Memoirs of 1984

Yuri Tarnopolsky MEMOIRS OF 1984 PREFACE In this book, published in 1993, I wrote, “Here in America, I ask myself a new question: Could anything like that happen here? It is America that I am now concerned about most of all.” I see the assault of Donald Trump & Co. on the body of American institutions, values, and traditions as a political gang rape. It was cheered, unfortunately, by a large part of Americans. The absurdity of “alternative facts” and the cold cruelty of the now infamous “ban on Muslims” revived my memories of the so-called “refusal”: the Russian ban on emigration of Jews of 1979-1987. I spent the actual 1984 in a Siberian prison camp on the Mongolian border. The Orwellian relics of the bygone Soviet-Russian life, some of which have been restored and burnished in Putin’s Russia, seem to be tested for import to the USA. I see with bitter satisfaction that George Orwell’s 1984 is being read again in America and some prominent Russian immigrants in the U.S. are shivering like in a cold draft. The worldwide march of anti-Trump protesters makes me hopeful, but not enough to ease my worries. It is hard to guess what the elephant in the china shop can do next. With all that, I clearly see that Donald Trump has touched upon some real and important problems and his voters are not necessarily bigots, retrogrades, and rednecks. He has a point. He is strong. I am worried all the more because he is strong enough to open the floodgates for lies, absurdity, and hate. The freaky fatal attraction—and similarity—between him and the current Russian virtuoso of absurdity has been widely noted. Paraphrasing Napoleon, from two party-system to one-party system there is but one step. I am a chemist, but in my youth, projecting my future occupation, I vacillated between chemistry and psychiatry. I was engrossed in both. There is more about it in the book. Witnessing the recent presidential denial of the absolutely indisputable and visible with naked eye facts, and remembering my now antiquated medical textbooks, I am worried even more. “Delirium was the very essence of the Soviet ideology in a very clinical sense,” I wrote. After some style and content editing of the original manuscript, correcting at least a part of numerous errors, and adding footnotes, I am uploading my Memoirs of 1984 – my personal story of the real 1984—on the Web. For a while, I will continue editing and updating the site. As for modern Russia, Bill Browder’s Red Notice: a True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice (Simon & Schuster, 2015) is a fascinating personal story and a source for understanding post- Soviet Russia. Yuri Tarnopolsky February, 2017 MEMOIRS OF 1984 Yuri Tarnopolsky Foreword by Senator Paul Simon Copyright page To Olga This is the text of Memoirs of 1984, published in 1993, revised in 2017 No essential changes have been made. All footnotes are added in 2017. The text has not been professionally edited. Last update: February 25, 2017. CONTENTS v CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Foreword, by Senator Paul Simon ix I. The Smoke in the Wind 1 II. The Catacombs 9 Belated Introduction 15 III. A Pair of Socks 18 IV. The Mortuary 32 V. Leukemia 48 VI. Two Keys to a Vault 62 VII. The Plastic Cucumber 74 VIII. A Woman with an Umbrella 79 IX. On Frogs and Mice 86 X. The Time Machine 91 XI. The Dybbuks 101 vi MEMOIRS OF 1984 XII. A Gift from a General 111 Interlude 121 XIII. On Foxes and Rabbits 123 XIV. The Pyramid 129 XV. From Russia with Allergy 138 XVI. Two Trials 154 XVII. Mickey and Minnie 167 XVIII. Euro-Asian Ping-Pong 174 XIX. I and Us 184 XX. The Mousetrap 192 XXI. The Riot 206 XXII. The Monument 217 Premature Conclusion 221 XXIII. Hurricane 223 XXIV. The Names 227 Afterword, by Nancy Rosenfeld 237 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although my wife Olga and I had known much harsher experience, writing this book was hard enough for both of us. Without Olga's patience, support and trust, I would not have been able to complete my manuscript. For the transformation of my manuscript into this book, I am indebted to selfless and heroic work of three people. My dear friend Nancy Rosenfeld assumed the functions of my good genius, muse, first reader, first editor, literary agent, and partner. With the exception of the first one, they all required new skills from her. Nancy was a quick learner and she mastered them all. Christine M. Benton was my editor; it does not say much if one forgets that English is not my native language. In fact, she was also my guide, critic, teacher, inspiration, and to watch her working on my text was an enormous intellectual pleasure for me. Stephen Rosenfeld generously donated his time, energy, computer skills, and resources to prepare the manuscript for publication and to check it for errors. I am cordially grateful to all of them. viii MEMOIRS OF 1984 FOREWORD The world has changed dramatically in the years since Yuri Tarnopolsky came into my life and the lives of those who fought for Soviet refuseniks. I was privileged to have worked with the fine volunteers of Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, who launched the rescue effort for Yuri. The magnitude of that effort was staggering. No less staggering was the sacrifice Yuri and other dissidents made for the cause of freedom. Memoirs of 1984 does what George Orwell's visionary warning to future generations would not. It paints a poignant picture of human survival in an inhuman totalitarian system; it is a graphic portrait of real people in an unreal world. Yuri's moving snapshots of life in the Gulag and his incisive critiques of the forces of socialism, ideology, modern Judaism, and Russian history are more than memoirs for posterity. Memoirs of 1984 is a living testament to the power and force of freedom and a tribute to those, who by their very sacrifice and dedication to human values perpetuate the ideals of freedom and democracy throughout the world. Yuri's words are words of inspiration and not words of warning for future generations. His anecdotes are a celebration of humanity rather than an indictment of it. His message of human survival in a totalitarian society is as relevant today as it was just a few short years ago, because totalitarians remain with us today and, I fear, always will. Ultimately, this book is about tolerance: tolerance of political diversity, of religious differences, of races and cultures that are dissimilar to our own. We can all learn from Yuri Tarnopolsky. U.S. Senator Paul Simon (D-IL) I THE SMOKE IN THE WIND It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clock was supposed to be striking thirteen, as George Orwell predicted. The year was 1984. As a matter of fact, there was no clock at all. But the day was really bright, so I could use the shade of the electric pole in the yard outside as a sundial. By that time, I had gotten used to not having a watch on my wrist. It had been taken away by the investigator more than a year ago, upon my arrest. Time did not matter much in the labor camp anyway. I stood in a narrow, dark hallway with three iron doors along it, all locked on the hall side. Behind the doors were three camp factory workshops. The drone of seventy sewing machines coming from those rooms was as loud as the sound of a turbojet. To emerge once in a while into this forbidden area was a special privilege granted to me by the doorman. Upon my request, he would occasionally unlock the door of my workshop and let me out of the crowded, dusty, and noisy room so that I could peep out into a larger world. From the dark hallway, I was watching the brightly lit yard through a grated window the size of a book page. The afternoon shadow of the pole was pointing to the left, I noted, toward the latrine. 2 MEMOIRS OF 1984 The doorman was nice to me because we were about the same age and had both been arrested for the first time in our almost fifty years of life. That was enough to form a bond between us. We could even talk a little, with my part limited to "Oh, really?” "Sure" and "Oh, yeah.” The doorman could not see, however, that our similarity extended beyond age. Both of us had attempted to steal state property from the Soviet government. His crime was losing a dozen state-owned sheep in a snowstorm. Mine, much more heinous, was my desire to leave my country for good. In the state where I was a sheep, I wanted to be my own herdsman, and I wanted to be lost in the snowstorm of history. I was a refusenik—an applicant for emigration who had been denied an exit visa. As a black sheep that marred the pristine white flock, I was sent here for correction. In the caste system of the labor camp, the doorman, formerly a shepherd at a government farm, was now one of the billy-goats—inmates who had repented and were cooperating with the prison administration, agreeing—not necessarily honestly—to squeal on other prisoners. Therefore, they were trusted to be doormen, cooks, dishwashers, hospital nurses, storekeepers, librarians, accounting clerks, artists, and writers for the prison newspaper.

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