THE DICTATOR (3)
By:
October 19, 2026
Yefim Zozulya’s “The Dictator: The Story of Ak and Humanity” is a darkly humorous parody of Bolshevik utopian eugenics. This thinly veiled critique of the Soviet regime, which was first published in the only issue of magazine Zori (Зори, spring 1919), Kyiv, would inspire and influence Yevgeny Zamyatin’s much better-known anti-utopia We. Translated into English by the Russian-American anarchist and author Alexander Berkman. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize this story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
5. The profiles of the unnecessary were kept in a gray cabinet.
The Gray Cabinet was located in the corridor at the headquarters of the Board of Supreme Determination. It had an ordinary, solid, pensively stupid look, like all cabinets. It was less than seven feet wide and less than seven feet tall, but it was the grave to tens of thousands of lives. There were two short inscriptions on it:
The Catalog of the Unnecessary
and
Profiles-Protocols.
The catalog had many sections, including the following:
Impressionable but clueless.
Small-time followers.
The passive ones.
The uncentered.
Et cetera.
The profiles were brief and objective. However, there was an occasional harsh comment. Without fail, it was accompanied by a red pencil mark by Board president Ak, noting that the unnecessary shouldn’t be scolded.
Here are several of the profiles:
Unnecessary No. 14741
Average health. Visits acquaintances without being necessary or interesting to them. Offers advice. In his prime he seduced some girl and abandoned her. Considers the acquisition of new furniture for his apartment to be the biggest event in his life. Sluggish, lax brain. Inefficient worker. When ordered to tell the most interesting thing he knows about life or has seen, talked about the Quisisana restaurant in Paris. The simplest of creatures. The category of lowest inhabitants. Weak heart. — In 24 hours.
Unnecessary No. 14623 /strong>
Works in a cooperage. Class — mediocre. Doesn’t love his work. Thought process in all areas follows the path of least resistance. Physically healthy, but mentally ill with the most basic of afflictions: he’s afraid of life. Afraid of freedom. On holidays, when he’s free, he becomes inebriated. During the revolution he showed initiative: wore a red bow, bought potatoes and everything that was available, was afraid there wouldn’t be enough. Was proud of his working-man background. Did not take an active part in the revolution; was too afraid. Loves sour cream. Beats children. Dull and steady pace of life. — In 24 hours.
Unnecessary No. 15201
Speaks eight languages, but is boring to listen to even in one of them. Likes fancy cufflinks and lighters. Very self-confident. Derives that confidence from his knowledge of languages. Demands respect. Gossips. Oxlike in his indifference toward living real life. Fears the paupers. Unctuous in his communications, out of cowardice. Loves to swat flies and other insects. Rarely experiences joy. — In 24 hours.
Unnecessary No. 4356
Shouts abuse at the hired help out of boredom. Secretly eats the lactoderm layer from boiled milk and the fatty top layer from broth. Reads trashy novels. Sprawls on the couch all day. Greatest aspiration: to sew a dress with yellow sleeves and wide skirts. A talented inventor was in love with her for twelve years. She didn’t know what he did and thought he was an electrician. She left him and married a leather merchant. Has no children. Often cries and complains without cause. Wakes up at nights, orders the samovar to be put on, drinks tea and eats snacks. An unnecessary existence. — In 24 hours.
6. At work.
A crowd of specialist employees formed around Ak and the Board of Supreme Determination. These were doctors, psychologists, observers, and writers. They all worked extraordinarily quickly. In some cases, a small group of specialists sent a hundred people to the next world in a matter of an hour. A hundred profiles added to the Gray Cabinet, clarity of expression rivaling boundless self-confidence of its authors in each one.
Morning to evening, work was in full swing at the headquarters. Residency committees came and went, execution squads came and went, while dozens of people sat at the tables as though in an enormous newsroom. They wrote with quick, firm, unthinking hands.
Ak looked at all of this with his narrow, strong, impenetrable eyes and thought his private thoughts, which made his body hunch over and the hair on his large, rebellious, stubborn head grow ever more gray.
Something was brewing between him and his employees, something standing between his tense, sleepless thoughts and the blind, unthinking hands of the bureaucrats.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.