he United State. Zamiatin clearly believes that the dark humor of satire is a more powerful weapon than straightforward rhetorical judgment in exposing the sins of totalitarianism. A sane and relatively healthy reader will know that there is no such thing as "a mathematically faultless happiness." This reader will know that a human being cannot be forced to be happy. Zamiatin, through the use of satire and irony, is exposing the absurdity of the totalitarian state, and, as such, his work is subversive to the totalitarian state. We also see in that passage that Zamiatin recognizes that the totalitarian regime will indeed try to accomplish its evil ends without force, if possible. He recognizes that the writers of the regime will be called to totalitarian duty and commanded to use "the power of words" for the sake of guiding the people to conformity and obedience. Zamiatin himself refused to do so and ultimately asked to leave the country, exiling himself from his homeland rather than compromise himself as an artist. He chose instead, as in We, to use style, content, as well as form, to subvert the totalitarian impulses of the state. In We, Zamiatin uses satire and irony to poke a knife-sharp finger in the ribs of the lying, brutal leaders of that state; he courageously indicted the Russian government for specific abuses in the content of the novel; and in his form he "uses the notebook format, which is a particularly flexible medium for reflecting the varying moods of the narrator. A dynamic pace as well as a multidimensional characterization is obtained by techniques that are grounded in the principles of human psychology" (Rudy x). Despite the fact that "the total effect" of Zamiatin's various literary techniques is a "novel with a strong inner unity" (Rudy xi), the fact is that the author's liberated style and form serve as a revolutionary slap in the face to the increasingly paranoid leaders of Russia in the early 1920s.
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