of young Communists outdoing their American counterparts was a common theme of Soviet Realism. His later works, Poema o topore (A Poem about an Ax, 1930) and Moi Drug (My Friend, 1930) also touched on themes of soviet industrialism and ingenuity. His plays frequently mixed "factual reports" with dramatization. His most popular play was Chelovek s ruzhyom (Man with a Gun, 1937), about Shadrin, a soldier who comes to Petrograd in October 1917 and gets involved in the Revolution; the climax of the play is his meeting with Lenin. The second play in his Lenin trilogy, Kremlyovskie kuranty (The chimes of the Kremlin, 1940), was set in 1920 and featured a scene in which Lenin talks with an old Jewish watchmaker engaged in repairing the Kremlin chimes so they can play the Internationale; the third, Tretya pateticheskaya (The Third: Pathetic, 1958) used the news of Lenin's death as a tragic leitmotif. Kogda lomaiutsya kop'ya (When the Spears Break, 1953) was a comedy; Sonet Petrarki (Petrarch's Sonnet, 1956) "takes the position that there are certain individual matters--personal feelings and affairs of the heart--which are none of the collective's or the Party's business." From 1951 to 1960 Pogodin was the chief editor of the theatrical journal Teatr. Early works, style and historical context The works of Nikolai Pogodin fall under, or closely adhere to, the wider artistic movement known as Socialist realism. Pogodin being a Socialist Realist playwright created his works by taking topics that were prevalent in early Soviet history. Many of his works are an example of the early difficulties of the construction of the early Soviet era. His first play was "Tempo" written in 1929, a story of a tractor factory. The second play written by Pogodin was "Impertinence". This play was about the youth who lived in a commune. Third was "Poem of an Axe" written in 1930 which was a story about rust-resistant axe blades that the Soviet Union was dependent on the West for supplies. Next was the play "Snow" about Soviet scientific exploration. Pogodin next wrote "My Friend" in 1932 that was about the building of a large factory in a peasant country. In 1934 Pogodin wrote "Aristocrats" which was about the rehabilitation of criminals in a labor camp that were building the Belomorsky Canal. Pogodin's earliest works were produced during the First five-year economic plan for the Soviet Union. During the Great Purge, Pogodin