第 49 页

Next to him, his elbow resting negligently on the lid of the piano, sat Tsvetayev, a handsome young man with brown hair and finely chiselled lips. His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat.

As he came up to the group, Okunev heard Anna say:

"Some people are doing everything they can to complicate the admission of new members.

Tsvetayev is one."

"The Komsomol is not a picnic ground," Tsvetayev snapped with stubborn disdain.

"Look at Nikolai!" cried Talya, catching sight of Okunev. "He's beaming like a polished samovar tonight!"

Okunev was dragged into the circle and bombarded with questions.

"Where have you been?"

"Let's get started."

Okunev raised his hand for silence.

"Hold on, lads. As soon as Tokarev comes we'll begin."

"There he comes now," remarked Anna.

Sure enough the Secretary of the District Party Committee approached. Okunev ran forward to meet him.

"Come along, Dad, I'm going to take you backstage to meet a friend of mine. Prepare for a shock!"

"What're you up to now?" the old man growled, puffing on his cigarette, but Okunev was already pulling him by the sleeve.

Okunev rang the chairman's bell with such violence that even the noisiest members of the audience were silenced.

Behind Tokarev the leonine head of the genius of the Communist Manifesto, in a frame of evergreen, surveyed the assembly. While Okunev opened the meeting Tokarev could not keep his eyes off Korchagin who stood in the wings waiting for his cue.

"Comrades! Before we get down to the current organisational questions on the agenda, a comrade here has asked for the floor. Tokarev and I move that he be allowed to speak."

A murmur of approval rose from the hall, whereupon Okunev rapped out:

"I call upon Pavel Korchagin to address the meeting!"

At least eighty of the one hundred in the hall knew Korchagin, and when the familiar figure appeared before the footlights and the tall pale young man began to speak, a storm of delighted cries and thunderous applause broke from the audience.

"Dear Comrades!"

Korchagin's voice was steady but he could not conceal his emotion.

"Friends, I have returned to take my place in the ranks. I am happy to be back. I see a great number of my comrades here. I understand that the Solomenka Komsomol has thirty per cent more members than before, and that they've stopped making cigarette lighters in the workshops and yards, and the old carcasses are being hauled out of the railway cemetery for capital repairs.

That means our country is getting a new lease on life and is mustering its strength. That is something to live for! How could I die at a time like this!" Korchagin's eyes lit up in a happy smile.

Amid a storm of applause and greetings he descended the platform and went over to where Anna and Talya were sitting. He shook the hands outstretched in greeting, and then the friends moved up and made room for him between them. Talya laid her hand on his and squeezed it tight. Anna's eyes were still wide with surprise, her eyelashes quivered faintly as she gave Pavel a look of warm welcome.

The days slipped swiftly by. Yet there was nothing monotonous about their passage, for each day brought something new, and as he planned his work in the morning Pavel would note with chagrin that the day was all too short and much of what he had planned remained undone.

Pavel had moved in with Okunev. He worked at the railway shops as assistant electrical fitter.

He had had a long argument with Okunev before the latter agreed to his temporary withdrawal from work in the Komsomol leadership.

"We're too short of people for you to cool your heels in the workshops," Okunev had objected.

"Don't tell me you're ill. I hobbled about with a stick myself for a whole month after the typhus.

You can't fool me, Pavel, I know you, there's something behind all this. Come on, out with it,"Okunev insisted.

"You're right, Kolya, there is. I want to study."

"There you are!" Okunev cried exultantly. "I knew it! Do you think I don't want to study too? It's downright egoism on your part. Expect us to put our shoulders to the wheel while you go off to study. Nothing doing, my lad, tomorrow you start as organiser."

Nevertheless, after a lengthy discussion Okunev gave in.

"Very well, I'll leave you alone for two months. And I hope you appreciate my generosity. But I don't think you'll get along with Tsvetayev, he's a bit too conceited."

Pavel's return to the workshops had put Tsvetayev on the alert. He was certain that Korchagin's coming would mark the beginning of a struggle for leadership. His self-esteem was wounded and he prepared to put up a stiff resistance. He soon saw, however, that he had been mistaken. When Korchagin learned that there was a plan afoot to make him a member of the Komsomol Bureau he went straight to the Komsomol secretary's office and persuaded him to strike the question off the agenda, giving his understanding with Okunev as the excuse. In the Komsomol shop cell Pavel took a political study class, but did not ask for work in the Bureau. Nevertheless, although he had officially no part in the leadership, Pavel's influence was felt in all phases of the collective's work.

In his comradely, unobtrusive fashion he helped Tsvetayev out of difficulties on more than one occasion.

Coming into the shop one day Tsvetayev was amazed to see all the members of the Komsomol cell and some three dozen non-Party lads busy washing windows, scraping many years' accumulation of filth off the machines and carting heaps of rubbish out into the yard. Pavel, armed with a huge mop, was furiously scrubbing the cement floor which was covered with machine oil and grease.

"Spring-cleaning? What's the occasion?" Tsvetayev asked Pavel.

"We're tired of all this muck. The place hasn't been cleaned for a good twenty years, we'll make it look like new in a week," Korchagin replied briefly.

Tsvetayev shrugged his shoulders and went away.

Not content with cleaning out their workshop, the electricians tackled the factory yard. For years the huge yard had served as a dumping ground for all manner of disused equipment. There were hundreds of carriage wheels, and axles, mountains of rusty iron, rails, buffers, axle boxes — several thousand tons of metal lay rusting under the open sky. But the factory management put a stop to the young people's activities.

"We have more important things to attend to. The yard can wait," they were told.

And so the electricians paved a small area of the yard outside the entrance to their shop, placing a wire mat outside the door and left it at that. But inside their shop the cleaning continued after working hours. When Strizh, the chief engineer, dropped in a week later he found the workshop flooded with light. The huge iron barred windows, freed from their heavy layer of dust and oil, now admitted the sunlight which was reflected brightly in the polished copper parts of the diesel engines. The heavy parts of the machines shone with a fresh coat of green paint, and someone had even painted yellow arrows on the spokes of the wheels.

"Well, well..." Strizh muttered in amazement.

In the far corner of the shop a few of the men were finishing their work. Strizh went over. On the way he met Korchagin carrying a tin of paint.

"Just a moment, my friend," the engineer stopped him. "I fully approve of what you have done here. But where did you get that paint? Haven't I given strict orders that no paint is to be used without my permission? We can't afford to waste paint for such purposes. We need all we've got for the engine parts."

"This paint was scraped out of the bottoms of discarded cans. We spent two days on it but we scraped out about twenty-five pounds. We're not breaking any laws here, Comrade Engineer."

The engineer snorted again, but he looked rather sheepish.

"Then carry on, of course. Well, well. Now this is really interesting. How do you explain this ...

what shall we call it ... this voluntary striving for cleanliness in a workshop? All done after working hours, I take it?"

Korchagin detected a note of genuine perplexity in the engineer's voice.

"Of course," he said. "What did you suppose?"

"Yes, but...."

"There is nothing to be surprised at, Comrade Strizh. Who told you that the Bolsheviks are going to leave dirt alone? Wait till we get this thing going properly. We have some more surprises in store for you."

And carefully skirting the engineer so as to avoid splashing him with paint, Korchagin moved on.

Every evening found Pavel in the public library where he lingered until late. He had made friends with all the three librarians, and by using all his powers of persuasion he had finally won the right to browse freely among the books. Propping the ladder against the tall bookcases he would sit there for hours leafing through volume after volume. Most of the books were old. Modern literature occupied one small bookcase — a few odd Civil War pamphlets, Marx's Capital, The Iron Heel by Jack London and several others. Rummaging among the old books he came across Spartacus. He read it in two nights and when he finished it he placed it on the shelf alongside the works of Maxim Gorky. This gradual selection of the more interesting books with a modern revolutionary message lasted for some time.

The librarians did not object.

The calm routine of Komsomol life at the railway shops was suddenly disturbed by what appeared at first to be an insignificant incident: repair worker Kostya Fidin, member of the cell bureau, a sluggish lad with a snub nose and a pock-marked face, broke an expensive imported drill on a piece of iron. The accident was the result of downright carelessness; worse, it looked like deliberate mischief on Fidin's part.

It happened in the morning. Khodorov, senior repair foreman, had told Kostya to drill several holes in an iron plate. Kostya refused at first, but on the foreman's insistence he picked up the iron and started to drill it. The foreman, an exacting taskmaster, was not popular with the workers. A former Menshevik, he took no part in the social life of the plant and did not approve of the Young Communists. But he was an expert at his job and he performed his duties conscientiously.

Khodorov noticed that Kostya was drilling "dry", without using any oil. He hurried over to the machine and stopped it.

"Are you blind or what? Don't you know better than to use a drill that way!" he shouted at Kostya, knowing that the drill would not last long with such handling.

Kostya snapped back at him and restarted the lathe. Khodorov went to the department chief to complain. Kostya in the meantime, leaving the machine running, hurried off to fetch the oiling can so that everything would be in order by the time the chief appeared. When he returned with the oil the drill was broken. The chief submitted a report recommending Fidin's dismissal. The bureau of the Komsomol cell, however, took up the cudgels on Fidin's behalf on the grounds that Khodorov had a grudge against all active Komsomol members. The management insisted on Fidin's dismissal, and the case was put before the Komsomol bureau of the workshops. The fight was on.

Three of the five members of the bureau were in favour of giving Kostya an official reprimand and transferring him to other work. Tsvetayev was one of the three. The other two did not think Fidin should be punished at all.

The bureau meeting to discuss the case was called in Tsvetayev's office. Around a large table covered with red cloth stood several benches and stools made by the Komsomols of the carpenter shops. There were portraits of the leaders on the walls, and the railway workshops' banner was spread over one entire wall behind the table.

Tsvetayev was now a "full-time" Komsomol worker. He was a blacksmith by trade, but being a good organiser had been promoted to a leading post in the Komsomol: he was now a member of the Bureau of the Komsomol District Committee and a member of the Gubernia Committee besides. He was a newcomer to the railway shops. From the first he had taken the reins of management firmly into his hands. Self-assured and hasty in his decisions, he had suppressed the initiative of the other Komsomol members from the outset. He insisted on doing everything himself — even the office had been decorated under his personal supervision — and when he found himself unable to cope with all the work, stormed at his assistants for their inactivity.

He conducted the meeting sprawled in the only soft armchair in the room which had been brought from the club. It was a closed meeting. Khomutov, the Party organiser, had just asked for the floor, when there was a knock on the door which was closed on the latch. Tsvetayev scowled at the interruption. The knock was repeated. Katya Zelenova got up and opened the door. Korchagin stood on the threshold. Katya let him in.

Pavel was making his way to a vacant seat when Tsvetayev addressed him.

"Korchagin, this is a closed meeting of the bureau."

The blood rushed to Pavel's face, and he turned slowly to face the table.

"I know that. I am interested in hearing your opinion on the Fidin case. I have a point to raise in connection with it. What's the matter, do you object to my presence?"

"I don't object, but you ought to know that closed meetings are attended only by bureau members.

The more people there are the harder it is to thrash things out properly. But since you're here you might as well stay."

Korchagin had never suffered such a slight. A crease appeared on his forehead.

"What's all the formality about?" Khomutov remarked disapprovingly, but Korchagin stopped him with a gesture, and sat down. "Well, this is what I wanted to say," Khomutov went on. "It's true that Khodorov belongs to the old school, but something ought to be done about discipline. If all the Komsomols go smashing up drills, there'll be nothing to work with. What's more, we're giving a rotten example to the non-Party workers. In my opinion the lad ought to be given a serious warning."

Tsvetayev did not give him a chance to finish, and began voicing his objections. Ten minutes passed. In the meantime Korchagin saw which way the wind was blowing. When the matter was finally put to the vote he got up and asked for the floor. Tsvetayev reluctantly permitted him to speak.