Conversation · Steban, the Student Communist

"Right, of course it is." He gives you a sad half-smile.

"I'm holding onto it for someone."

"Ah, I see. That's certainly kind of you." He gives you a curious half-smile.

"Right. They all got shot in the head, just like the anarchists."

"The Insulindian Deluge wiped out an entire generation of communists. Afterward, they were all bulldozed into mass graves." The young man looks slightly queasy at the thought.

His friend, though, seems oddly unmoved.

On the contrary, he appears to be savouring the thought of so many people shot in the head, regardless of their beliefs.

Mark it, there's something sinister in that one.

"Like this one." (Show him the Belle-Magrave rifle.)

His companion's eyes widen as you hold up the ancient weapon.

He's practically itching to stick that thing in someone's face and pull the trigger.

"Yes, like that one. I wonder how many of these are still lying around in cellars or sealed up behind the masonry." He knits his brows together, and then looks up.

"Can I hold it?"

"I'd prefer you didn't." (Put it away.)

"Of course. What would I even do with it?" He gives you a half-smile.

He doesn't mean to show it, but the disappointment is plainly written across his face.

"Here." (Give him the rifle.)

"It's heavier than I was expecting." The rifle rests in his open palms. Its position reminds you of something...

The attitude of a priest bearing one of the holy relics of his faith. Though it is long out-of-service, its power is evident to him.

When he's finished, he returns the rifle to you with a nod of appreciation.

... though what, exactly, you can't say. He turns the rifle over again, admiring the glint of light off the oily barrel.

"Okay, but what's your group's stance on the lynching?"

"To be clear: Communism is not an official suspect in this investigation. Because it's not a person, you see."

"Seems unlikely, from a strictly infra-materialist perspective..."

"Comrade Ulixes is right. The amount of plasm required to strike down an ideological enemy outright is enormous. We're talking second-level effects, at a minimum."

"Or even third."

What are these levels they're talking about? This doesn't sound like any communism you've encountered before...

"Our stance? What, does he want to know if the SRV has established a party line on lynchings in Martinaise?" The two young men look at one another.

"Though historically speaking, the SRV has supported direct action against right-wing paramilitary squads, especially when they're doing the Indotribes' dirty work."

"Good point. So as a provisional matter, I can say we support it."

It's not that the boundary between sarcasm and sincerity is porous with these two, it's that they actually seem to overlap, as though one is meant to conceal the other.

It's always that way. Beneath the crust of irony there's a molten sincerity that threatens to erupt forth... You may witness it yet.

One thing is perfectly clear: These young students have a much deeper understanding of communism than you do...

You could learn a thing or two from them, if you can convince them you're one of them.

Are they being sarcastic? You feel like you're caught in some elaborate joke labyrinth, but it's impossible to see your way through.

The SRV refers to the People's Republic of Samara. Established as a socialist utopia by survivors of the Revolution, it has since degenerated into a bureaucratic workers' state under the decades-long rule of President Sapormat 'Sport' Knezhinisky.

"You're saying you think the mercenary was killed by communism itself?"

"So what's your stance on crime in general?"

"That's easy: Crime is simply the inevitable expression of the injustice and incoherence embedded within capitalism itself."

Delivered with the smug assurance of a schoolboy reciting a maxim he's committed to memory.

"It's a symptom, in other words. Not a cause." He waves his hand as though this is all there is to say on the subject of crime.

His companion can barely suppress a yawn.

"Is your reading group affiliated with the Union somehow?"

"No, we're an independent organisation," he says proudly. "We acknowledge and respect the Union's efforts, but our interests are more theoretical than Mr. Claire's."

He speaks the truth.

"Where is the rest of the reading group?"

"What do you mean? This is the reading group..."

"So there's just two of you?"

"We're in something of a rebuilding phase."

"Some of our former comrades didn't have the ideological fortitude our work demands."

"And what about the liberals? Are they liberals, too?"

"Of course not. The only people who actually call themselves liberals are mouth-foaming reactionaries."

"Basically indistinguishable from fascists. You'd need an x-ray machine to tell the difference."

"I've heard enough. Let's talk about something else."

"Who are the Econoclards?"

"For starters, they love talking about beans."

"What's wrong with beans? I like beans."

"Oh, sure. But Econoclards are obsessed with beans. They love thinking about beans, they love counting beans, but most of all, they love building models to predict how many beans there'll be in the future."

Nota bene: 'Econoclard' is an extra-pejorative form of the already pejorative name 'Mazovian Economists', a moderate school of Mazovianism, which advocates a gradual transition to communism through carefully managed economic modernisation rather than violent social revolution.

"They're by far the most bean-centric school of communism."