p Tamara Uvarova worked for a long time as an electric mechanic at the Dynamo Plant before she was elected deputy to the Moscow City Soviet. Before that she worked at a textile mill, and it was much easier there—no complex circuits, no instruments, no webworks of coloured wires as in the 2nd assembly shop in the Dynamo Plant. But she herself decided to change her profession for a more difficult one, and so she came to the Dynamo Plant.

p And it was really hard in the beginning, she had to learn how to work in a team. This is a double responsibility, for if you make a mistake, the whole team suffers. The members of the team explained this to Tamara Uvarova as soon as she joined them. The team leader, Alexandra Lavrentyeva, and all the others were friendly, but exacting. Tamara knew that they were being exacting for her own good.

p Her apprenticeship lasted three months, then she passed 126 the qualification exams and began to work on a par with all the others. Diagrams and circuits ceased to be a mystery, her hands got used to the instruments and the webwork of wires was no longer a puzzle. Her workmates approved of the way she worked and her industriousness. She liked her new job, she liked it because there was no monotony and because it involved real brainwork. The moment came when Tamara began to think that she had learned all the secrets of her trade and could work no worse than the others. The team leader guessed Tamara’s thoughts, and was not surprised at that, because it is often like that with beginners. And she gave Tamara a piece of work usually done by experts. What happened is something that Tamara would like to forget, but the lesson was a good one. No, Tamara was not angry, she is the kind of woman who would learn even from her mistakes.

p That was five years ago. Lavrentyeva’s team came to be known as the most close-knit collective in Moscow. Tamara cannot imagine her life without the team. She became proficient in her trade and soon she assumed the responsibilities of a Komsomol functionary. It couldn’t be otherwise, because her energy and her interest in life had to be applied in a practical way. Then when the YCLers in the shop saw her at work, they elected her member of the Komsomol bureau. Tamara loves songs, and she herself has a very pleasant voice, so it was only natural that she should join the amateur art group. In the vocal competition she won the first place.

p As a Komsomol functionary, Tamara selected the work she likes best—cultural activities. But the YCLers credit her not so much with the organisation of concerts and tourist hikes, as with the fact that she helped a dozen young men and women to prepare for joining the Komsomol. Tamara explained to them the Komsomol Rules, helped them to carry out their first Komsomol assignments and patiently answered all their questions, no matter how difficult or unexpected they were.

p Her comrades were right when they appointed her to the important and delicate work with young people unaffiliated with the Komsomol. They correctly assessed her prestige and her ability to convince without thrusting her opinion on people.

p “You know what makes Tamara so winning?" Valery Stepin, the present secretary of the Komsomol bureau, asked me. "It is her cheerful disposition, and the calm way of doing things. Some people spoil everything with their haste, she is not like that, she never takes off-hand decisions, but once she comes to a decision or gives her word to do something, you can rely on her. Tamara is always ready to give moral support to people, and to cheer them up. This impresses people more than the best of lectures.”

p What forms our attitude to one or another person? In the first place it is an assessment of his work and contribution to society. All the other things may seem trivial at first sight. It often happens that a man works honestly, is highly thought of as an advanced worker, yet nobody comes to him to share his joy or doubts with him. Tamara is not like that. Everybody in the plant likes her. When Dynamo Plant were nominating their candidates to the Moscow City Soviet of Working People’s Deputies, Tamara Uvarova was among the first they named.

Tamara Uvarova is 24. She is one of the youngest deputies entrusted with the lofty mission of representing Soviet power.