The Kremlin Games(111)

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“It’s a big step forward,” Bernie Zeppi said. “A really big step.”

“It’s a disaster,” said Filip Pavlovich, Bernie’s sometime tutor. “The czar’s gone mad. Labor, Bernie. There’s not enough. There’s never been enough. Look, Bernie. I know that serfdom is wrong. You’ve convinced me. You and Anya. But the service nobility will not stand for this.”

“Freedom, Filip,” Bernie said back. “Why don’t people get that people will work harder and produce more if they’re doing it for themselves?”

“Because it isn’t true,” Filip told him bluntly. “Oh. People probably will work harder if they’re paid. But not enough harder to make up for the cost of paying them. Besides, what is the service nobility going to pay them with?”

Natasha felt like burying her head in her hands. Or possibly screaming at the top of her lungs. Instead, she took a deep breath, and said, “Gentlemen, this isn’t a productive conversation. Can we get back on topic, please?”

“It will make Czar Mikhail even more popular than the win at Rzhev,” Anya pointed out.

The presence at the meeting of Bernie’s former leman—or, rather, Anya’s ease at speaking in the meeting—was an indication of just how much Bernie’s presence had affected the Dacha. Bernie was blind to class and it was rubbing off. It had been rubbing off now for three years—on Natasha herself most of all, she sometimes thought.

Anya had started off as a cook’s assistant and with help from Bernie had become the Dacha’s household accountant. In the process she had become involved in the development of the EMCM, Electro-Mechanical Calculating Machine.

“Popular with whom?” Filip asked. “Serfs don’t have weapons, unless you count an ax as a weapon. The service nobility does. And so does the Streltzi. And it’s they who will be most affected. When your Czar Lincoln talked about limiting slavery, not abolishing it, it caused a revolution and that was in a country where only a third of it had slavery in the first place. In Russia, serfs are everywhere. I’m not saying serfdom is a good thing, Anya. But it’s too soon to do this.”

“More money for Vladimir,” Bernie said. “Reapers and threshers are going like hotcakes. What’s weird to me is that you—” He pointed at Natasha. “—aren’t freaking out about losing serfs. You’ve got all these lands to take care of.”

“I,” Natasha said, “can afford to hire help. And people want to work for us, because we can afford to take a smaller cut, because we have more people. Most of the truly wealthy are the same way, you know. As is the church. We can make a deal, attract more of the labor force. It’s the service nobility, people like Boris and Filip, who need the serfs tied to the land. That’s what concerns Patriarch Filaret. Ill as he is, he counseled the czar against this move. And Czarina Evdokia is very, very worried. But the boyars and Duma men are all for it. It will make it much easier for us to poach serfs from the service nobility. There’s a lot of nervousness in Moscow right now.”

“And it won’t take much to start a firestorm,” Filip said. “It’s not like we haven’t had them before. Or wouldn’t have them in the future. Remember Peter the Great. For that matter, remember 1917. That’s why I said it’s too soon, Bernie. There aren’t enough plows and reapers yet to make much of a difference in overall production. And members of the service nobility like me mostly don’t have them.”

Anya sighed. “I understand your point, Filip. But already serfs are being put to work in factories. Rented out, or close enough to make no difference, to make their lord extra money. It will never be the right time! Slavery and serfdom don’t just fade away. No oppression does. It takes people standing up and saying ‘enough, no more!’ And making it stick.”

Natasha knew that was true. Evdokia had discussed it with Mikhail. Bernie was wrong. It was probably true enough that people worked harder when they were working for themselves. And the evidence was pretty clear that societies without serfs were, over all, more productive than those with serfs. But that extra productivity didn’t go into the pockets of the lord. It went to buy the former serf a new suit of clothes or an extra room of the house, maybe some toys for their kids. Which worked just fine for society as a whole, but very badly so far as the lord was concerned, since he now had to pay for labor that he used to get for nothing or at least a lot less.

Meanwhile, Bernie was grinning. Natasha raised an eyebrow in question.