WHAT IS AN ’’INSTIGATOR”?
Even before the five reaping machines that Nikita had taken away with him had reached their destination, Golovatsky had suggested that every Komsomol group should appoint speakers to inform the workers about the political situation during their lunch-hour. True, one of our fellows, Arkady Salagai from the drilling shop, objected to Tolya's suggestion. Salagai said that we should be interfering with the
works Party organization, and argued heatedly that reading out the newspapers during the lunch-hour was the Communists' job. Salagai bawled out his arguments with his greasy cap tilted rakishly on the back of his head, but Golovatsky knew how to answer him.
'Everyone knows,' Tolya said very quietly and distinctly, 'that there are twice as many Komsomol members at the works as there are Party members. And isn't it our job to help the Communists? What, harm is there in devoting our efforts to work that the Party has pointed out to us! On the contrary, we ought to be proud of doing it!'
... That summer, our workers, like everyone else in the country, were very interested in our relations with Britain, and Golovatsky had decided that our first task should be to read our workers a few of the latest newspaper articles on the subject.
Today the joiners' Komsomol group was on duty and I was not a bit surprised to hear Petka's deep voice when I entered the dining-hall. My friend had been working over the newspapers in the club reading-room till very late last night.
Petka was standing on the low platform at the end of the hall with a copy of Izvestia in his hands. He was reading the Soviet Government's note to Britain:
'British Government spokesmen are trying to interpret the fraternal help afforded by the workers of the U.S.S.R. and their trade-union organizations to the strike movement in Britain as an act of interference in the internal affairs of the British Empire. While considering unworthy of comment the crude attacks made by certain British Government ministers on the U.S.S.R., its working class and trade-union organizations, the Soviet Government points out that it is a fairly wide-spread phenomenon for any government to belong to a definite political party, and for one or another political party to have a dominating position in certain trade unions...'
The eyes of everyone sitting at the long tables covered with fresh-smelling oil-cloth were focussed on Petka. If any of the men who were eating needed hot water from the steaming urn in the corner, he went up to it on tip- toe, trying to make as little noise as possible, and still keeping his eyes on the speaker.
I couldn't help feeling glad for Petka. A factory-school trainee, who only a little while ago had been catching birds with 'wobblers' and running barefoot about our hilly town, was now reading out a government note to the workers of a big engineering works and everyone was listening to him attentively. I regretted that Nikita was not here; he would have been pleased to see the progress his pupil had made.
In the farthest corner of the hall I noticed Golovatsky and Flegontov, who had arrived recently from Leningrad. They, too, were listening attentively to my friend.
As I listened to this note in which the Soviet Government swept aside the foolish slander of Chamberlain and Co., I recalled my conversation with Old Turunda.
'Yes, we shall go on helping arty honest worker who is oppressed by the capitalists, and if the capitalists don't like it, they can lump it,' I thought to myself.
It was as if the Soviet diplomats had overheard our argument that evening and were now expressing our thoughts in the note. True, they did it in a very polite manner, but that did not make the thoughts any less clear and definite.
Lost in my reflections, I missed a little of what Petka was reading and it cost me an effort to recover the thread of the argument.
'... The degree of friendship in relations between states,' Petka continued steadily, 'tells mainly on their economic relations. The most important feature of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill, is his attempts to undermine economic relations between Britain and the U.S.S.R.
'This slander by the man who was once the chief instigator of the British intervention against the
Soviet Republic in 1918-19 clearly pursues the same aims in relation to the Soviet Republic as he has pursued ever since the Soviet Republic came into being. Churchill has not forgotten the blockade and intervention and his present speech is calculated to revive the economic blockade against us...'
Petka read the long sentence without stumbling over a single word, then paused for breath. The short moment of silence was at once interrupted by Kashket. Kashket jumped to his feet, holding a mug of steaming tea.
'Can I ask a question, young man?' he shouted.
'Go on,' Petka said doubtfully.
'You've been reading out a lot of long words. You reel 'em off so fast our minds can't get the meaning of them. Would you mind explaining to me, an ignorant working man, what this here word 'constigator' means?'
And glancing round triumphantly with his shifty little eyes, Kashket sat down noisily on his bench. Anyone could see that it was not ignorance but a desire to put Petka off his stroke that had made him ask the question.
'All right, I'll explain,' Petka said. 'But the word is not 'constigator,' it's 'instigator.' An instigator is
a... '
At that moment firm, heavy steps were heard in the hall. Flegontov, a short, stocky man in grey overalls and brown boots thickly coated with dust from the foundry, was walking up to the platform. He raised his hand like a pupil to his teacher and said quietly to Petka: 'Let me answer him, old chap.'
Feeling that his attempt to spoil the reading was going to fail, Kashket called out, but in a much quieter tone: 'Why interrupt the lad? He was reading fine, let him explain it to us in his own way.'
'I want to help our comrade and make things clear to you and everyone else. Will that spoil anything?' Flegontov retorted. 'You want to know what this queer word 'instigator' means, do you?
Well, let me tell you. In this particular case you might explain it this way. In 1918, the people we call 'instigators' were those who started the foreign invasion of the young Soviet country. After the world war, a few foreigners who owned factories in this country left their factories and ran away abroad. At first they thought we, Communists, would break our own necks, then when they realized that wouldn't happen they decided to act differently. So those 'instigators' got together the armed forces of fourteen countries to crush the Soviet land, but, as you know, they were defeated. Well, that's what an instigator is in international politics. But there are all sorts of instigators. . . Sometimes you find people of that kind who've wormed their way into the ranks of the working class, and although they don't work on such a big scale as the international type, they do a lot of harm to our cause. Take the foundry, for instance. There's a fellow working in the foundry who during the Civil War wobbled about between Old Man Makhno and General Denikin. And that fellow's lasted out till the present time, when we're rebuilding everything. He's been given a partner to work with, a young fellow who doesn't yet know the way we do things here. Anyone can see that this lad could take an intelligent attitude towards production, and work well not from fear of the big stick, but because his conscience tells him he ought to work well, and you'd think the older worker would help him on that path. But in this case the opposite's happened. The fellow I'm talking about instigates the new lad to follow quite a different path, the path of bad work, and slacking, and indifference to our Soviet production. And what does such instigation lead to? Hundreds of castings are written off as spoilage, and somewhere out there, in his village, the peasant waits in vain for the reaper he's ordered and says that co-operation between town and country is just a swindle. . . Do you see what I mean?'
Laughter was heard all through the hall. The men looked at Kashket, who had buried his nose in his enamel mug and was pretending to drink tea.
'Well, if there are no more questions, we'll go on with the reading,' Flegontov said and with a nod to
Petka walked back to his corner.
Petka looked at Flegontov with gratitude, cleared his throat and went on reading.
The bright midday sun dazzled me when a few minutes before the end of the lunch-hour I followed Flegontov out of the dining-hall. Trucks piled high with oily bolts fresh from the finishing shops stood in the yard, left there by the workers during their break.
'That was one of your mates reading, wasn't it?' Flegontov asked me.
