Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 3

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: What nonsense, how are you to stop him? Why shouldn’t Mr Suchlinov be able to cut the wages he pays you, just as he pleases? Does his factory belong to him, or doesn’t it?

  PAVEL: It belongs to him.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Right. This table, for instance, belongs to me. Let me ask you: can I do whatever I want with it?

  ANDREI: Yes, Mrs Vlassova, you can do whatever you want with this table.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Right. For instance, can I smash it into little pieces if I want?

  ANTON: Yes, you can smash this table into little pieces if you want.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Aha. Mr Suchlinov’s factory belongs to him like my table does to me, so can he do with it whatever he wants?

  PAVEL: No.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Why not?

  IVAN: Because for his factory he needs us workers.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: And suppose he says he doesn’t need you any longer?

  PAVEL: You see, Mother, you have to look at it like this: at one moment he may need us, and at another not.

  ANTON: That’s right.

  PAVEL: When he needs us we have to be there, and when he doesn’t need us we’re there just the same. Where else can we go? And he knows that. He doesn’t always need us, but we always need him. And he takes advantage of it. Mr Suchlinov has his machines there. But they are our work tools. We haven’t any others. We have no looms and no lathes; we use Mr Suchlinov’s. His factory belongs to him, but if he closes it then he is taking our tools away from us.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Because your tools belong to him the same way my table belongs to me.

  ANTON: Right, but do you think it’s right that our work tools should belong to him?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA loudly: No! But whether or not I think it’s right, they belong to him just the same. And somebody might think it’s not right for my table to belong to me.

  PAVEL: You see, that’s where we’d say: it’s not the same thing for a table to belong to you as for a factory. Course a table can belong to you, or a chair for that matter. It harms nobody. If you store it in the loft, what harm can that do? But if a factory belongs to you you can harm several hundred people. Because their work tools are in your possession, and this gives you the power to exploit them.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Right, so he can exploit us. Don’t act as if I wouldn’t have realised that after thirty years’ experience. There’s just one thing I didn’t realise – something could have been done to stop it.

  ANTON: So now we agree, Mrs Vlassova, with respect to Mr Suchlinov’s property, that his factory is property in a quite different sense from, let’s say, your table. He can use his property to exploit us.

  IVAN: And there’s another remarkable thing about his property: if he doesn’t use it to exploit us it is entirely valueless to him. It is of great value to him just so long as it constitutes our tools. The moment it stops being our means of production it becomes an old scrapheap. So he and his property are dependent on us.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Good, but how are you to convince him that he is dependent on you?

  ANDREI: It’s like this. Suppose he, Pavel Vlassov, goes up to Mr Suchlinov and says ‘Mr Suchlinov, without me your factory is old scrap-iron, so you can’t cut my wages just as you please’, then Mr Suchlinov will laugh himself silly and chuck Vlassov out. But suppose all the Vlassovs in Tver, eight hundred Vlassovs, stand there saying the same thing, then Mr Suchlinov won’t laugh any longer.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: And that is your strike?

  PAVEL: Yes, that’s our strike.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: And that’s what the leaflet said?

  PAVEL: Yes, that’s what the leaflet said.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: A strike is bad news. What do I cook with? What about the rent? Tomorrow morning none of you go to work. What about tomorrow evening? And next week? Never mind, we can get round that somehow. But if the leaflet was only about a strike, why were the police arresting people? How does it come to be their business?

  PAVEL: Yes, Mother, you tell us: how does that come to be their business?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: If we take up our dispute with Mr Suchlinov, that’s surely nothing to do with the police? You must have gone about it the wrong way. There must be a misunderstanding. People thought you were planning some violence. What you need is to show the whole city that your dispute with the management is peaceful and justifiable. That would impress them.

  IVAN: It’s just what we want to do, Mrs Vlassova. On May 1st, the international celebration of the workers’ struggle, all the factories in Tver will be demonstrating for the liberation of the working class. And we shall carry banners calling on all of them to support our fight against the kopeck cut.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: If you march peacefully through the streets just carrying your banners, then nobody can object.

  ANDREI: We are quite sure Mr Suchlinov is not going to like it.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: He will have to like it.

  IVAN: The police will probably break up the demonstration.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Why should the police be on Mr Suchlinov’s side? The police may be above you, but they are just as much above Mr Suchlinov.

  PAVEL: So, Mother, you think the police will take no action against a peaceful demonstration?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Yes, that’s what I think. There’s nothing violent about it. You and I will never agree about violence, Pavel. You know I believe there is a God in Heaven. I want nothing to do with violence. I’ve been meeting it for forty years and couldn’t do anything to stop it. But when I die I want at least to have done nothing violent myself.

  5

  REPORT ON MAY DAY, 1905

  Street.

  PAVEL: When we workers from the Suchlinov factory entered the market square we met up with the column of other factory workers; there must have been several thousand of them. We were carrying banners which said ‘Workers, support our struggle against the wage cuts! Workers, unite!’

  IVAN: We were marching in a calm and disciplined manner. Singing songs like ‘Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers!’ and ‘Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit’. Our factory came immediately after the big red flag.

  ANDREI: Close by me marched Pelagea Vlassova, just behind her son. When we collected him first thing this morning she suddenly appeared at the kitchen door fully dressed, and when we asked where she was going she replied:

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Coming with you.

  ANTON: Many of her sort came with us, drawn to our cause by the severe winter, the wage cuts in the factories and our own propaganda. Up to the Tverskaya and the Avenue of the Redeemer we saw just a few policemen and no military, but at their junction we found ourselves suddenly faced with a double line of soldiers. The moment they saw our flag and our banners a voice shouted at us: This is a warning! Break it up! We’re going to shoot. Then: Drop that flag! – Our column came to a halt.

  PAVEL: But those behind kept on coming, so those in front couldn’t stop and the shooting began. As the first of us fell there was total confusion. Many of them couldn’t believe what they were seeing was really happening. Then the police started advancing on the main body.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: I had gone along to demonstrate for the workers’ cause. The marchers were a lot of decent people who had worked all their lives. Of course there were some desperate men among them who’d been driven to extremes by unemployment, and some that were too hungry and weak to defend themselves.

  ANDREI: We were still close to the leaders and kept together even when the shooting started.

  PAVEL: We had our flag, Smilgin was carrying it and we were not going to give it up, because we all of us understood how important it was that we should be the ones to be hit and brought down, and our flag, the red flag, should be the one they took. We didn’t have to talk about it, because we wanted all the workers to see who we are and what we stand for: for the workers’ cause.

  ANDREI: Our opponents had to behave like wild animals. Because that’s what the Suchl
inovs pay them to do.

  MASHA: Sooner or later everyone would see this, and our flag, the red flag, had to be held specially high so that they could all see it, not least the police, but all the rest too.

  IVAN: And those who didn’t see it would have to be told about it, that day or tomorrow or in the years to come, till the day when it would be seen again. Because we thought we knew – and many of us knew for sure at that instant – that it would often be seen again, from this time forward to the total transformation of all things, that flag that is on the march, our flag, the most dangerous of all in the eyes of our rulers and oppressors, the most relentless!

  ANTON: And for us workers, decisive!

  ALL:

  Therefore you will see it

  Always have to see it

  With joy or revulsion

  Depending on your role in this great war

  Which will not ever finish except

  With our side’s conclusive triumph

  In every town of every country

  Where the workers are found.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: On this day it was carried by the worker Smilgin.

  SMILGIN: My name is Smilgin. I have been fifteen years in the movement. I was one of the first to spread revolutionary ideas in our works. We fought for our wages and improved working conditions. In the course of this I often negotiated on behalf of my colleagues with the employers. At first I saw them as enemies; then I admit I thought a different approach would help. As our power increased, I thought, we would start to be consulted. It seems that was wrong. Here I stand now, thousands stand behind me, but in front of us once again stands armed force. Are we to give up our flag?

  ANTON: Don’t you give it up, Smilgin! Negotiations lead nowhere, we said. And Pelagea Vlassova told him:

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: You don’t have to give it up, they can’t do anything to you. The police can’t object to a peaceful demonstration.

  MASHA: Just at that moment a police officer screamed at us: Hand over that flag!

  IVAN: And Smilgin looked behind him and saw our banners behind his flag and our slogans on the banners. And behind the banners were the strikers from the Suchlinov works. And we watched to see what he, close beside us, one of us, would do with the flag.

  PAVEL: Fifteen years in the movement, worker, revolutionary, on May 1st 1908, at 11 a.m. by the corner of the Avenue of the Redeemer, at the critical moment. He said:

  SMILGIN: I am not handing it over! We won’t negotiate!

  ANDREI: Well done, Smilgin, we said. That’s right. All as it should be.

  IVAN: Yes, he said, and fell on his face, for by then they had shot him.

  ANDREI: And four or five men came running towards us to get the flag. But the flag lay beside him. Then our quiet, level-headed Pelagea Vlassova, our comrade, bent down and took hold of the flag.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Give us the flag, Smilgin, I said. Give it me! I’ll carry it for you. Everything is going to be different!

  6

  a

  FOLLOWING THE ARREST OF HER SON PAVEL, IVAN VESSOVCHIKOV BRINGS PELAGEA VLASSOVA TO HIS BROTHER NIKOLAI, A TEACHER

  Schoolmaster Vessovchikov’s flat in Rostov.

  IVAN: Nikolai Ivanovitch, I have brought Pelagea Vlassova, our friend Pavel’s mother, to see you. They arrested her son because of what happened at the May Day demonstration. Then she got notice to leave her old flat, so we have promised her son to find safe quarters for her. Your flat is not under suspicion. Nobody can suggest you have anything to do with the revolutionary movement.

  THE TEACHER: Yes, that’s perfectly true. As a teacher I should lose my position if I had my head in the clouds like you.

  IVAN: All the same, I hope you’ll be able to keep Mrs Vlassova here, as she has got nowhere to go. You’d be doing a great favour to me, your brother.

  THE TEACHER: I have no reason to do you a favour. I’m extremely doubtful about everything you are doing. All of it is nonsense. I often enough shown you why. But that doesn’t apply to you, Mrs Vlassova. I realise your position is desperate. And anyway I need a housekeeper. As you see, my things badly need putting in order.

  IVAN: Of course you must pay her something for her work, she has to send something to her son now and again.

  THE TEACHER: I would only be able to pay you quite a small wage of course.

  IVAN: In political matters he is as thick as a plank. But he has his human side.

  THE TEACHER: Ivan, you are an idiot. Mrs Vlassova, that’s the kitchen, in there is a sofa, and you can sleep on it. I see you have brought your own bedlinen. The kitchen is this way, Mrs Vlassova.

  Pelagea Vlassova takes her bundle into the kitchen, and at once starts arranging it.

  IVAN: My personal thanks, Nikolai Ivanovitch, and I beg you to keep an eye on her. She must not have anything more to do with politics right away. She was involved in the May Day disturbances and needs to have a rest. She’s worried about what’s happened to her son. I’m making you responsible for her.

  THE TEACHER: You won’t catch me dragging her into politics like you do.

  b

  SCHOOLMASTER VESSOVCHIKOV FINDS HIS HOUSEKEEPER MAKING PROPAGANDA

  In the kitchen some workers are sitting round Pelagea Vlassova.

  WOMAN: We’ve been told Communism is a crime.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: That’s not true. Communism is good for us. What is there against Communism? She sings:

  PRAISE OF COMMUNISM

  It stands to reason, anyone can grasp it. It’s not hard.

  If you’re no exploiter then you must understand it.

  It is good for you, find out what it really means.

  The dullards will say that it’s dull, and the dirty will say that it’s dirty.

  It has no use for dirt and no use for dullness.

  Exploiters will speak of it as criminal

  But we know better:

  It’s going to stop them being criminal.

  It is not a madness, rather

  The end of all madness.

  It is not the problem

  But the solution.

  It is that simple thing

  Which is so hard to do.

  WOMAN: Why don’t all the workers understand that?

  SOSTAKOVITCH, an unemployed worker: Because they are being kept in the dark about the fact that they are exploited, and that this is a crime, and that this crime can be eliminated. They stop talking, as the Teacher enters his room next door.

  THE TEACHER: Here I come, back from the beer-house, my head ringing with arguments, infuriated once again by that fathead Sachar and his way of contradicting me all the time when of course I was perfectly right, and thankful to be in my own peaceful surroundings. I think I’ll soak my feet and read the paper.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA entering: Why, Nikolai Ivanovitch, you’re back already.

  THE TEACHER: Yes, and I’d like you to prepare me a hot foot-bath. I’ll take it in the kitchen.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: What a good thing you’ve arrived, Nikolai Ivanovitch, such a good thing, as you must go straight out again. The lady next door was just telling me your friend Sachar Smerdyakov was here an hour ago. He couldn’t leave a message as he urgently needs to speak to you personally. Catch him quickly! Catch him quickly! Think how often you’ve slipped up on your obligations because of your inborn love of your comforts. What’s more, it’s some kind of personal favour Mr Smerdyakov is asking you for. As I told you, he was here just an hour ago.

  THE TEACHER: Mrs Vlassova, I’ve spent the entire evening with my friend Sachar Smerdyakov.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Oh? But the kitchen’s in a dreadful mess, Nikolai Ivanovitch. The washing’s hanging up to dry.

  Murmur of voices from the kitchen.

  THE TEACHER: That’s the first time I’ve heard my washing talk, and – pointing to the samovar which she is carrying – when did my shirts start drinking tea?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Nikolai Ivanovitch, I have to tell you that we are having a bit of a chat over
a cup of tea.

  THE TEACHER: Oh. And who are ‘we’?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: They might make you feel embarrassed, Nikolai Ivanovitch. They’re not very well-off.

  THE TEACHER: Ha, so you’re talking politics again! Is that unemployed fellow Sostakovitch one of them?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Yes, and his wife and his brother with his son, and his uncle and his aunt. They’re very sensible people; you’d be interested in what they have to say.

  THE TEACHER: Mrs Vlassova, haven’t I already told you that I don’t want any talk of politics in my house? Here am I, I come home exhausted from my beer-house, and find my kitchen chock-a-block with politics. I am surprised, Mrs Vlassova, very surprised indeed.

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Nikolai Ivanovitch, I am sorry that I had to disappoint you. I was telling them about May 1st. They need to know more about it.

  THE TEACHER: What do you know of politics, Mrs Vlassova? Only this evening I was telling my friend Sachar, a highly intelligent person: ‘Sachar Smerdyakov, nothing on this earth is so difficult and incomprehensible as politics.’

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA: You must be quite tired out. But if you had a spare moment: all of us agreed this evening that you could make a lot of things clear to us, not least about May 1st, which is so particularly incomprehensible.

  THE TEACHER: I am not all that keen on an aimless dispute with Mr Sostakovitch. The most I could do would be to familiarise you with the basic principles of politics. But really, Mrs Vlassova, it worries me to see you in the company of such dubious-looking individuals. Bring along the samovar and a bit of bread and some pickled gherkins. They take it all into the kitchen.

  c

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA LEARNS TO READ

  THE TEACHER in front of a blackboard: So you want to read, do you? I can’t think what use it would be to you in your position, you’re a bit old to start now. But I’ll do my best for Mrs Vlassova’s sake. All got something to write with? These are three simple words I’m writing, ‘Hat, Dog, Fish’. I’ll say them again: ‘Hat, Dog, Fish’. He writes.

  SOSTAKOVITCH: What’s the point of words like that?

  PELAGEA VLASSOVA sitting at the table with the three others: Does it really have to be ‘Hat, Dog, Fish’? We’re old and we haven’t got all that long to learn the words we need.