MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

The population of Rubtsovsk included an abnormally high percentage of former convicts because most inmates of the surrounding concentration camps were confined to the city for life upon completing their sentences. Many were irredeemable criminals habituated to assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Armed with knives or lead taped to the palms of their hands, they killed people for no more than the gold in their teeth and robbed men and women of the clothes off their backs in broad daylight. Innocent citizens lost their lives in theaters or on buses simply because criminals in card games sometimes used as their stakes a pledge to kill somebody, anybody.

One Saturday night Viktor rode homeward from a skating rink on a bus with passengers so jammed together that it was hard to breathe deeply, and he had room to stand on only one foot. At a stop the front and back doors swung open, people poured out as if a dam had burst, and Belenko was swept outside with them. From within the bus he heard a heart-rending scream. «They have cut her up. Police! Ambulance!» Lying lifeless on a seat was a young woman, a large, wet crimson splotch on her thin pink coat. There were no public telephones on the streets, and calls for help had to be relayed by word of mouth or runners. The police arrived about an hour later. They could do nothing except haul away the body.

Viktor examined the newspapers the next day. They did not mention the murder, as he was almost certain they would not, for crimes of violence in Rubtsovsk never were reported. They did report the rising crime rate in Chicago along with the rising production of Soviet industry and agriculture.

Of course, I know there are many criminals in Chicago and everywhere else in capitalist countries. How could it be otherwise? They always are having one crisis on top of another. The people are exploited and poor and hungry and plagued by all the other ulcers of capitalism. We don't need the newspaper to tell us that. We need to know what's going on here.

Why do we have so many criminals, so many people who don't want to live openly and honestly? They say the criminals are the remnants of capitalism. But the Revolution was in 1917. That was nearly half a century ago. All these criminals grew up under communism, not capitalism. Why has our system brought them up so poorly?

Having fractured his wrist in a soccer match, Viktor took a bus to the dispensary for treatment. Although his wrist hurt, he recognized that his condition did not constitute an emergency, and he thought nothing of waiting. Ahead of him in the line, though, was a middle-aged woman crying with pain that periodically became so acute she bent over double and screamed. Her apprehensive husband held her and assured her that a doctor would see her soon. Viktor had been there about an hour when a well-dressed man and a woman appeared. A nurse immediately ushered them past the line and into the doctor's office. The husband of the sick woman shouted, «This is not just! Can't you see? My wife needs help now!»

«Shut up and wait your turn,» said the nurse.

If we are all equal, if ours is a classless society, how can this happen? And why do some people get apartments right away, while everybody else waits years? And look at Khokhlov [son of a local Party secretary]. He's a real murderer and robber; everybody knows that, and everybody is afraid of him. But every time he's arrested, they let him go. Why does the Party pretend everybody is equal when everybody knows we are not?

One of Viktor's political instructors, the teacher of social philosophy, genuinely idolized Khrushchev as a visionary statesman whose earthy idiosyncrasies reflected his humanitarian nature and his origins as a man of the people. Khrushchev had freed the people of the benighting inequities bequeathed by the tyrannical Stalin, and by his multifaceted genius was leading the people in all directions toward a halcyon era of plenty. On the occasion of Khrushchev's seventieth birthday the instructor read to the class the paeans published by Pravda. Everyone could be sure that despite advancing years, the Party leader retained his extraordinary mental acumen and robust physical vigor. We are lucky to have such a man as our leader.

Some months later the same instructor, as if mentioning a minor modification in a Five-Year Plan, casually announced that Khrushchev had requested retirement «due to old age.» For a while nothing was said in school about the great Khrushchev or his successors. Then it began. Past appearances had been misleading. Fresh findings resulted from scientific review by the Party disclosed that Khrushchev actually was an ineffectual bumbler who had made a mess of the economy while dangerously relaxing the vigilance of the Motherland against the ubiquitous threats from the «Dark Forces of the West.» Under Brezhnev, the nation at last was blessed with wise and strong leadership.