Nikolai Agnivtsev’s *Little Screw* (1925) — The Public Domain Review

Nikolai Agnivtsev’s 1925 agitprop children’s book Vintik-Shpintik seems to heed Kormchii’s call. It opens on a factory filled with anthropomorphic machines, happily buzzing along in industrious harmony. The dialogue rings with the repetitive clang, whoosh, and clank of lathes, gears, and flywheels: “Вот-вот! Вот-вот! Вот!”, “Ух-ух! Ух-ух! Ух!”, “Эх-эх! Эх-эх! Эх!” Our protagonist is a “little screw” (vintik-shpintik: diminutive forms of the words for screw and spindle/rabbet), who happily participates in production, carrying out his “modest duty” (cкромный долг). One day, however, the machines are forced to choose a “delegate” to represent them. And suddenly the socialist machines resort to a more primitive way of thinking: “Я-то! Я-то! Я-то!” (That’s me! Me! Me!). Except our little screw remains silent. He patiently waits his turn. And when asked to be given the floor to make a speech, the bigger machines laugh him into silence. He doesn’t get angry, curse, or a shake a fist, we are told, he simply walks out — a one-screw strike. “He is no longer just the ‘little man’ tearfully celebrated in nineteenth-century liberal Russian literature. He is the former naught who has now felt some call to be all”, writes Evgeny Steiner, alluding to lyrics from the Russian “Internationale”. When the factory starts up again, something is wrong, and the machinic bullies realize their mistake: “Well, you just can’t live without him!” (Ну, никак не проживешь!). Embarrassed and shamefaced, they wheel themselves to his home and apologize. The book ends smugly, with the screw readying himself to return to work: “He said to them, half-turned: Ha, there you go!” (Им сказал в пол-оборота: Hy, вот, то-то!)