Clean hands, hot heart... (6 November,1997)

Someone born at the beginning of the century has a lot to tell about, but being a journalist, I’ll be precise. For some people the Greate October Day is merely a date, for me it’s life. Moreover, I don’t see a more relevant event that took place place in the 20th century. Well, perhaps, I’m blind both in the figurative and direct sense of the word but anyone who is able to see will understand me. The only difference is that some say it frankly, others dissemble, and the rest make nasty remarks. Though, we all were brought up by the Soviet Power. The October and its great truth— I’ not talking of crookedness now. It occured, bitter, insulting... it,s also a truth, but not full...

I was born in Bryansk region. Today they say on the border of the three states - Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. It happenned  in the village of Novo-Novitskaya, where even the small river  was called Nemiga. My father being the youngest in the family was a " walk-away person ", that means he went away to earn for the family. He was a mine worker in Donbas, and was blocked up. He injured his spine. So he was simply fired. Perhaps, they recollected, that he participated in the revolution of 1905. He returned home without a piece of bread.

Even a slice of bread was a holiday. What could one have from the parcel of land? The Community him 10 pairs of bark sandals and sent to Siberia for making reaserch in oder to find out where we could move and where life would be better. He discovered that it was possible to move to Kazakhstan. We set off, we ran away from the terrible conditions of life. However, we became farm workers again. We lived in freedom. I can not even tell, how many kilometers I walked 
behind the plough furrow after furrow. I was lucky to read quickly already in the 2d form. And our local capitalist who was allowed to build a mill and a two-form school by the Community at his own expanse was an awfull exploiter.

So he had an old and weak-sighted Mother. And she loved books very much, and they had a lot of books. So she needed a boy to read to her all that novels. So, the teacher sent me to her. I also read... And that were the classics - William Shakespeare, Genric Senkevich... I got acquainted with them only due to the capitalists.

Nevertheless, the revolution was inevitable. There was no other way out for common people. They say, that the revolution took place almost without blood. So, what for were all the blood of the Civil War and the further struggle with the enemies of the Soviet power? I’d say that the Civil War was not imposed by bolshyviks. I won’t claim, that " the red terror " was a response to " the white terror ". All is bad, when a brother is against  a brother...

I’d like to tell about my father, who was a participant of 1905 revolution, a participant of the first imperialistic war, a participant of the Great October Socialist Revolution. When in 1923 the farm workers (well, in Kazakhstan the revolution took place with some delay) chose me to be a secretary of the Komsomol organization and I was given a revolver, my father told me:

- Son, I’ve also held a gun in my hands. But, believe me, I have not killed any one, neither a capitalist nor a «white soldier». My hands are clean! You have been entrusted a weapon, but do prove your rightuosness not by a bullet, but by a word.

So I’d never shot that revolver. I hope, a word still  remains in my journalistic cartrige.  

Mikhail Morozov.

Translated by Oksana Gorshkova
I'll be very gratefull if you could send your remarks on the quality of the translation to oksana_g@usa.net