The Town By The Sea

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.

"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!"

Just then we heard voices behind us.

"There's someone sitting over there!" I heard Golovatsky say loudly. "This will do, there's an empty bench here. You can go to the restaurant later."

And suddenly I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been tipped over me—Tiktor's harsh, stubborn voice replied: "What do you want to talk to me for? I'm not a Komsomol member..."

"So you think if I'm secretary of the Komsomol organization there's nothing for us to talk about?"

"Yes, I do. . . You caricatured me in your newspaper as if I was a saboteur..."

We were sitting on the lee side of them and could hear every word, but at that moment the lights of an engine showed up from behind the warehouses.

A shunting engine rolled past hauling a long line of empty trucks. For a minute the air was filled with the hiss of steam, the clank of wheels, the piercing whistles of the guards waving their lanterns from the trucks.

What Tolya and Tiktor said to each other amid the noise of the passing train, I don't know, but when the last truck winked its red light and vanished into the darkness, the wind again brought us Golovatsky's excited voice.

"You've got youth, strength, you've got a good pair of hands, Tiktor," Golovatsky was saying feelingly. "I won't believe that you can't work well. I just can't believe it! But you keep on turning out bad work, careless work, work that's done any old how. And don't talk to me about bad models. I know a bit about foundry work and I won't believe that under existing conditions you can't turn out a decent job."

"If you give me a different partner, I'll show them..."

"Who do you mean by 'them,' Tiktor?"

"Don't you know yourself? The chaps from my town! I suppose they've been complaining to you about me, haven't they?"

"If you are thinking of Maremukha and Bobir, you're quite wrong, Tiktor. I've never heard them say a word about you. As for Mandzhura, he gave you up as a bad job long ago. He and I even had a bit of an argument about you."

"An argument?" Tiktor asked in surprise.

"Yes, that surprises you, doesn't it? Mandzhura thinks you're a hopeless case, and I say you aren't. He'd be glad to have a decent chat with you and forget the past, but he's sure you'll give him the cold shoulder."

"And what do you think?" A fresh note of interest had' crept into Tiktor's voice, and it was not so proud.

Golovatsky was silent.

And in that silence, broken only by the distant whistle of the engine, the twanging of an orchestra in the harbour restaurant, and the moaning of the wind, I realized that Flegontov had told Golovatsky what I had said against Tiktor that day.

"What do I think?" Golovatsky repeated, then deciding to bide his time a little before answering the question, he said: "All right, I'll tell you, but before I do so, you must answer a question that interests me."

"I will," Tiktor replied firmly.

"You'll answer everything I ask you?"

"Yes."

That "yes" sounded very sincere.

"Why did you do private jobs when you were studying at the factory-training school?"

"So you know about that too? ... All right, I'll tell you... To earn money!"

"But weren't your parents helping you?"

"Like hell they were! After my mother died, my Dad got married to another woman. She got him right under her thumb and set him against me."

"Is that the truth, Tiktor?" Golovatsky asked very seriously.

"Why should I lie to you? I can tell you more. Dad would go off on a long run and my stepmother used to nag at me every day. I put up with it because there was nowhere else to go. It was a long time before the chaps who were living with their parents got any grants, you know."

"But you could have told the other lads what was going on at home," Golovatsky remarked.

"I was too ashamed..." Tiktor confessed. "I didn't want to let the whole school know about our bickering. So I had to get by as best I could. I even took work from profiteers, so as not to be dependent on my stepmother."

"I want to believe that's true, Tiktor," Golovatsky said. "Why do you think I brought all this up? We are very interested in your future, Tiktor, just as we're interested in the future of any other young fellow. I want your hands to work for the good of society. How can that be brought about? Team up with the rest of the chaps! Take an interest in what they're interested in. Think less of yourself and as much as possible of others. But you're a lone wolf, so they tell me, you scowl at everyone as if we were all against you. But

we only want one thing—that you shouldn't waver between the two sides. Sooner or later such people get caught out. And I certainly don't want to see that happen to you. Train yourself to love your work, to get on with the other chaps. Crush that pride which is eating away at you like rust, and believe me, you'll become a different man."

"Well, if you really want to give me a chance, I'll try," Tiktor said after a pause, and in his voice there was no longer that scornful malice with which he usually spoke to people.

They walked away in the direction of the town, disappearing quickly in the darkness.

Petka said to me: "It's true about Tiktor's Dad whopping him, you know. Do you remember how Yasha came to school once all bruises, and pretended that he'd got beaten up by tramps after a wedding party? And afterwards we found out that it was his Dad who'd made such a sight of him."

"He didn't tell us because he was afraid we'd laugh. We were living independently and he had to rely on his father. He was ashamed of being tanned like a kid," I said, feeling genuinely sorry that we had not found out about Tikor's family troubles in time. Had we known about it before, we could have talked to him in quite a different way.