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Rockets and People
All of this new equipment added so many failures that the airfield was covered
with dozens of aircraft that had not passed the acceptance process. I was promoted
to the position of radio engineer and was responsible for installing, tuning, and
releasing radio equipment.
in january and february of 1934, the Seventeenth Bolshevik Party Congress
took place. It was declared the “Congress of Victors.” According to all indicators,
the Second Five-Year Plan had been fulfilled ahead of schedule. Stalin’s policy for
converting the nation from a backward agrarian country into a mighty industrial
power received the Congress’ unanimous support. Mitkevich was a congressional
delegate from the Moscow municipal organization. She reported the results of the
Congress and her impressions at a Party meeting.
I was in disfavor and did not attend the Party meetings. But soon at the airfield,
while Mitkevich was making her routine rounds, having assembled the foremen
and team leaders, she reamed us out about the delays in releasing the airplanes.
Citing the congressional resolutions, she demanded the most heroic efforts from
all of us to clear the flight field.After Mitkevich’s general talk, she pulled me aside
and asked why I had not appealed the Party committee’s decision to reprimand
me. She explained, “The thing is that the purging commission will not take the
risk of removing such a recent and severe pronouncement.They would be more
likely to simply expel you from the Party.”
Now I had something new to worry about. Having studied the procedure for
appealing the decisions of a primary organization, I proceeded step by step. First
was the district troika for the review of personnel matters. 39 Its decision was
approved by the district committee office located in the famous building on
Zubovskiy Boulevard. This proved to be insufficient, and I appeared before the
greater Moscow troika on Old Square.To the three old Bolsheviks, I appeared to
be an inexperienced baby. Having moralized, they magnanimously replaced the
line “severe reprimand with a warning and notation . . .” with simply “severe reprimand.”
After familiarizing itself with all the protocols and hearing my confession
and the laudatory testimonials of the non-Party foremen, the purging commission
finally cleared me, rescinding the Party’s punishment.
Now, whenever I wasn’t working, I was busy with the problem of inventing a
simple and reliable electric bomb release. It is difficult to explain how the light
bulb comes on in an inventor’s head. First and foremost, he must desire at all costs
to think up something that does not yet exist or replace an existing thing with
something much better.The second condition is competence. He must have an
absolute understanding of the end product and knowledge of the subject of his
invention. I would call the third condition the erudition that saves the inventor
from inventing the “perpetual motion machine.”All the while, the inventor needs
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39. Here, troika denotes a committee of three.