In the evening, four people sat on the board of the collective farm: Tsipyshev, a bearded livestock breeder, Shchukin, storekeeper, Ivan Konoplev, field crop brigade leader, and Petr Kuzmich Kudryavtsev, collective farm chairman. They were waiting for the party meeting to begin, but teacher Akulina Semenovna, the fifth member of the party organization, was late. We were waiting in conversation.
“They said - plan from below, let the collective farm decide what to sow,” the sore chairman said. - And in the region they do not approve our plan: the regional plan is lowered from above. I was a few days ago in the area, near myself (as Pyotr Kuzmich called the first secretary of the district committee). Well, I say, are you doing with us? And he says: “We need to overfulfill the plan, actively introduce a new one. You, says, are now our leverage in the countryside. ” “He will not sit here for a long time,” said Tsipyshev. - He doesn’t listen to people, he decides everything. People for him are just leverage. Without rigor, it cannot. At the meeting, as he looks around everyone, how he grunts - the soul goes to heels. “We not only need to be taught, we must be listened to,” Konoplev added. - And then everything is on top and on top. Plans from above, productivity from above. If you don’t do it, then you’ve dismissed the reins. But are we not rooting for one thing, are our interests different? ” With both hands taking the pot with cigarette butts, Konoplev went to the doorstep and dumped the cigarette butts into a corner. And suddenly, from behind a wide Russian stove, a commanding old woman shout rang out: “Where are you pouring, dead? Not for you to sweep. I just washed the floor, again, I was completely lost. ”
From surprise, the men startled and looked at each other. It turns out that another man was always present in the hut. The conversation ended. They were silent for a long time, smoking ... One Schukin could not stand it and finally laughed out loud: “Oh, and the damned woman scared us!”
Pyotr Kuzmich and Konoplev looked at each other and also laughed. “Suddenly, because of the stove, it will bark. Well, I think he came, caught us ... "
Laughter defused tensions and restored their well-being to people.
“And what are we afraid of, men? - Peter Kuzmich suddenly said thoughtfully and a little sadly. “Because we are afraid of ourselves!”
Finally the teacher came. It was necessary to open a party meeting. But what happened to Tsipyshev? His voice acquired firmness and authority, his eyes went dark. In the same dry, strict voice as the secretary of the district committee had said before the meetings, he said the same words: “Let's begin, comrades! Everyone is here?"
And there were only five of them. The faces of all became concentrated, tense and boring. The meeting has begun. And the very thing that they so frankly just talked about among themselves began, incurring treasury bureaucracy and bureaucracy.
“Comrades! - said the chairman. - The district committee and district executive committee did not approve our production plan. This does not suit us. We did not carry out explanatory work with the masses and did not convince it. ”
The essence of the report was that the collective farm rotation plan should be corrected in accordance with the instructions of the district committee and district executive committee. No differences of opinion were found, in the resolution they decided to write like this: “In an atmosphere of high labor growth, the entire collective farm is unfolding ...”
Suddenly, the radio spoke: materials were being transmitted on preparations for the 20th congress. All the men’s hope was now at the congress: it will determine how to live.
And when, on the way home, at Kudryavtsev and Konoplev, the conversation resumed — the same one that went before the meeting — they were again cordial, direct people. People, not leverage.
