By Dmitri Volkonsky, Senior Correspondent, Actual Life Under Communism
Greetings, future worker! You have spent considerable time — years, perhaps, fueled by oat milk and parasocial relationships with your favorite Substack authors — carefully cultivating a career that exists entirely within the soft, wifi-connected folds of late capitalism. A career involving crystals, perhaps. Or shadow work. Or, and I say this with great fraternal affection, "curated textile storytelling."
How wonderful for you.
Now the Revolution has arrived, and the Bureau of Labor Optimization has reviewed your skill set with the thoroughness of a man who has never once heard the word "boundaries." The results are in. Please proceed to your assigned sector without delay.
Answer the questions below honestly, Comrade. The Bureau is watching. The Bureau is always watching.
Section One: What Is Your Current "Career"?
Option A: Ceramics Content Creator You film yourself throwing clay on a wheel to the sound of lo-fi beats. Your captions say things like "this bowl chose its own shape" and "imperfection IS the craft." You have 47,000 followers and make money from an online course called Grounded: A Mudwork Journey.
Your Assignment: Brick Manufacturing, Volga Industrial Complex, Unit 4.
Photo: Volga Industrial Complex, via megaconstrucciones.net
Excellent news! Your familiarity with clay has been noted and enthusiastically repurposed. You will produce 340 uniform bricks per shift. They will not "choose their own shape." Deviation from the standard mold will be noted in your file. The good news: your hands were already calloused from the wheel. The bad news: everything else.
🏭 GLORIOUS PRODUCTIVITY FACT: Brick Unit 4 workers achieved 108% of their monthly quota in 1974. You will achieve 108% of your monthly quota. This is not a suggestion.
Option B: Astrology Podcaster You record two-hour episodes explaining why Mercury retrograde is responsible for your situationship falling apart. You have a Patreon with four tiers, the highest of which is called "Cosmic Beloved" and costs $44 a month. Your brand color is "dusty mauve."
Your Assignment: Night-Shift Weather Station Monitoring, Siberian Meteorological Outpost 12.
Comrade, the State has heard your passion for celestial observation and placed you somewhere you can truly commune with the sky — specifically, a small wooden hut 800 kilometers from the nearest town, where you will record wind speed and barometric pressure every four hours, including at 2am, 4am, and 6am. There is no Patreon here. There is a logbook and a thermos. The thermos is shared.
Your previous audience of 12,000 listeners has been reassigned to a collective grain farm. They are also fine.
⭐ GLORIOUS PRODUCTIVITY FACT: Outpost 12 meteorologists have maintained a 99.3% data accuracy rate since 1961. The 0.7% discrepancy was investigated. Comrade Yevgeny no longer works at Outpost 12.
Option C: Trauma-Informed Yarn Artist You create "emotionally responsive fiber installations" that explore generational wounds through macramé. You recently received a $6,000 arts grant to produce a piece called Untangling: A Textile Reckoning. It hangs in a credit union lobby in Portland.
Your Assignment: Textile Factory Floor Worker, Minsk Fabric Collective No. 7.
Photo: Minsk Fabric Collective No. 7, via c8.alamy.com
Wonderful! Your deep relationship with fiber has been recognized by the state and redirected toward something the people actually need — specifically, 200 meters of uniform grey cotton sheeting per shift. The sheeting does not explore generational wounds. It covers mattresses in state dormitories. You will operate Loom 14. Loom 14 is loud. Loom 14 has always been loud. No one has ever investigated why Loom 14 is loud.
🧵 GLORIOUS PRODUCTIVITY FACT: Minsk Collective No. 7 produces enough fabric annually to outfit every citizen of three mid-sized Soviet republics. You are now part of this legacy. Congratulations, Comrade.
Option D: Emotional Support Animal Entrepreneur You run an Instagram account for your goldendoodle, Miso, who is a "certified" emotional support animal. You sell Miso-branded anxiety journals and a $97 online course called Let Dogs Lead: A Healing Framework.
Your Assignment: State Livestock Management, Agricultural Collective 44, Pig Division.
Your affinity for animals has been noted with great warmth. The pigs of Collective 44 require feeding, monitoring, and — during certain seasonal periods — processing. The pigs do not have Instagram accounts. The pigs do not offer healing frameworks. The pigs have one job, and now, Comrade, so do you. On the positive side, you will never again need to caption a photograph. On the less positive side: the smell.
🐖 GLORIOUS PRODUCTIVITY FACT: Collective 44's pig division increased pork output by 23% between 1968 and 1971. The pigs were not given credit. Neither will you.
Option E: Somatic Breathwork Facilitator You lead $180-per-session workshops where participants lie on yoga mats and hyperventilate in a healing context. You describe yourself as "a guide, not a guru" and own at least one singing bowl that cost more than a car payment.
Your Assignment: Underground Coal Mining, Donetsk Basin, Shaft C.
Breathing! You love breathing! The miners of Shaft C also think about breathing quite a lot, particularly when the ventilation system experiences what the foreman calls "a character moment." Your background in respiratory awareness may, in fact, be your most transferable skill yet. The singing bowl has been confiscated and melted down. It is now part of a tractor.
⛏️ GLORIOUS PRODUCTIVITY FACT: Shaft C miners extract an average of 12 tonnes of coal per worker per month. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat for 30 years.
A Final Word From The Bureau
Comrade, whatever your result, please know that the People's Central Labor Allocation Bureau reviewed your case with the full warmth and efficiency of the collective state. Your previous career — however many ring lights, Notion dashboards, and "gentle rebrands" it involved — has been carefully evaluated.
The evaluation took four minutes.
The Revolution does not need your vibe. The Revolution needs bricks, coal, fish, fabric, and someone to monitor the wind at 4am in a hut that smells like boiled cabbage. The Revolution has looked at your Pinterest board and made a decision.
Report to your assigned sector by Monday. Wear clothes you don't mind ruining. Do not bring your singing bowl.
The Bureau wishes you a productive and spiritually uncomplicated future.
Dmitri Volkonsky is Senior Correspondent at Actual Life Under Communism. He has never once described himself as "an empath" and sleeps very soundly because of this.