member.
When the Komsomol members in the foundry elected me their secretary, I started getting to know everyone better. It made it a lot easier for me to know what job I could give them. Big, broad-shouldered Grisha Kanuk took on the job of editing our wall newspaper. Shura Danilenko, a core-maker, who brought cores round the foundry every day on big iron trays, undertook to read newspapers and magazines aloud during the dinner-hour. Jobs were found for other Komsomol members, too.
But what job could I give Kolya Zakabluk, the only office-worker in our organization? I felt so prejudiced against him. His tie and the neat parting in his straight fair hair irritated me. Later I was to discover how misleading appearances can be. I got talking to Zakabluk and it turned out that this stocky little fellow with so many freckles on his face that they spread even over his thin, tight-pressed lips was certainly not a pen-pusher by nature. He had had no choice about it.
Kolya Zakabluk had started working on the moulding machines as soon as the Soviets put the works into operation after the defeat of General Wrangel. Conditions of work in the foundry in those years had been far worse than now. There was no air-conditioning at all. Naturally enough, working in such an awful dust and fug, Kolya developed consumption. And of course, the food was very bad in those days—tulka and maize bread. The famine in the Volga country made itself felt even in Tavria.
Kolya and the other sick lads at the works received help only after the old foundry man Ivan Rudenko, a Communist, became director of the works, and Andrykhevich, who had been in charge of the works since Caiworth's time, was pushed into the background. A clinic was set up at the works, air-conditioning was installed, the workers were given regular medical inspections. But according to Kolya the thing that helped him most was the night sanatorium that Rudenko had opened in the mansion of the former owner. When they had fed Kolya up at the sanatorium and patched up his lungs, the doctors allowed him to go to work, but not in the foundry. And that was how Kolya had become an office-worker.
On the pay-day of which I am speaking, Kolya Zakabluk, seeing that casting was nearly finished, came out of the office carrying a long box with our pay-packets in it. Jumping over heaps of sand and
stepping carefully round the smoking moulds, Kolya went from one machine to another. He knew every foundry worker by sight and quickly handed each one the right packet.
Wiping the sand off his hands, the moulder would take the envelope and sign for it in Kolya's book. Few of them counted the money, for everyone in the foundry knew that Zakabluk was a reliable chap and never tried to swindle anyone.
Zakabluk stopped at our machines for a moment and showing two rows of small white teeth in a broad smile, whispered: 'If they make a fuss, will you back me up, Vasil?'
'Count on me,' I promised. 'But you stand up to them as well.'
Zakabluk went on quickly to the next set of machines. Soon he appeared near the machines where Kashket and Tiktor were working. Without stopping, Zakabluk went on to the furnace.
'Hi there, Kolya, don't forget your friends!' Kashket called out in his lisping voice. 'Bring the cash round here!'
Zakabluk turned round. His face was strained.
'Spoilers and shirkers get their pay last!' he said loudly, his white teeth flashing.
Kashket gave a whistle of surprise. 'What's this new idea!'
'What I've just told you!' Kolya snapped and went on to the furnace, where the furnace men in their broad- brimmed hats were waiting for him.
Kashket threw himself into his work more wildly than ever, urging on his partner and exchanging short, angry phrases with him. They soon knocked off and Kashket dashed away to the office to complain.
Meanwhile we dusted our machines and put our tools and materials in order, so that we could start work in the morning without any delay.
I always enjoyed washing my gleaming shovel under the tap, then warming it on a glowing slab and sprinkling the blade with powdered rosin. The amber rosin formed a gleaming sticky coating over the blade. It gave off a smell that made me think of tall pine woods oozing rosin on a hot August day, and for a moment I forgot the acrid vapours of the foundry. As I rosined my shovel, I did not notice Grisha Kanuk slip over to the board that Zakabluk had put up in the foundry. Unrolling a large sheet of paper, he pinned up the first issue of our wall newspaper.
Across the top of the page ran a large head-line, 'RECORD-BREAKING SPOILERS IN THE FOUNDRY.'
Below it there was a short article and a row of caricatures. Stripped to the waist like wrestlers, with vodka bottles dangling on their chests, the 'record-breakers' were marching triumphantly towards a huge bottle of bluish liquid with a skull and cross-bones on the label. As was to be expected, the bottle-bound procession of spoilers and shirkers included Tiktor with his dangling forelock, and the capering, sunburnt Kashket, who in his ridiculous red kerchief looked like a Spanish picador.
Under the caricature was written: 'At the request of all the honest workers in the foundry, from now on spoilers, shirkers, and disorganizes will receive their pay separately.'
The next moment Zakabluk appeared with a chair and a small folding table. Quickly arranging his books on the table, he sat down just as if he were in his office, ready to pay the bad workers.
Quite unexpectedly the tall bony figure of the chief engineer appeared at the entrance to the foundry. His greying hair showed under his green cap band. At the sight of the chief engineer, the workers stood back to let him pass. Andrykhevich stopped in front of the wall newspaper, then glanced at the table.
'What's all this nonsense? Call the foreman!' he snapped.
'I'm here, Stefan Medardovich!' answered Fedorko, who had apparently been called out by one of the indignant shirkers.
'Why do you allow this sort of thing?' the chief engineer shouted at the foreman.
'I thought... It seemed a useful... er, social line...'
'No more of your 'social lines' here!' Andrykhevich ground out, narrowing his eyes maliciously. 'Our business is casting metal. Take that trash down at once!'
It was a tense moment. This might mean the end of our offensive against those who turned out bad work and disorganized production. Screwing up my courage, I strode over to the engineer.
'We will not allow you to take the newspaper down,' I said in a choking voice.
For nothing short of a minute Andrykhevich surveyed me in silence, apparently recalling our first meeting.
'Aha! The builder of a new world! Good day to you, my dear fellow!' he said with false joviality and offered me his wrinkled hand with the heavy gold ring on the forefinger. 'May I ask you, young man, on whose behalf you are making this protest?' the engineer went on sarcastically. 'Have you any reason or is it merely to satisfy that youthful thirst for controversy I know so well?'
'I'm protesting on behalf of the foundry Komsomol organization. It was us who put out the wall newspaper and you can't ban it.'
'Just a moment, my dear fellow! Has the Komsomol organization the right to take matters into their own hands and break the discipline of the workers?' the engineer asked.
'Who's breaking the workers' discipline? Us?!' I burst out indignantly. 'It's them who're destroying discipline— it's those shirkers and spoilers who are holding us up!'
'A little quieter, young man! I'm not deaf yet. You needn't shout. Especially as the time of revolutionary meetings has passed. This is what I want to say to you. At present I am the chief engineer at this works, and I have given orders that this paper be taken down. You, a person who has neither experience, nor administrative authority, oppose the carrying-out of my order, raise your voice, make insulting remarks to me. What else is that but an infringement of labour discipline?'
The gloating, victorious face of Kashket hovered near by. Andrykhevich's greenish eyes glittered cunningly in front of me. But 'I was not going to give in yet.
'The new system of paying out wages, Stefan Medardovich, has been agreed upon with the works director, Comrade Rudenko, and with the trade-union committee. The man who works best receives his wages first. It seems to me that the chief engineer should also carry out the wishes of the director and not contradict them.'
'I know nothing about any such agreement,' Andrykhevich grunted. 'The director hasn't said anything to me about it.'
