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.
"That's right! We used to study at the same factory school."
"He's a good chap. He didn't get rattled."
But I was wrestling with a problem: should I tell Flegontov, the secretary of the Party organization, that he had been wrong about one thing?
I said cautiously: "But there are one or two things I don't agree with you about, Comrade Flegontov."
"What exactly?" His big sunburnt, slightly pock-marked face turned towards me.
I noticed that the peak of his old army cap gleamed with graphite. He must have been wearing it ever since the Civil War.
"When you hinted that Kashket is inciting his partner to turn out bad work, you seemed to be protecting Tiktor. What you seemed to be saying was, Kashket's a spoiler and a slacker, but Tiktor's as pure as a lamb. That's not true, Comrade Flegontov! If only you knew..."
Flegontov interrupted me.
"How old is Tiktor?"
"About eighteen."
"I see. Well, what ought I to know?"
In clumsy, stumbling phrases I told the secretary how Tiktor had acted at school, how he had stuck out against the collective, how he had failed to respond to the security alarm because he was drunk.
"And is that all?" Flegontov asked.
"But we expelled him from the Komsomol! He's a hopeless case."
"You're making a mistake, Mandzhura," Flegontov said calmly. "We can't throw people away like that. As far as I can make out from my own observations, your mate Tiktor is an obstinate, stuck-up sort of fellow. But such people can be re-educated. Don't you see, Mandzhura, that we've got to fight for every man, especially the young man? I'm sure that expulsion from the Komsomol has turned your mate sour. You must try and make him understand that everything is not lost. I don't want you, a Komsomol organizer, to wash your hands of people like Tiktor. That won't do us any good. If he's stubborn, go at him with good, principled arguments. It's the easiest thing in the world to say a man's a hopeless case and leave it at that. But sometimes, you know, even a criminal can be reformed and put on the right path by the strength of our convictions. We've got the truth on our side!. . ."
That evening a north wind sprang up and the bay was flecked with white-capped waves. The strong steppe wind lashed them furiously and clouds of spray gleamed pink in the bleak light of the setting sun. For a few minutes our faces turned a deep ruddy bronze in the sunset. Petka and I were sitting on a bench near the harbour restaurant.
Night approached imperceptibly. As the blue shadows crept over the earth, a faint smell of baking
bread reached us on the little mound where we sat.
Knowing that Petka had no rehearsal at the club this evening, I had suggested a walk along the sea-shore. Petka had agreed willingly, and when we sat down on the bench, he said with a sigh of relief:
"Flegontov did me a good turn today, didn't he? He must have known I wasn't very well up in my knowledge of Britain. You see, I had picked on China as my subject. The number of notes I'd made about it—colossal! And then Golovatsky made me read about our relations with Britain.. ."
"I know as much about Chinese affairs as I do about the Chinese language," I consoled Petka.
"Chinese affairs are very complicated," Petka said firmly, in a rather superior tone.
He was silent for a moment, then as if deciding to abandon his shyness, he said enthusiastically:
"I say, Vasil, do you remember the statement that the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen made to the Soviet Government?"
"I've missed a few things lately... Wait a minute, though ... He's dead, isn't he?"
"He made the statement last spring, just before he died. He dictated it to his friends. It's a fine statement! Listen. This is what Sun Yat-sen said: 'You stand at the head of a Union of Free Republics—the legacy left to the world by the immortal Lenin. With the help of that legacy...' " Petka wrinkled his broad forehead in an effort to recall the exact words, then went on enthusiastically: "Yes, and then it goes on like this. '.. .With the help of that legacy the victims of imperialism will inevitably achieve liberation from that international system whose foundations have from ancient times been rooted in slave-owning, wars, and injustice...' Fine, isn't it? What conviction! And it ends up like this: 'In saying farewell to you, dear comrades, I wish to express the hope that soon the day will come when the U.S.S.R. will welcome a great and free China as its friend and ally, and that in the great struggle for the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the world both allies will march forward to victory shoulder to shoulder.' Perhaps you and I will live to see that day, Vasil. Think what China and the U.S.S.R. mean together! Hundreds of millions! Nearly half the world! We shan't be afraid of anyone then!"