Comrade Lieutenant.”
Going to the zampolit with my problem had not been an act of desperation. The major took his duty seriously. The welfare of the officers and men certainly was his primary responsibility. And like most of his kind, he was a Communist zealot, who believed fervently that the Marxist-Leninist system provided answers to all human problems.
If a soldier’s mother was sick or his father died halfway around the world in Siberia, the zampolit counseled the boy with suitable Communist condolences and arranged an Aeroflot ticket for compassionate leave. If a mechanic’s wife complained he was spending his pay on a girl in town, the zampolit would call the man on the carpet for a lecture on Communist morality. When a soldier showed up drunk for duty, part of his discipline was a counseling session with the zampolit. I had read there were equally dedicated priests and ministers serving in Western armies as chaplains, men who rode the tanks or even parachuted into battle with their men. These chaplains served the same function as zampolits in the Soviet military. Or perhaps, given the sequence of history, the situation was reversed. All I knew was that a well-motivated zampolit was a good friend to have, even if he couldn’t fly an airplane worth a damn.
The zampolit made a strong case for me with Major Kuchkov, who in turn took my request to Colonel Rinchinov. A week later I was given the keys to my tiny apartment in an old two-floor wooden building in the military housing compound. Two weeks after that, I discovered that the Voyentorg military exchange actually had a big brand-new Minsk refrigerator available, one that had been shipped by mistake, with no officer waiting to buy it. I told the clerk to hold it for me and he insisted I have my zampolit endorse my order. I was back at Major Novikov’s office in a flash, presenting the order form for his countersignature. Novikov looked at me a bit strangely: It was unheard-of for a senior lieutenant to obtain both an apartment and a new refrigerator within weeks of each other. But he did sign the order form.
The Voyentorg closed for the weekend in three hours. And I had to hurry to withdraw the 470 rubles from the State savings bank. As a bachelor, I had managed to save more than 2,000 rubles since leaving the academy. But I resisted splurging and buying a good used Gorizont or Taorus television to complement my Minsk refrigerator. My savings were paying almost three percent interest. If I kept depositing a quarter of my monthly salary, I would have enough to buy a decent used Zhiguli sedan in six or seven years. So I installed the big white refrigerator in my tiny parlor, the place of honor usually taken by a television set. After that, when my friends asked me if I had seen some particularly interesting television program, I always told them, “No, boys, that show hasn’t been shown on my Minsk station yet.”
I was thinking about all these matters while standing like a store-window dummy in my pressed flying suit before the nose of the aircraft. But my reverie was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Lieutenant General Igor Buravkov, the district’s VVS commander. I snapped to rigid attention and saluted in the best Armavir manner. But the general told me to stand easy.
“All set for the delegation, Zuyev?”
“Absolutely, Comrade General.”
Buravkov looked over my display and briefly inspected my uniform. “Let’s have a look at your cockpit.”
He climbed the ladder ahead of me, and to my surprise sat down in the fighter’s ejection seat. The general’s hands slid over the throttle and stick, and lingered on the weapons’ control panel. Then he looked at me frankly, one pilot to another. “You know, Lieutenant,” he said quietly, “they don’t let us general officers fly anymore, ever since those accidents in the Ukraine. I miss it. I envy you young fellows.”
His openness had disarmed me completely. I nodded in sympathy. What could I tell a lieutenant general?
Finally he looked up from the instruments and assumed his normal role. “How’s your training progressing, Lieutenant Zuyev?” The regimental zampolit was down there on the apron with his camera, and I was expected to smile respectfully.
For a moment I considered mouthing the standard reply, but then I realized I had a unique opportunity to cut through the bureaucracy. “Speaking frankly?”
“Of course.” General Buravkov frowned now.
I explained that I had been selected for the MiG-29 program and had been pulled out of the group undergoing intense training for First Class pilot rating. “I’m afraid, Comrade General, that I won’t have the chance to make First Class.”
Again Buravkov frowned, then climbed down from the cockpit and turned to speak to his aide, a dandy of a young captain with a Guards’ tab on his epaulets. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant Zuyev,” the general said gruffly, “you’ll receive the rating before your transfer.”
Five minutes later Shevardnadze’s delegation made its way down the line of planes, pausing before each one to ask the appropriate questions of the pilot or maintenance officer.
After I saluted the chairman and shook his hand, Shevardnadze turned his bright brown eyes on the array of weapons displayed on the tarmac. “Any shortcomings or deficiencies the Party should be aware of, Comrade Lieutenant?”
The question was pure pokazuka. “Certainly not, Comrade Chairman.”
I caught General Buravkov’s eyes as the Party leaders moved past me. The old pilot was smiling.
At the squadron briefings the next morning, Colonel Rinchinov glared at me and pushed back his thick black hair in an angry gesture. “Zuyev,” he said, “I didn’t know you could jump rank so high.” He was furious that I had raised the training issue with the district commander.
“Comrade Colonel,” I answered, “the general asked about my training and I replied.”
Rinchinov glared a moment longer, enjoying my discomfort. “So I understand, Comrade Lieutenant.”
The colonel had received a message directly from General Buravkov. The regiment was to guarantee that Igor and I would be granted the aircraft and instructors necessary to complete our First Class training before transfer to the MiG-29 program. And like everything else he did, Colonel Rinchinov organized this effort well.
He selected Captain Griek, who was also due for transfer to MiG-29s, as our chief instructor. And Rinchinov consulted his engineering deputy to locate four well-maintained aircraft, a two-seat MiG-23UB for dual instruction, and three single seaters to be flown only by Igor, me, and our instructor. Most of the training remaining on the syllabus was at night, so Rinchinov organized the entire regiment’s flying schedule around ours, keeping the simulator, the runway, and the weapons poligons free for our use.
Four nights a week we flew. On Saturdays and Sundays we used the simulator and studied manuals. After forty-five days of this intense instruction, Igor and I passed our First Class pilots’ examinations on April 25, 1985. I was two years and three months out of the Armavir Academy and had just reached a milestone that normally required seven years. The next night in the officers’ dining room, Igor and I paid for the cognac.
The fellows in the 1st Squadron presented each of us a framed “Air Force Regulation” describing the duties of Third, Second, and First Class pilots:
Pilot Third Class: knows it all, but can’t fly worth shit.
Pilot Second Class: knows a little bit of everything and can even fly a little.
Pilot First Class: doesn’t remember shit, but can fly anything, anywhere, anytime.
To me, that crude declaration was worth more than a thousand-ruble bonus.
I had been so focused on my training that I hardly had time to consider the political events shaking Moscow. In March, Communist Party General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko died — or at least the Central Committee acknowledged his death: Chernenko, an elderly zombie like Brezhnev, had been absent from Party meetings for over a month, so the official announcement of his death was hardly a shock. People were used to these fossilized old politicians dropping dead. But the Politburo’s speed in naming his successor was a surprise. Only hours after the solemn music began droning on Radio Moscow, the announcement came that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had been named Party General Secretary.
Despite the hectic pace of my schedule, I took the time to read both Pravda and Izvestia that week. Gorbachev was like no leader the country had ever known. For the previous year, as a new young member of the Politburo, he had often appeared on television, speaking frankly, with obvious conviction, about the need for reform and reorganization in the Soviet Union. It wasn’t just his relative youth and enthusiasm that made him so different. Gorbachev spoke candidly, without resort to the text of a prepared speech or even notes. And when he addressed the people, he looked directly into the camera lens, in a way that riveted his listeners.
Mikhail Gorbachev had been a protege of Andropov, and believed deeply that our huge, rich nation could
