Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [127]
During the early 1930s he formulated his ideas about his future life. He hated the factory; away from the freedom of the land he thought of himself branded, like a cow, and expected to produce so many buckets of milk. He hated the four walls filled with slogans and portraits; he hated the charts and the pitting of his team against the other teams in a never-ending search to push production.
During the lunch breaks and two or three days a week after work they were compelled to attend lectures by the agitators and the Komsomol extolling their “way of life.” It was explained that life was temporarily difficult because of the backwardness of the country inherited from the Czar, the bloodshed, and mostly, the outside pressures of the imperialists to crush them.
The Action Squads made up of party and Komsomol members Igor detested the most. The Action Squads saw to it that the workers showed up 100 per cent for all lectures and activities. The Action Squads led them on “spontaneous demonstrations” for visiting dignitaries and holiday parades. The Action Squads saw to it 100 per cent of the vote was cast for the party in the “elections.” It was the Action Squads who visited lagging teams to induce them to “donate” free days of labor to increase quotas.
The pressure became so unbearable that workers desperately met in secret for the intention of organizing a strike. The Action Squads along with the secret police rounded up the leaders and shipped them east. Then the Agitators came in and explained that strikes in the Soviet Union were illegal because there was no need to strike. The workers owned the factories and therefore they would be striking against themselves.
The only way to gain recognition as a worker appeared to be to work one’s self to an early grave through donation of almost every free hour. For this, the worker’s reward was a medal, the Labor Order of the Red Banner, to wear on his shabby suit.
The farm had been primitive, but the words of Igor’s father were never forgotten ... “freedom is life.” He realized that the Communists were trying valiantly to make the Soviet Union a modern country and that harsh methods were called for. He also came to understand that the West was the true enemy of the masses. Nevertheless, he had to escape the factory.
His brother Alexander’s revolutionary fires had been dimmed. Alexander was now in a jungle for survival. The only way to prosper was to follow classical party lines. The early idealism was replaced by the never-ending terror. Alexander attempted time and again to have Igor join Komsomol. As a Komsomol member new opportunities would open. Igor was determined to escape the fanatical discipline and the distasteful duty as an agitator or member of an Action Squad.
He found his way through the study of science and set in a number of improvisations in the factory that won him the attention of the planners and finally a medal as a Hero of Soviet Labor. As an engineer Igor knew he had a chance for a better life because engineers were desperately needed.
He pressured Alexander to arrange for him to take entrance examinations for the great University of Moscow. It was a far-reaching dream. The university belonged to the Komsomol faithful and the sons and daughters of the new ruling class. A Cossack boy from Rostov simply did not have a chance. But Igor persisted, and won the dream.
Natasha wept on his last visit before his departure. Moscow was 1000 kilometers away. Igor would be gone for four years with little or no chance of seeing her and just as small a chance of getting papers for her to come to Moscow. Afterward he had to give two years of free service to the government to repay his education and would most likely be sent to Siberia to the virgin lands.
Igor tried to comfort her by promising that the years would fly by and they would still be young enough to make a life. His last words were a vow to return to her.
Igor Karlovy never went into Siberian service. Upon graduation from the University of Moscow he was commissioned into the Red Air Force and sent to Leningrad.