We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney, introduction by Michael Glenny
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977 (first published 1924 in English in the USA)
ISBN 0140035109
I've been aware of this novel for some time, as it's often mentioned in conjunction with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as a work that rails against tyranny of the many over the one. Unlike Orwell, Zamyatin was actually a victim of Soviet madness, eventually driven to exile from Russia largely because of this book, which was deemed by the authorities to be dangerous. Mostly abandoned by his fellow writers, Zamyatin took the extraordinary measure of writing directly to Stalin to plead for his literature and his life (the contents of that letter are reproduced in the excellent introduction to this edition). Although We was written in Russia in 1920, it was first published in an English translation in New York in 1924, and wasn't published in Russia until 1988 (although some Russian editions were published in the USA before then). George Orwell did indeed read the book - the French translation, which was published in 1928.
There can be little doubt that Orwell drew some of his inspiration for Nineteen Eighty-Four from We, but Zamyatin is more allegorical, and more lyrical than Orwell. While Orwell was directly attacking the Soviet style of government and repression, Zamyatin, to me at least, seems to go more directly to the point of showing how enforced conformity destroys an individual. He also, I expect from his experience of the Russian Revolution, shows how a small cadre of people who don't believe in the current authority can actually trigger a convulsion by merely opening the eyes of those around them.
The book is written as a series of entries into the journal of D-503, who is the builder of "The Integral", a ship that is to travel to other worlds where they will subjugate "unknown creatures to the beneficent yoke of reason - creatures inhabiting other planets, perhaps still in the savage state of freedom. Should they fail to understand that we are bringing them a mathematically infallible happiness, it will be our duty to compel them to be happy."
Set well into the future, We depicts a society where all humans are known by a number rather than a name, have no parents or family ties, and whose lives are regulated by a Taylorite "Table of Hours" which allocate time, food is to be chewed a certain number of times and so-on. Any deviation from the norms laid down by the Benefactor are punished, and all are regulated by the Guardians - a kind of secret police.
D-503 is a productive and obedient member of this society, doing all that is required of him, including his regular scheduled sessions of sex with his ticketed partner O-90. That is until he meets E-330, who changes his life. She does things she shouldn't, she openly scorns the One State and all that it encompasses. She takes D-503 beyond the "Green Wall" into the natural world (the One State and its environs are all made of glass), and involves him in a plot to hijack The Integral, which is part of her plan to bring down the One State.
Zamyatin describes D-503's confusion as all that he holds as true and right is demolished by E-330, even as he finds his love (obsession?) for her makes him follow along. This book is the story of the destruction of a society from within, but also a story of obsessive love, and of the breakdown of an individual. It is also a classically themed dystopian SciFi novel.
Thematically, We focuses on the idea of happiness. In the One State, happiness is conformity and having every moment planned for. In this way what we would see as the normal human emotions are gradually whittled away. There is a section that refers back to Genesis, and points out that Adam and Eve had a choice: "happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative..." Emotions, dreams, fantasy and even the idea of having a soul are considered sickness in Zamyatin's fictional world. These are the things that led mankind to virtual destruction before the One State regulated everything. Zamyatin also shows us how propaganda can work on human conception - D-503 believes he is happy because he is always being told that he is. How would he know any different?
E-330 shows D-503 that conformity brings a calm to proceedings, but not true happiness. In his love for her, he sees that the emotional - individual - life can give meaning, higher joy, and, yes, fear and confusion. I think this aspect of the novel is what the Bolsheviks were most afraid of - they were indeed trying to build a society where the one was sacrificed to the many. Zamyatin shows that while this may work for a time, the human impulse to be ourselves can never be quashed forever, and that a revolution may come even at a time when it seems impossible.
While I think that We is not as thematically well-developed as Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is more enjoyable to read. The sense of confusion felt by D-503 flows through to the reader - we are drawn on, waiting to see what's going to happen. Many of the things that do happen are confusing to us as well - it's not clear where the plot is heading at times, D-503 is inarticulate at important moments in the book (Zamyatin is often coy about whether D-503 says things to other characters, or merely thinks them), and there is often much confusion during moments of action. Which, to be fair, gives a good account of how a revolution might look and feel to one living through it, or even indeed to one taking part.
I won't reveal what happens at the end of the book in this review, but I will recommend We to those who not only like political commentary in their fiction, but also to anyone who enjoys a good story.
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