just finished reading…the people’s act of love

The idea behind the Russian Revolution – and the other revolutions of the twentieth century – was that revolution was justified and change was inevitable because the workers already owned the factories where they worked. Enterprises such as factories or mines or railways had grown into large, social organizations and any big business - the Marxist logic went - should not be owned privately. By overthrowing antiquated and artificial authority, workers would lose only one thing: their chains.

James Meek’s thrilling novel, The People’s Act of Love, is set in revolutionary Russia, when the sudden success of the Bolsheviks shook society and encouraged myriad challenges to authority. Some men sought a new kind of religion and believed that it was not chains that entrapped and limited mankind, but desires. The most committed of the believers thought that men must cast off, not their chains, but their testicles.

In The People’s Act of Love, a sect has made its home in Yazyk, a tiny Russian village on the border of Siberia. They believe that when men have their balls removed, they have, as Balashov the barber explains,

“lost nothing except a burden and gained a new life.”

He says these words to Samarin, who has escaped from a Siberian prison camp by walking across the vast wintry wastes. Samarin is unimpressed by Balashov’s sacrifice. He has grown up on many long discussions of what ‘the true revolutionary’ might think and say and do and the dream of perfection is no longer of interest to him. Both men happen to meet in the forest outside Yazyk and they both witness a troop train lose control of a railcar full of horses. In an unforgettable passage, Meek describes the horses falling out of the open boxcar door to their gruesome deaths in the snowy valley below. In such a world, perfection seems like a sour joke.

Although Balashov respects Samarin credentials as a ‘political’ – someone sent to the gulag for fighting for change – he can see that the escapee is a dangerous man. It is a known fact that a savvy prisoner planning to leave a camp will often invite a less-experienced prisoner to join him, not for companionship or mutual support, but for the much-needed food. So when a distraught Samarin warns Balashov that a maniac has been following him – a demon he calls ‘the Mohican’ – Balashov wonders if, during the trek from Siberia, Samarin and the Mohican have not, in fact, become one.

But Balashov may have already said too much. Talking about the town, he has described a particularly interesting woman, Anna Petrovna, the widow of a cavalry officer. Balashov blurts out,

“Please don’t hurt Anna Petrovna!”
“Why should I?” asked Samarin, “Is she worth hurting?”

What bite that quote has! Samarin, the revolutionary, already fused with the kind of sadism that will be perfected by Stalin.

Meek swiftly creates this rich world with absolute confidence, almost as if he is reporting on the real world. He has, of course, won awards for his reporting from Iran for the Guardian and from Russia for the London Review of Books. In his new novel, it is as though he wishes to see the imagined details sink down to the true depths of meaning that his journalism cannot reach. But the story maintains the grit and true tone of reality.

Yazyk, about to be visited by one or two or three maniacs, already has a madman in residence. His name is wonderfully bad – Matula – and he is the putative commander of a troop of the Czech Army, sent to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks but now marooned by the collapse of the counter-revolutionary effort and also the end of World War One. While Matula drinks and despairs and dreams of a becoming a dictator, his troops are beginning to embrace revolutionary ideas. Not only the centre cannot hold; the fringes are unravelling as well.

At the centre of Meek’s tale of men and their many madnesses, there is a woman, of course: Anna Petrovna. She has followed her husband to Yazyk, although she is not a follower in any sense of the word. She is, perhaps, the kind of powerful new woman who would become a force against the barbarity of the twentieth century. It is love that made Anna want to be with her husband even though he has decided mens’ desire is too dangerous a thing for the world. How Anna expresses her love - foolishly and wisely - is the wonderful story that Meek unfolds in The People’s Act of Love.

Share This