THE LEVERS
409
marked roughly to Shchukin; and immediately changed
his
tone, as
though he regretted his bluntness. "Justice, brother, is justice....
But, now, give
you
a seat in an honorary presidium and you'll even
stop seeing the ground below you," he said and laughed, shaking his
mustaches and beard.
Tsipychev's beard grew not only on his chin but on
his
cheeks
and behind his ears, merged with
his
thick reddish brows, hung over
his eyes and when Tsipyshev laughed, his whole face laughed, his
whole beard, and his eyes shone from somewhere out of the depths
of hair.
"I was the other day to the district committee to see the big
man himself," continued Piotr Kuz'mich, referring thus to the first
secretary of the district committee. "What are you doing with us,
I say. The kolkhozniks won't agree to change the plan for the third
time, they'll take offense. We need flax. It's flax that we should
seed our best land with. We've already had experiments with both
rabbits and crop rotation. How many people were used up for noth–
ing!
As
a result there was no grain- which just did the state harm.
Let me have, I say, just ten, well let's say, twenty hectares for the
first time, but not a hundred, not
3i
thousand. When we get used to
it, we'll add on to it ourselves, we ourselves will ask for more. Don't
give everything at once. 'No!' he says, 'at once. You've got to.' he
says, 'overfulfill the plan, you've got to actively implant the new.'
Actively, all right, I say, let it be active, but you know this is the
north .and there are not many people and the land wants its own
way. You have to persuade people. Lenin pointed out-you must ac–
tively persuade. And he says, 'Well, it's up to you to persuade then!
We persuaded you before, when we Qrganized the kolkhozes, now
you persuade the others, carry out the party line. You,' he says, 'are
now our levers out in the country.' So he says, but he himself just
shrugs. It seems, not everything is so sweet for him either. But there's
no give in him, he doesn't understand what the party wants, he's
afraid to understand."
"It's a rough situation!" said Shchukin as though interpreting
these words, and again reached for his comb.
"And it won't be sweet. He won't sit here long anyway," said
Tsipyshev. "He's taken the wrong approach to people, he's too strict.
He doesn't listen to people, he decides everything himself. People
