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First published January 1, 1974
In the murkiness and floating brick dust men fought hand to hand, rasping and cursing, breaking backs, strangling, tearing with their teeth, gouging out eyes, ripping mouths, stabbing with knives, slashing with spades, smashing with bricks and rifle butts.
He lay there, thinking very calmly that now there was nothing he feared - Germans, death or cold. He was no longer conscious of self, he felt something more - his personality. The personality that had become a link between the past and the future of his country, a fragment of which warmed him in the noble silk of the flag. And he quietly recognized that it would never be of any importance to anyone what name this personality bore, where and how it had lived, who it had loved and how it had perished. One thing only mattered: that the link which connected the past and the future in a single chain of time had been strong. And he knew with certainty that this link was strong and eternal.
"Now then," he said, "you've had your cry, that's enough. You must understand one thing. They're not human beings - not even animals, they're just fascists, Comrade Komelkova, and you must take this view of them."
After all, a human being is distinguished from animals only by the realisation that he is a human being. When this realisation is gone, he becomes a beast. A two-legged, two-handed beast; a fierce beast, the horror of horrors. You could have no human feelings for such a creature, neither pity nor mercy. He must be beaten until he crawls back into his den; he must be beaten even there, until he remembers that he has once been a human being, until he understands that.
All that Vaskov knew in this fight was not to retreat. Not to surrender a handful of earth on his side. However, difficult, however hopeless it might be, he had to hold his position. He had to hold out, otherwise the enemy would crush him - and that would be the end. He had a feeling that behind his back was the whole of Russia. It was as if he, Fedot Vaskov, and no one else, was her last surviving son and defender. And there was no one else in the world but him, the enemy, and Russia.