WE pass through the old Podolsk foundry, which is gloomy as a cave and brooding with fumes. Men, stripped to the waist, down whose darkened bodies sweat courses in zig-zag patterns, are feeding growling, ravenous furnaces. Crimson lava floods into waiting vats, sputtering its steel fire on the earthen floor. Humans tug away the boiling metal, spending their labour where machinery could serve much better. Nearby are moulders, bent almost double over the sand and crude moulds.
Everywhere, materials and men used extravagantly, for want of machines.
This is the foundry which the Podolsk workers inherited from Singer. In a few weeks' time, it will be closed forever. After thorough re-conditioning, it will be converted into an up-to-date tool department.
Feodor Trefanov, who has cast metal here for a quarter of a century, leads as to the new foundry. "Our Palace of Labour," he calls it. Most of the smelting and casting has already been transferred here. With an output capacity of 34,000 tons a day, or twice that of the old plant, and working force of 1,600, this cement and steel structure, in layout and equipment, has only four equals in the world.
"It cost us two and a half million dollars," Feodor says, "and is the 519th plant to be opened by us in this third, decisive year of our Five-Year Plan." We pass along cement floors from one department to another, through rooms that stretch far and high. Wide aisles run between rows of animated machines--glistening, powerful. Overhead are the cranes, manned by youth and girls in red kerchiefs. Through the skylight ceilings so much light streams in that we wonder if the sun could have broken though the gray-cast sky of northern Russia's winter.
Every conceivable device which science has so far invented is at its post, doing with rapid ease the work at which men once strained and swore. Conveyors, underground, overhead, and on a level with the human hands manning them, click forward, collecting and depositing materials with precise efficiency.
Monstrous ventilators puff fresh air through the rooms, sucking up the old. Even in the furnace and casting departments, the fumes and dirt have been reduced to a surprising minimum. Feodor tells us, "Mr. Strouck, the American engineer who supervised construction, was a bit put out about the ventilating system. He said it was very expensive, and no other foundry in Europe or America had one like this; why should we? We told him that the health of our workers was as important to us as turning out good machines."
We walk further. "Soon we're going to make it pretty as a forest here, with flowers and shrubs all about," Feodor says. "Some foundry men make fun of the plan. What are we, they ask? Sissies? What do moulders want with pansies about? We answer, why not? We spend seven hours, a day here, don't we? Why shouldn't it be green and restful? Besides, can't let other factories get ahead of us. Take Moscow's Electrozavod. In some departments it's like a greenhouse. That's what it'll be here." Feodor goes over to examine a machine. Coming back, he continues. "This is how we are laying the technical basis for socialism. A lot of foreign capitalists are compelled to admit out workers' power can build as fine industrial giants as any. Now they claim, we haven't got the skill to run them. It's not true!" The molten steel of his eyes flashes, his grey hair bristles. "It's not true, we're proving it. Of course, it's no cinch training peasant lads, who don't know a lathe from a drop hammer, into skilled mechanics and masters of industry. But we're doing it. How? Come," he adds abruptly, "see for yourselves."
We enter the moulding department. On our right, a group of twenty youths, shirtless, their muscles rippling in quick, exact rhythm, as they swing levers, releasing sand into forms of shining copper, press moulds, placing them on the moving conveyor which runs to the casting room Here, no backbreaking, no wasted hand labour. Again they swing. Another set of farms placed on the conveyor, another--another. What fine team, work! What ease and skill to their labour.
"This is our Comsomol brigade," says Feodor.
To our left, just across the aisle, another set of moulders are at work. Slow, clumsy, these men, and not long from the village. Their output, in quality and amount, is obviously far below their companions'. Once a machine catches. The worker, snorting, fumbles with its levers. Darting across, a Comsomol adjusts the levers and returns to his own machine.
Suddenly the work halts. A five-minute rest period in every hour. Lighting cigarettes, the men take their morning papers, delivered to them each day in the factory, or sit about in small groups, talking.
Feodor calls over the Comsomol leader. "Tell us about your brigade."
The lads face lights up. "Simple enough," he answers. "We organized ourselves into a brigade to improve our production, and do our part in speeding socialism. We're aiming to apply all the new methods of work which Comrade Stalin summed up for us in his famous six points." He gestures toward the wall, where they shine forth in white letters on a red background. There are twenty-seven in the brigade, working in groups of three. Above each machine, three names are written, also the day's program. Each brigade knows that it is personally responsible for its machine. Nobody else can work on it. It's up to them to keep it in good condition. The brigadier says, "At the end of the day, we write in our output, and the percentage of damage, reported to us from the inspection department."
How does output now compare with formerly? In the old foundry, three men made 600 forms in a seven-hour day. Here, they make 1,150. Of course, a big part of the increase is due to the new equipment, as well as new methods of work. Also there ore less absences from illness. The whole foundry will double its former output, with an increase of only 400 men. The progressive piece-work system has been adopted. Each earns much more that way, and has extra incentives to do his best. They make an average of 160 rubles a month. The basic rate is 5.75 rubles a day, with 2.35 rubles extra for each 100 moulds that are without damage. Four per cent spoilage is allowed; if there is less, 15 kopecks is added for each 100 moulds turned out. "Our wages will go higher," he adds, "as we get more skill. All of us are studying in the technical school three hours a week."
At first the damage rate was terrific--even up to 44 per cent. That was before they caught on to the new machines. Now it runs around 2 to 3 per cent. No, they are not yet on a cost-accounting basis, but expect to be soon.
"What about those fellows across the aisle?" he repeats our question, shrugging. "Oh, they're greeny et. In a short time we're going to challenge them to form a brigade and compete with us. Then you'll see how they'll change, how the sand'll fly!"
The Podolsk machine factory has 836 such shock brigades, comprising 87 per cent of its 11,000 workers.
"This is only one of the socialist forms of labour we're developing," Feodor states. "Also, workers are forming their cost-accounting brigades." We talk with the girl leader of an accounting brigade in the repair department. She explains how their brigade drew up its collective contract with the management, and how they keep close check on every item in the cost of production. Their aim is to carry out the same program of work with less ore, to economize the precious machin oil, and so on. In the six months following June 1931, when the plant had only nine cost-accounting brigades, the number has grown to 588. "It is becoming as popular as our shock-brigade work," she says. (These brigades are the best means of lowering costs which are still too high.) Through the work of the brigades, many valuable suggestions for improving methods of production came about. In 1930, the plant's workers made 2,062 suggestions, of which 440 were applied during that year, giving an economy of 679,410 rubles, while another 483 were applied during the early part of 1931. In the first half of last year, 2,428 suggestions ware made, more than double that of the same period for the preceding year. Every worker, whose invention or question is found practical, receives a reward from the administration, in the farm of cash and a free trip to Leningrad, Dnieprostroy, or Magnitogorsk. Above all, he is rewarded by the social esteem of his fellows, and the knowledge that he has contributed to his factory's advancement.
In 1931 there were three really big inventions made. There is Grebov, a non-Party worker, production manager in department No. 31, where industrial sewing machines are made. He has worked out a type of machine which gives far more revolutions per minute than the older one. He received a first bonus of 2,000 rubles, and was freed from other work in order to perfect this machine. He is now carrying on his work in a Moscow laboratory, while the machine is being tested out in the Second Sewing Machine Factory there.
For training of its workers, Feodor explains, 36 technical and other study circles have been organized, attended by 2,569 persons. In the factory school and evening workers' university another 1,400 are studying. This makes a total of some 40 per cent of the entire working force taking courses.
Feodor sums up, "Are we Soviet workers mastering technique?" This old-time moulder grins broadly. "Are we? And how!"