Lin Zixuan finally decided to meet Zamyatin.

Anyway, he won't come to the Soviet Union in the future, and he won't rely on the Soviet Union's relief money to live, so there's no need to worry too much, the more he thinks about it, the more he can't get things done, and sometimes he just scares himself.

Would the Soviet authorities have imprisoned a subversive just because he had met him?

This is obviously impossible, he is a foreigner, and it will escalate into a diplomatic incident and make things bigger.

Moreover, he wanted to obtain authorization for the Chinese version of Zamyatin's works and let Zamyatin's novels be published in China.

Zamyatin was able to become a leading figure in the literary world of Petersburg, a famous writer of the Russian Silver Age, and naturally he was not a wasted person, and his novels were of great literary value.

At this time, Zamyatin did not stop writing, but continued to create.

Despite persecution, there were very few publishers who supported him and tried to publish his books.

But without exception, he failed, and any publisher that wanted to publish his work was severely criticized.

His books were strictly forbidden to borrow in the school library.

He was a member of the editorial board of the Leningrad Writers' Publishing House, which offered him a job at risk.

He earns a modest income by proofreading the works of young writers at publishing houses.

In fact, as long as he seriously examined, admitted his mistakes, and wrote a few novels eulogizing Soviet socialism and Stalin, it would not be difficult for him to return to the top with his position in the Soviet literary circles.

However, he was a man who "wrote with a conscience and not on command", and he did not consider himself to be at fault.

Lin Zixuan took Jiang Jingguo to Zamyajing's residence, and he came in the name of Shanghai Vientiane Bookstore. I would like to talk to Zamyatin about Chinese publishing.

Like most Soviet intellectuals of this era, Zamyatin's life was rather uneventful.

He was in his forties. Stayed with my wife in a room that was not very spacious, and the home was simply furnished. His clothes were shabby.

Zamyatin had lived in England and had written novels in English, so he had no problems communicating.

At first, he was extremely vigilant, claiming that he had no plans to publish novels abroad, and it was not until Lin Zixuan revealed his identity as a writer that he relaxed down.

It's just that he still doesn't know who Lin Zixuan is and what works he has written.

Lin Zixuan's novels and reports could not appear in Soviet newspapers and periodicals, unless the Soviet Union needed to criticize Lin Zixuan.

Zamyatin felt that what Lin Zixuan said did not seem to be a lie, and perhaps thought that the government would not use a Chinese to deceive him.

The rest of the conversation was much easier.

He did not admit that the novel "We" was a satire of the Soviet authorities. What he wanted to express was a concern for the future, not for one country, but for the world.

In fact, the Soviet Union at this time, despite its many problems, had not yet reached the point of erasing all individuality.

Zamyatin told Lin Zixuan a story.

A rooster has a bad habit of crowing an hour earlier than the other roosters every morning, which embarrasses the rooster's owner, so the owner has to cut off the rooster's head.

"I'm the rooster with bad habits." He said self-deprecatingly. "My novel asks questions too early."

But Zamyatin does not regret it.

He didn't think he was at fault, he wrote novels exposing the current shortcomings of the Soviet Union because he loved the country and wanted to make it better. This is the responsibility of the writer.

Those writers who only know praise are not for the good of the country, but for their own interests.

As the German writer Glass said: A writer is a person who writes against the trend of the times.

Zamyatin had no opinion on Lin Zixuan's desire to publish his novel, and happily wrote a letter of authorization. He didn't think his novels would be popular in China.

Through the Soviet newspapers, he saw that China, like the Soviet Union, was in the midst of a great revolution.

He's been through those times. Know what to expect in that frenetic atmosphere.

"Since you were treated unfairly in the USSR, have you ever thought about leaving the country?" At last. Lin Zixuan asked.

"I think we can wait." After a moment of silence, Zamyatin replied.

He is waiting for the situation at home to improve, waiting for the day when he will be understood.

He did not refuse the rubles left by Lin Zixuan as the manuscript fee for the Chinese version of the book, and he needed money to improve his life, and he could go to the black market to buy food and other necessities.

Zamyatin did not wait long.

In 1931, desperate at home, he wrote a letter to Stalin applying for expulsion from the Soviet Union.

At the beginning of the letter, he claimed to be "a man sentenced to death", and he told about his experience in China, in a state of total blockade, and was maliciously attacked, smeared, and even demonized.

At the end of the letter, he said: "The fundamental reason why I applied to go abroad with my wife was that here I was cornered as a writer, and here I was sentenced to death as a writer. ”

He still hasn't admitted his mistakes.

With the help of Gorky, Zamyatin eventually left the Soviet Union and settled in Paris.

On the way back, Lin Zixuan reflected, what is the meaning of literature? What makes a real writer?

As a traverser, as a pseudo-writer who became famous by plagiarism, he wants to leave something to the world, whether to mix it up like this for the rest of his life, or to do something meaningful.

This is a question that he needs to think about seriously.

Since the time crossing, he has continued to grow, and his thoughts have been constantly changing.

When he first crossed over, he just wanted to live a comfortable life alone and didn't care about the lives and deaths of others, so he plagiarized without scruples, with the ultimate goal of making money and becoming famous.

Later, he recognized his origin and assumed the responsibility of the family, so he restrained a lot.

He established his own image, defended the interests of his family, became a famous gentry in Shanghai, and participated in the development of Shanghai.

At this moment, in Moscow, far from China, he began to think about the path ahead.

At the same time, the theoreticians of the Marxist Theory Research Office in the Soviet Union made a decision not to recognize Lin Zixuan's thesis of the "primary stage of socialism."

They believe that this assertion is not scientific, has no theoretical basis, and is just a whim of a person without party affiliation.

This is the most unacceptable place for them.

In their minds, the Soviet Union was the first socialist country, and the theories about socialism should be divided by Soviet theorists, not by people from other countries.

They filed the paperwork and put it down.

Lin Zixuan's name, along with these documents, became a dusty archive.

This is a strong indication of the arrogant tendency in the Soviet Union during this period, and they began to criticize the revolutions of other countries when they felt that their revolution had succeeded, believing that the revolutions of other countries should obey the guidance of the Soviet Union. (To be continued.) )