"How the Steel Was Tempered" by Nikolai Ostrovsky is a classic of world literature and one of the most popular books among socialist youth. The novel tells the life of Pavel Korchagin, shaped by the misery of the Tsarist era, the October Revolution of 1917, and the Civil War in Russia. His unwavering hope and indestructible faith in the future are the sources of discipline and strength. Both then and now, the fate of the young revolutionary is moving - and a living document of a world-changing historical event. "The most precious thing a person possesses is life. It is given to him only once, and he should live in such a way that he can say in dying: I have given my whole life and all my strength for the most beautiful thing in the world - the struggle for the liberation of humanity." Nikolai Alexeyevich Ostrovsky (1904 - 1936) was a.