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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

CIS POLITICAL FAUNA THE KNOCKER AS A EUPHEMISM FOR INFORMER

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

(Consultant's note: All translations are approximations, and the road to translators' hell is paved with false friends. In America those betraying those who thought they could trust them has spawned a variety of terms: informer, spy, Judas, rat, fink, snitch, canary, snake, narc, and a few other besides. Here, however, the word “to knock” has assumed the sense of this particular form of betrayal and the word “knocker” this kind of betrayer.)

FOREWORD

Knocking has been part of civilization almost from the outset. We know from our good friend Engels that the ape turned human when it learn to knock things with a stick. The first knocker ever, no doubt.

At an early stage such knocking was mostly done by the primitive man in order to survive. Our forefathers knocked on mammoths' heads, hitting them to kill. As civilization appeared and progressed, knocking was required by artisans making their handicrafts. Later knocking was made by machines used in the industries, and finally in literature (Nekrasov's “the distant noise of a lumberjack knocking with his ax felling trees...”).

But only in the land where socialism was victorious, after the masses had thrown off the slavish fetters of capitalism, knocking broke with the coarse and primitive work tools (hammer, ax, and such) and became the most important instrument in the political life of society. For the study, administration, perfection, and propagation of knocking, specialized agencies called the Cheka, NKVD and KGB were established. It was then that the notion of knocker as an informer appeared and won respect, even pushing out such earlier euphemistic synonyms as “blacksmith” and “woodcutter.”

The most successful knockers were awarded the highest state honors of the USSR. The term further evolved becoming synonymous with such as “outstanding son of the party and people”, “meritorious continuator of the great cause of Lenin and Stalin”, “meritorious citizen of the Land of Soviets”, etc.

At first the knockers informed on everyone and everything. As socialism progressed, however, snitching became personalized; now reporting was done on members of international espionage networks (the noticeable preference being given the Japanese secret service), those conspiring to poison the Soviet people (the Doctors Plot), backyard cosmopolitans (e.g., Pasternak and the Metropol literary almanac), and, of course, dissidents like Solzhenytsin, Sakharov, and our own Ukrainian heterodox.

In the interests of truth, it must be admitted that a substantial portion of the people refused to embrace this progressive Communist knocking and paid quite dearly.

Knocking was divided into open (done at party or trade union meetings and all the way up to Politburo of the CPSU) and secret (denunciations, whispers, and backbiting) to the secret police.

Remarkably, informing was mostly done by adults. Children (obviously instinctively) do not love knockers, calling them sneaks, tattle-tales, and dragging them outside to beat the crap out of them.

KNOCKING AS ART

In the immortal words of the Great Helmsman, “Of all the arts the most important is to knock,” significantly contributed to the development of art in the USSR. Under Soviet times Aleksandr Pushkin's postulate, “Serving the muse brooks no frivolity,” was decisively rephrased to “Serving the state brooks no reticence.”

Time has proven this maxim. Bulgakov, Lyubimov, and Paradzhanov will be loved at all times and names of the knockers who informed on them will be mentioned only inasmuch as they damaged these giants of human spirit.

Knocking down knockers with more primitive tools of the art proved to be a striking phenomenon in what survived of real art. Recall Bulgakov's Margarita picking up a hammer and smashing the windows of all the knockers she knew of.

KNOCKING AS SCIENCE

Trokhym Lysenko by right holds the snitching laurels in Soviet science. He turned rat on the world-famous Vavilov, demanding that genetics be banned in the USSR, whereupon he was appointed President of the Agricultural Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

From then on knocking became a widespread approach in solving scientific problems. In fact, IBM, Microsoft, and Intel owe their spectacular success to the Soviet formula found in every reference source: “Cybernetics is the whore of imperialism.”

KNOCKING AND DIPLOMACY

Those visualizing Soviet diplomacy as long quiet discussions behind soundproof walls, in well furnished and richly carpeted offices, with well-trained assistants shuffling through their coded files at side desks, are very wrong.

Nikita Khrushchev was the one to shed light on what was actually happening when he knocked his shoe on the UN rostrum, shouting, “I will teach you all a lesson you'll never forget!” Regrettably, world diplomacy took it up as a precedent and years later we saw gunboat diplomacy climaxing in the latest Iraqi and Serbian bomber diplomacy.

KNOCKING AND TELEVISION

Until recently no whistle-blowing heroes of nationwide caliber were shown on television. Now the STB and 1+1 channels have effective bridged this shameful gap.

KNOCKING AS A WAY OF LIFE

Hegel was right in describing progress as following a spiral pattern. Conclusive evidence is found in the latter-day CIS knocking practices. We are at yet another coil of this spiral, bringing us very close to our cavemen ancestors when knocking was the principal way to survive.

It all started with Ukrainian miners knocking their crash helmets against the asphalt. Now this knocking is heard far outside Ukraine, all the way from Vorkuta to Pavlograd from Kuzbas to Donetsk, the echo shaking the ancient Kremlin walls, making presidents and ministers look up with a start in a number of countries. Various parties and factions are trying to join this miners' knocking. However, party-faction-affiliated knocking is easily distinguished, because it is made by people well fed and otherwise provided for, wishing only to become even more prosperous and influential.

The miners' knocking is being joined by scientists, scholars, physicians, teachers, workers, farmers, and pensioners. Before long all of Ukraine will be resounding with knocking crash helmets, pension certificates, textbooks, scalpels, and microscopes.

KNOCKING AND POLITICS

Considering that the economy is closely linked to politics, it is not difficult to predict how knocking will be used by politicians. Thus, a wad of presidential edicts can be knocked on the desk to persuade IMF to part with further loans. Or legislators knocking their ID cards on the backs of their seats, to emphasize their demand for the President's resignation.

As for the President, he can only pick up the Constitution (so help me God) and knock it on his desk with a bang, shouting that he is ruling the wrong country.

EPILOGUE

I sincerely hope that no one will knock me in the head after reading this article.

Sketch by Anatoly Kazansky, The Day

 

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