The Edwardian Clock
A clock is a
magical object. Born a hundred years ago
or more, this one, like the others, repeats its own time in twelve-hour cycles,
while times around it change. Such was
the Edwardian clock that sat on the mantelpiece at the end of Bredon’s coffee
shop. I always chose a seat from which I
could watch its minutes ticking by, its glass face reflecting the light from
the windows. It was made of a coffee-coloured
mahogany with a round sepia face and Arabic numerals covered in glass and surrounded
by a thin brass rim. Its curved body sat
on round stumpy feet. Between each black
numeral were short thin lines to indicate the minutes. I had noticed that when I was extremely busy
with my thoughts or reading, the clock’s hands went much faster than when I was
just sitting empty-headed, waiting for my coffee to arrive –and perhaps a
toasted bacon sandwich or a cupcake, depending on the time of day.
The clock’s shy
presence spelt certainty to me –harking back to a time when, or so I imagined,
things were simpler, more dignified than they are today and more reliable. And even if its makers lived in troubled
times, the hours they dreamt of were embodied in the clock.
My usual seat had a
certain peculiarity: due to some odd acoustics, I could hear conversations
taking place at a table on the opposite side of the coffee shop and, quite
unobserved, I could discretely watch the talkers in a mirror that hung to one
side of their table, while pretending to read my book.
That afternoon was
a fresh autumn one. The sun was still
out but the air was cold as a slight breeze was blowing a few more yellowing
leaves down on to the grey stone pavements.
As I pushed the door open, the soft bell rang to announce my arrival and
the smell of coffee greeted me as I walked across to my favourite table. I nodded to the clock which gazed back shyly
at me, remarking to me that it was just past four.
***
As it was
afternoon, I ordered a coffee and a cupcake, put on my reading glasses, opened
my book and began reading: The Czechs had
a national state in the Kingdom of Bohemia, which lasted with varying degrees
of independence until 1620...
A few minutes later,
the waitress came with my coffee and cake on a tray, smiled and put them down
before me –the clock, now at 4:10pm ticked a little faster I thought. Just as she left me, two Indian-looking gentlemen
sat down at the table across the floor from mine, and as I was sitting in the
place with the special acoustics I could hear them speaking together –they were
not talking in one of the Indian languages but in English. One of them was tall, rather heavily-built
and imposing with stern features –brown-skinned with heavy, dark eyebrows,
piercing brown eyes and a mop of straight black hair on his head. The second
was shorter by about six inches, and grey-haired, lighter-skinned than the
first man, very elegantly dressed and with soft grey eyes.
From the first man’s
words, I deduced that their conversation had already started as they were on
their way to the coffee shop:
“I would say that
the anti-communists were inconsistent, not us...”
The second man
butted in:
“You! Not inconsistent? You’re a Stalinist. You’ve always been a Stalinist. And now you say you want to include his
arch-enemy among your idols! Look at
your young supporters out in the street selling your newspaper with Marx,
Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao
and Hoxha! Poor kids! How could they ever defend such a display of
inconsistency to the people they meet?
It doesn’t make any sense.
“All of those men
made positive contributions to the revolutionary struggle,” said the first man.
Glancing at the
mirror, I saw the face of the second looking at the first in astonishment, and
then he said:
“Yes, at different times, they may have done. But Stalin will not be remembered for his
contributions to the people’s cause, organizing the Bolshevik Party clandestinely
under the Tsar –but for his crimes against the people when he got into power!”
The first man said:
“You know what your problem is? You’re a
sectarian.”
The second man
said: “Me! A sectarian? But you’ve spent your entire life arguing
against everyone else, upholding Stalin’s crimes as his great contribution to
the people’s cause!”
The first replied
“No. You have upheld Trotsky’s treachery
towards the Soviet people, his conspiracy against the Bolshevik Party and
against Stalin. And you argue that his
villainous record represents a great contribution to the revolutionary
struggles of the people” (the clock had begun ticking a little faster).
The second replied:
“No. Trotsky correctly worked to expose
Stalin’s murderous actions against the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet people. I’m not going to relativise him in this
way. It seems that your praise for the
two of them is simply a way of attacking Trotsky and preserving Stalin.”
The first continued:
Now, don’t get excited. Of course we
accept that Stalin was not perfect. But
he made no mistakes of principle...”
The second replied:
“You’ve spent your life saying that.
What the hell do you mean? Do you
mean his genocidal policies were not mistakes because he was not a
Marxist-Leninist?”
The first said: “He
followed a necessary path on the road to socialism. But so did Trotsky when he fought the
uprising at Kronstadt. Chaos would have broken out if they hadn’t acted in
those terrible ways. Are you saying
Trotsky was not a Bolshevik?”
The second said:
“Of course Trotsky was a Bolshevik; he was the head of the Red Army –and Lenin’s
true heir! And if he had headed the
Party after Lenin died, things would have turned out completely differently to
the way they were with Stalin in charge!”
The waitress came
to my table to pour me out another cup of coffee. I could have told these two disputants that Lenin
was no different from Stalin –his treatment of the other socialist groups in
the Soviet Union –the anarchists, especially, not to speak of the more liberal
people and the religious ones –was at least heavy-handed and certainly very
repressive, in line with his theory of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The trouble was that both
of these two men revered Lenin, the repressor of the anarchists, the
Mensheviks, the philosophers and the Orthodox clergy, which is why Trotsky
could not claim that Stalin was not the true heir to Lenin. The clock ticked on agreeably.
But what use would
it have been to butt in on their conversation.
They would both have labelled me an anarchist, a social democrat, even a
Christian or worse, whereas I simply considered myself a human being trying to
find the truth. Both were narrow in
their outlook, but the first man’s attempt to line up a collection of
argumentative people who openly disavowed each other seemed absurd to me. Yes thought the clock, while –as if to
confirm me –at that moment I heard the second man’s voice telling the first:
“A few years ago
you were attacking Che Guevara and Fidel Castro as enemies of
Marxism-Leninism. Now you want to line them up with the others. Where’s the consistency in that? And now you’re doing the same with Khrushchev
–for years he was seen as the enemy of Stalin, even though he was a Stalinist
–he was still against Trotsky –yet now you want to line him up there with Mao and the others. You’re not making any sense!”
Back came the first
man’s voice: “The world doesn’t make any sense to people like you because it is
full of contradictions. Just because two
people hate each other during their lives doesn’t mean they can’t work together
for the same cause –after all, Lenin and Trotsky were opposed to one another before
the Revolution, and yet they united to make
the Revolution. And even if one kills another,
as you seem to believe Stalin did Trotsky, this doesn’t mean they are against
the cause they each proclaim in their own way.”
“Sophistry!” said
the second man. I heard the clock tick
just a little faster than before.
But the first man
said: “Let me continue! Please!” And I noticed his piercing eyes from under
his dark eyebrows staring very angrily at the second man. He went on, while the other gazed
distractedly:
“You want
socialism? Then you have to take into
account the differences that exist between different nations. You can’t expect socialism in North Korea to look
the same as in Cuba or the Soviet Union, except in the most superficial way. They are different cultures with different
histories, different traditions, different religious beliefs, different ethical
codes, and so on. How might an African
country follow a socialist path? Do you think that just by waving red flags and
getting everyone to read Mao’s red book they would become socialist? Would the revolution in Nigeria look the same
as in Russia in 1917? Would the
Nigerians have their own Winter Palace to attack? How absurd!
And what about our own great country, India! Do you envisage a Long March like Mao’s –in
India? The national question is
central.”
“I don’t know why
you’re talking down to me –of course, the revolution differs from country to
country, from culture to culture –and if anything, I should be telling you
about the importance of culture, since you vainly turned your back on those
developments in the 1960s and 1970s.
This doesn’t mean differences are simply due to national
characteristics, and it does not
explain why differences exist within the revolutionary movement in a single country. So let’s hear what you have to say about
that!”
“Differences have
always existed between socialists, but they are still socialists...”
“Oh, so perhaps you
would include the National Socialists in your merry list?”
In the silence that
followed this comment I noticed that the clock had assumed a worried look and I
heard it ticking more softly but at twice the speed! And glancing across at the mirror, I saw the
first man staring even more angrily at the second, whose look betrayed a
distinct fearfulness. Finally, the first
man spoke again.
“You refer to
Hitler and you should be very careful how you speak of him, my friend. After all, it is known that in his conspiracy
against the Soviet Union, Leon Trotsky allied himself with the German Nazis.” I could hardly hear the clock now.
Now the second
man’s expression changed to steaming anger.
He almost banged his fist down on the table, as he said:
“And you should be
very careful to note that Stalin’s generals got very chummy with Hitler’s
generals in the 1930s, behind the backs of the Russian people. If that was not conspiracy, I don’t know what
is. Trotsky had nothing whatever to do
with Hitler’s project, whereas Stalin –it is proven –had a good deal in common
with him!” The clock jumped about a
millimetre on the mantelpiece and stared at the two men.
“So you continue to
insist on upholding Trotsky against
Stalin?”
“You are being
ridiculous. The facts speak for
themselves. How do you explain the
Hitler-Stalin Pact to divide Poland?
Your speculations about Trotsky hold no water, and you have no right to
wear the badge of Trotsky –no more right than Hitler had!”
“Do you dare to
equate me with Hitler?” said the first man, brandishing a magazine across the
table at the second man.
“If the cap
fits...”
“You agent
provocateur!” By now the clock had
stopped ticking and was now breathing fitfully.
“It is a
provocation to say that Trotsky had any dealings with Hitler –a provocation put
about in the West by people like Sayers and Kahn in their awful diatribe, The
Great Conspiracy. But I can see this
conversation is going nowhere. Why don’t
you get back to my original question about why differences exist within the
socialist movement in a single country?”
“You are the one
who brought Hitler into this. And please
note that both Sayers and Kahn were Jews, so if you’re thinking of using that
worn-out propaganda about Stalin being anti-Semitic, you’ll have to explain why
so many Jews supported him –all over the world!”
“O.K., I’m sorry
for bringing Hitler into it. Now, go
ahead and answer my question.”
But then the first
man said something I wasn’t expecting:
“I should draw your
attention to something else, while we are talking about these matters. The Jews were generally vilified in the 19th
century –for one thing by the Catholic Church; for another, by certain socialists who still have a
following today –before Hitler was even born.”
His colleague looked
surprised, but I knew what the first man was referring to –statements made by
Proudhon and Bakunin deploring the Jews and wishing fire and brimstone on
them. Thus the first man was making a
veiled attack on the anarchists. The
second man, meanwhile, thinking at first that he referred to certain remarks
made by Marx in his study, The Jewish Question, suddenly realized that he was
not, but was on about some obscure reference he had not himself come
across. He sat with a serious look, but
he was a perceptive man and he ended up by saying:
“The 19th
century could not know what would happen in the 20th century; some
socialists allowed themselves to make extreme statements not realizing that
what they were saying would be taken literally by the lumpenised products of militarism
and imperialism who inhabited the following century. They cannot be held to account for their blind
excesses.”
The first man
continued:
“What I have
understood for some time now is that while socialism made some very important
strides in the 20th century, it is now at its ebb. The tide has temporarily turned, is no longer
flowing in but away. This is
indisputable. What has stopped it from flowing
in is the egotism that has accompanied it, giving rise to sectarianism, where
everyone, and his uncle, wants to be the leader, instead of cooperating with
the others. It is the competitiveness of
the capitalist system transferred to the workers’ movement. And the only way to deal with this is to bring
things together, starting with the ideas.
Instead of maintaining the great differences that have divided everyone,
we must unite around the correct line.
What we should do is praise each of the prominent socialists for his
contribution –not fight everyone who differs from the rest!”
While he was
speaking, I thought, oh, yes, all led by you! The clock agreed and smiled. But the second man said:
“So you would agree
with Khrushchev’s rehabilitation of Tito, then?”
“Of course!”
“But that means
contradicting Stalin and the Stalinists.”
“As I freely admit,
Stalin made mistakes, but not of principle –oh, and Tito also made mistakes...”
“In Tito’s case you
mean the mistake of trying to annex
Albania?” asked the second man.
“Annex is a strong
word, but yes, along those lines –and the Albanians are not exempt from
mistakes either.”
“And I suppose
Nikita Khrushchev, and Fidel Castro, the Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, all
the communist parties –and all the leftist movements, too?
“You suppose
correctly.”
“And you?”
“I’m only human.”
“So you have made
mistakes?”
“Surely, and you
too...”
“And your mistake
would be following one leader and denouncing another –or is it that my enemy’s
enemy is my friend, eh?
“We are all Marxist-Leninists
–we have never made a secret of that.”
“Not Maoists, then?”
“No, not Maoists. We recognized Mao’s revolutionary
contributions, but we were never Maoists, always Marxist-Leninists.”
“But you did use to
call yourself a Maoist.”
“Never.”
“Never, eh? Well, look at this paper of yours from 1970,”
and the second man drew out a rather tattered-looking newspaper from his inside
pocket. “Yes, its’ one of yours, and
here, you see, it says: ‘I am a Maoist.’”
“That is all in the
past,” said the first man, trying to grab the paper from him.
“That’s what we’re
talking about,” said the second man.
“The past!”
And then silence
reigned –for about a minute. The
waitress passed by their table and the first man asked for more coffee. The clock was ticking a little shakily but
was starting to sound a little relieved as things seemed to be coming to an end. The second man was still looking at the first
man, obviously hoping for a reply to his question. Then the first man began again:
“A person can be
many things but Hegel talks about the negation of the negation. You may think I was a Maoist, but I was not.”
“Even though you
said you were,” said the second man, ignoring the first man’s Hegelian hocus-pocus.
“They are just
words in a paper attributed to me. Words
are not the same as actions. We
respected Mao but we were always Marxist-Leninists –in practice.”
End of
conversation, I ventured to think. How
could the second man carry on with this charade of a conversation? I
thought. The clock must have agreed with
me because by now it had resumed ticking normally. The first man was never going to admit he was
wrong to him. Nevertheless, the second
man then said:
“You have built a
mass movement –that can be a liability as well as an asset. In doing so, you sought a better world –but I
ask myself what would be better in your
eyes, given that your own ideas were wrong.
Now you must admit this –you were wrong.
Whatever happens when you admit it, even if your movement collapses...
Think of all those loyal people who will be
even more misled than they are already if you don’t admit your mistakes to all
of them –to the world –and not just to one or two of your trusted inner circle.”
“Unity above all
else,” said the first speaker. “Marx,
Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hoxha are not enough even with Trotsky
added. We must inscribe the lesser
lights of the Marxist-Leninist movement on our banners –people like, Plekhanov
Bukharin, Dmitrov, Kim Il-sung, Liu Shao-chi and Guevara... I could go on.”
And I thought to
myself: for you, the future stops at the wide open door of
Marxism-Leninism. You invoke what you
think of as “everyone” to annihilate others –still!
***
An hour had passed
since I came in. The clock was still ticking,
but it looked back at me in some alarm as the first man left; the second man seemed
to be sleeping at the table –but with his eyes open, staring into space.
I read from my
book: The Hungarians entered Central
Europe at the end of the ninth century, and conquered the Slav kingdom of
Moravia, which then occupied the middle of the Danube valley.
September 20, 2016 (with many thanks
to Alicia)
