Production Inspector, Yakov (1)

"By decision of the Leningrad District Committee. Confirm it at once, Cadet Svanidze."

"…"

"Is this even legal?"

Gailis shoved forward, fury boiling off him.

"Yakov Svanidze is only an eighteen-year-old preparatory cadet! And this is a Political-Military Academy! How does a Party organization think it can just haul a cadet wherever it likes?"

"…Our student is correct. A cadet's disposition is the school's to decide. The Party committee has no business interfering."

Savelyev stepped in as well, putting himself between me and the order.

The rest of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the cohort was the same. Preparatory cadets stared the committee's man down, every face loaded with things left unsaid. The man did not so much as blink. He simply held the paper out toward me, expression flat as a wall.

"Cadet Yakov Svanidze. This is the last courtesy I will offer. Refuse again, and this will not end as a simple rejection of a deployment order."

"You—you son of a—!"

He ignored Gailis's swearing and gave the paper a little flick of the wrist.

"For the record, Instructor Savelyev: this did not come from the Party committee. It is an official directive issued directly by the Politoztel of the Red Army Political-Military Academy."

"Th-that—?!"

The single word Politoztel stopped Savelyev cold.

Under ordinary circumstances he would have been right. A political school belonged firmly under military jurisdiction; a Party committee had no standing to intervene. A Politoztel inside a Political-Military Academy was another matter entirely. The Politoztel was the political department within the army itself, and it answered to the military district—an institution that sat far above the school.

I took the directive at once.

The paper read as follows.

I read the order through a second time.

A request from the Rubber Trust. Field tempering for a preparatory cadet. And a direct order from the district commander himself…?

…They've stitched this up tight.

Impeccable bureaucratic harassment. The hand behind it was Zinoviev's—that much was certain.

Not a single hole left to slip through…

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

Had they come under the Party committee's name alone, Savelyev would have been right: the committee would have been trampling on military authority. Zinoviev had been cleverer. He had looped around, persuaded the district commander, and used the army's own hand to put the boot on me. The Rubber Trust "requested," the school answered as "curriculum," and a perfect order was born.

"As the directive states, Preparatory Cadet Svanidze will be detached to the 3rd Galosh Factory and will discharge his duties there as Production Inspector! Duration: half a year! Report within a fortnight. Complete the handover formalities by then."

The man produced another ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sheaf of papers.

"Lodging at the post will be arranged by the factory. This is a courtesy extended to the preparatory cadet by Chairman Zinoviev himself. Be grateful for it."

"Christ, this son of a—!"

Gailis's rage hit its peak.

"Suká blyat'!"

"Gili, calm down! Watch your mouth!"

Even as Gailis poured every curse he knew over the man, the messenger turned without a flicker of expression.

"…That is all. I have delivered what I was sent to deliver. Good day."

Business concluded, he left the school without a backward glance. Gailis kept swearing until the tramp of the man's boots had faded out of hearing.

"…Svanidze, don't worry. If I speak to my father properly…"

"No, Kuzmin. I'm fine."

"Fine? What the hell is fine about this?"

This was something even his father would not be able to touch.

"Don't worry. Half a year. It'll be over before you know it."

"That is not the problem! Svanidze, do you really not get it? Inspectors pulled out to factories like this are usually dropped into situations where they can't help but fail the productivity targets!"

I nodded, unhurried.

"I know."

And if I failed to hit the output the Party had ordered, it would be the Siberian gulag.

"If that happens, you're looking at a labor-correction camp nine times out of ten! How can you stand there like that, Yasha…!"

Gailis looked up at me with a face that was already half a sob. Someone else's disaster, and he still wore it like his own. The gratitude that hit me then was almost too sharp to hold. How many people in this age would burn this hot on my behalf?

"Gailis. I'm grateful you're worried. But from where I stand, those high-and-mighties in Leningrad already have me marked. This is only the start."

"Yasha…"

I gave his sagging shoulders a light double pat.

"But you don't need to lose sleep over it. Half a year, right? I hit the quota and walk back in one piece. End of story."

"Ha… That's exactly the sort of thing people say when it is not that easy!"

"And if I do it anyway?"

"…What?"

Gailis locked eyes with me.

"What if I take this chance, overfulfill the plan at that factory, and come back clean?"

I wondered what face Zinoviev would make then.

"Yasha. You aren't seriously thinking you can actually pull that off…?"

"…? Of course I am."

I shrugged.

"It'd be a waste to bury talent like mine just yet, wouldn't it?"

Gailis stared at me with his mouth half open—shock and admiration tangled on the same face.

"…Ha. Yasha, you really are…!"

He tried to finish the thought, then only shook his head hard. Exasperated, and somewhere under it, relieved. The other cadets wore the same look: That's Yasha for you. Kuzmin hooked a corner of his mouth up and shot me a thumbs-up.

I left them behind and walked on. Crossing the drill ground, I could feel Instructor Savelyev's gaze riding my back for a long time. He looked as if he wanted to say something as well. In the end he never opened his mouth.

In front of the cadets I had spoken with a level voice. Inside, I was nowhere near that whole.

So this was how they meant to shove it to me.

Zinoviev. Is this payback for what Brusilov did to you at the ball…?

Until now I had still carried a scrap of pity for the men Stalin would later purge. Some of them had been genuine villains, no doubt—but most had been nothing more than the sacrificial meat of power, dead for no clean reason. In that sense I had kept a thin edge of sympathy even for Zinoviev, who would one day fall under Stalin's knife. This settled it.

Zinoviev was a man who did not deserve pity.

…Fine.

Whatever end he met later, I doubted a single corner of my heart would flinch over it again. If anything—I almost wanted to hurry that end along.

"We've arrived, Yasha."

Katerina's voice pulled me out of the spiral.

The factory district rose ahead of us.

Krasny Treugolnik—the Red Triangle.

It was a vast industrial complex on the Obvodny Canal, the longest canal in Leningrad, home to the oldest and largest rubber works in Russia. Its roots went back to 1860, when a merchant from the Kingdom of Saxony, Ferdinand Krauskopf (1819–1875), learned Charles Goodyear's vulcanization process and, with partners, founded a consortium here in what was now Leningrad. From 1908 it had been known as Treugolnik—the Triangle.

Its flagship product was the galosh, the rubber overshoe. Through the late nineteenth century it had been a domestic monopoly in galosh production; by the twentieth it was the largest rubber-goods manufacturer in Russia and all of Europe.

After nationalization in the wake of the October Revolution of 1918, it was counted among Leningrad's most critical strategic assets, and the works took the name Krasny Treugolnik—the Red Triangle factory district.

"As far as I knew, this place was booming under the NEP—demand outrunning supply…"

Zinoviev would have had no idea, but my graduate specialization had been the economic sector of the NEP years. The economy of this period lived in my head entire. The scale of the Red Triangle spreading before me outstripped even what the papers had described.

Red-brick buildings marched without end along the canal. Black smoke punched hard from every stack. Carts loaded with raw material came and went without pause from factory after factory. It was not the landscape of a dying plant. If anything, the reverse.

…Odd.

I had been certain Zinoviev had engineered this to ship me to a Siberian gulag—either by burying me somewhere no one could possibly deliver results, or by ordering me to resurrect a factory already half in ruins. But the Red Triangle in front of me showed none of that. Prime ground. Breathe here and the numbers would climb on their own. And he had sent me here?

No ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠matter how I turned it, I could not make sense of it. I tipped my head.

What if Brusilov, or Kuzmin's father Pavel, put a hand on the scales? Mikoyan, maybe.

That was plausible enough. Even Zinoviev could not do much if a middle manager quietly intervened.

Then this is free money, isn't it?

If the plant was thriving, filling the quota would not be hard. Ride a line that was already running, keep quiet for half a year, and walk back into the academy with a clean face.

I followed Katerina with that optimism still warm in my chest.

And it did not take long to learn how arrogant that optimism had been.