Presents a summary of:
NOT BY BREAD ALONE
by Vladimir Dmitrievich Dudintsev
(1956)
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THE PLOT IN SHORT An inventor named Lopatkin struggles against entrenched bureaucracy and self-servers in an attempt to help the Soviet pipe industry. He wins his personal battle, but the "invisible empire" of the bureaucracy remains intact and Lopatkin knows that a long struggle still lies ahead. |
1. It is winter and snow is piled high. Leonid Ivanovich Drozhdov, the general director of a kombinat (large factory complex), arrives back in Muzga, Siberia, after a business trip to Moscow. He has oranges in his pocket; and his wife, Nadya is wearing a new, foreign fur coat. He has good reason to think he will soon be promoted to Moscow. Nadya is much younger and much taller than Drozhdov. She is five-months pregnant.
At his factory office, Drozhdov meets with chief engineer Ganichev and the local party secretary to discuss the new work schedule. Later, Drozhdov calls into his office a worker named Maksiutenko, who was found dallying with a girl from the planning department. Maksiutenko is married to a good woman and has three children. To scare him, Drozhdov has Maksiutenko write an explanation of what happened and deposits in his safe. Drozhdov threatens to make the statement public unless Maksiutenko mends his ways.
| "Although I am a single individual, I am not doing this for myself." |
Feeling sorry for Lopatkin, Drozhdov orders that he be given some extra coal and firewood.
2. Nadya moved to Muzga three years ago, immediately after graduating from teachers college. When she first arrived, she noticed and secretly fell in love with Lopatkin. That changed, and a year later, she married Drozhdov.
Ater their marriage, Drozhdov told Nadya that all her ideas were from 19th century literature and had no significance today. "We are engaged in a race with the capitalist world," he said. "First one must build the house and then one can hang the pictures." He saw himself as an honest, hard-working carpenter building the house. Further, he said, "I belong to the producers of material values. The main spiritual value of our time is the ability to work well, to create the greatest possible quantity of necessary things. We are working for the basis....The more I strengthen the material basis, the firmer out state will be."
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Read Chapter 4 of the Short Course on the History of the Party:  Dialectical and Historical Materialism by J.V. Stalin |
Recently, Nadya had found herself subject to a strange thoughtfulness, which she could not explain. As she walks to the school where she teaches geography, she sees Lopatkin approaching. She hopes he will not see her, because she stopped exchanging greetings with him a year ago. Privately, Drozhdov had referred to Lopatkin as a "man from Mars".
At school, Nadya sits with her friend Valentina Pavlovna, a teacher of English. Valentina had abandoned her loving husband and taken their young daughter because she, Valentina, was secretely in love with another man who does not even know of her feelings. She says it was not love at first sight. "To fall in love...there must be some kind of clash. Some kind of conflict is needed for character to show itself."
Nadya is criticised for having given Rimma Ganicheva, daughter of the factory chief engineer, a "2" when she gets "3" in her other subjects.
In class, Nadya calls on Sima Sianova, a pale, thin girl about whom Nadya has a maternal tenderness. Sima always gets a "3" and Nadya hopes to raise those grades. Nadya asks Sima to draw the rivers of Russia. Sima is nervous at the beginning and makes some mistakes, but with the help of prompting from other students (which Nadya pretends not to notice), Sima does the assignment correctly. Nadya gives her a "4". Immediately, Rimma raises her hand to taddle on the prompting. Nadya changes the grade to a "3", but adds, "To tell the truth out of spite is just as bad as to conceal it."
After class, some of the students lobby with Nadya on Sima's behalf. Sima comes from a large, poor family and has a lot of work to do.
3. Excited about his impending promotion to Moscow, Drozhdov decides to throw a two-year anniversary party for himself and Nadya. He invites all the local party, government, and industry leaders. Nadya wants to invite her schoolteacher friends, but Drozhdov advises against it. He says they will be envious of the things that they have and that separation from them is inevitable; inviting them to the party will only speed up the process. Nadya invites only Valentina Pavlovna.
Ganichev, who is designated to take over for Drozhdov when he leaves, is at the the party with his wife. (The elder Ganichev daughter, Jeanne, is in Moscow studying chemistry. There are rumors that she was romantically involved with Lopatkin before her departure.) Ganichev tells Drozhdov that Pyotr Andreyevich Galitsky, a scientist come from Moscow, wants to stop work on the Avdiyev machine, that its design is out of date. Drozhdov says Avdiyev and the Minister will give Galitsky what-for.
| "The higher we rise, the more complete our isolation will be." |
4. Nadya goes to see the Sianovs, hoping to convince them to give Sima less work so she can concentrate on her studies. They live in a poor mud hut--Sima, her five brothers and sisters, her ailing mother and her father. Sima is milking a cow. Nadya sees at once that her request is pointless. Nadya is surprised to see Lopatkin there--he is a permanent border.
Lopatkin tells how he submitted his invention and the Minister declared it useful and original. He was summoned to Moscow to build it. But once there, he got the runaround for three months, then was told that the machine wouldn't be built. Professor Avdiyev, who has earlier submitted his own type of machine, declared--without any proof--that Lopatkin's wouldn't work, that it is impossible to get pipes without long-channel casting. Ever since then, Lopatkin has been working on a new design of his machine to prove Avdiyev wrong. This consumes all his time, so he can't return to a normal job. His main problem is getting drawing paper. Drozhdov has refused to supply any.
That night, Drozhdov works late at the factory. He wants to achieve something great before he leaves, something so impressive that Ganichev will never be able to equal him.
5. One day in January, Nadya is in the teachers lounge at school. Someone announces that Lopatkin is coming to get some information. Without knowing why, Nadya launches into a loud denunciation of Lopatkin as paranoid crank engaged in some useless project. Nadya then see that Lopatkin is standing right there and has heard everything. She keels over with intense pain in her belly. She is admitted to the hospital.
The next morning, Nadya realizes that she is alone in the hospital ward. All the other patients have been moved out into the corridor, because she is the wife of a big-wig. Nadya demands that the other patients be brought back in, and she gets her way.
The teachers visit and give her a note from Lopatkin. In it, Loptakin says he respects Drozhdov as a leader but has a different outlook. Lopatkin suspects that Nadya does not entirely share Drozhdov's views either. He apologizes for being the involuntary cause of Nadya's suffering.
Drozhdov visits Nadya and says that Maksiutenko has been called to the Projects Institute to work on the "other machine", possibly Lopatkin's. He also chides her for her hospital "uprising". If, for example, Mrs. Ganichev has to be admitted for some reason, all the other patients will be back in the hall again. "Equalitarianism is something harmful." he says.
6. In April, Nadya gives birth to a son. One day, she is strolling with him in the baby carriage and meets Valentina, who is carrying some drawing paper to Lopatkin--the man she secretely loves. He still does not know of her feelings. Lopatkin has just completed a new model of his machine and received a directive from the Ministry that his machine will be made.
At home, Drozhdov announces that his promotion has come through and that they will be moving to Moscow. Nadya asks Drozhdov why he was always sneering at Lopatkin. Drozhdov says inventors always have an exaggerated sense of self-importance. He says, "I am a descendant of the common herd. I have a heretitary aversion to all these irreplaceables".
Three days later, Drozhdov leaves for Moscow, leaving Nadya with her son and mother-in-law. In June, he says things are ready and that she should come. Before leaving, Nadya goes to the Sianovs to see Lopatkin, but he is not there. He has gone to the regional capital to work on his machine. Galitsky also comes, looking for any drawings that Loptakin might have left behind; he wants to know the principle on which Lopatkin's machine is designed.
Nadya leaves a note for Lopatkin and departs.
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ORDER OF THE RED STAR (Lopatkin's Medal)  Instituted on 6 April 1930. Awarded to military personnel for: Personal courage and bravery in battle, excellent organization and capable combat leadership. Made of solid silver and red enamel. Current value on the open market: $20-$40 |
When Lopatkin first submitted his invention, Avdiyev dismissed it as complicated and clumsy, and Deputy Minister Shutikov accepted this opinion. The only people who believed in Lopatkin were Pyotr Sianov--Sima's father, who fed him and helped him with his models--and Valentina Pavlovna--who provided much needed drawing paper. Valentina was constantly blushing in his presence. Once, he almost guessed that she was in love with him, but his conscience told him to hear and see nothing, so as not to ruin the friendship.
Once, on the same day, he received two notes: one from the Ministry, beginning "It is not considered possible...."; and the second from Jeanne Ganichev. Jeanne wrote saying that despite Lopatkin's assurances to the contrary, she has learned that his affairs are not going well and she demanded to know the truth. Lopatkin wrote back that while he has faith in his eventual victory, his situation is in fact bad. He urges her to "forget everything that you and I talked about."
As soon as Lopatkin mails this letter, Shutikov changes his position and orders that a prototype of Lopatkin's machine be built. Drozhdov summons Lopatkin for a meeting. Drozhdov congratulates Lopatkin and asks when he will be going to the district capital to work on the machine. Lopatkin says in three months, so in the meantime Maksiutenko can continue work on Avdiyev's machine. Drozhdov tells Lopatkin to go to the factory supply hall for a new suit of clothes. Lopatkin leaves without accepting the clothes. His visit to the school later that same day resulted in Nadya's hospitalization.
8. In mid-June, Lopatkin reports to the design bureau in the regional capital. The head of the section of special equipment, Anatoly Ivanovich Uriupin, and the deisgners there seem hostile to Lopatkin, especially when they learn that his education is theoretical, not practical. Arakhovsky, an older designer, scoffs at the overly detailed nature of Lopatkin's drawings. Maksiutenko is also assigned to the project. After a week of working on the drawings, Loptakin sees that this design is not as clumsy as they claimed. In August, a young designer named Kolya looks at the drawings and scoffs at the reducer and worm-gear. He asks why they're not using a compressed-air apparatus, which has already been made up and successfully used on two machines. Lopatkin is surprised that the engineers on the project missed that idea.
On the way home, Lopatkin runs into Arakhovsky, who warns him that he still has a long, difficult road to go. He points out the "trick" Uriupin already played on him about the air compressor; Lopatkin was saved only by the impetuous Kolya. Arakhovsky promises to give Lopatkin some books to help him spot some of the other difficulties.
| "Every man is an inventor who is creating something new in his own sphere." |
9. With the help of the Arakhovsky's technical books, Lopatkin spots some clumsy contrivances which Uriupin and Maksiutenko had allowed in the machine. Uriupin raises a ruckus ("This is money, this is time, this is a plan!"), but Lopatkin forces the errors to be corrected. Finally, at the end of October, all the work is done and Loptakin is handed his finished blueprints. Loptakin accidentally discovers Uriupin and Maksiutenko working on their own design for a centrifugal casting machine, competition for Loptakin's machine. Thus caught, they let Lopatkin look at the design. Lopatkin is not impressed and finds many flaws in it.
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Learn about the most important mathematical and physical scientist of the 18th century:  Joseph Louis de Lagrange 1736 - 1831 |
Two days later, Loptakin is back in Muzga at the Sianovs, who are all happy to see him and celebrate his victory. Lopatkin reads the letter left by Nadya. In it, Nadya says she feels guilty in front of him. She also gives a short description of the Avdieyev machine, which was being constructed at the factory. She notes that Galitsky has declared that the machine is wasteful. In order to save Avdieyev's face, Drozhdov has canceled tests of the machine. But four of the machines are being made and Ganichev will cast pipes with them, so it is he, not Drozhdov, who will be accountable for the losses in wages, materials, etc. Further, Avdieyev's machine was build with funds which had been assigned for Lopatkin's. This was the work of Shutikov.
The next day, while chopping wood, Lopatkin sees Valentina. She is distressed by the news that he is soon to leave for Moscow. She pointedly says they may never see each other again. He says nothing. She kisses him several times, then turns and walks away without looking back.
PART TWO
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While waiting for the review meeting to begin, an engineer at the Institute tells Lopatkin that Avdiyev will not attend the meeting, which means the machine will not be approved. That's the way things have been for the past 25 years and that's the way they still are. Some engineers grumble about Avdiyev's imperial ways and obliquely mock his last machine. Other engineers worship him.
The meeting is chaired by Academician Pyotr Benediktovich Saratovtsev. Lopatkin is criticized by Avdieyev's hatchetmen, Fundator and Tepikin. They say he is bankrupt as regards theory. Galitsky criticizes the Institute for wallowing in the deep oceans of theoretical mysteries, when Lopatkin's machine offers a practical way of testing and solving the problem much quicker than they could via their theoretical investigations. Galitsky then says that Loptakin's machine is deficient in one way: the metal will begin to crystallize before being fully poured into the molds. Lopatkin jumps up and effectively disproves this claim.
Galitsky proposes that Lopatkin be brought together with a competent designer and calculator to produce an experimental model of the machine. He is alone. It is decided to cancel the machine.
After the meeting, Galitsky tells Lopatkin, "Improve your machine regardless of what anyone says! Work on it. We shall meet again."
2. Lopatkin walks the streets, thinking. He comes to the street where Jeanne lives. He sees her walking arm in arm with a young Army captain named Devyatov. Jeanne catches sight of Lopatkin, but walks right on past, taking no notice. Then, half a block later, she stops and with sudden realization runs back to where she saw Loptakin, looking for him. But Lopatkin hides.
| "The collective is superior to any individual genius." |
Nonetheless, Lopatkin files a complaint with the Ministry, various committees and newspapers. He begins to feel a pain in his chest. A doctor prescribes rest, exercise, and a healthy diet.
One day, Lopatkin sees an article in the newspaper entitled "Open the door to inventors!" It is written by Shutikov. Lopatkin writes a letter to the paper's editor pointing out Shutikov's duplicity and recounting his own story. While waiting at the newspaper office to deliver the letter, Lopatkin meets with an old inventor, Professor Evgeny Ustinovich Busko. Busko tells Lopatkin that his letter will have no effect; that Lopatkin will run about to and fro accomplishing nothing and that eventually his invention will be spirited abroad. Long ago, Busko invented a powder that instantaneously puts out any flame. It was rejected by committee after committee, but eventually appeared in fire extinguishers made in foreign countries.
3. Busko takes Lopatkin to his small apartment to show him his various other inventions, including a ceramic that does not require a special type of clay and a powder for extinguishing oil fires that is three times as effective as any currently in use. Busko wishes he could give his inventions to the people, but he is always stymied by the bureaucracy. Busko has eight certificates of authorship (invention), but many more inventions than that. He has stopped registering his inventions because they all get rejected by committees, who attack not what he created but who he is--a lone individual. And after such rejection the committee members bit by bit steal his technology or it gets sold abroad.
Bukso had been a professor, a scientist, a lecturer, but was fired after his numerous battles over his inventions. He invites Lopatkin to come live with him to save money. But above all he advises Lopatkin to live--do gymnastics, go to the theater, find friends, a girlfriend. Friends will keep him from becoming hard, they will allow him to rest and restore himself.
| "The older one gets, the less disappointment one suffers because one loses the habit of hoping." |
Lopatkin sees hope in their work, but Busko says he has given up the habit of hoping.
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Read a very short summary of:  F.M. Dostoevsky's The Adolescent aka The Raw Youth |
Busko compares an inventor or discoverer to a person who climbs higher up, to the second floor of a building and sees the world from a different perspective. Lopatkin wistfully recalls Jeanne, thinking that she is a "first-floor" person, not a dreamer, not a romantic. Busko says first-floor psychology is a great evil and that foreign intelligence is taking advantage of it, because the "first-floor crowd" doesn't guard valuable ideas, it guards only its handsome popularizing booklets.
The two make money through the summer unloading cargo in a train yard. Lopatkin works on the outline of a new universal machine for the casting of iron pipes of any shape up to a length of 18 feet. One day, when Lopatkin is out, a woman calls, asking for him. She does not stay to wait. No one knows who she was.
5. In autumn, Lopatkin and Busko run out of money and switch to the inventors' diet--bread and fish oil. Then, mysteriously, they receive anonymous gifts of potatoes.
Recalling their first meeting, Busko says, "We came together because I liked you. That was all. I like visionaries who live not by bread alone." Busko says he used wrong tactics in his battles, and that it is best to fight in a clandestine fashion. Lopatkin disagrees and says that one must go into battle openly.
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When I realized the significance of this machine and understood that it was needed and that for its sake I should have to draw in my belt, I did not hesitate for an instant, but jumped gladly into this cold water. Then I suddenly understood that Communism is not a construction thought out by the philosophers, but a force which has existed for a long time and which is covertly training cadres for a future society. This force has already entered me. How did I come to feel it? Like this! Never in my life have I worked as I am working now. I am working to capacity. Without ever looking back. I save time for no other purpose but for my work. Now about my needs. I could go and work in a factory now. I could earn 2,000, and buy a mountain of bacon as thick as my hand is broad. Or put my name down for a motorcar. Or money in a savings account. The account would grow and I would earn more and more. But I am not that sort; I have other needs; I want none of those things. I don't want that sort of happiness, the kind one sees in the movies: good food and plenty of it, a nice flat, a bedroom suite, lace petticoats....That is, of course, I would not refuse them. But if I had only those things I should not be happy. But if I get this job through to its conclusion, I shall be happy, even if I have no bedroom suite!" |
On 18 Oct, around noon, while Lopatkin is out, a messenger brings a package for him. It contains 6,000 rubles and a note: "Comrade Lopatkin, this money is yours. You are entitled to make what use you wish of it." Busko is suspicious, thinking it comes from foreign agents and that they should get rid of it. Instead, Lopatkin buys himself a new suit of clothes and a new hat for Busko.
6. Lopatkin begins to attend concerts. He is particularly inspired by Chopin's 2nd Piano Concerto. In this music, "He saw the hero, buring like a comet in the dark sky...and a gigantic power of the spirit, who, at the cost of his own person, at the cost of his life, wished to blaze a path for multitudes of men. He also was thrilled by Rachmaninov's 2nd Concerto, wherein Lopatkin saw that "men are not born to accept humiliation, to lie and to betray, for the sake of rich food and a good time."
Loptakin is lonely. He remembers Jeanne and walks up to her on the street. She is startled and thrilled. They kiss. Jeanne suggests that they run off somewhere and just be teachers. Lopatkin lies and says that his machine is very near a break-through success, that he is off the next day to the Kuzbazz for factory tests. Jeanne is sad. They part.
In January, during intermission at a concert, Nadya walks up to Lopatkin. She has "blossomed". She has heard that Lopatkin has reduced his offensive. Lopatkin is reluctant to talk about his new machine because Nadya is married to the enemy. Nadya says she and Drozhdov have been estranged for two years. She tells Lopatkin that Drozhdov is supervising the design of a new machine by Uriupin and Maksiutento along with Fundator and Avdiyev. Nadya promises to get more information.
A week later, Nadya and Lopatkin meet at a music shop. She gives him a quick sketch of the new machine. Lopatkin recognizes it as Uriupin and Maksiutenko's design. The machine is currently being made in the Muzga factory.
7. Nadya's story: After moving to Moscow, Nadya became increasingly disgusted with Drozhdov's callousness. To hide her physical repugnance for him, she pretended to have back pains.
One day, Drozhdov tells her of Lopatkin's appearance in Moscow and of Lopatkin's defeat. Shutikov for some time now has been looking for a machine for centrifigal casting of pipes. He might have backed Lopatkin, but it would have been too much trouble to set him up with a separate design office, and it would have been impossible to hand the work over to the Institute, because Lopatkin was not willing to make compromises, he would not get along with Avdiyev. Then Maksiutenko and Uriupin show up with their design. They stole some from Lopatkin, added some from a foreign machine; also Maksiutenko was involved with Avdiyev's machine, so that loss can be written off as "research" on this new one.
Nadya says it's all very unfair to Lopatkin. Drozhdov says that to invent something is only one-tenth of the job. What is really needed is a good organizer. He says, "An idea, if it is a correct one...seeks out for itself a strong man who will make sure that it prospers. Ideas prefer marriages of convenience to love matches!...Ideas gladly break faith with their first lovers in favor of influential and energetic patrons."
In August, Maksiutenko and Uriupin come to the apartment to meet with Drozhdov about their design. Nadya is now furious over what has been done to Lopatkin and says she is no longer Drozhdov's wife. At the end of August she sees Lopatkin on the street and follows him to Busko's home. She is the mysterious woman who called one day when Lopatkin was out. She decides she must help Lopatkin somehow. Six weeks later, Mrs. Ganichev visits, sees Nadya's fur coat and offers to buy it. Nadya sells it and that is where the 6,000 rubles came from.
8. Nadya begins spending time with Lopatkin and Busko, bringing little necessary items--a tablecloth, a sugar bowl, a shirt and tie for Lopatkin. She brings her typewritter and handles Lopatkin's correspondence.
In February, Lopatkin is summoned to the prosecutor's office. Avdiyev, Fundator and others have filed a complaint against him for libel. They call him a "dangerous calumniator", "sham inventor" and "blackmailer". Lopatkin pointedly asks how many people have been prosecuted for supression of technical invention. He explains to the prosecutor that it is ridiculous to label him an "enemy" because of a difference over a technical matter. The "monopoly", he says, does not allow any leaps forward and they strike at everyone who thinks differently. Their aim is to stay put in their easy chairs and go on getting richer. The prosecutor has him write an explaination. When Lopatkin leaves the prossecutor's office, a worried Nadya is waiting for him.
That evening, Nadya writes to Valentina Pavlovna, telling her that she has fallen in love with Lopatkin but that, as with Valentina, he will only allow friendship.
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Recall the words of Aleksandr Blok:  *** "The song of the nightingale cannot prevail over the roaring of the sea." *** Here's more: Works of Aleksandr Blok |
Lopatkin plays with Nadya's young son, Nikolashka. Nadya reveals that Dorzhdov has gone to Muzga to supervise the building of Uriupin and Maksiutenko's machine.
In mid-March, Lopatkin finishes the design of his new machine. The next day is Lopatkin's birthday. Nadya gives him a present of a briefcase. She and the two inventors have a little celebration. Busko claims he has an important appointment he forgot about and leaves Nadya and Lopatkin alone. They spend the night together. (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink).
The next day, Lopatkin is troubled and torn. He feels he has betrayed Jeanne and is uncertain of his feelings for Nadya. He tensely tells Nadya that they can't carry on with this personal "business". In sorrow, Nadya feels as if she has just changed into Lopatkin's mother. And she is ready to be a completely different person for Lopatkin if need be.
PART THREE
1. Lopatkin has been working on his inventions for six years now and a third of his hair is grey. He takes his new machine around to various offices and gets the usual rejections. One day, leaving a building he bumps into Drozhdov's former secretary, who is wearing a Komsomol badge. She now works for the Minister. She looks at him thoughtfully for a moment, then invites him back upstairs and tells him to write an explanation.
A few days later, Lopatkin is summoned to a meeting with the Minister Afanasy Terentievich Diadiura. Also present are Shutikov and Drozhdov. The Minister likes Lopatkin's idea. Shutikov unctuously says that Lopatkin should have brought the new machine to him and he would have gladly helped get it through the institutions. The Minister says they should seek an expert opinion. Drozhdov suggests Avdieyev, but the Minister says that Florinsky, Avdiyev's rival, should also be consulted.
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Get Mired in Antiquity. Learn about:  The Scythians |
Over the next two weeks Vadia Nevraev, an engineer in the Minister's office, helps Lopatkin get ready for the review. The two men become friends. At the official review, Avdiyev says he still has some questions about Lopatkin's machine, but concedes that it might be prudent to proceed with an experimental prototype. However, he maintains, Maksiutenko and Uriupin's machine will probably prove more successful. Florinsky endorses Lopatkin's machine wholeheartedly. A resolution is passed to proceed with production of the prototype.
2. Two of the Institute's best designers--Antonovich and Krekhov--are assigned to Lopatkin. Work proceeds honestly and successfully. Loptakin is suspicious of Shutikov's intentions, but all the designers seem to be earnestly working to help Lopatkin. They are impressed with how Lopatkin reached the Minister and got everyone, including Avdiyev, to change their minds about his project. Krekhov asks Lopatkin how he did it, because the Institute is filled with would-be inventors who were unable to break through.
One day, Loptakin runs into Galitsky on the street. Loptakin updates Galitsky on his progress. Galitsky tells Lopatkin that, despite appearances, some unpleasantness is obviously being planned. Galitsky tells Lopatkin to keep him informed.
In late July, Lopatkin gets to a call to come to the Ministry. Maksiutenko and Uriupin's machine has successfully cast pipes! Lopatkin can see that too much cast iron had been used in making the pipes and that they had been water-cooled, which will make them prone to breakage during transit and storage. And Loptakin's machine would produce more pipes quicker and could also be used for the casting of water pipes. The Minister orders work on Lopatkin's machine stopped. A triumphant Shutikov renews his offer to get Lopatkin a cushy job. Loptakin nonetheless files a protest with the Minister. He returns home depressed and considers just giving it all up and going away somewhere to the provinces.
3. Loptakin tries to see the Minister, but is kicked out and told not to come back. He goes home and cries. He is ready to give up. Nadya comforts him, then gives him a surprise--a summary of an German technical article about pipes of two layers; the outer layer is of plain steel, but the inner layer is acidproof, for the chemical industry. Nadya realizes that Loptakin's machine can be modified to do this, which Russian industry still hasn't accomplished. Loptakin is excited and says that now Nadya is his partner. He decides to call Galitsky, but finds out that Galitsky has been transfered somewhere unknown.
Loptakin returns for his final few days of work at the Institute. He seems untroubled because, as he says, he has a new idea. The designers are sympathetic but think Lopatkin's a little off his rocker. Unexpectedly, he receives a call on behalf of Galitsky, summoning him to a different Ministry.
At the new Ministry, a general asks Lopatkin if his machine can be modified to make hollow rotary bodies in different shapes: a cigar, an acore, a cone, and a pipe with a diameter that increased stepwise. Loptakin says yes. The general says Loptakin will continue to work out of the same Institute with the same team--but Shutikov, Drozhdov, and Avdiyev are not to informed. Lopatkin's orders will come from a Vladimir Ivanovich Zakharov. Lopatkin informs the general of his double-layer pipe idea. For security reasons, Lopatkin is told to let this new Ministry handle the application to the Inventions Office. It is also decided that the double-layer pipe idea will get priority over the other assignment. Lopatkin says that Nadya is his partner, and they include her name on the order. They also tell Lopatkin that Galitsky is in the Urals.
| "It is dangerous for you to sit by the telephone just now. You might be killed suddenly, finished off by an unexpected piece of news." |
The next day the Director of the Institute tells Lopatkin, Krekhov and Antonovich that they are being entrusted with some secret work.
4. Work continues successfully on Lopatkin and Nadya's secret machine. Shutikov and Avidiyev come snooping around, but are forced to retreat because of the work's secret classification. Nadya, as co-inventor, shows up in the institute from time to time to sign her name to the drawings, even though she doesn't completely understand them.
One day, Maksiutenko and Uriupin, after a holiday in the Caucasus, burst in for a visit. They are surprised to see Nadya there, signing her name to a sketch.
Krekhov works honestly and comes up with good suggestions.
One day in October, Lopatkin sees Nevraev on the street, but he refuses to talk with Lopatkin. Two days earlier, Drozhdov had forwarded to Shutikov a denunciation written by Maksiutenko and Uriupin, in which they accuse Lopatkin of giving Nadya--who is obviously not an engineer--access to information on a secret project. Shutikov happily passes the denunciation on to the Minister, Diadiura. On October 23, a soldier from the Military Prosecutor's Office delivers an envelope for Lopatkin
5. A military prosecutor, Capitan Abrosimov, reviews Lopatkin's case. He is worried by a testimonial written by Fundator, Tepikin, and other distinguished scientists, all condemning Loptakin as a sham inventor whose machine is a worthless invention. This complicates matters because basically the scientists are saying there was no secret involved with Lopatkin's work. Abrosimov and his chief decide to exclude this document from the case file. Abrosimov decides that the key to this case is: Cherchez la femme.
Abrosimov questions Lopatkin, who tells the long story of his invention and how he came to be involved in secret work. He does not mention Nadya. When Abrosimov asks about her, Lopatkin says she's his co-inventor. Abrosimov asks if Lopatkin and Nadya have had sex. Lopatkin lies and says, "No".
Lopatkin is placed under arrest.
6. Nadya is also summoned for questioning. Drozhdov is in a good humor. Loptakin's arrest will solve the most unpleasant problems of his personal and public life.
The next day, Nadya is questioned. When asked if she is Lopatkin's co-inventor, she decides to defend him to the utmost and says, no, the ideas were all his and that she has no special training in this area. Abrosimov then asks if they were physically intimate. Nadya blushes and says, yes. From Abrosimov's reaction she realizes with horror that she had just sealed Lopatkin's fate. Nadya asks if Lopatkin has been arrested and if so, why. Abrosimov confirms Lopatkin's arrest, but won't tell Nadya the reason.
| "The projecting of my machine was begun precisely because it was decided to do without experts; for once the princes of science were by-passed. They were by-passed and the result is a criminal prosecution against me." |
Maksiutenko testifies to seeing Nadya in the secret area and to the fact that Loptakin always worked without a partner. Nadya then is called in and confirms her answers to Abrosimov, that Lopatkin is the sole inventor. Lopatkin is allowed to question Nadya. He asks if she knows where all his non-secret drawings and corresondence are and if she knows that if he is condemned they all must be saved. She nods, understanding.
Badyin asks if Nadya helped Lopatkin in any way. She says she went to the library and read foreign technical literature. She admits giving Lopatkin the 6,000 rubles. Loptakin says that without Nadya there would have been no secret invention. The Chairman declares Lopatkin out of order.
The judges adjourn to consider the verdict. The Chairman says Lopatkin is clearly guilty of revealing secret information. As the law says, "There is no need even of actual disclosure. A genuine possibility of the secret becoming known to another person is sufficient." Badyin says that the idea of the double-layer pipes was obviously Nadya's. It might have been proven by examining Zakharov from the other Ministry, old Busko, and the request slip for technical literature at the library.
| "A state official is not the state, and a scientific big shot, or even three scientific big shots, are not science. A judge must verify everything; it is his duty." |
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Visit:  The Gulag |
8. Nadya went to the Institute for the drawings and corresondence, which Lopatkin had stored in the safe there. The director tells her the safe has been sealed and will only be opened by a special commission. But even then, she cannot have the documents because they are state secrets.
Nadya sees Krekhov and tells him about the papers. But he cannot help her.
The Chairman who presided over Lopatkin's trial calls the Director. He says Nadya can have all the papers not marked "Secret". The important secret documents are to be preserved, and the rest burned. The Director tells Uriupin to create a commission to examine the documents. Avdiyev is included on the commission. Uriupin rejects Krekhov as having been friendly to Lopatkin. Antonovich, Maksiutenko, and Nevraev are also put on the commission. They open the safe and make a report. All important technical documents are preserved. The rest of the documents are of no interest but must be destroyed because they are secret.
| "Books don't burn well unless you rip them to shreds first." |
Uriupin comes, gloating. He angrily rebukes a stoker who was looking at a suppposedly "secret" paper. The stoker says it wasn't marked secret and it had some "pretty hot stuff" on it about Uruipin himself.
As soon as all the papers are burned, Uriuipin is urgently summoned to the Director's office. The Director has just received an official request from Nadya for the non-secret correspondence and drawings. The request has been approved by Loptakin's tribunal. Uriupin says everything's been burned and asks the Director what to do. The Director says, "I know nothing. I have not had a report yet." He says the situation is Uriupin's responsibility and that Uriupin must make the reply.
Uriupin sees that the Director is frightened. He plans to respond that there were no non-secret papers or drawings.
PART FOUR
1. A year and a half later, Loptakin is forgotten. Newspapers publish articles by Shutikov and Drozdov (really written by Nevraev), hailing a victory for Soviet technology in the new centrifugal pipe casting machine. Shutikov's name begins to appear on long lists of those present at ceremonical receptions. Shutikov takes a trip abroad to study foreign technology.
In June 1951 some nameless clerk in an office notices an overconsumption of cast iron. The standard for pipes is 64 pounds; the pipes coming out of the new machines weigh 68 pounds. The total overexpenditure of cast iron is around 60,000 tons.
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Pick your Favorite Football Team: | |
 Dynamo |
 Spartak |
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Afterwards, Shutikov drives back with Avdiyev and Tepikin. On Gorky Street they almost have an accident because of a pedestrian. Shutikov looks back in shock and says it was Lopatkin. The others convince Shutikov that it only looked like Lopatkin. Nevertheless, they all become thoughtful. Shutikov tells Avdiyev and Tepikin to come up with a better pipe machine fast and to use Lopatkin's stuff if it makes sense.
With relief, Shutikov remembers that all of Lopatkin's personal papers were burned.
2. The pedestrian Shutikov saw was in fact Loptakin. He had been released two weeks earlier and his conviction overturned. He first of all went to see Busko, but Busko's house had burned down. A passer-by tells him that the fire was caused by some old professor experimenting with fire. He then goes to see Nadya, who embraces him and smothers him with kisses. In Nadya's apartment is Loptakin's drawing table, which Busko saved from the fire. After the fire, Busko came to live with Nadya, but he was too disheartened to resume his experiments. After about a year, he died. Nadya also gives Lopatkin Jeanne's photograph, which she saved after his arrest. Lopatkin glances at it absent-mindedly, then puts it down.
Nadya tells Lopatking that his machine has been made and is working at Galitsky's factory in the Urals and that two more are going to be made. Immediately after Lopatkin's conviction, Galitsky showed up at Nadya's. He then called Krekhov and Antonovich, who began working nights at Nadya's to recreate the drawings which had been burned. The machine was built and is a great success.
| "The words `deprivation of liberty' are inaccurate. Whoever has learned to think cannot be completely deprived of liberty." |
Nadya has more good news. While Maksiutenko was burning Loptakin's papers, Antonovich secretely dropped the folder with the correspondence into the coal bin. The folder is found by Afonchev, an old stoker. Antonovich pleads with him, and Afonchev decides to return the folder to the tribunal. The tribunal sees that the papers are not marked "secret", so Uruipin's claim that there were no such papers is false and the Director of the Institute is reprimanded. The papers are given to Nadya. Badyin gets involved and looks over the correspondence. The letters are forward to the Supreme Court, and Lopatkin's case dismissed.
Lopatkin goes to see Zakharov, who gives him a new contract and a generous salary. He is told to go to Galitsky's factory in the Urals. Before leaving, Lopatking recalls the words of Busko, "Human beings consist of two parts: the physical shell , which disappears, and the work of creation which can live on forever."
| "A genuine Party man cannot tolerate injustice. He can sense it, however carefully it is hidden. And he cannot tolerate it!" |
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Live in the: Invisible City of Kitezh |
4. Shutikov happily signs the recommendation from Avdiyev and the Institute to change the pipe weight standard. He sends the recommendatioin on to the registry.
Nevraev requests permission to resign for health reasons. Shutikov lets him go.
Avdiyev phones and urgently tells Shutikov not to send on the request for the new pipe weight standard. Avdiyev has heard that Lopatkin is back and has a machine working somewhere. Shutikov manages to get back the request.
When Drozhdov learns of Lopatkin's return and about the fact that his correspondence has survived and is in the hands of the prosecutor, he appoints some minor underlings to a commission to go over the relevant papers and find out who is to blame for the red tape which prevented Lopatkin's machine from going forward. Furthermore, Drozhdov is shocked--shocked--to find out that Uriupin, Maksiutenko, and the Institute cooked up a scheme to change the pipe standard so as to hide the defect in their machine.
Twenty days later, a Ministry order comes down. Avdiyev gets off lightly. After all, he had only twice officially expressed an opinion on Lopatkin's machine--once equivocal and once positive. Drozhdov and Shutikov were only referred to obliquely as Ministry officials who were misled. The paragraph detailing the extent of the overexpenditure of cast iron was deleted by the Minister himself. Maksiutenko and Uriupin are dismissed from their posts. Fundator and Tepikin, guilty of giving dishonest expert opinions, are called on to make an explanation.
The order ends with a paragraph calling for energetic work to aid "the furtherance and adoption of valuable suggestions made by inventors and rationalizers." This text was merely copied from a different order issued two or three years ago.
5. In September, Lopatkin returns to Moscow for a conference to plan for creation of a designing office for the projecting of centrifugal machines to service a whole host of industries. During an interval, the second deputy minister approaches Loptakin. He says that Shutikov has been transfered to a different ministry and suggests that Lopatkin should return and work under the auspices of the Ministry, along with Krekhov and Antonovich. Loptakin declines the offer.
 Kemerovo |
Loptakin goes to Nadya's to report on the success of the plans for the designing office. He also tells her of his visit to Jeanne, the only result of which was that he muddied up her plans for the future.
6. Jeanne, wearing Nadya's old fur coat (she, of course doesn't know that it was Nadya's), comes to Nadya's asking to see Loptakin, who is out. Jeanne, introducing herself as Anya (it's more Russian, you know), says she wants to work with Lopatkin. Nadya tells Jeanne how well Lopatkin's affairs are now going and that he had some true friends who helped him in his darkest hours, especially one unnamed woman. Jeanne assumes that woman is Nadya, but Nadya denies it and shows her a letter to Loptakin from Valentina. In the letter, Valentina declines Loptakin's offer of employment because of her love for him and the fact that he does not return that love. Valentina also aludes to another woman who "no doubt loves you more dearly than I do." Nadya says it refers to Jeanne.
Nadya tells Lopatkin about Jeanne's visit. She says Jeanne is obviously in love with Lopatkin and he ought to fix her up with a job. So Lopatkin goes back to Jeanne's and offers her a job. She tells him to come back in three days and she'll give him her answer. That's the day of Academinisian Sarotovtsev's 80-birthday jubilee celebration. Loptakin says he'll come at 7:30, pick up Jeanne and take her to the party.
Three days later, when Lopatkin arrives at Jeanne's, he finds that she has just left for the train station to go to Kemerovo. She left a note for him, saying she must leave because Nadya loves him more and sacrificed more for him, too.
Lopatkin goes to the celebration. Drozhdov, Nevraev, Shutikov and the whole gang of cronies are there. During one of the speeches, a not-too-happy Devyatov shows up and says "Anya" wants to see Lopatkin at the train station before her train leaves in 25 minutes. Devyatov has a car waiting, but Lopatkin says he'll take a taxi. But then Lopatkin decides not to go. He returns to the celebration and joins Nadya in the hall. He shows her Jeanne's letter then asks Nadya to marry him. She says that she demands nothing from him and "Am I not your wife as it is?"
At that moment, on stage, Sarotovtsev is presented with a gift from a distant factory director who is obviously not aware of recent developments: a model of Uriupin and Maksiutenko's machine! Sarotovtsev and the other cronies try to disguise their dismay. No one else in the audience knows the truth about the machine--only Lopatkin and the citizens of the "invisible empire of bureaucracy". Lopatkin knows that if he were to shout the truth out, no one would believe him. So his victory was for himself only; he was unable to dispell the fog and reveal the invisible empire.
| "Earlier, in his fighting days, he had been, if not happier, at least younger. And today, looking round him from the position of rest he had attained, he suddenly felt that he loved the old endless, austere road, with its milestones--a road along which he had unfortunately already traveled; it lay behind him." |
Shutikov, Fundator, Tepikin, and other members of the invisible empire jokingly drink a toast to Lopatkin as the "salmon". Tepikin says that despite his success, Lopatkin is selfish, a lone wolf. Nonetheless, Tepikin says the collective is always ready to take Lopatkin in under its protection; that Lopatkin should buy a car, a dacha, or a television set. Loptakin says instead he will continue to fight them. "Man lives not by bread alone, if he is honest," Lopatkin says.
Tepikin predicts that someday Loptakin, too, will steal some younger engineer's idea and present it as his own. He will tie up the public interrests with personal interests. This elicts knowing chuckles from the invisible empire. Loptakin responds, "Unfortunately, it is impossible to offend you....You disgrace yourself abominably and never feel it."
Loptakin recalls his infantry training and says that previously he was involved in single combat. Now a whole section is in action.
Avdiyev approaches as if to embrace Lopatkin, but Nevraev steps in between, shaking a finger at Avdiyev and singing, "And secretly and maliciously, my hands grope for a weapon." Everyone assumes this bodes ill for Avdiyev. Lopatkin knows that he still has a long road ahead of him.
"And although Loptakin's machine was already made and delivered, he again suddenly saw before him the road that lost itself in the distance, the road that certainly had no end. This road awaited him, stretched in front of him, luring him on with its mysterious curves and with its stern responsibility."