A WELL KEPT SECRET
Boris Kolchak stood at the window of his office looking out at the flurries of April snow.
It was a dispiriting sight. More dispiriting was the content of the letter he held in his hand. It was from the Ministry of
Engineering in Moscow. It informed him that the annual inspection of cable factory No 48 would commence on the
8th of May next. Boris had been expecting the letter, but its actual arrival and the prospect of two weeks rigorous
investigation by a hard headed technical, financial and managerial team of bureaucrats from Moscow filled him with foreboding and terror, as indeed it was intended to do. The Soviet Union in 1972 had unsympathetic ways of dealing with inefficient factory managers.
Boris had
only been appointed to run this out of the way factory, which manufactured electrical and telecommunication cables, some six
month previously, following the sudden death of the previous manager. After many years as an Electrical and Production Engineer
in the new factories in Siberia, he had had the good fortune to return to the industrial Urals
where he had originated.
He
was at heart an easygoing family man, who looked forward to quiet weekends in the small dacha, which went with the job, beside
the lake. There he could relax with Valentina and the boys, spending the days fishing, hunting in the forest, and reading
his beloved novels in the evenings.
He
nevertheless was a good engineer and manager. He missed little and had gained a reputation for thoroughness and firm control.
He had been party member since University and this had stood him in good stead when promotion had come his way. He leaned
towards his large desk and pressed the intercom key for his secretary.
Olga, get
hold of Mochanov, Rechnoi, and Kozyrev. I want them here for a meeting at ten oclock. Oh, and lets have tea. Get the canteen to lay on something to eat, bread and sausage will do fine. Boris always
liked to have something to eat at informal meetings, and it would be four hours since he had swallowed a hasty cup of what
passed for coffee, since he had left his apartment in town.
The
three senior managers appeared promptly on time and were ushered into Boriss office. They were responsible for production,
finance and administration, and materials respectively.
Sit down, Boris commanded gruffly. I have received notification today that the annual inspection is to
take place on May the 8th. You know what that means.
The
three licked their lips, not only at the prospect of the mid morning snack that had just appeared. They had survived many
such inspections over the years, remembering those others who had not.
Well,
lets get to it. I want to go through the whole thing, start to finish. They set to, the reports from previous inspections
before them. It was about an hour later when the unpalatable truth had to be confronted. There was a gross surplus of raw
materials, mainly steel, copper and aluminium, in the form of bars; far more than had been needed for the past years production.
This was laying for all to see in the outside store yards.
The trouble was that the factory had to place
a bid for materials on the Ministry once a year and once a year only. They only had one shot at this. No supplementary bids
for materials were allowed, such was the bureaucracy at centre of the Soviet system.
The management was not certain at the time when this bid was made exactly how much cable
and what types of cable they would be required to manufacture during the following twelve months. Rather than underbid and
have insufficient materials for the years production ahead, they requested at least fifty per cent over. This was met without
question, the officials in Moscow not being cognisant with the intricacies and realities of
cable production.
If this unjustified surplus were to be discovered during the inspection there was no doubt
that there would be major trouble.
Does this problem occur here every year? asked Boris, looking from face to face. It does,
comrade director, replied Kozyrev, who was responsible for materials and transport. But, he continued, looking around at the
others who were preparing to nod in agreement, We have a method of dealing with it.
Indeed, and what is that? asked Boris leaning forward interestedly.
We bury it, blurted out Kozyrev, In a place in the forest, just up the road. It gets it
out of the way. And we can fix the books, after all, its all done on the computer now isnt it? he concluded, with the air
of a man revealing all in desperation. The computer in question was an ageing relic housed in Rechnois finance department.
Boris sat stunned. He flushed with indignation, then slowly realising the awful common
sense what was proposed. After, what seemed for the others, an agonising interval, he burst out laughing. Do you mean to say
that you cart hundreds of tons of steel and copper and put it in the ground, just like that?
Yes, comrade Director, we do. Everybody in the factory knows about this, but nobody lets
on to the inspection team. It would be more than their life would be worth. And if we are ever short next year, well, we go
out and dig it up. After all we have the machinery.
Except one year, broke in Mochannov, emboldened now the secret was out, When we forgot
where we had buried the aluminium, and spent three days with a metal detector before we found it! They laughed at the recollection. The three realised that it looked as though the Director was coming round
to the idea.
I dont believe that I have ever come across such a impossibly ridiculous idea before. It
is totally illegal and also criminal. But it does solve a difficult situation and might save all of our necks
Three heads nodded in agreement.
Well,
Boris summarised, Id like to think that we had put one over those cretins from the Ministry. Its risky, but well do it. And
if it goes wrong Ill see you go down with me, he added restoring the atmosphere to normality.
And so it was. During the next two weeks, a bulldozer digger carved out long trenches
in a suitable clearing in the pine and birch a couple of kilometres from the factory, and low loader lorries took the metal
bars to their resting place. They were covered over and leaves raked over the area.
In
due course the inspection team arrived, pale faced desk bound civil servants from the vast ministry a thousand mile away.
Qualified they might have been, but they had never dirtied their hands in a real factory. They poured over the books, the
print outs from the materials department, examined the noisy lines of cable making machines, the furnaces and of course thoroughly
checked all the stores and stock. duly producing a report, which though not without its criticisms, on the whole allowed the
current management another year in office, to the relief of all.
When
Boris opened the report, read it and had absorbed the contents, he called Olga on the intercom.
Get Mochanov,
Rechnoi and Kozyrev in here. And get the canteen to do some of that bread and sausage. And lets have three bottles of that
Stolzkaya vodka we keep for special occasions. They had got away with it. They
had fooled those cretins from Moscow.
He
clicked off the intercom, leaned back in his chair and looked out at the summer morning. He thought about the weekends fishing
at the dacha, rubbing his hands together. It was going to be a good day.
Max Frost 3 June 2000
