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Thingmaster, Mike. Mike Thingmaster was created by "Jim Dollar," the pseudonym of the Russian author Marietta Shaginian, and appeared in Mess Mend, ili Yanki v Petrograde (1923), Lori Len Metallist (1924), and Doroga v Bagdad (1925); Mess Mend was made into a heftromane in 1924 and a film serial in 1926.

Mike Thingmaster is a "cheerful blue-eyed, red-bearded giant of a man," a wonderworker with wood: "Michael Thingmaster, from the wood-working factory in Middletown. He's a wood-turner, a carpenter, a cabinet-maker--anything you want, he can be it: Mike's the smartest one of all our fellow-workers in America." Thingmaster is also an amateur sleuth, and a good one. More than that, though, he is a revolutionary, in the purest, Communist sense. Mike is pro-worker and pro-proletariat, and to help the workers and protect them from the greedhead capitalist running dog fascist scum, he has formed "Mess-Mend," a secret international alliance of workers who are dedicated to cleaning up the mess left by capitalism and fascism. Mess-Mend's trademark is a tiny double "m" stamped on the products that Mess-Mend's members make.

In Mess Mend Thingmaster leads Mess-Mend against an international conspiracy of capitalist oppressors led by the American multi-millionaire Jack Kressling and his malign henchman, Gregorio Cice. Kressling is attempting to overthrow the then-new Communist government of Soviet Russia and to put in place a corrupt crew of capitalist White Russian Guardists who will control a new Russian monarchy and give Kressling virtually complete control of all business ventures in Russia. Mike Thingmaster and Mess-Mend eventually manage to defeat Kressling et al, despite the capitalists' possession of advanced planes and bombs.

* I'm including the Mike Thingmaster novels in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of their historical importance. The Mike Thingmaster trilogy were the height of the Red Pinkertonism movement of the 1920s, and the best fiction produced by a Soviet author during that time by a sizable margin. The trilogy is a true epic of Communism and triumph over Capitalism. They were the best Russian pulpy fiction by a Soviet or Russian woman until the fall of the Soviet Union. And the trilogy can be read today for pleasure, albeit for the delights of wish fulfillment rather than literature. 

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