People under communism; The men who make the Migs, Part 1 of 2

People under communism. This is a transcribed series of full hour programs based on documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intention of the Soviet Union. The series is presented by the National Association of educational broadcasters in consultation with scholars from the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. The Russian Institute of Columbia University and the Hoover Institute and library at Stanford University. The program you're about to hear. Is based on materials and counsel provided by Dr. Alex. Lecturer in social relations at Harvard University and author of public opinion. I. DR ALEX incl is research

director of a project in which almost 500 former Soviet citizens were interviewed in the western zone of Germany in the fall and winter of 1950 and 51. In addition over 2000 former Soviet citizens filled out questionnaires about their experiences in the Soviet Union. Here is Dr. Engel is to introduce a documentary on the man who make them exist. The performance of Soviet MiG jets in the skies over Korea is tangible evidence of the industrial capabilities of the USSR and the foundation of those capabilities. Is the Soviet factory the Soviet factory is a major key to understanding the weaknesses and strengths of communist Russia. We would like to take you inside one of those factories for a night and a day to expose its inna workings to your view as it was exposed to our view by former Soviet directors and juniors

and workers who escaped to the west in developing this documentary. We have drawn on the experiences in many cases the very words of former Soviet citizens as they told American interviewers the story of their lives in Soviet factories. And now the men who make the MiGs. A telephone call from the ministry come right correct. Yes yes comrade minister. I know this is the last month in the factors behind the plan but how do you think I got behind in production by sucking my thumb no. I was handed an extra assignment. I manufactured

Babs and you forced me to add pipe fittings. Well no no I'm not offering excuses just facts. But you know what you did to me through production out of whack for three months. That's what Palmer admits that listen I'm trying trying to meet the plan especially the valves for the makes but. All right. All right I won't just try. I'll do it. Goodbye come administer. No excuses no excuses. Bureaucrats sitting behind desks in Moscow don't know the first thing about factoring problems. Yes comrade party secretary to see you. Yes come out directly and look at our chief engineer. Tell him to come at once. Expect a visit from this sly one knows about the ministry. Good evening comrade body secretary I was not expecting you but of course I would always

find time to see you. I was a bit early for the factory meeting and the thought came to me how is my good friend director troubled comrade. I just tired. Too many nights in the factory. My wife says she's a factory would go to bed tired is one looked a bit troubled another. When I walked in here I said to myself Sergei Sergeyevitch something something is bothering to be driven out of it and then a thought came to me. Perhaps it was the phone call a phone call. When I first asked to see you your secretary told me you were tied up with an important phone call. Bad news comrades he was mistaken. It was only a call from our supply probably should have been hours I sat outside I played a little game with myself I kept guessing who this important phone call was from regional party headquarters. Perhaps a spokesman from the Central Committee not likely the secret police or perhaps just the ministry Mr. Killick CVS. Well I'm here I'll give you the latest results on socialist competition among the shops. Allow me to say that

while the results have not been are we hope for yet considering the fact that the workers are tired and that socialist competition is not too successful in a period of frantic all out effort that verges on Starman we are not. Share your dislike of the parties for the word but the facts are we are running men and machines night and day. We are engaged in a coordinated effort to meet the plan and I want about the production races between the shop. It's going well especially in shops 3:08 and trial but production is up only about 10 percent. Not enough. Remember this is the last month and we're behind but it could be improved if say a director. Yes double the prize for the winning shot. That kind of talk is this where the blast furnace is about need to build with 10 percent. Thing is troubling you after all. Such emotion. All right. Double the price.

Well I must go now. I want to give a few instructions to some of the Communist Youth League boys before the meeting tonight I trust I'll be seeing you shortly. How Yes how be at the meeting. I had lunch with the regional party secretary. He was asking about the factory of course pointed out that only the director and I was the true state of the factory but that it was my impression that you had the situation and had that was the right answer wasn't it. Is this why you sent me such a message. Chief Engineer. Come to the director's office at once. I thought it was something really serious like shift from making valves to women's dresses. He's serious and I have a huge gob the ministry is nothing to joke about. Worry too much. Of course we will have to get out the valves for the MIGs you know nonmilitary the worst that could happen is that we fall a few percent behind the plane

so we don't get our bonuses. I don't like. Still not done badly for these past 2 years. Always had a little set aside for emergencies too. We have a good plan and a good director workers. Me you have the best of. So what have we to worry about the PADI secretary. That's what we have to worry about. It was just in him you know is about the ministry. Did he say no he's too smart. Doesn't want to involve himself. But I got what MS friend of the regional body headquarters friend or no friend the party secretary is tied to the factory. We make a bad showing or reflect on him. You know sometimes I sit here and wonder. Here I am a longtime party member and still they got that party secretary sitting here in the factory watching every move I make. I don't know. I suppose it's because I'm an engineer. Let others play with politics with us it's the machines degree of out of each. Just

give us a machine and we'll build and create. There is a morning the morning I shall never forget. When I deal with the secretaries It was in 1937. I was young fresh out of the Institute working as an engineer in a machine building plant. I came into work one morning and asked Where is the chief engineer. I was told that he had not come in yet. Maybe he went some. This is strange I thought. Usually should be there at that time. Then I went to his secretary and she whispered to me. They took him away at night. I then asked the director where is he. He says I don't know what to do. I don't know what is going on. You cannot trust anyone. First I thought of the secret police took him away. It was something then. But I know it was work like the palm of my hand and I began to think would he be a wreck of a saboteur. Later I learned it was the party secretary would announce to me. He got 10 years in a

Siberian labor camp. That was the purge. The heads of Engineers were rolling all over the Soviet Union. These days it's different. The party knows better how much you can count on it's technical people. Still the party secretary is not to be taken lightly nor is planned fulfillment. A short time after the arrest of my chief in 37 I was appointed chief engineer. I was young and naive and filled with such enthusiasm. I was determined to succeed and I worked or how I worked 14 16 18 hours a day sometimes even sleeping in the factory. You know how the plan squeezes you how it cuts every corner. The plan never gives any man a break. Well I had only half. Half the men and machines called for in the play. And yet I fulfilled 70 80 and sometimes 100 percent. You think the officials in Moscow were satisfied. No they kept bothering me every minute with constant calls demands accounts commissions commissions so many commissions in two months of the summer of

1938. I had 15 commissions investigating me. No. 15 and I can name them government commissions body commission secret police fire sanitation and on and on. They never stopped. I met an old friend at the regional party headquarters one day and he says to me hello Dimitri of on the beach how are you. What are you producing. What am I producing. I say. Testimony testimony for commissions and producing testimony. Almost funny. Well I learned from this experience. You can chase them all away with two magic words planned fulfillment. They don't care how you do it as long as the plan is met. Time to leave the country meet comic director all right down to it we are involved in all sorts of problems and I have to drop everything to go and listen to a lot of ego what guys tell me how to run my factory. Don't worry Dimitri of on of which we can meet the plane if we can only keep

minute machines going at the present rate. What's to stop us. Three things in this series that doctor at the clinic is giving out too many certificates of illness to the workers. Then our mechanical engineer is pulling against us. He resists pushing his machine so hard and finally many of the workers are not fulfilling their work orders. They're tired they're tired but they can get more. Let's get the agitators working on this problem. I'll talk with the party secretary about the agitators and I'll get to a mechanical engineer first thing in the morning. What about doctor. Evidently that reprimand was not enough. I think I'll drop in at the clinic tomorrow for a checkup and have a little talk with you. There is something else. Those workers who belong to the Communist Youth League they're getting out of children now forever getting turned away by their own slogan that's just the trouble. They're making pests of themselves going around criticizing everybody and everything in the factory. We'd better be on the lookout

tonight at the meeting. Is Conrad director aware of the poor organization of our factories canteen day after day work experience long long delays in getting their lunch all their no record breaking workman knows the kind of bikes in the kitchen the Conrad director aware that green kid telling me off credit workers because of the delays and I can't find that they can ban it make it back to the machines and time. A worker can not do his best work under such conditions. If the administration wants to increase production let them start the picture you should like this climate not like by the man

but a good worker will fill this quota with dangerous and our comrades. A very serious matter. Why is management not making use of all available machinery. I know my shop and some of the others I can see five new machines not did you get the gist. We never got the pan belts for those machines think what those machines could put our factories plan on our country's five year plan. I ask you why aren't these machines working to accomplish the five year plan in four years. Why are they running for the factory and the country. Let us praise mystery which is going to offer a pledge management workers. Let us all take a pledge to our socialist state and to the party of Lenin and all the love and leader comrade Stanny to Work Day. And night and fill up land by 28 percent percent.

Suicide would never make it. We need only to work with love and enthusiasm for our factory our state on the potty break party and spotted. Place to Be a bitch. Can't we do something to hit it off. After a patriotic outburst like that what can I do. What can you was Chief Engineer do anything would say which sound like we were obstructing the plan but once the pledges made to Moscow we're stuck. If we didn't live up to it on that good yeah we'd be in a terrible fake weight. The chairman has recognized one of the workers. It's all been jam the same. You're all alone then damn that some say that is the factory. Not the factory. When he went too far yes. Then there is here with his dad the factory

grow up around and here he watched what 1928. Only for shops that make shops 10 12 shops and they have spans help help build this spell. And this. And I didn't do the Poland and it was very nice go I didn't yet I remember how many years in Congress Party segment. But. 24 yes it's a long time now that I've been there done that I did. The Bill of Rights country and the people and yes once the Billabong. But let's take this take to try to match that. That means to push my shades machines break

that barrier to push that accident. This is your problem and yeah. I know that. I'm. AS. One of the. Two and. I'm no all can't believe all those times. I don't know maybe how many times I must. Say it. Was sheer chance. Well spoken combat then jail plans no matter how energetic and sincere must still be realistic is not so come my party secretary. Yes this is true. Plans must be realistic and of course they are to respect the opinions of the workers but.

No obstacle too great for a true about having to overcome the current party secretary I bow to the wisdom of the director in such technical matters I'm withdrawing my play. I don't know the plan as well as a director but I do know my machine and I echo your back in as an example duologue will double my workload tone of the. Moment but I have made careful notes during your excellent critique and with the exception of the idle machine which are not in use because we would have to supply the fan belts for them. When I say this important exception your comments are well taken. Comrades I am particularly shocked by the report on our factory canteen. This cannot continue this way. If we ask you to fulfill. And all fulfill you know what quotas

you are obliged to demand from us that we take care of it and we will take care of. These delays will not be tolerated any longer I assure you. That we will make every effort to remedy this in a tolerable situation. My only wish is that I could have known of this sooner this Soviet factory meeting. What is it all about. This is Alex Sink us again and perhaps I can best answer that by having you listen to what a Soviet engineer told us about the factory meeting. He was one of 500 former Soviet citizens. We interviewed in the western zone of Germany the Soviet system is a dictatorship. But on the other hand you must recognize the theories much public criticism of both money and responsible officials. The party makes the workers criticize the factory directors with the single condition that the criticism be

aimed against the director personally and not against the Soviet system or the potty. What was the party after encouraging the workers to criticize the name of the party. Was too sure that as a factory director the things I had done the mistakes I had made were not done by the party or the government. The critical speeches were made to defend the interests of the party. In other words the party disguised its interests as the interests of the people it wished it to appear that I was under the control of the people as they were the people who were supporting the party. What were the limits or boundaries to such criticism. Of course criticism of the party as such or of the Soviet regime. The Central Committee of the Politburo or stallion was impossible. It was not but no doubt in their authority could be

expressed word against them and that was the end of you. Program continues following a 10 second pause for station identification. You are listening to people under communism a transcribed series of all our programs based on documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intention. Of the Soviet Union. We continue now with the man. Who make them me.

Here is Dr Alex lists of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. The minister the director the party secretary the chief engineer in the Communist Youth they're all talking about the plan. Perhaps you've begun to think that this is really a documentary about this thing called the plan. And you wouldn't be far from wrong. The plan is the central theme in Soviet society. This fact emerged time and time again from our talks with former Soviet citizens. The plan is something in the very atmosphere which Soviet citizens breathed. It is the law which decides what and how much shall be produced when and by whom it shall be done. The plan the five year plan emanates from Moscow from the Kremlin and the Polit Bureau. Then it is broken down to create a separate yearly plan for each sector of the economy for each ministry factory and shop eventually through the system of daily work quotas or

norms. The plan reaches the most lowly worker in the most distant factory. Keep in mind that in the Soviet Union the state owns and controls all industry and the ministries of the central government agencies which direct the work of the factories in different branches of the economy the ministry takes its orders from the Communist Party headed up in the Polit Bureau which sets the policy for the government and controls all aspects of Soviet life. Although the party includes only a small proportion of the population roughly 3 percent its influence is all pervasive through its units at every territorial level in every office. Trade union farm and factory the Polit Bureau makes certain that its orders are carried out in accord with the party line. The party secretary you met is the head of the party unit within our valve factory. When a factory has begun to fall behind in fulfilling its plan the ministry and party organizations begin to apply pressure

on the director. And there is only one thing he can do to get his factory out of trouble and that's to fulfill the plan. Oiling the machine is the machine that will set the new record on make history. Oh absolutely right. It's not the machine but you'll make money to use the extra I suppose

you'll be proud of you. After all not every double quote gets his name on the record breaking stuff. I know you're in the paper. Yes I can see it but maybe you'll think they'll tear out the cornerstone and put in a new one saying Look I know you'll be laughing US afternoon when I break the record. I'll show you when the others what a radio worker can do. I ask you comrade direct for Drew's Union if not true he.

Will Lead boy call you out there on the shop worry about me and my machine. All he wants to do is break a record. Comrade mechanical engineer you can talk to doomsday. But maintenance is still postponed on all machines. What happens if that machine breaks down you think I can pick up the telephone and say this is version you can send me a version has to take men and kill days making pots. Are you blaming me for the shortage of spare parts. Where have you been all your life. You never heard of a spare parts shortage in our country. No no I blame you for seeing things too narrowly. The machines they go crazy night and day the end of every month maintenance is postponed what happens. We spend the beginning of the next month trying to undo the damage and get the machines back in shape. But then it's the end of the month and the machines must go like crazy ones. The cyclist murder. If you keep it up sooner or later the machines wear out break the plan man the plan I'm

supposed to report fulfillment to Moscow every month. I can't do it if you are drooling over these machines. Can't you see what happens instead of spending a few hours doing preventive maintenance at the proper time we wind up spending days or weeks fixing broken machines. Why do you trouble yourself so. We fulfill the plan you'll get your bonus bonus is a fine but I can satisfy an investigating commission with a bonus. Don't forget I'm responsible to the Ministry for these machines and I any less responsible not only for the machines but for the whole factory. But for all you know you may be transferred tomorrow. I've been in this factory 10 years and had seven directors so I know directors come and go but your opinion stays with the factory and the machine. What do you want a medal for having lived through so many directors. There is a lot calling for a definite make and schedule and another law the law of planned fulfillment. I will not be held responsible I'm covering myself. I am writing reports.

I wouldn't do that if I were you. I'm not afraid. Ya gotta step on a bitch. Must we fight like children. Isn't this something we can do to lick this problem. New machines Dimitri one of each. If we could get them in operation and take the load off the other. I've tried every trick in the trade to get the fan belts for those machines. That fellow in Moscow was afraid of a shadow he would blow his nose without written permission and six copies to shame brand new machines and we can have a devil with all the promises that we can't get legally we'll get some other way. They supply troubleshooter. Why not. Hasn't failed us yet. Remember how we came through with those six months ago. Sneak them right under the nose of the ministry troubleshooter All right. He has influence always when and where to invest a few rubles or arrange a few favors or nothing like.

We had in his can solve our problem. I don't want any trouble just want to live quietly peacefully. But it pains me to see the machine. What's the matter. Look. Look at that boy out there in the shot. I mean yes. Look look how he drives his machine. She's going to break a record on my machine and come around this afternoon take his picture put it in the paper and call him a hero. But what about the machine. Nobody takes a picture of the machine.