-filled
Yet, it would be misleading to sug gest that the bulk of the novel is concerned with politics. Much of the story centers on the young boy's relationships, especially his relationship with the vast world to be found out of doors.
Kolya loves Nature so deeply that it almost becomes a separate character in the novel. The natural world for him is an endless source of delight and fascination, and he spends countless days in forest and field. His room contains collections of "treasures" - every variety of insect and bird that he can capture. The adult Bukharin acknowledged nature as "the passion of my childhood," a statement amply demonstrated by the novel. In this characteristic, as in others, Kolya reveals that "the child is father to the man."
Kolya's own father, Ivan Antonovich Petrov, is like a character out of Dickens, someone both brilliant and obtuse, a man whose great intelligence is not accompanied by insight or understanding of how to survive in the world, but whose spirit is buoyed by unfounded optimism.
Life genuinely confuses Ivan Petrov. He simply cannot comprehend why his supervisor at work, with whom he's been quarrelling in front of other employees about some minor matter, is not pleased to discover that Petrov was correct all along. In this way Petrov succeeds in winning his point but losing his livelihood, arguing himself out of a job and Not a natural storyteller
Bukharin relates the struggles of Ivan Petrov just as he relates most of the novel's events; he comments on the characters from the perspective of an outside observer. Rarely does he reveal the inner life of anyone but his alter ego,
This method limits Bukharin's effectiveness as a story-teller. Frequently, a scene rendered from the outside narrator would have had greater dramatic resonance if developed from the inner perspective of the characters. Here, for instance, Bukharin sums up the unhappy marriage of Kolya's aunt and uncle: "Marya Ivanovna accepted all her torments and stayed with this husband, who on top of everything else was jealous of her — jealous in a crude and stupid way, as only thick-headed people lacking inner cultivation can be jealous, for despite all their malice they are aware of their own inadequacy."
Chekhov or Babel would have created an entire story from this conflict. Turgenev or Tolstoy would have developed a scene or chapter by which readers would have inferred, or themselves learned, the insight that Bukharin announces. For an accomplished writer of fiction, the entire story would have led to some special moment of revelation, either Marya Ivanovna's or her husband's heightened understanding. In Bukharin's hands this material becomes only background information, broad brush strokes to paint a character before moving on to another of Kolya's adventures.
Overall, Bukharin is a writer making use of the loose form that is the novel, but he is no novelist. For him, the novel is a soft, leather sack that can be filled with memoir, history, sociology, political science, and Marxism, all held together by the story of Kolya's life. Bukharin employs the simplest of plots — a boy's growth from childhood to maturity and the simplest structure: chronology.
Characters appear and are described at length with sardonic observation, with witty personal and social insight, but these figures do little to further the plot.
International Viewpoint #308 February 1999 33
Their appearance slows down the narrative drive. Nor are these numerous secondary characters integrated into the story as they would be in the hands of a seasoned novelist. Bukharin's characters appear in the story because, no doubt, they existed in real life and figure strongly, sharply, in his memory. For Bukharin, the novel stimulated and contained that prodigious memory and his clearly focused observations.
Yet, there is much to enjoy in Bukharin's prose style and perspective. A forgiving reader who willingly accepts Bukharin's limitations as a novelist will find a great deal to admire in this work which is finally a recollection and revelation of a past that straddled two eras, the decay of Tsardom and the rise of revolution.
Inadvertently, perhaps, Bukharin gives a superb description of the quality of his writing: "Children, like grown-ups, have their superstitions, prejudices, heartfelt dreams, ideals, and unforgettable incidents in life, which are stored in the memory forever and which suddenly, at terrible or tragic moments in life, come swimming into consciousness, surprisingly vivid, in full detail, down to the wrinkles in somebody's face or a spider's web illuminated by the evening sun. The world of childhood is vast and multifarious." A unique manuscript
The translation by George Shriver successfully resolves the unusual difficulties posed by this manuscript. A characteristic of Bukharin's writing style - his pleasure in word play → is rendered well and the necessary explanations are given unobtrusively Clarification for the references to obscure birds, flowers, insects, etc., are seamlessly woven into the text. (A glossary Is appended for Bukharin's many literary 34 International Viewpoint #308 February 1999 and political allusions.).
The story flows so smoothly, that a reader may wonder if the translator rounded off the rough edges and "improved" what was, after all, an unedited work composed under duress. Apparently not. In the "Introduction" Stephen Cohen states the manuscript was published as it was written — a tribute, then, to Bukharin's literary skill and the translation which brings it so clearly into
How can Bukharin's literary accomplishment be fairly judged? The customary standards seem not to apply - criticisms of shortcomings in the work seem beside the point. After all, Bukharin was not some retired statesman spinning out his memoirs in the leisure of his golden years. Nor was he by temperament a writer of fiction, though he read widely and commented on literary trends. Bukharin's novel-as-memoir does not fit neatly into any ready-made literary convention - and traditional standards are not sufficient to appreciate How It All
It is difficult to understand or situate this novel within Russian or world literature given the unique and terrible circumstances of its composition. The list of autobiographical novels written by men awaiting execution is not extensive.
Dostoyevsky, of course, wrote about his experience in prison and a staged execution interrupted at the last moment by a royal act of mercy. But The House of the Dead was written after Dostoyevsky's release from prison when he could enjoy his renewed opportunity for
In the late 1930s other prominent Soviet writers and political figures were imprisoned and executed by Stalin, but it does not seem to be the case that they were able to write literary works in their jail cells. None of these examples apply fully to Bukharin; his work has no clear
At first glance Bukharin's book might be likened to Albert Camus' recently published novel, The First Man. Decades after his death in an automobile accident, Camus' unfinished, unedited autobiographical novel of childhood was published by his family. There are similarities to How It All Began, but there is one insurmountable difference: Bukharin wrote in prison, awaiting certain death. Camus expected to live and complete his work.
A comparison would be more revealing if Camus' character Meursault from The Stranger had actually existed and had written a novel before his execution. But, even then, the difference would predominate. Meursault, unlike Bukharin, had (in the world of the story) committed a real crime. Bolsheviks and authors
Russian literature is rich in autobiography, memoir, and autobiographical fiction, and classic works have been written by men like Aksakov and Herzen. The twenty-four year old Leo Tolstoy entered Russian literature with his Childhood, a semi-fictional account of his youth, followed by two further volumes.
Leon Trotsky's dismissal of the idealised accounts of childhood, with which he begins his autobiography, My Life, most likely refers to this tradition, if not these specific works.
Maxim Gorky also wrote three memorable volumes of memoir of a life far less privileged than that of Tolstoy. Yet, the work of Tolstoy, Gorky, et. al. does not help readers understand Bukharin's novel. How It All Began, as far as is known, constitutes its own unique and terrible genre.
With the notable exception of Trotsky, when exiled in Turkey, the major Bolshevik leaders were little given to autobiographical reminiscence, or produced little of value in this form. Personal revelation conflicted with Lenin's temperament. His wife, Krupskaya's Memories of Lenin has documentary value, but even her accounts are guarded, written as Stalin began to strangle the intellectual life of the USSR
Stalin of course,could hardly afford to tell the truth about any aspect of his life.
Alexandra Kollantai's memoirs are uninformative and flat, written after she had succumbed to Stalinism.
None of these writings - with the exception of Trotsky's My Life - can compare for insight, liveliness, and honesty with Victor Serge's irreplaceable Memoirs of a Revolutionary, but Serge occupied a lesser position within Bolshevism.
How It All Began, then, is an exceptional achievement, one of the few literary works by a Communist Party leader that deserves to stand alongside the autobiographies of Serge and Trotsky
(The Communist Party in the 1920s asked its leading members to provide brief autobiographical sketches, and Bukharin obliged with a short "Avtobiografiia" when he was 37. Excerpts can be found in the first chapter of Stephen F. Cohen's biography, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. The full text was published in Makers of the Russian Revolution but has been out of print for many years.) The condemned man
It may seem an odd choice for a man in prison, awaiting certain execution, to compose a literary work. Why did Bukharin write a novel at all, much less a reminiscence of his childhood?