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p I would like to express a few thoughts which occurred to me after a conversation in the shop.

p Our factory is often visited by foreign delegations. Some come to see new Soviet machines, others want to talk with Moscow workers, and quite a few come simply as tourists. They come to our shop and watch how we work, and sometimes they ask questions. Well, once a foreign correspondent asked me:

p “Are you content with your life?”

p I made a joking reply then. It was probably because a man satisfied with his life rarely thinks about it, and assumes that it is something natural and proper. It is hardly possible to make a short reply to such a question. Later on, though, I came to think about it more seriously. I wanted to understand what is it that lies behind the happiness and pride of the Soviet citizen.

p I was born in a huge and powerful multi-national country. My homeland is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics— the first country in the world to create a new society and 118 take the road to communism. Ours is the natural joy of pathfinders and discoverers, and our life is free, vigorous and happy.

p But does this mean that I—Victor Shashkin, 25, Russian, of working class origin and a worker myself, member of the YCL, reservist, with an incomplete special secondary education, married, father of a three-and-a-half-year old girl, deputy—does this mean that I, Victor Shashkin, am free from all cares? Am I carelessly squandering the fortune left us by our fathers and grandfathers, the fortune which they amassed by their feats on the revolutionary and labour fronts?

p In my opinion, the question of a man’s satisfaction with his life is a dialectical, a developing concept. This satisfaction is gained in overcoming the great difficulties we are faced with while we carry out our various duties, great and small, under the constant pressure of human cares. Sometimes you feel that you have realised some of your personal plans and reached a certain goal which, it would seem, should make you feel content. But then the next day dawns and once again you want to do something outstanding to keep your finger on the pulse of life.

p Without achievements—lofty achievements—and if you fail to prove your right to happiness, you can never be satisfied with life.

p I know that it all sounds commonplace, and so, to make my point clearer, I would like to tell you about myself, about the factory where I work, and about my comrades and workmates.

p My First ’Title Is Worker. To be exact, I am a fitter, class four. I work in the motor shop of the Order of the Red Banner Leninist Komsomol Car Factory.

p My job is on the motor assembly line of the famous Moskvich car. The cars we turn out can be seen all over the Soviet Union as well as in some seventy foreign countries. There are few roads on our planet which have yet to see our factory’s trade mark. It is not an easy job to make a car. Tens of thousands of different parts go to make one Moskvich, and it takes 65,000 operations to assemble them! Our plant has ties with three hundred enterprises in different cities and republics of the USSR. We cannot 119 manufacture the magnificent Moskvich without their co-operation. Our employees belong to 27 nationalities. So actually, though the car is called Moskvich (Muscovite), the whole country has a hand in making it.

p My job is to install petrol pumps and starters. On my left they are fixing the carburetors, and on my right, my friend, Sasha Yermilov, screws on the gear-boxes. Next to him is Volodya Davydov. Slowly the engines drift past on the assembly line, but they only seem to move slowly. Actually, I have to tackle 140 engines during my shift. That’s my day’s task.

p Sometimes we do much more than that, up to nearly 160 engines in a shift. But don’t think it’s easy. I have to turn the 150-kg engine twice round its axis, fix the petrol pump and starter in position, and tighten the nuts with an electric nut wrench. Then I have to fix the bolts tightly in position with a piece of wire so that they won’t fall out from jolting on the way. You have to use your brains all the time, and use them fast or else you’ll drop behind.

p I had just reached sixteen when I came to work at the plant. Father contracted a serious illness and died when he was quite young. Mother was a mail-carrier. At first I helped Mother to carry the mail, but then I decided to go to work at the plant. In 1962 I started as an apprentice in the engine shop.

p In the beginning it was very difficult. Accustomed rather to the fountain pen, my hands were at odds with the nut wrench. I thought that the job was beyond me, but then my workmates stepped in, particularly my first instructor, Nikolai Letov. The veteran workers helped us kids to get along and acquire skill.

p If it comes to the items which add up to make what I call satisfaction with life, I must mention in the first place the fact that I belong to the working class, the principal productive force of society.

p My factory and my labour bind me to the country’s working class. We are all engaged in common work; we are all producing the things needed by the people.

p YCLers have greatly contributed to the plant’s construction and modernisation, and they account for a good deal 120 of the total output. Today some 45 per cent of the total work-force are YCLers.

p My Second Title Is Member of the Komsomol. I joined the Komsomol in 1962. Many a time since then I have been elected as group Komsomol organiser, and now I am assistant group Komsomol organiser. I have another important assignment as well, but I will speak about it later on.

p For me and my comrades, membership in the Komsomol means a lasting commitment to shock work and public activities.

p A couple of years ago the plant’s Komsomol committee reported to the 24th Congress of the CPSU that we had overfulfilled the assignments for the Eighth Five-Year Plan and lived up to our socialist commitments. The YCLers of our shop assembled 100 engines in their spare time. That was our present to the Party’s congress. All in all, the YCLers of our plant put out 150 cars over and above the plan.

p There are nearly 4,000 YCLers at the plant. When it was announced that the plant had decided to fulfil the plan of the first quarter of 1971 by March 30, some 3,700 YCLers (32 YCL-youth teams) joined the drive. Once again they proved true to their word.

p Last year the YCLers forwarded 396 efficiency proposals representing a total economic saving of 60,000 rubles. Today 1,128 YCLers bear the name of communist shock workers, and there are 724 striving for the honour.

p We promised to the Party to fulfil the Ninth Five-Year Plan in four and a half years. This is a serious commitment.

p But we have such wonderful specialists as Shalekh Shakirov, foreman of the pressing shop, Zhandarbek Dzhunusov, adjuster in the metal-coating shop, Anatoly Razizny, adjuster in the assembly shop, Lara Kim, stamping-press operator in shop No. 2, and Valentina Kondratenko, grinder in the metal-coating shop. They all work with a will, and they are all YCLers.

p Today the Komsomol is equal to the most responsible tasks assigned to it by the Party. Our fellow-members of the League, which bears Lenin’s name, work at the firstpriority projects—on the construction sites in the Far North, 121 on the Tyumen oil deposits, at the Kama Car Plant and the Toktogul Hydroelectric Power Station construction sites, on the modernisation of hundreds of enterprises in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Moldavia.

p This common task of all the detachments of the Komsomol lends me, Victor Shashkin, a sense of kinship with the boys in all republics, territories and regions in the Soviet Union. We are a 28 million-strong family of young people. This is another thing which contributes to our civic satisfaction.

p My Third Title Is Muscovite. It is high time for an explanation. I say my first title, second title, third title and so on but the order is free, I can change their places, and begin with the second, third or fifth—it doesn’t matter; what matters is that they are all important.

p And so, my third title is Muscovite. Our plant is located in Krestyanskaya Zastava. Just read this description of it by a newspaper in 1911: "Once past Spasskaya Zastava (now Krestyanskaya Zastava), you find yourself in a peculiar world, a kingdom of garbage. Gloomy wrinkled land with contaminated soil and poisoned air. ...”

p Can anyone recognise from this description the modern industrial Krestyanskaya Zastava? Certainly, not! This has long been the site of our plant, one of the best in the country and equipped with first-class machinery. Today the plant is undergoing a new phase of modernisation, and by the end of the current five-year plan its shops will occupy nearly 80 hectares, and put out more than 200,000 cars a year.

p There are thousands of towns in the Soviet Union, but Moscow occupies prime place among them. Moscow is the capital of all the republics of the Soviet Union. Moscow is the Hero City which smashed the nazi hordes during World War II. (My father worked on the fortifications then, and he was awarded the medal Defender of Moscow.)

p We are Muscovites, and this name places great responsibility on all of us. Our primary duty is conscientious work, and our labour productivity must be the highest in the world. However, I believe that this aspiration is common to all workers in all Soviet towns. Were I to live in Tashkent, I would probably have wanted all the world to know 122 the trade mark of its factories. Certainly, my counterparts in the other towns think the same way.

p Like all the other Muscovites, I want now to lend a hand in making Moscow a model city with excellent order, excellent sanitation, excellent services and excellent transport facilities. I always feel responsible for my city. Anywhere I go, I feel that I represent the Muscovites and therefore must be exemplary in work and conduct.

p This feeling of kinship with Moscow became particularly keen when it was my turn to serve in the Soviet Army, because

p My Fourth Title Is Soldier. I became a soldier in November 1967. I left my mother, wife and a little daughter at home. For the next two years I served in an engineering unit in the arid steppes of Kazakhstan. Of course, they could have sent me to the Baltic area, Sakhalin, or Transcaucasia, just as they send the boys from the Baltic area to serve in the Moscow Military District. We live in one country, and have one common concern—the defence of its frontiers.

p We were at once picked out as Muscovites, and the officers were more exacting towards us. We decided to organise an amateur theatrical circle and soon our "ensemble from Moscow" began to give concerts in the neighbouring units. That earned us praise from the command.

p But, as we all know, what counts in the army is good service, discipline, and engineering knowledge. We tried our best to live up to the name of Muscovite, YCLer and worker.

p Military service is hard work. We drilled through rocks, laid out roads and communication lines under the scorching sun.

p I am glad that we have honestly fulfilled our lofty duty. If need be, I will readily go into the armed forces again. We soldiers are responsible for the country’s security; it is our duty to protect the peaceful labour of the Soviet people. I, Victor Shashkin, am also aware of my responsibility for preserving peaceful labour whether it be in the country as a whole or in its smallest unit—the family, because

p My Fifth Title Is Head of the Family. My father had a hard life. He was an orphan, and it was the Soviet society 123 that brought him up. He was a carpenter, he built houses, and he was the head of the family.

p I still remember the time when all of us—Father and Mother and I—lived in a communal flat in Tekstilshchiki (Moscow). It was a two-storey house. Now there is a big building standing in the same place.

p Since I have a family, the executive committee of the district Soviet has provided me with a flat. My wife is a teacher, while Mother continues to work at the post office.

p However, I am the one who is responsible for the welfare of the family and for the upbringing of Svetlana, my daughter. The war left many people of my age orphans, and they know what it is to be fatherless. Now we all answer for the upbringing of the younger generation; it is our common duty to make them worthy successors to the cause of our fathers and our own selves. And that is what I call happiness.

p My Sixth Title Is Student. When I came to the factory, I had only an incomplete nine-class education, so I joined the evening school for young workers and finished it just before going into the Army. On demobilisation, I enrolled in an auto-mechanical special secondary school at our plant. Now I am in my fourth year.

p My friends—many of them—are also studying. We have our own educational centre at the plant with a student body of nearly 4,000, of which 800 go to the general school classes, 1,000, to the special secondary school classes, and about 500, attend institute courses.

p The factory needs educated people; every year we get new machines which you can’t operate without proper training. We have a computing centre with two Minsk-22 and a number of EV-80 electronic computers.

p The advanced engineering at the plant is not the only reason why we are raising our educational qualifications.

p As I see it, a worker, no matter what his job is and no matter where he works, must have a broad outlook. He must be familiar with the achievements of science and engineering, literature and the arts. A man unharmoniously developed cannot be really happy, nor can he perceive the value of life.

p All of us can bear the high title which I bear today. It is the title of. 

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p Deputy of the Supreme Soviet. This honorary title requires great knowledge and sense of responsibility.

p I was elected deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in June 1971, and was nominated as member of the Supreme Soviet’s commission on industry. Together with the other 38 deputies we investigate the work of enterprises and industrial branches in the republic, study shortcomings and advanced experience, submit our proposals and give recommendations to the government.

p In addition, I have to help my constituency and fulfil their mandates. I meet my constituency once a month at the Executive Committee of the Lyublino District Soviet. People come to me for help and advice; they speak with me as the trusted representative of Soviet power.

p When we meet in session in the Grand Kremlin Palace, I sit together with Asya Galyatdinova, a 24 year-old milkmaid from Tataria, Anna Romanova, a 22-year-old mason from Karelia, Nikolai Churakov, a 26-year-old turner from Udmurtia, and many other elected representatives from the Russian Federative Republic. In the other Union republics 1,842 workers, including 1,012 young people under 30 (of which 529 are YCLers) were elected deputies to the Supreme Soviets. They are all servants of the people, just like me. We are all concerned with the same problems, and we all have the same duties.

p Frankly, at first I was surprised that they elected me. I worked conscientiously. But so did others....

p Then it came to me that my merits had nothing to do with it—to be a deputy is an honorary and responsible duty before the people, and every citizen of the USSR should be prepared to fulfil this duty.

p My seven titles—worker, YCLer, Muscovite, soldier, head of family, student, and deputy embody my seven responsibilities, my seven duties. I have many others, but these are the principal ones. Taken together they add up to my

p Eighth Title—Citizen of the USSR. Russians and Armenians, workers and peasants, office employees and intellectuals, Party members, YCLers, and non-Party members, heads and members of families, students and professors, soldiers and officers, deputies and electors—we are all citizens of the Soviet Union.

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p We all belong to one and united collective. This was best explained by Leonid Brezhnev at the 24th Congress of the CPSU: "A new historical community of people, the Soviet people, took shape in our country during the years of socialist construction. New, harmonious relations, relations of friendship and co-operation, were formed between the classes and social groups, nations and nationalities in joint labour, in the struggle for socialism and in the battles fought in defence of socialism. Our people are welded together by a common Marxist-Leninist ideology and the lofty aims of building communism. The multi-national Soviet people demonstrate this monolithic unity by their labour and by their unanimous approval of the Communist Party’s policy.”

p To me, the citizen of the USSR is the man who is ready to bear the burden and the joy of great concerns. But are we happy and free simply because we are always aware of this burden? Yes, it is because we are the people entrusted with the loftiest responsibilities and duties of citizens of the USSR.

This is, perhaps, the whole secret of why I am satisfied with my life, why I am happy to work and live in the Soviet Union, and why I am always ready to defend it.