Pasha Angelina — The Most Important Matter
> Plaskovya Nikishkina ("Pasha") Angreina (1912-1959), a typical Stakhanovite figure, also the founder of the first all-female (initially Greek ethnicity) tractor team, and one of the most famous and celebrated female labor heroes in Soviet history. She wrote several autobiographies describing her labor achievements and her life journey of striving upwards (she became a representative of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the late 1930s, later entered university to study, and ultimately graduated as an agronomist).
Recently, I received a letter from the United States. A teacher I know translated its contents for me. It told me that a publisher at 296 Broadway Street in New York is going to publish a “Complete Biographies of World Celebrities,” including biographies of renowned and outstanding figures from various countries.
The letter explained the concept of “outstanding figures.” First, they include leaders of the United Nations; second, the creators of the atomic bomb; and there are others, such as scientists, artists, writers, and industrialists. The letter paper shows a thick open book with a world map on it. The editor informed me that the name of the USSR Supreme Soviet representative Plaskovya Nikishkina Angreina has been selected for the “Complete Biographies of World Celebrities,” and invited me to fill out the attached questionnaire.
Besides general questions (surname, name, birthplace, date of birth, etc.), the questionnaire asks for all my careers, titles, and awards from the start of my professional life to now, as well as related family and work addresses, colleagues’ names, my parents and children, military distinctions, publications, and many more…
Here’s what I filled out:
"Plaskovya Nikishkina Angreina
Born: 1912
Birthplace (also my work and home address): Staro-Beshevo village, Stalin Province, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Father: Nikita Vasilyevich Angrin, member of a collective farm, former landworker.
Mother: Efimiya Fedorovna Angreina, member of a collective farm, former landworker.
“Start of career”: 1920, working with my parents for wealthy farmers
1921-22: Coal transport worker at Alexeyev-Rasnoyanskaya coal mine.
1923-27: Re-employed as a landworker.
1927-30: Horseman at an agricultural cooperative (later the precursor of Lenin collective farm).
1930-present (except for studying at Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in Moscow in 1939-40): Tractor driver.
Three children: Svitlana, Valery, and Stalina.
Joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1937, and remains a member to this day.
Member of the Rural Workers’ Union.
Publications: A small book titled “My Journey,” published in Kyiv in 1938; and some articles and lectures published in magazines and newspapers, where I discuss and analyze my work organizing tractor teams.
Regarding military honors, I hold the title of “Guard,” awarded by a frontline artillery brigade in recognition of my excellent work behind the lines during wartime hardships.
Highest Soviet representative from District 474.
Awards and honors: Hero of Socialist Labor, recipient of the Stalin Prize, Gold Medal at the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, two Lenin medals, one Red Banner of Labor medal, and other medals…"
This questionnaire is very detailed, even asking about my wedding date and my mother’s maiden name. However, it did not ask the most important question: how did I, a simple field worker, become an important state official and a representative of the Supreme Soviet?
This question was raised in another letter sent from the United States shortly before the questionnaire. The letter was written by a farmer named Benjamin Maten from Alabama.
As for himself, he only has two words to say: “Very bad.” I can understand without translation…
He doesn’t want to know my wedding date. What Maten wants to know is, how is it possible for someone like me—going from a field worker to a tractor driver and then to a politician—to achieve this in the USSR?
I subscribe to magazines “America” and “UK Allies.” In my opinion, they often distort reality to a large extent and frequently make claims inconsistent with what Maten complains about, but I do not agree with them…
In these foreign magazines, one often sees descriptions of “dazzling experts” and “outstanding” biographies. For example, I remember an article enthusiastically describing the life of an important figure, saying he “came from the people.” He was once a simple newsboy but later made a lot of money, became the owner of many newspapers, and received a lordly title.
So I tell myself: suppose they print our biography, mine and the lord’s, in their biography full book: mine under “A,” his under “B” (referring to Lord Beebrook). His biography would be like this: surname, name, date of birth, marriage date, poor parents, from newsboy to lord. And mine: surname, name, date of birth, marriage date, poor parents, from a field worker to a representative of the Supreme Soviet.
“What’s the difference?” my American friend Benjamin Maten and thousands of others would ask him just like that.
In fact, if you don’t ask “how,” it’s impossible to understand and appreciate the life story of a Soviet person, and thus impossible to understand and appreciate my own life story. The important thing is not my special case but that my rise is not an exception. Because if that gentleman, as correctly described by this magazine, “rose from the people,” I rose with the people, I became a hero with the people. This is very important.
Therefore, I will allow myself to go beyond the content of the “Complete Biographies of World Celebrities” questionnaire, and rather than talking to the numerous editorial board members, I want to talk to thousands of American farmers about this important issue. Meanwhile, I want to answer a question that I am always asked in the thousands of letters sent by comrades across our vast Union: “How did you achieve your current success?”
Today, thirty years after the revolution, looking back on the path we have traveled, recording our country with inspiring biographies, and documenting every citizen of our country—this is very appropriate. Our lives are intricately linked with the life of our country and the Party. When we talk about our personal labor and achievements, sadness or happiness, we have to talk about things a hundred times larger than our biographies.
No matter what virtues we have, what knowledge, wealth, strength, and happiness we possess, all of this is the result of a great event: the victory of the Soviet regime.
I have been working on a tractor for many years. For me, this is not just a “job”—it is the source of my happiness, success, and reputation, as I strive for the Five-Year Plan and the victory on the battlefield of the Homeland War.
I will never forget, thirteen years ago, during a reception by the Education Committee, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya took us, simple rural girls, on a tour of the Lenin Mausoleum.
We held our breath as we passed Lenin’s coffin… When we returned to Red Square, Nadezhda Konstantinovna calmly said: “He dreams of making 100,000 tractors for Russia…”
It was spring 1930, when I first sat on a tractor. I didn’t understand Lenin’s ideals then, nor did I know that thousands of other tractors were already there. In 1930, among 60,000 tractor drivers, I was the only woman. I was unaware of this too.
I understand Stalin and his party’s great work in the countryside with my heart, not my mind.
That was 1930, the year when the collectivization struggle achieved victory, the year of great changes in rural life.
New construction sites sprouted like mushrooms across the vast Union, and young people poured their sweat onto the front lines of national construction.
Every evening, we, young people from Staro-Beshevo, gathered in our club, around a map of the Five-Year Plan, discussing the future of our country and ourselves. They were bright and limitless, inseparable.
No one would wait with folded arms for such a future. Our Komsomol members were active members, playing a crucial role in the chaotic life of our village.
However, in my opinion, the most important and hardest battle was outside the city of Staro-Beshevo. I decided to go to a construction site, not just any site, but one of the most shocking places in the Five-Year Plan. That year, I eagerly read newspaper ads every day: “Hiring workers.”
One day, I decided to cross half the world to Siberia, to build the future garden city of Kuznetsk; the next day, I was preparing to work at the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station. Maybe I didn’t need to cross half the world at all: our village is right in the center of Donbas, so no matter which road you take, you’ll arrive at an outstanding construction site: Gorlovka or Kramatorsk Heavy Machinery Plant, the famous Ruchikov Mine, Azov Steel Plant…
My brother Ivan has always tried to make me believe that our Staro-Beshevo is also planning a Five-Year Plan. I disagreed and insisted on going elsewhere.
Suddenly, Ivan—our region’s first tractor driver and Party branch secretary—was sent for further training. So I decided to replace him.
At first, people just laughed at me, but since the district government didn’t send anyone to replace him, and the tractor was idle, I was allowed to try. My brother taught me some knowledge about tractor engines, and after some extra preparation, I passed the test.
“Well,” they told me, “keep working. But be careful!”
Early the next morning, I drove to that field for the first time. The air was so fresh that my cheeks burned. My tractor was clattering. I kept looking back and saw the black marks left by my first furrow. Thin steam rose from above… I wanted to sing, to shout loudly.
I decided to become a tractor driver. That’s what I did. Now, saying “decided and became” is easy, but in the spring of 1930, it was very difficult. It consumed too much of my heart and tears!
But I am not afraid of hardship; I have enough strength. I am only eighteen, but I am already a “veteran” of the Komsomol. We Komsomol members are used to hardship: many behind us, and many ahead.
By 1930, the same things happening in many other villages across the country also happened in Staro-Beshevo. Wealthy farmers (called “kulaks” in Ukraine) were beaten and expelled. Our Lenin collective farm was established. Tractors were plowing the land.
All these achievements came at a considerable cost and were still fragile, not fully built.
I remember my father jokingly calling himself “the chairman of the family gathering.” He and my brothers Vasily, Nikolai, and Ivan were communists, and my brothers Koshka, Leya, and I joined the Komsomol. Together with the Party and Komsomol, our family was at the forefront of building the collective farm, de-kulakization, and propaganda work. It was wonderful to have such a family!
In 1927, we established a farmers’ cooperative in the village. The wealthy farmers were still powerful, and we were just learning how to self-manage. The cooperative was forced to use equipment and livestock belonging to the wealthy farmers. Moreover, the harvested grain was distributed not only based on work volume but also according to individual shares of livestock and equipment.
So our main enemy, Niam Nikolayevich Saven, a wealthy farmer, who almost never paid us wages but still lived better than us, was a big problem. He didn’t work himself; he only lent his horses, cattle, and harvesters to the cooperative, and he reaped several times more grain than seven Green families, who worked hard all summer.
We are not the only ones dreaming of a different, more just order. All farmers hope for a new way for laborers, rather than bloodsucking parasites, to reap the harvest. That’s why the Party looks to the future and moves rural areas toward collective farms. This is exactly what we have been waiting for.
I will never forget the village meeting held in front of the church square. My father, a stern and silent man, gave his first-ever speech. I remember every word:
“Look at this pile of stones. It’s a big pile, but you don’t even need to use your hands to level it.” To prove his words, my father kicked a large stone on top of the heap, and the entire pile collapsed with a loud crash. “Look, these are not smooth, polished stones. But what if we build a wall with these stones? If we classify them by size and shape and then tightly fit them together one by one? With these silent stones, we can build a sturdy wall that five men cannot break through. This is what we farmers should do: not sit like a pile of stones, but unite in the collective farm, like a wall of stones. That will be an impregnable fortress!”
After speaking, my father descended from the church steps. He received only dead silence. Farmers’ meetings are often noisy—even when they donate a penny to build a fence, it triggers a long and loud discussion—but now, when they discussed their entire future life, when they were illuminated, they fell silent.
Why did the farmers of Staro-Beshevo fall silent?
At that time, our village was in a very difficult situation (obviously, many other villages were too). Middle peasants hesitated, dragged their feet, waiting to see what would happen, hoping not to lose. Wealthy farmers—those Levtjerov, Saven, Antonov, and Paniozov—had all the agricultural equipment and power. Therefore, most villagers, although perhaps not respecting the wealthy farmers, at least feared them.
However, we were not afraid. Our goal was the “kulaks,” who were strong and ruthless, hating all new things.
Vasily Angrin, chairman of the Peasant Committee, often received such notes: “Chairman, before we cut you into pieces, get out of this village.”
The Communist Vasily did not “leave”—he continued his work, even though these were not hollow threats: the wealthy farmers already knew they could kill active members of the village.
In the summer of 1929, when my brother Kostiya, sister Leya, and I went to nearby Novy-Beshevo to attend the Komsomol meeting, someone shot at us with a shotgun with a shortened barrel (we were still very young: Leya was 14, I was 17). I will never forget running barefoot across the thorny grass, our hearts pounding with fear. Even so, once we passed the dangerous place, catching our breath, we didn’t go home but headed straight to Novy-Beshevo for the Komsomol meeting…
My elderly mother Efimiya Fedorovna was beaten almost to death by wealthy farmers just because she was our mother, a mother of a communist. Our family, and many families like ours, had worked for the wealthy farmers for generations. We realized that we could not live on the same Earth as those bloodsuckers. The wealthy farmers stood between us and a good life, no matter how much persuasion, restraint, or extra taxes we used to drive them away.
The Party understood our needs again and showed us a solution. The Party, through Comrade Stalin, told us: “From restricting the wealthy farmers to eliminating the wealthy farmer class…”
This was what my brother Vasily—head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the district Party Committee—repeated late at night when he went to see my brother Ivan Angrin. Ivan brought bad news about the collective farm issue from the village committee.
At the meeting, wealthy farmer Paniozov followed my father and said that the Angrins wanted to interfere with others’ property, wanting to be like wealthy families even if they had nothing. During voting, only seven poor farmers raised their hands in favor of the collective farm, while twelve wealthy farmers voted against. The vast majority of villagers (middle peasants and some poor peasants) abstained. “Let’s wait and see,” their attitude was, “no need to rush.”
Under pressure from the wealthy farmers, the meeting decided to expel the Angrin family and five other families from the cooperative and let them form a collective farm according to their needs.
We were very poor; among the seven families, we only had five cows and two goats—yet, when asked what Ivan should do next, Vasily, in the name of the Party, said: “De-kulakization. Take their land and simple equipment. Use these to start a collective farm. Even if you only have seven people, run a collective farm!”
This is how we started: with seven people—seven families.
I also participated in the de-kulakization movement. Those were difficult days, full of tension and fierce class struggle. Only after defeating the wealthy farmers and driving them out of the land did we, the poor, truly feel that we had taken control of everything.
Starting a collective farm was not easy. We worked day and night, always feeling the villagers’ eyes on us. We knew that the decisions of the broad masses, those middle peasants and some poor peasants who abstained at the meeting, would ultimately depend on whether our efforts succeeded.
At that time, the Party and the state began to assist the first batch of collective farms. Our new agronomist, Nikolai Angrin (known as the “Red Agronomist,” to distinguish him from those old experts who aimed to sabotage), was asked by the district Party Committee to introduce new technologies. The collective farm received a loan from the regional executive committee, but more importantly, it obtained a tractor. This was the reason that convinced all skeptics (supporters and members of the collective farm) to support and join.
Farmers who did not belong to us would come here for a few hours, watching our first tractor driver Ivan Angrin plow the land. At the same time, at every collective farm meeting, more and more members’ applications to join had to be reviewed.
It seems to be the case everywhere else too.
We named the collective farm after Lenin. Oh, those were the first collective farms! Their names expressed so much faith and hope: “Towards Communism,” “Ilyich’s Will,” “Fight for Culture,” “Happy Life.”
In those days, our lives were not yet happy. We, ordinary people, had not yet realized that our government, through its collectivization and industrialization, would bring us to the heights of wealth and joy. But both the Party and Stalin could see beyond the mountains blocking our path to progress.
We trusted the Party and the Soviet government. We all followed Stalin.
In the early 1930s, the country was on an upward path—and upward movement is always more difficult…
Like all neighboring collective farms, like the entire collectivization movement, our Lenin collective farm endured early difficulties and grew stronger. In the spring of 1930, when I first sat behind the wheel of a tractor, our collective farm members might not have seen the fruits of the new life, but they believed firmly and irreversibly.
My first tractor was a Fordson. It was a machine with flywheels, belts, and other complex and clumsy parts. The Americans must have given these things for free because they probably didn’t want this junk themselves. Even then, these machines were considered outdated. If a tiny hair stuck on the flywheel or if a spark plug was slightly damp, the entire machine would break down within twenty-four hours.
It usually took five people to start the engine, and even then, it was not enough. Moreover, these machines were incredible oil guzzlers: each hectare of deep plowing required 60 kilograms of fuel—nowadays, only 20 or 25 kilograms.
Two years later, when we received some brand-new “Kharkov” Type 5 tractors—the first fruits of industrialization—we all fell in love with them: not only because they were made in the USSR but also because they were more reliable, simpler, and more economical than Fordson. Later, I met many different brands of tractors, and the more I worked, the more I realized that I started working with the most difficult and hardest-to-master tractors.
But in 1930, I fell in love with my clumsy and complex machine, and I was very worried that I might not be able to operate it, that I might—hopefully not—destroy it.
In short, I loved my Fordson like a baby. I worked day and night, but despite all my efforts, I was not truly trusted, not even by my friends. As for my enemies, some kept spreading vicious rumors about me, and those so-called “God-fearing” old women, incited by priests, would spit whenever they saw that “shameless Pasha” sitting behind the steering wheel of the tractor in work clothes.
Once, on a Sunday, I was loading grain when suddenly a thunderstorm broke out. I was struck by lightning and fell off the tractor. (Fortunately, some friends nearby covered me with earth. I woke up.) But according to village rumors, “This is God’s punishment for Pasha.”
Even other drivers at the tractor station often mocked me. When they saw me wiping my tractor with a small rag, they would say, “What can you expect from a woman?”
Nevertheless, I continued to maintain my machine meticulously, checking every detail to make the tractor more reliable. Finally, I succeeded. My Foderson (Foderson) was no longer so bad, and my productivity exceeded that of some of my comrades. I received my first assault team certificate, a badge recognizing outstanding work, and… a promotion to the warehouse. I was told this was a “promotion.” “Do I even need to say how sad I am?”
Initially, I planned to gather all my Young Pioneers friends to protest to the authorities, but later I decided to take another approach. “I’ve been a tractor driver for a year now,” I told myself. I even became an assault team member, but I could never overcome the villagers’ distrust of me. Even my friends said, “Pasha might perform well because she’s brave, but normally, a woman shouldn’t drive a tractor.” This meant my role model was not enough. I needed to form a tractor team composed entirely of women. We would all become assault team members, and then see if they dared say women are not suitable to drive tractors.
I knew that in any righteous cause, I could count on the support of the Party, so I directly handed the idea of forming an all-female tractor team to Ivan Mikhailovich Kurov, head of the Mechanical Tractor Station’s Political Department.
I will always be grateful to this kind, intelligent, sensitive Bolshevik. Before being sent to lead politics in the countryside, Ivan Mikhailovich worked as a worker in Petrograd and was a political commissar of a Red Army regiment in Turkestan.
Kurov was very excited about my new project. He saw even more in it than I imagined: it was an opportunity to turn peasant women into more actively involved builders of the new life.
I can’t say I was just “luckily in the right place at the right time” to find the right person. Kurov was indeed very understanding, but first of all, he was a Bolshevik. By supporting my idea of an all-female tractor team, he was actively implementing the Party’s policies. After all, in February 1933, Comrade Stalin said at a collective farmers’ meeting in the Kremlin that women in collective farms are a powerful force and need to be motivated.
Ivan Mikhailovich Kurov, assistant responsible for Komsomol affairs, and I spent several nights in a room plastered with posters in the political department, trying to figure out which girls to invite, what machinery to buy, and how to organize technical guidance.
When the director of the machine tractor station saw the list of future drivers, he outright refused to let them use the machinery. Of course, he was right: besides me, no girl had ever held a steering wheel or had the chance to learn anything about tractors. He was right— but Kurov said, “Let them take the tractors away. I am willing to take responsibility…”
In January 1933, we started a crash course for female tractor drivers, with me as the instructor.
Finally, in that spring, our all-female team—the first in the Soviet Union—left the land of the Mechanical Tractor Station.
On the way to the Red Farmers’ Collective Farm, our spirits were incredibly high, the girls hummed Ukrainian tunes, and they laughed loudly whenever they had the chance.
Of course, we didn’t think everything would go smoothly right away—we just didn’t want to think about anything bad at this wonderful moment. We spent a lot of time preparing for the first trip: cleaning our machines, checking every detail.
Suddenly, a terrible thing happened. At the village entrance, we encountered a group of excited women. They stood in the middle of the road, shouting together: “Get out! We won’t let women’s machines appear in our fields! You will ruin our crops!”
We Young Pioneers were used to facing hatred and resistance from wealthy farmers, but these people were our own women, our collective farmers! Of course, later we became friends, but the first encounter was truly frightening.
You can imagine how we felt at that moment: we were expecting a triumphant entry, and now… my girls were almost crying, and even I, usually very lively, didn’t know what to do. The women formed a circle around us, shouting: “Drive one inch further, and we will tear your braids out and chase you out!”
We knew they were serious. If we moved again, a fight would break out. In the end, I had to leave the girls by their machines and run several kilometers through the mud to Staroye Beshovo. I trudged through puddles in heavy military boots, feeling hurt and betrayed: we were trying to help them, and they wanted to beat us!
Fortunately, Kurov was at his desk in the political department. When he heard what I said, he became serious… We got into his jeep and sped towards the Red Farmers’ Collective Farm.
The crowd almost turned into a melee. Some men also joined in, shouting and cursing at the girls. When they saw Kurov, they quieted down, but the crowd did not disperse.
“Go to work, Comrade Captain,” Ivan Mikhailovich ordered…
We went to start our Foderson, but those people refused to let us start the machines (as I said, they are terrible machines). People in the crowd started laughing: “Looks like the machine is riding on the girl, not the girl riding the machine!” Kurov bit his lip, his face pale. It took us about ten minutes to successfully start the engine…
Finally, we set off, with the crowd following behind us. Kurov also followed. When we reached the fields, we lined up and began working…
Of course, the festive atmosphere at the start was gone. The girls’ faces were covered with sweat and anger. We felt like we were on a battlefield: one mistake, and you could die.
We worked for one hour, two hours, three hours, and the crowd still did not disperse. Finally, the women whispered to each other and then left. Ivan Mikhailovich came up to me, shook my hand, and said, “Victory without a fight, Pasha!” This was true. But our difficulties did not end there. The same thing happened at the next collective farm: we nearly got beaten by local women, and two of my girls were locked in a cellar.
But the main difficulty was that my girls still almost couldn’t drive, and they knew nothing about engines. I myself was not very sure about many technical issues. However, no matter what, the most important thing was that we all knew how to work hard.
We spent several hours tinkering with our machines, painstakingly repairing them, and trying to understand the cause of each failure. We spent long nights with the mechanicians of the Komsomol, studying the tractor manuals.
But new professional knowledge was hard to come by. When things went well, the girls were in good shape, but once the engine broke down, for example, they would run back to me: “Pasha, come see what’s wrong!”
So I had to stop my tractor and walk to the other end of the field to fix the problem. Honestly, because of “other people’s problems,” I ended up losing a large part of my wages. In my first year as a team leader, I worked much less than I did as a regular driver before.
But, did I or any other Young Pioneer fighting for the first Five-Year Plan consider my personal interests? Our generation was always taught not to pursue personal gains and to seek the simplest solutions…
Finally, all the members of our team became excellent tractor drivers! By spring, the Takhtamishiev team—the best tractor team in the region—refused to compete with us, saying: “We don’t fight women.” In the same autumn, we won first place and took the champion’s red banner from them.
Although we did not think much about personal interests, we began to be rewarded for honest labor—according to the fair collective farm laws—by receiving large amounts of bread. From that moment, our families had enough food every day, and we started to look at the shelves in the village stores: “What can we buy with the money we earned?”
When we claimed our right to become tractor drivers, we never thought we would become famous one day. But, according to the fair Soviet tradition, our hard work and enthusiasm were not ignored. We indeed became famous. We do not seek fame—fame came to us…
When I was young, we often debated the meaning of fame (young people today might do the same). Therefore, please allow me to say a few words about my view on this issue.
Sometimes I hear the words “famous” and “well-known” after my name. Indeed, the government has awarded me highly prestigious awards and titles. There is even a Pasha Angelina Street in Stalin City, and a Pasha Angelina ship on the Moscow Canal. I cherish and am grateful for all this. Being famous in our country means your work has received the highest recognition from the people. This fame brought great joy and uplifted my soul!
However, I want to emphasize the following points: no matter what people say about me, it is primarily praise for our country. A Young Pioneer from Voroshilovgrad Province wrote in a letter to me:
“Comrade Angelina, for seventeen years you have excellently operated the tractor. I wonder why you haven’t been promoted to a higher position?”
What a funny question! What does it have to do with a position?
I have held important administrative positions more than once (including head of a mechanical tractor station and chairman of a regional executive committee). Even now, I think (especially since I am studying at the academy) I could do a decent job. In fact, many of our generation are engaged in administrative work. Ten years ago, my colleague Petr Krivonos was a train engineer, and now he is responsible for a large railway district. For example, miner Sasha Stepanenko is now the secretary of a city party committee in Kuzbass. My brother Vasily started as a private and is now a colonel. But I am still a tractor driver, and I am proud to be one because in our country, as long as you work diligently, every position is a high position.
In Stalin’s “Brief Course on the History of the CPSU,” my name is mentioned among the leaders of the Stakhanovites in industry and agriculture and among the strike workers.
How do ordinary people—workers and collective farmers—enter the history of the Bolshevik Party? How did we start a nationwide movement?
Spring 1933, when my friends and I went to the desolate fields of the Red Farmers’ Collective Farm, we did not realize that we were initiating a huge movement involving hundreds of thousands of Soviet women. Most of the Stakhanovites in industry, transport, and collective farms did not realize where their personal success would lead them, but signs of new life were erupting throughout society.
Here, I want to say a few words to a person who nurtured our generation, whose name is connected with all the beauty in our lives and all our hopes for the future—he is Stalin.
I was fortunate to meet Comrade Stalin and talk with him. Every such encounter invigorated and inspired me, and I can even say, made me radiant.
I remember the grand hall of the Kremlin in March 1935. It was the second All-Union Assault Team and Collective Farmers’ Congress. Comrade Stalin participated in the work of the congress…
Suddenly, the chairman announced: “The next speaker is the captain of the first all-female tractor team, Pasha Angelina.”
I went to the podium, feeling completely numb. My throat was choked, and I couldn’t speak. I just stood there quietly, looking at Stalin.
He understood my nervousness and gently said, so only I could hear his words:
“Be brave, Pasha, be brave…”
This phrase became a guiding light in my life. Whenever things became difficult, or I had to start a new adventure, I would remember Stalin’s words—“Be brave, Pasha, be brave!”
After a pause, I began to speak. On the high platform of the Kremlin, I talked about some of the simplest things: our team, proper work culture (I didn’t even know the correct terminology, I could only express myself with confusing, perhaps inappropriate grammar and vocabulary), and even the little poems we sang…
The congress elected me as a member of the committee responsible for drafting the “Model Charter of the Agricultural Cooperative.” The committee was to be chaired by Joseph Vissarionovich, that is, Comrade Stalin.
This was the first time in my life I saw how state affairs are handled—how the fate of our people is decided.
In the small conference hall, there were politicians, scientists, party officials, and ordinary collective farmers like me. I was still very young, and I was sure I could not contribute anything to that high-level meeting.
So I sat in a corner, eager to listen to what they were saying.
Leaders and ordinary people from all over the country jointly decided the future of collectivized agriculture. I could see how happy Comrade Stalin was whenever a wise suggestion was made by a collective farmer, and how seriously he listened to their advice.
Suddenly, someone asked my opinion on the size of household vegetable gardens. I thought about my village and my people’s needs, and then I said what I thought was the most appropriate size. One scientist opposed, in a condescending, confident, and lofty manner, as if saying, “Comrade Angelina, you are overeating.” I just sat there, afraid to look up. “Why should I express an opinion on state affairs?” I thought.
At that moment, Comrade Stalin stood up and recommended the size I mentioned. The leader’s support meant a lot to me and the other collective farmers in the committee. This was our first lesson in learning the demeanor of a politician.
During the break, I met Comrade Stalin in the hall. He asked me about our future plans and our team’s work. I was so nervous I couldn’t speak, but finally, I gathered courage and said:
“Comrade Stalin, I assure you, we will reach the goal of 1,200 hectares per tractor!”
On the way home, I remembered my promise and suddenly felt scared: Was I overdoing it? After all, there is an official standard (confirmed by the Ministry of Agriculture): 300 hectares. And 1,200 hectares—unheard of…
But, as they say, “Every second counts!” “If necessary, I am willing to work 20 hours a day, but I will keep my promise,” I made up my mind.
However, in the end, everything depended on my friends—eight happy girls, who wore the same green berets as I did because their work clothes were thick, so they were called “coat sisters” (bruins). Would they support me? What if the “brothers” say I am bluffing?
My friends already knew from newspapers about my promise to Comrade Stalin. They were excited and didn’t even want to hear about the committee’s regulations. Meanwhile, everyone realized that our “heroic determination”: working 20 hours a day, was impossible. Courage and enthusiasm alone were not enough to go beyond the norm. We needed to find new solutions.
We started looking for new solutions and succeeded. We thoroughly reorganized our work: introduced preventive inspections (which saved us a lot of maintenance time); canceled “smoking breaks” (girls who don’t smoke called it “chatting breaks”); our trailer operators also strengthened their procedures, and our fuel supply was successfully simplified. In short, we took better care of our rear…
As for sleepless nights—well, in this season, insomnia is at its peak—and it is also part of the work time.
The whole village followed us. The new district secretary Ivan Mikhailovich Kurov asked us every day: “How are you doing, Angelina? Do you need help?” Collective farmers stopped us, asking the same question: “How is it going?”
Knowing that people need your work and hope you are well is a wonderful feeling! This was very different from how we started in 1933. People had changed. They found confidence in the future and gave firm support to such a future.
But we still have enemies—the remnants of rich farmers, or as they are called in the village, “leftovers.” They have been fighting fiercely against anything new, trying to slow down the progress of our collective farms. In the end, their hatred caught up with me…
Once, I was riding my bicycle towards the fields. Suddenly, I heard the clatter of a cart behind me. I left the main road—the cart also left; I turned right, and the cart turned with me. I was chased. The next moment, I was knocked down by several large horses and then run over by a heavy cart…
I lay in the broken furrow, blood flowing for hours. When I was found and taken to the hospital, I had lost consciousness.
The person who hit me was caught. During the trial, it was revealed that they were children of wealthy farmers and had been tracking me for some time. I think I really blocked the enemy’s way…
I lay in the hospital, in extreme pain and unable to move, but I was more concerned about the fate of my team. The harvest was about to begin: could they manage without me? That night, the doctor handed me a note, sent by a few very stubborn young women. They even tried to break into my ward despite his stern objections.
This was a striking note, directly addressing my greatest concern: “In response to the despicable acts committed by class enemies,” my friends wrote, “the all-female tractor team fulfilled the promise, working 1,230 hectares per tractor, thus exceeding the previous goal.” All eight signed.
I worried in bed whether they could cope without me, but at the same time, these girls decided to further increase the indicators based on the original promise! Dear, dear friends! That autumn, the weather was particularly bad. It rained day and night. I was worried and kept looking out the hospital window. Finally, I could no longer bear it. As soon as I could walk again, I lied to the doctor and set out on the road back to Staroye Beshovo.
I received an extremely friendly welcome—neighbors kept bringing all kinds of gifts to visit me—and I couldn’t stay at home. Somehow, I hobbled to the collective farm office, demanding they take me to the fields (if possible, I would run all the way!).
When I arrived, all the girls rushed to me, started hugging and kissing me, and the accountant kept pointing at the ledger: “Look at this productivity!”
I immediately threw myself into work so much that I no longer remembered I was sick or that the doctor forbade me to move.
The last few days of this season were especially difficult. The first freezing weather occurred in early November, and we stayed awake all night, worried we wouldn’t meet the promised targets. Finally, one morning, the accountant came to me and said: “You did it—1,230 hectares!”
I rushed to the village store, bought some sausages, gingerbread, and red wine, and we celebrated our first victory in the fields.
In December, all eight of us went to Moscow to attend the All-Union Congress of the best agricultural workers.
I reported to Comrade Stalin about our fulfillment of the promise, and of course, I made a new one: to cultivate 1,600 hectares.
I was very nervous—when you speak in the Kremlin before Stalin, you are inevitably nervous—but I was more confident than before because I had kept my promise.
In my speech, I said that since we had already overturned the old standards, many other teams could also increase their productivity, and if they did, we would be very happy.
At that moment, Comrade Stalin interrupted: “Cadre, Pasha, cadre!”
This was a new major task for us, the next stage of our development. From then on, we not only needed to meet high standards ourselves but also to teach others how to do it.
On the way back to Donbas, we kept discussing this issue and finally decided to form ten all-female tractor teams in our region.
Of course, maintaining our old team would be easier to repeat last year’s success. We were used to each other, familiar with our machines, and well-trained. If we adopted this new approach, we would have to accept new girls unfamiliar with our work.
But of course, such considerations could not stop us. Comrade Stalin’s task must be completed at all costs…
The Party taught me, and now I am teaching the youth. My team will become a real school.
Like many other winners of socialist competitions, the Party increasingly demanded my participation in governing our country and deciding important national affairs. I was a delegate to the 8th Congress of Soviets, which approved the Stalin Constitution; I was nominated multiple times as a delegate to the Congress of the Komsomol and the Ukrainian Communist Party, and was repeatedly nominated as a member of the Communist Party’s Agricultural Committee.
In December 1937, my comrades elected me to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Before that, I was just an ordinary comrade, perhaps a famous and honored one, but still an ordinary comrade. Now, I was entrusted with the task of governing the country.
I drove my tractor well, and obviously, I was still a fairly successful team leader. But now, the responsibility of this work was much greater, and I was worried I could not meet the expectations of my comrades. “We elected you to the Supreme Soviet,” my voters wrote, “and hope you will continue to work in line with Stalin’s policies, for the benefit of the people and the Soviet government.” Then I listened to Stalin’s campaign speech, which was very good, and our representatives faced great responsibility… The first batch of mail I received. One voter needed my advice; another wanted his invention to be recognized; a third asked me to help secure a building for a country club; a fourth was complaining about an office in a certain district… As a delegate, I am responsible for the outcome of each request and complaint, but like my voters, I am a farmer of a collective farm.
Now, when I think about how confused I was during my first week as a delegate, I just smile. I even sat down and wrote a letter to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, asking for instructions or some kind of written manual.
However, the Party has been cultivating us, training us, involving us in decision-making, and this is not without purpose. In the end, like all other delegates, I overcame my timidity and began to work.
In newspapers, we often see excerpts from speeches by foreign politicians, in which they attack their so-called “Soviet ruling class.” Such expressions (which might sound pleasant to the West, like “Wall Street,” “the City,” and “two hundred households”) only anger Soviet citizens. Because our ruling class is not two hundred families, but two hundred million Soviet people, all of our people. This can be seen from the composition of the highest organs of Soviet power and countless other examples.
Take our family as an example, an ordinary rural family. Isn’t the poor peasant, Nikita Vasilievich Angrin’s child, a member of the Soviet ruling class?
My brother Vasily is a colonel who has been awarded medals by the government eight times. During the war, he served as the political director of the railway corps at the front. My other brother Konstantin is the chairman of a collective farm. My third brother Nikolai is a representative of the military supplies department and a recipient of the Victory Medal. My sister Nadezhda was a tractor driver, awarded the Lenin Medal, and is now in her final year at the district party school, preparing to become a Soviet official. My other sister Liliya is the secretary of the village party organization. My third sister Kharitina is an ordinary collective farmer. I am a delegate to the Supreme Soviet.
Our family—Colonel Vasily, veteran soldier Konstantin, party secretary Liliya, and independent collective farmer Kharitina—is a happy family. Indeed, all the Soviet people have become a happy big family, regardless of their nationality and citizenship, whether they live in the city or the countryside, whether they happen to be ordinary citizens or “high officials.” The important thing is that they are all the people of the Soviet Union.
In March 1939, the 18th Congress of our Party was held in Moscow. As a new Communist, I was sent as a delegate from the Moscow Party organization.
Comrade Stalin reported to the Congress. When talking about the state of our country, Osif Vissarionovich used the most appropriate word: prosperity.
When he talked about the prosperous and cultured life of the Soviet people, I thought of many recent events in our village that could prove his words. A collective farmer was building a brick house with a metal roof; another went to Stalinogorsk to buy a motorcycle; a third planned to vacation at a resort in Sochi; and a father was determined to send his daughter to a music school. Stars from the Moscow Art Theatre visited Staroye Beshovo, and our rural club was showing a new film. All this became so familiar… My five-year-old daughter, Stalinina, was playing beside me. She was born amid the bombings in Saratov (a city on the Volga River, where Angelina was evacuated during the terrible 1942).
My faith, and the faith of all our people, was not in vain. Stalin saved my little daughter and millions of other children of the Soviet Union. Believe me, not only in the Soviet Union but also in America.
Because Stalin is with us, we can look to the future with confidence. We will be able to build and, if necessary, defend our happy tomorrow. The biography of our country and the biography of two hundred million ordinary Soviet people, including my own, is the guarantee of this.
That is what I want to tell my friends in the Soviet Union and the people abroad. I think this is the most important thing in the life of every Soviet citizen, including myself.
If the editors of the “Encyclopedia of Biographies of Famous People of the World” are still interested in publishing my biography, this is what I have to say…
Written in Staroye Beshovo village, Stalin Province, 1947
