What Never Happened; A Novel of the Revolution

This volume was published in 1917.From the book's Preface:When I first opened my office in the summer of 1915, and before I had actually issued a single book, I deter- mined to publish an English translation of "Ropshin's" great novel of the Revolution, What Never Happened. But the time did not seem entirely opportune and so temporarily I put aside the project and for two years brought out in the Borzoi Russian Translation series works by Andreyev, Gorky, Sologub, Tolstoi and others which have been received with uncommon favour by the American reading public. What Never Happened has, however, never been out of my mind for long — every now and again some en- thusiast or other would call on me and suggest that I let him translate it for me. But arrangements were virtually made in June, 1915, with Mr. Thomas Seltzer, who first called the book to my attention before either of us had any knowledge as to the real identity of the author. We all knew that "Ropshin" was a pen name, and that his book, which created a great stir in Russia and even among the Russians in America, was so true to the facts of the terrorist existence that many of his fellow workers had condemned him for his frankness. Also that he had paid a fleeting visit to New York. More definite information about "Ropshin" no one seemed to have. Then in March of this year came the Revolution and among those whose return to the fatherland it hastened was Boris Savinkov, a Russian who had been fighting with the French army in the West. This Savinkov was a terrorist of long standing who, implicated in the assas- sination of the Grand Duke Sergius and Von Plehve, had been condemned to death at Sevastopol in 1906 but had escaped to Switzerland and thence to France. He now luirried to Petrograd and was promptly sent to the front as head of the Commissary Department in General Kornilov's army. In August the great retreat com- menced and he was called to the capital by Kerensky and appointed Minister of War. Boris Savinkov is "Ropshin" and What Never Hap- pened is thus the work of one of the most prominent men in Russia today. One need scarcely point out how thin the partition is which separates this literary produc- tion from the actual life lived by its distinguished author. Alfred A. Knopf Sans Souci, 28 October, 1917 WHAT NEVER HAPPENED PART I CHAPTER I FROM the moment he crossed the frontier Andrey Bolotov became a prey to the vague apprehen- sion felt by a zealous property owner who leaves some one else in charge of his estates. The vast revo- lutionary Party extending throughout Russia was to him a huge estate, the administration of which involved untold labour. It demanded some one with untiring vigilance to watch over its dynamite workshops, secret printing presses, fighting squads, district and gov- ernment committees, peasant brotherhoods, workmen's circles, student groups, officers' and soldiers' organiza- tions, and its plots, arrests, strikes, demonstrations, suc- cesses and failures. He did not understand that his comrades, old man Arseny Ivanovich, Doctor Berg, Vera Andreyevna, Arkady Rosenstem, and the others — that they had the same attitude as he, each one regarding the Party as a flourishing estate belonging not to Bolotov, but to himself. But even had Bolotov understood this, he could not have uprooted that feeling, which alone gave him courage to live and work as an outlaw, with- out family ties, without home or name, unterrified by the prospect of imprisonment or death. Only the lurk- ing conviction that he, Andrey Bolotov, was the most loyal, the most obedient, the most self-sacrificing mem- ber of the Party, which to him was the mother of the revolution — only the conviction that without him the Party would fall to pieces, upheld him in his purpose.