Droga donikąd, by Józef Mackiewicz

 An important book for me - the first novel in the Polish language that I read of my own volition (before that it was only set texts from Polish Saturday school in London). I was given a copy of the book in the mid 1980s. It had been printed in exile, in keeping with the author's wishes, for distribution to those who opposed Poland's post-war communist regime, On finishing it, I passed it on to the daughter of an opposition leader. Since moving to Poland, I've been looking for another copy. Now, at last, it is freely available...

Written by Józef Mackiewicz in exile in London in 1955, Droga donikąd ('Road to Nowhere') covers the period between the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in the summer of 1940 and the eve of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. Set in Wilno/Vilnius, the novel is semi-autobiographical, and shows the nature of Soviet repression from first hand.

Pre-war Wilno was Poland's fifth-largest city. It was predominantly Polish and Jewish, with a small Lithuanian minority. On 19 September 1939, it fell to the Red Army, being in the Soviet sphere of interest as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov (or more accurately, Hitler-Stalin) Pact. The Red Army ceded the city to Lithuania by the end of October 1939; the Lithuanian state had barely seven months to integrate Vilnius before USSR annexed it along with Latvia and Estonia. 

Droga donikąd begins with the annexation of Lithuania, depicting clearly how a small, ethnically diverse capitalist country is swallowed by the communist system. "Our life today is waiting - waiting in queues, waiting to eat, waiting to be arrested, waiting for the next steps in the implementation of communist society". One by one, freedoms are snuffed out, freedom to speak, freedom to do business, freedom of movement. All is done with a semblance of the people's burning desire for justice and equality. Mass rallies (compulsory attendance). Wild applause for speakers (woe betide anyone reported not clapping and cheering). Red flags, bunting, portraits of Stalin everywhere. And one by one, shops, restaurants and other businesses would be nationalised, goods would disappear from shelves to be replaced by shoddier products with unpredictable supply. 

Smuggling became a way of life, especially across the border between the newly created Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the longer-established Belarussian SSR. Author Józef Mackiewicz, like his protagonist of Droga donikąd, Paweł, kept his head down by quitting his journalist's job and buying a horse and cart - to be less visible to the Soviet authorities, and to make a living by transporting goods across country.

Each successive turn of the screw is shown. People start wearing their shabbiest clothes lest they be identified as bourgeois counterrevolutionary elements. The new Soviet overlords, arriving in Vilnius, were expecting to find a city full of capitalist riches - instead they were surprised to see people as (outwardly) poor and shabby as what they had in other Soviet republics. Moral decisions have to be made; within families there are schisms as a daughter joins the Komsomol while her father tries to cling on to his business. Fighting the new order seems pointless; melting into the faceless crowd the best option for most.

Deportations are being planned. The local NKVD was instructed by Moscow to begin drawing up lists of families that were to be deported. The date is drawn up - days before Operation Barbarossa is due to begin. Like Titanic, we all know what's about to happen, as the clock counts down. The targets are the Polish and Jewish middle classes, the property owners, the intelligentsia. They suspect this was going to happen to them; Paweł, the novel's protagonist, is tipped off and makes a break. 

There is a sub-plot about a religious mystic and seer who foretells a miraculous event that will happen in small village - again, on the very eve of Barbarossa. Crowds of believers flock to the village to see the miracle - but will it happen at noon (Polish time) or noon (the newly-adopted Moscow time)?

Sadly, the book had never been translated into English - it offers such an excellent view of what Soviet takeover looks like; it had a profound impression on me, reading it during those years between the imposition of Martial Law in Poland and the collapse of communism has very much shaped my thinking. A rejection of political ideologies, left or right, as bringing suffering rather than any improvement to the human lot.

This time last year:
Words that pop into the mind, unbidden

This time three years ago:
Hops there for the taking
[Hops mouldy this year - too wet.]

This time four years ago:
Two weeks and two days of travel

This time five years ago:
Final end to a local landmark

This time ten years ago:
Independence Day

This time 11 years:
Out and about in Jeziorki

This time 12 years ago:
Funeral of Lt. Cmdr. Tadeusz Lesisz

This time 13 years ago:
Puławska by night