The Prisoner in the Gulag: Many Happy Returns, Dance of the Dead
Spoiler Alert: this post gives away the identity of Number 1.
The introduction to this series of posts considering whether The Prisoner could reference Soviet Russia may be found here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/the-prisoner-in-the-gulag-introduction
Many Happy Returns
Try as I might, I cannot make this episode refer to Soviet Russia in any way. In fact it is different from the episodes so far in that it places the Village in Africa rather than in Europe on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain, so I can’t even indicate that the action is taking place in the right part of the world.
I see that in my previous meanderings through this show I have expressed an opinion that I still hold: that the best interpretation of the bizarre empty Village in Many Happy Returns is that the show is giving a hint as to the identity of Number 1. There is nobody in the Village except Number 6 so in reality he has to be Number 1. His betrayal by his old friends in Britain also suggests that he has also been involved in the web of power which has set up the Village so isn’t innocent really. In my opinion, therefore, Many Happy Returns doesn’t relate to Soviet Russia and instead points to Number 6 at every step.
Dance of the Dead
Dance of the Dead is at first glance more promising ground. The Carnival has the contrived feel of many a communal celebration in Soviet Russia, and far from Many Happy Returns, points back to the usual primacy of the communal over the individual in the Village. At least mainly, with of course the usual continual protests from Number 6 and the phenomenon of Number 2’s cat.
The experimentation at the beginning again could suggest unethical Soviet experimentation, as well as indicating the frustration that people could feel in the Soviet Union on being always obliged to follow the current plan and central orders. Regular readers will know that one of my strange obsessions is nuclear disasters, and reports from the area around Chernobyl have consistently indicated that the Soviet way of doing things (with a single, centralised plan and an eye to propaganda) ensured that the fallout from the disaster was much worse than it could have been as a result. If we wait for orders... is suggestive of this problem with the Soviet approach.
The existence of observers of the more fractious children also could suggest the high level of observation people found themselves under on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Probably since the 1990s the Stasi in East Germany have become best known for intrusive observation but the KGB had a similar role in Soviet Russia.
However Dance of the Dead also includes, in my opinion, a mention of the one thing which makes the Village most difficult to compare with Soviet Russia: it is the scene where Number 6 asks where the food comes from. He obviously has no idea of how it is delivered. This would be the exact opposite of a society intended to reflect Soviet Russia, which was of course a Communist state, and far from the way wrong wingers throw the word around on social media, the actual dictionary definition of Communism is a system where the state owns the means of production. In my humble opinion the way an individual uses the word Communist/m and whether they actually stick to the dictionary definition is a very good indicator whether anything they say will be worth listening to. For example if you call Sir Kid Starver, Joe Biden, or even Zack Polanski, a Communist, all you’ve proved is you don’t know what a Communist is.
Anyway the reality is that in Communism the state owns the means of production and the workers are the ones who do the producing, and if the Village was intended to bear any resemblance to Soviet Russia, Number 6 would absolutely know where the food came from because he would be involved in its production as he was able. That simple question of where the food comes from, therefore makes a comparison to Soviet Russia rather fall apart.
Despite that the show ends on a high note of Soviet Russia similitude, by the way the carnival dance turns into what can only be called a Stalinist show trial. I think this comparison would have been a natural one to make in the 1960s because the trials had happened decades before and I think were well known. I have compared Number 6 to various categories of undesirable in Soviet Russia but of course the Moscow trials were directed against those defined as Trotskyists and opposition within the Communist Party. I realise Number 6 compares what is happening to him to the French Revolution but I don’t think that can really be considered a serious comparison given the power dynamic of the rest of the show. That said, I would think that the varying costumes of the participants in the trials could suggest a number of different interpretations of the scene.
So in summary, Dance of the Dead both includes very suggestive possible references to Soviet Russia and also a clear indication that the show does not reference a Communist state. On balance I think a better interpretation of this episode is that it is about conformism and the behaviour of people in groups.
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