Chapter 1
Machine Tools
The trust’s General Management had a commercial director who had double jobs as he was the technical director as well. Actually he has been a good engineer, and the commercial job of his has been created not long before. He was a wise and clever man.
For domestic sales of our products there was a sales department under him, and for the export and cooperation business an export department. I became an executive there. Our department head was dr. K., a lawyer and formerly head for the legal department. His wisdom in solving all problems with an empathy unseen elsewhere earned him my respect. I think he also appreciated me and until his retirement he would back me when needed.
The department was small, beside me two executives, both male, a girl of my age for protocol duties and a secretary. There was a familiar air at that place, I liked it from the beginning.
First I was given English-language tasks, only one was involving Russian. In some months that one would take me in the S.U. again. The activities involved correspondence in foreign languages, as well as in our native one, writing draft-agreements and taking part in talks with foreign partners. Our trust has not been authorized for foreign trade, we exported our machine tools through a foreign trade company. But vital information was with us, and without our initials they would not sign any delivery contract.
The most important part of our work has been the maintenance of cooperation agreements with Western-European partners. These agreements generally had sub-agreements for the export of machine tools manufactured by us within the agreements.
There was one licence agreement in my job signed by The International Meehanite Metal Company Ltd, an English company being been the British branch of an American firm. It was about know-how of quality cast iron and constant supervision of manufacturing conditions, as well as about royalty fees. The service engineers came four times a year to the foundry and there they surveyed the work. Every time it was needed to go to the country town of Esztergom, where the foundry was situated, and to sign a minutes of the talks. It went on well, as the foundry manager was an able foundry man.
By autumn I assessed all knowledge needed to do my job fine. Simultaneously I enlisted for a high-degree examination in Russian and tried to keep my knowledge fresh. I bought books in the bookstore of the Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Society and read them. It was then, that my luck took me to the shelf, where the "Dersu Uzala” was stored. I also bought a Russian edition road map of Ethiopia in case I would go there.
The exam was successful and so, I had my second high-degree certificate. It was not unimportant, as I got a percentage of my salary as supplement for any such document. My Russian could get me a task soon.
Our trust had a separate department to deal with Comecon topics. Within the Comecon all was very complicated, mainly the same way – and with similar results – as it is in the Commonwealth. To coordinate the activities of different industries in the member-states, bilateral and multilateral talks have been organized twice a year for every economic activity. For example, in the field of machine tools on the bilateral – Hungarian-Czechoslovak, Hungarian-GDR, GDR-Czechoslovak, etc. – talks the export and import of all kinds and sizes of machine tools were agreed. The multilateral talks were real mass-meetings and there all sides agreed on all products in all channels. The multi talks were the most important mass dinners – and mass sex-events behind the scenes –, arranged always in turn to enable the participants to stay, eat and drink in all the member-states.
The multilateral protocols have been published, but their data were based on the bilateral ones. A single change of quantity in one bilateral protocol may have had a chain-reaction effect so, the Soviets, who presided over the multilateral talks, strived always to convince the partner, who wanted the change, to change his mind – instead of data. Not necessary to say, every time a change was suggested, it was a sign only that something has not been in order in production somewhere. Hindering it meant the partner in need of a modification had to undertake something it was not able to deliver. A gap was created thus between demand and supply.
All this has been quite unlike what we had been learning at the University of Economics about the Great Integration of the Comecon.
The only Russian-language project in my activities involving a Soviet research institute in Leningrad was a heavy duty NC lathe with tool-changer. The customer for the lathe would be the Soviet military industry all over the empire. Two of the vital units would be delivered by them, the ball-screws and the tool-changer. The latter because of its special design, the ball-screws, as our ball-screw workshop has not been in function yet.
It is interesting how many times it occurred that a developed design cannot take its proper place, as the manufacture of the product s destined to a high scrap percentage. Usually the reason of that is a manufacturing method not ripe enough. Let us take ball point pen. A Hungarian Mr Biro had invented it. As the conditions to produce it had not been ready, he must have waited and at last he has sold his invention in America. Its pattern name is still biro. And it has been the case with our ball-screws. The trust has bought a licence from a West-Berlin state company. It has been cheap as the ball-screws have never been manufactured and so, there was no know-how. Our technicians and engineers were sweating blood, until they developed a proper manufacturing process. As we have been behind schedule with the production, the Soviets had to deliver their own ball-screws for their lathes. To others we imported well-proven makes.
That project was taking me on a trip to Leningrad. Technically it was in the hands of a young married couple, the husband in our research institute, the wife on the design office of the factory, where it would be manufactured. All the three of us were in the team. Our salesman from the foreign trade firm was an old man with a one-sided brain, otherwise his wit was enjoyable.
The November date for the talks has not been a proper one. At that time of the year the river Neva usually cannot deliver its waters into the sea as the north-western wind pushes the current back. That was the case with us and the city had a great flood. All the canals have been full and the lower-lying streets could not be used.
Following that trip I sensed, that I was accepted by the different managers of the company. Some gossip might have been the cause as I spoke Russian, but almost everyone was thinking I had been studying in the Soviet Union. Many of our compatriots had done so and they were in an advantageous position to speak Russian perfectly.
Almost all of our factories got into contact with me because of my three languages – the German I could use also, only there was no certificate about it – and the various tasks to be done.
My family has been content with my achievements and took into use the many gadgets I brought from my trips. My latest visit of Leningrad inspired my sister-in-law and his returned husband to pay for a route at the tourist office to Leningrad during the New Year celebrations. Well, there was reason for me to be silent after their return, when they told everything about it, only very little positive. They did not like it at all and swore on never to put a foot in that country.
That winter was very heavy with a lot of snow everywhere in Europe. Even in February, when the weather was milder, the winter had something in spare. An ordinary multilateral meeting on machine tools was on schedule. The place was a resort house 30 miles from Warsaw in Poland. In that country something has been wrong that time, but it could only be sensed, there were no uprisings that time yet. The meeting had to be postponed because of forecasts in snow. One week later a decision has been taken to assemble the participants.
Soon there was another multi for me. During March, actually a double meeting as these events would last only from Monday to Friday. Flight there on Sunday, back on the next Saturday. But I would not be taken home to fly again the next day, I would have to wait for the next stage.
The morning I was to fly to Moscow there was a big snowfall there and our plane has not come – it was a Soviet plane. We were herded into the transit. We spent all day there and could board only in the evening.
Just when, after a long starvation, we were called to the restaurant for lunch and I began to appease my hunger, I was called to the information desk. My wife has been on the line and she gave news about the birth of a boy in the family, to my younger sister-in-law. It was my saint’s day, March 19.
Our trip to Moscow was better than the previous one to Poland. I found an old acquaintance from our trip to Warsaw and we would spend much time together. He represented the Csepel Machine Tool Factory. March is thought by the Russian to be the first month of spring. They count spring from March 1. The weather was actually fine during day, but the first evening, as we walked along the bridge over the river Moskva from the Comecon – today Moscow Municipality – building to the Hotel Ukraine, the sun set and in twelve minutes, until we arrived at the hotel, the temperature fell to 10 degrees F.
The last evening there was a great banquet with vodka flowing like tap water. I disliked the senseless waste everywhere. Even the fine meat you have got was impossible to eat, as it was raw and bleeding.
Arriving the next week to my workplace, my colleagues received me with mixed remarks. I learned that the Personnel Director had got a letter from the ministry about my transfer.
"Is there any problem?” I asked dr. K.
"Oh, yes”, he said, "that country is very hot, you are not advised to go there.” He said it with an earnest face, but he was joking.
”But, please, tell me, if there is any obstacle.” I have not been assured.
"Well”, he said, "you told me it was not very probable you would succeed.”
”I am waiting for 12 years for this possibility.” It was true and false at the same time.
”You spoke me about it at the beginning. I told the director I would not block your way.”
I began to feel better. He told me, the paper has been sent back to the ministry signed. But he was resenting the business.
I called the lady in TESCO. She was in a good mood.
"You shall come to me and give me the necessary photographs for your passports”, she said, "and you have to take part in a briefing.”
I told her I had taken part already years before. She did not insist. She said my trip was expected in June.
In May I had to make another visit to Moscow. It was again about the same project, the NC lathe designed for Soviet military. Actually it was a Comecon bilateral meeting and there was no responsibility, only to enjoy hospitality.