The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-14
and LIFE
BY PANFEROV

Matvey contemporary pushed
everyone about, as if to say that
you are all damned good-for- moth
ings, while l am the salt of the
earth. But as soon as we passed
the gates of the plant, all Of us,
with the exception of Matvey,
halted. He hastily began to wipe
his boots.
Before us opened up a view of
splendid plant, everything spick
and span and flooded with sun
light. Clean blocks of factories
surrounded with garden plots All
this evoked a feeling of wonder in
us, q feeling of infinite Joy and
desire to work in this plant. And
it seemed to Matvey that he sud-
denly stepped out of a dirty street
into a clean chamber, and he be-
gan to wipe his boots. But all at
once he pulled up and noisily rub
bing his heels on the asphalt pave
ment, directed his steps together
with ours to the assembly shop.
At the moment of our arrival in
the assembly shop, the caterpillar
tractor, the "Stalinetz"-was leav-
ing the conveyor. It passed along
the rails on small wheels. In front
of the tractor lay caterpillars in
layers, which it had to put on. A
huge crowd gathered near the trac-
tor and intently watched how this
powerful turtle began moving on
the rails and, jumping up, put on
the caterpillars.
HE put on his boots" AIatvey
involuntarily burst out amidst the
general silence.
And that night, when the chair
man of the Ural Executive Com
mittee, opening the festival meeting
began his speech with the words:
Let the whole world know that we
are today opening the Chelyabinsk
giant" Matvey, unable to contain
himself, shouted at the top of his
voice from distant corner:
Eyes, let the whole world know!H
And at that moment he acquired
q new sense of joy, just as the
tractor put on new caterpillars.
In the autumn Of that year, 1
again saw him in the collective
farm. He was working at a machine
and working strenuously. I went
up to him and asked:
well, with all your heart, Uncle
Matvey?"
With all my hearth" He looked
at the machine for a long time,
and then turning to me said with
a smile: MY heart is in the right
place now"
NOW to write a work describing
~ how the many millions Of peas
ants have got their heart in the
right place, how they found a new
socialist joy for which they will
fight with all their resources and
all their energy. To do this means
to write a work which has never
yet been written in history.
This theme can only be mastered
If you proceed along the path in
dicated by Conrade Stain. If you
are able to feel life with your own
hands.
Herein is the sense of our recon-
struction-in the mastery of the
depths of our themes:
am one Of the happy people,
Comrades, for I have seen the coun-
try.
have seen with what invincible
energy the Bolsheviks of the Urals
have shaken up and reconstructed
the old and grey Urals, the Urals of
tears, torture and prison bars.
1 have seen with what invincihle
energy the Bolsheviks of Siberia
built a new metallurgical plant.
I have seen how the Moscow Boil
sheviks have erected the Stain Che
mical Combinat on waste.
/ have seen with what invincible
energy the Bolsheviks of the Ukraine
have put a cement-eoncrete halter
around the neck of the boisterous
Dnieper, compelling it to serve the
socialist fatherland.
nave seen, Comrades, how the
Bolsheviks of the Black Earth Prov
ince, the Volgs District and North
Caucasus drove out the wooden
plows from the fields and replaced
them with tens of thousands of
tractors and combines and thereby
enancipated the peasantry from the
tolls of village idiocy and turned
them into workers of a socialist
society.
see and know, Comrades. with
what mighty and tireless energy.
with what skill and daring our PARTY
mas reconstructed the poor, down
trodden, backward Russia into an
advanced country of industry
And it is with such force, with
such energy and with such skill and
daring that we writers must create
a new Soviet proletarian literature
And we will create It'll (Applause)