“My job is to make others use their imaginations”

Boris’s statement, “My job is to make others use their imaginations,” is a compact description of how he exercises power: he warns Lieutenant Mamiya against imagining, while making other people’s thoughts and fears serve his own purposes. The maxim links Boris’s political cynicism to his manipulation of Mamiya, and its meaning sharpens when he later exposes the lieutenant’s imagined plan to kill him.

Meaning and Context

Boris presents the maxim while praising Lieutenant Mamiya’s disciplined work and contrasting the lieutenant’s prospects with what he calls his own country’s hopelessness. His account of Russian political history reduces successive leaders’ use of political theory to opportunism, then draws a survival rule from that view: a Russian who uses his imagination is finished. He says that he does not imagine; instead, his work is to make others do so.

In the same speech, Boris advises Mamiya to picture Boris’s face if he starts imagining and to remember that imagining can be fatal. The maxim is therefore not a detached reflection on creativity. It is an instruction delivered by a powerful camp authority to a dependent lieutenant, with the threat of consequences built into its formulation.

Power over Others

The statement captures an asymmetry in Boris’s methods. He claims to avoid imaginative thought himself, yet treats other people’s imaginings as useful material: they may anticipate danger, speculate about his intentions, or picture resistance. His declared work is to direct that mental activity rather than participate in it.

The camp’s organization gives the saying concrete force. By the autumn of 1947, Mamiya has become indispensable to Boris, managing the business side of his activities, while The Tartar manages violence. Boris has made the camp and mine into territory under his control and accumulated wealth there. In this setting, his warning about imagination functions as part of a relationship in which Mamiya’s security depends on Boris’s favor.

The Maxim Tested

Boris’s earlier advice returns during Mamiya’s attempt to kill him. Boris reveals that the gun Mamiya has pointed at him is unloaded, explaining that its weight gives it away; Mamiya pulls the trigger and hears only a click. Boris then reminds him that he has long known Mamiya wanted to kill him, and says that the lieutenant has imagined doing so repeatedly. He explicitly connects the plot to his previous warning that imagination could cost Mamiya his life.

Boris then places two live shells at Mamiya’s feet and offers him another chance to shoot, with secrecy demanded if he misses. The sequence turns the maxim into an instrument of control: Mamiya’s imagined act has not escaped Boris’s notice, and even the apparent opportunity to act is arranged by Boris. The phrase thus binds together warning and demonstration. In the camp, imagination can expose a person’s intentions while leaving Boris in command of what happens next.