The Best Ye Breed

IV SERGE SVERDLOV

Colonel Serge Sverdlov was retracing a route he had covered so often that he didn’t bother to watch the passing scene as his automated hover limousine took him past St. Basil’s Cathedral, on one side of Red Square, to cross the Moscow River by the Moskvoretski Bridge and into the traffic of Pyatnikskaya. The car turned west at Dobryninskaya Square to Gorgi Park. It ran along that on Kaluga until it pulled up before the aged Czarist baroque palace, once belonging to the Yusopov family, the scion of which had assassinated the mad monk Rasputin, but which now housed Sverdlov’s branch of the ministry.

He had sometimes wondered why the organization of which he was a part had never moved to more spacious and certainly more modern quarters. It was, from his viewpoint, by far the most important, most powerful, and most feared ministry of the Soviet Complex.

It had a lengthy history. In its beginnings under Lenin, it had been known as the Cheka, which took its name from Chrezvychainaya Kossmissiya; its full title being Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation. It had been abolished in 1922 to make way for an organization still more famous, the GPU, standing for Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravleniye, or State Political Administration. Stalin decided ten years later in 1934 to do away with the OGPU and reorganized it under the name of NKVD or People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Twelve years later, it was replaced by the MVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Still later, the organization split into internal and foreign branches and the KGB, Sverdlov’s organization, the Committee of State Security, became the secret police, particularly involved in counter-espionage, espionage and security. It fulfilled much the same functions as the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States in gathering and evaluating information but also had police powers similar to those of the FBI.

Yes, it was to this branch of the Soviet Complex’s government that Serge Sverdlov devoted his services. He was a mediumly built man but more than ordinarily lithe; the slight slant of eyes, the darkness of complexion, give suspicion of his Cossack heritage. His teeth were white, perfectly so, and his smile good—when he smiled. But there was something about his eyes. The story was in international espionage circles that he had killed more men than cholera. He had worked abroad on enough assignments that he had picked up taste in clothing and was attired more nearly as a London clubman than a Moscow gumshoe.

He left the hover limousine and strode toward the elaborate entrada of the Yusopov palace. There were no flags above it, no signs nor anything else to indicate that the present nature of the pre-revolutionary building was what it was, save the two uniformed guards in front. They snapped to the salute upon his approach but since he was in mufti he ignored them and passed on into the building.

There were two more guards there, but Colonel Sverdlov was well known and he ignored them and went on.

He was thoroughly familiar with the building and, as he had often before, wondered that anyone, even a Czarist prince, would choose to live in such sterile surroundings. He strode along marble halls. All about were a profusion of alleged art objects which went back to the old days, paintings, statuary, furniture. No one, down through the decades since the revolution, had ever bothered to move them. The tastes of the Czarist aristocracy had been abominable.

The colonel reached the heavy doors of the office to which he was bound and the lieutenant at the desk there looked up, at first impatiently, but that expression was immediately wiped from his face.

“Yes, Comrade Colonel,” he said snappily.

Sverdlov said, “I believe that the Minister is expecting me.”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel. His orders are that you be admitted immediately.”

The colonel opened the door and passed through.

The office beyond was large but not ostentatious. The Minister was of the old school and had actually first joined the organization as a youth when Beria was still in his final days and Stalin in full power. He affected simplicity, despite his rank. The fact that he still held his position was testimony to his ability to roll with the blows.

Minister Kliment Blagonravov was already looking at the door at Colonel Sverdlov’s entry. He was a heavy man, heavy of face and heavy-set. His head was shaven, though that old style of the Party’s military men and upper-echelons of police officials had all but disappeared. His simple jacket of the type once de rigueur in the times of Lenin and the Old Bolsheviks, now an affectation, was hung over the back of a chair and his collar had been unbuttoned, but he was still sweating. Not for Kliment Blagonravov the effeminacy of air-conditioning.

He projected a camaraderie with his more trusted agents, and said now, in supposed heartiness, “Serge! We see too little of you these days!”

The KGB agent was fully aware of the iron beneath the lard of his ultimate superior. He said ruefully, “I see too little of Moscow, Comrade Blagonravov. No matter how dedicated, one misses home.”

“Yes, yes, of course. It is a shame that Party duties keep you abroad so much, Serge. You are too confounded efficient. Sit down, sit down.” The bureaucrat swung in his chair so that he could reach the bar set into the wall behind him. As the colonel found a chair, he opened the door of the refrigerator compartment and came forth with a bottle, slightly yellowish in color of contents. He plucked two three-ounce glasses from the bar’s top and swiveled back to his desk.

“As I recall, Serge, your favorite is Zubrovka vodka. A sprig of that particular Polish grass to flavor it. Personally, I prefer Stolitschnaja but I shall join you.” He poured the glasses full and pushed one of them over to his subordinate.

Sverdlov nodded his thanks, even as he took up the glass. It was proverbial that no matter what the hour, one did not get through Blagonravov’s office without emerging with at least a slight glow on. Woe betide the teetotaler summoned into the Minister’s presence.

“It’s been a long time,” the colonel said, holding the glass up in toast. “The drink in Indonesia is atrocious, particularly what they are pleased to call vodka. It comes from Japan, so I understand, and is probably made from rice.”

“The world revolution!” the minister said, holding his own chilled spirits up.

“The revolution,” the colonel said, repeating the standard formula.

They knocked back the vodka in stiff-wristed motion.

“And how go things in Indonesia?” Blagonravov rumbled.

His operative shrugged. “It is unbelievably corrupt, Comrade. At all levels. The worker in the street would become a communist for one cigarette. For two, he would become a Christian, and for three he would slit your throat.”

The other growled, “I understsnd that the corruption applies even to ranking members of the local party.”

Sverdlov cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “Even petty graft. No one seems free of it.”

The minister sighed his disgust. “How can one sponsor revolution with such elements? But enough of Indonesia.” He refilled the glasses.

The colonel looked at him to go on, attentively.

His superior finished his drink first and said, “What do you know of El Hassan?”

Sverdlov said, “Very little. It would seem he makes considerable effort to remain a mystery man. From what came through in Djakarta, he attempts to unite the whole of North Africa. To maintain his air of mystery, he has adopted the artificial language Esperanto, which supposedly all of his followers and all delegations from foreign countries must speak in his presence.”

“Do you have Esperanto?”

“No. Arabic, yes. As you will recall, I was stationed in Algeria during the most recent revolution.”

Blagonravov nodded. “You can begin your studies of Esperanto immediately. I understand that it is possibly the easiest language in the world to acquire.”

Serge Sverdlov inwardly winced. He was no student.

The minister went on. “We have already lost two top agents in this matter and have had a third, not so important, defect to El Hassan.”

The KGB operative stared at him. “Already? But he has been on the scene but a few weeks.”

“Comrade Abraham Baker, the black comrade who did so much work in America, was one of his original team of the Sahara Division of the African Development project of the Reunited Nations. When matters came to a head—we do not know the details—evidently El Hassan, whose real name is Homer Crawford, an American professor of sociology, seemingly liquidated him. Shortly after, we sent in Anton…”

“Anton!”

“Yes. To infiltrate the El Hassan movement and attempt to rise high in its ranks, with the far future in mind. What happened to this outstanding comrade is confused. It would seem that he resigned, or pretended to, from the Party on the same night, just recently, that El Hassan’s tribesmen destroyed the Arab Union forces in Tamanrasset who were attempting to annex the Sahara. Anton died in the fighting.”

“And who was the third agent who was eliminated?”

“Not exactly eliminated. This former comrade, Isobel Cunningham, had been recruited by Abe Baker while they were still both students in New York. When the crisis came, she evidently defected to El Hassan and now is one of his intimate clique.”

The minister poured still a third vodka.

“And what is my assignment?” Colonel Sverdlov said.

His superior looked at him, all but apologetically. “Frankly, I would rather have sent Ilya Simonov, but he is busy on an assignment in Prague, Czechoslavakia, seeking out the sources of the dry rot which seem to surface so often in the Soviet Complex these days, the elements who are dissatisfied with our society in spite of the fact that we have now attained to the affluence we have so long promised.”

He knocked back the stiff vodka. “Your task is to promote the program of El Hassan.”

Serge Sverdlov gaped at him. “Promote it! You say that he is attempting to take over all North Africa. This would include Algeria, Libya, Mauretania, Tunisia—not to speak of some of the smaller nations to the south. All are Marxist, or, at least, to some degree socialist.”

Kliment Blagonravov sighed a fat sigh. “Serge, Serge,” he said. “It is astounding how few, even among those who deal in the field of political economy and dialectics, have studied the basics. It is the same in the West, as it is in the Soviet Complex. Half a century ago, an American president, a wealthy capitalist and aristocrat himself, Franklin D. Roosevelt, realized that if he was to promote the continuation of the American social system that a good many reforms were necessary. Otherwise, there would have been a revolution during their great depression. He inaugurated them. Immediately his fellow capitalists began to scream that he was a socialist, a communist, a Marxist, or even an anarchist. Obviously, they hadn’t the vaguest idea of what any of these movements actually were.”

Serge Sverdlov was frowning. He hadn’t any idea of what the other was getting to.

The Minister wagged a lardy finger at him.

“Serge, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels originally called for the proletarian revolution, they envisioned it as first taking place in the most advanced nations in the capitalist world. England, Germany, the United States and so forth. Socialism, or communism—they used the terms interchangably and meant the same thing by them—was the next step beyond capitalism, and could not be attained until there was a highly developed economy. Backward, primitive societies, could not realize true socialism, or communism, since they did not as yet have the foundations for it. Capitalism was a necessary step in the evolution of society. Without it, following feudalism and chattle slavery, in their turn, socialism was impossible.”

The colonel stirred in his chair. Of course, all this had been taught in his classes in Marxism while he was still in secondary school. However, no one interrupted the minister when he was on one of his lengthy harangues.

Blagonravov went on, pontifically, “It was bad enough, in Russia and later in China, when, as a result of the confusion following World Wars One and Two, that the Party was able to come to power.”

The colonel blinked at a statement such as that from a ranking Party bureaucrat, but held his peace.

The other went on. “The communists were in power, but did not have the base upon which to build true communism. Under Stalin in our country and Mao in China, the most ruthless measures were taken in order to lift them by their bootstraps, as the Yankees put it. Nothing counted but quick industrialization. Five year plans in Russia, Great Leaps Forward in China. Anything, anything, to industrialize. Until, at long last, industrialization was achieved and now the Soviet Complex is as powerful as any of the imperialist powers, even the United States of the Americas. For instance, as far back as 1974 we passed them in the production of steel, the most important basic of an industrialized society.”

A question came to the colonel’s mind, which he wouldn’t have dreamed of asking. If the Soviet Complex had at long last achieved full industrialization, then why was not the dictatorship ended and true communism, or socialism, established? Why did not the State wither away, as once called for by Marx?

The minister poured another drink and pushed Sverdlov’s over to him. Hadn’t they both been Russians, both would have been smashed by this time. Even as it was, the colonel could feel the alcohol. Happily, he had known what was coming and had eaten a huge breakfast. He wondered if his superior went through this routine with everyone whom he interviewed during the process of a long day.

Blagonravov continued with his explanation. “Of recent years, a good many movements throughout the world have sprung up proclaiming themselves socialist. Usually, not always, they are actually military dictatorships. They use the term socialism because it is often popular with the people, few of whom actually know what it truly means. They usually nationalize a few basic industries such as the railroads, communications, the airlines, if any, and expropriate foreign holdings such as mines and oil fields, and anything else of value, and proclaim this to be socialism, or Marxism. Allende was a good example, down in Chile, some decades ago. Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Mauretania are other good examples. In actuality, capitalism in such countries has not been done away with. The State has simply taken the place of individual capitalists; workers continue to work for wages, farmers continue to sell their products on the market, banks continue to operate the old monetary system and foreign trade is pushed in order to make profits—for the State. The term for such a socioeconomic system should be State-Capitalism, rather than socialism or Marxism.”

“I believe that I have assimilated all this, Comrade Blagonravov,” Sverdlov said.

“Very well. Then the point remains that North Africa is not as yet ready for the communist movement. It does not as yet have the foundations. Even those comparatively advanced countries such as Algeria. They have far, far to go. Indeed, in some parts of the interior, feudalism and even elements of slavery still exist.”

“So what are we to do, at this stage?”

Blagonravov nodded before finishing off his latest vodka. He said, “It is the belief of the Central Committee and Number one, that this El Hassan, evidently a charismic character beyond the ordinary, can bring advance to North Africa more quickly than the largely corrupt and opportunistic military elements now in control. Our present line, then, is to support him. Let him come to power. Let him utilize whatever forces he can bring to bear, including the cooperation of the Reunited Nations, to bring North Africa into the 21st Century. When he has done so, then North Africa is ready for our propaganda.”

“I see,” the colonel said.

“That was the task of Comrades Baker and Anton before you. They gave their lives for the world revolution. You are to take their places.”

Serge Sverdlov frowned. “Nothing more?”

“Yes, something more. You are to insinuate yourself into their inner circles as Anton did. Work your way as close to El Hassan himself as is possible. When you are well established, then we will infilter other Party members and you will make every effort to make them prominent in the government of El Hassan as well. This will continue, indefinitely, and until the day arrives when we will be ready for our coup d’état and take over.”

The other stared at him. “But Comrade, I am a white man. El Hassan proclaims the black, the Hamitic, the dark skinned Arabs and Berbers. The Caucasians are an anathema.”

Blagonravov laughed his humorless, heavy laugh.

“My dear Serge, you are unacquainted with the latest in cosmetic surgery and related sciences. We have drugs today which can change the pigmentation of your skin—it is reversible, of course, and you can change back later. We will not make you as black as a Senegal or Bantu, but you will be as dark as the average member of El Hassan’s immediate clique. Seemingly, ah, touched with the tar brush, as the American Southeners say. Your somewhat too light hair will be cut short and dyed black. You will have a supply of dye to renew the treatment as often as necessary.”

The minister laughed with heavy joviality. “My dear Serge, you are about to become a nigger.”