__TITLE__
COMMUNIST
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS • MOSCOW
[1]MOPAflb, KAK EE nOHMMAtOT KOMMYHHCTbl
Ha
This book contains extensive material-in the form of articles, notes, letters and diaries---on the ideals of communist morality.
The reader will find in it the more important statements on problems of communist morality by Marx, Engels, Lenin and prominent Soviet statesmen, including N. S. Khrushchov, M. I. Kalinin, S. M. Kirov and others.
A special section gives extracts from the new Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on questions of morality and education. The twelve principles of the moral code of the builder of communism, which briefly outline the main characteristics of the man of communist society, are also to be found here.
The book is illustrated, and is intended for the general reader.
__COMPILERS__ Compiled by N. B y c h k o v a,CONTENTS
K. MARX, F. ENGELS
K. Marx and F. Engels. From the Manifesto of the Communist
Party...................
9
K. Marx. From the Article "Thoughts of a Young Man on Choosing a Profession"...............
17
From the Poems of the Young Marx ..........
19
K. Marx. From the Introduction to "On the Criticism of the
Hegelian Philosophy of Right"...........
19
K. Marx and F. Engels. From The Holy Family or Critique of
Critical Critique.................
20
F. Engels. From the Elberfeld Speeches..........
21
F. Engels. From Principles of Communism.........
23
Marx's Confessions . ..............
24
K. Marx. From a Letter to S. Meyer..........
26
K. Marx. Letter to F. Engels............
26
K. Marx. From a Letter to Engels...........
27
F. Engels. From a Letter to E. Blank..........
27
K. Marx. From The Civil War in France.........
28
K. Marx. From a Letter to W. Bios..........
29
F. Engels. From Anti-Diihring.............
30
F. Engels. From the Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx . .
35
F. Engels. From The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State.................
36
F. Engels. From a Letter to Gertrude Guillaume-Schak
37 F. Engels. From the Introduction to Marx's Wage Labour and
Capital ...................38
From the Article "Frederick Engels".........
39
From the Article "A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy"
40
From a Letter to P. N. Lepeshinsky...........
40
From the Article "Party Organisation and Party Literature" ...
41
From the Article "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to
Religion"..................
41
From the Article "Once More on Partyism and Non-Partyism"
43
From an Obituary "Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin"......
43
From the Article "The Working Class and Neomalthusianism"
44
From the Article "Corrupting the Workers with Refined Nationalism"....................
45
From the Article "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination"
45
Letter to Inessa Armand..............
45
From a Letter to Inessa Armand...........
47
From the Article "Who Are You Laughing at? Laughing at Yourselves!" ..................
53
From the Article "Political Blackmail".........
53
From the Article "On Compromises"..........
53
From the Concluding Speech at the Meeting of the All-Russian
Central Executive Committee...........
54
From the Article "How to Organise Competition".....
54
From the Article "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government"
57
From the Article "A Little Picture to Explain Big Questions" .
58
From the Article "Reply to an Enquiry from a Peasant" ...
59
From the Article "A Great Beginning". Heroism of the Workers in
the Rear. "Communist Subbotniks".........
60
From the Article "The Workers' State and Party Week"
65 From the Article "Results of the Party Week in Moscow, and
Our Tasks".................66
From the Speech at the First All-Russian Inaugural Congress of
Mineworkers......., ,........66
From the Article "From the Destruction of the Age-Old Order to
the Creation of the New"............68
From the Article "From the First Subbotnik on the Moscow-Kazan ' Railway to the All-Russian May-Day Subbotnik" .... 68
4V. I. Lenin on Communist Morality (From Clara Zetkin's Reminiscences) ..................69
The Tasks of the Youth Leagues (From the Speech Delivered at the Third Ail-Russian Congress of the Russian Young Communist League), October 2, 1920.........74
From the Report "The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of Political Education" Delivered at the Second Ail-Russian Congress of Political Education Workers........78
PROBLEMS OF MORALITY AND EDUCATION IN THE PROGRAMME OF THE C.P.S.U.
V. The Tasks of the Party in the Spheres of Ideology, Education,
Instruction, Science, and Culture..........79
1. In the Field of Development of Communist Consciousness 81
2. In the Field of Public Education.........86
.. .4. In the Field of Cultural Development, Literature and Art 89
...VII. The Party in the Period of Full-Scale Communist
Construction.................92
F. DZERZHINSKY
From a Prison Diary................
97
From Letters to Relatives..............
101
To A. E. Bulhak................
101
To A. E. and G. A. Bulhak............
103
To A. E. Bulhak................
104
To S. S. Dzerzhinskaya..............
106
To A. E. Bulhak................
10?
To S. S. Dzerzhinskaya..............
108
To V. E. Dzerzhinsky..............
00no ~
To S. S. Dzerzhinskaya..............
00no ~
To A. E. Bulhak................
00m ~
From the Article "Citizens! Railwaymen!"........
112
From the Article "Waifs and the Vecheka"........
113
From a Circular Letter to the Managements of Syndicates and
Trusts and to Red Directors............
114
5M. KALININ
From the Speech at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the
Russian Young Communist League..........117
From the Greetings to the First Ail-Union Congress of Teachers 118
From the Pamphlet On the Road to Socialism. On the Results of the Fourteenth Ail-Union Congress of the C.P.S.U. (Bolsheviks)..................H9
The Struggle for the New Man. From the Speech at the Celebration Meeting on the Tenth Anniversary of the Komsomol . 121
Develop Yourselves in Every Way. From the Speech at a Conference of Leading Members of the Young Communist League Organisation in Dnepropetrovsk.........126
From the Speech at a Conference of Best Urban and Rural School Teachers Convened by the Editorial Board of Uchitelskaya Cazeta...................^^128^^
From the Speech at a Celebration Meeting in Honour of Decorated
Rural School Teachers..............^^129^^
On Communist Education. From the Speech at a Meeting of Leading
Party Workers of the City of Moscow ........ 130
From the Speech at a Meeting of Pupils of Eighth, Ninth and
Tenth Grades of Secondary Schools of Lenin District, Moscow 132
Some Problems of Party Mass Work. From the Speech at a
Conference of Party Workers of Moscow Plants .... 133
From the Article "Militant Aide of the Bolshevik Party". On the
Occasion of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Komsomol 134
From the Article "The Moral Make-up of Our People" .... 135
S. KIROV
From Letters to M. L. Markus............139
From the Speech at a Meeting in the Public Gardens, Astrakhan 140
From the Report at the Fourth Astrakhan Gubernia Congress of
Soviets................... 141
From the Report at the First City Delegate Meeting of Astrakhan
Women Workers................^^141^^
From the Report at a Meeting of Tiflis Party Workers and Trade
Unionists..................I^^42^^
From the Speech at the Opening Session of the First Conference
of Georgian Trade Unions............I^^43^^
From the Report at a Meeting of the Communist Groups of the Congress of Chairmen of Uyezd, Volost and City Executive Committees of Leningrad.............i43
6From the Speech at the Celebration Meeting of the Seventh Leningrad Gubernia Congress .of Trade Unions.......145
From the Report at a City Meeting of Leningrad Propagandists 145
From the Speech at the Celebration Meeting of the Leningrad Soviet on the Tenth Anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution..................146
Revolutionary, Devoted Work Is What Is (Required from Every
Bolshevik...................147
N. KRUPSKAYA
From the Speech at the Sixth Congress of the Russian Leninist
Young Communist League ............149
From the Article "Lenin as a Man"...........150
From the Article "Lenin on Communist Morality"......153
From a Letter to A. M. Gorky............155
Letter to Working Men and Women at the Trekhgornaya
Manufaktura Mills.................156
From a Letter to the IParty and Komsomol Members, the Factory Committee, the Management and the Entire Collective of the Clara Zetkin Factory..............157
Letter to a Budding Writer.............158
N. KHRUSHCHOV
From the Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress .... 161
From the Speech at the Meeting of Komsomol Members and the Youth of Moscow on the Occasion of the Departure of the First Group of Volunteers for Construction Sites in the East of the U.S.S.R.................165
From the Answers to Questions Put by the Editors of Rude Ptavo 166
From the Speech at a Reception at the Embassy of the People's
Republic of Bulgaria...............166
From the Spjeech "For a Closer Bond Between Literature and Art
and the Life of the People"........... 168
From the Speech at a Soviet-Czechoslovak Friendship Meeting in Ostrava During the Visit of Soviet Party and Government Delegation to Czechoslovakia...........170
From the Answers to Questions Put by J. Reston, New York
Times Chief Diplomatic Correspondent........171
From the Interview Given to Henry Shapiro, Correspondent of
United Press Agency............, . 173
From the Answers to Questions Put by Brazilian Journalists
Victorio Martorelli and Tito Fleury.........174
From the Interview Given to W. R. Hearst, U.S. Newspaper
Magnate.................. 175
From the Speech at the Ninth Session of the U.S.S.R. Supreme
Soviet (Fourth Convocation)............175
From the Speech at the Thirteenth Congress of the Komsomol . 176
From the Report on the Control Figures for the (Economic Development of the U.S.S.R. for 1959-1965 at the 21st Extraordinary Congress of the C.P.S.U.............178
From the Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U; "For a Further Rise in the Country's Productive Forces, for Technical Progress in All Branches of the (National Economy"............181
From the Speech at the All-Russian Congress of Teachers
182 From the Report "For New Victories of the World Communist
Movement".................184
From the Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. "Improvement in the Well-Being of the People ,and the Tasks for Further Increasing the Output of Agricultural Products"..............186
From the Report of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. to
the 22nd Congress of the Party..........187
On the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 192 From the-Concluding Speech at the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U. 194
From the Speech "All Forces for the Successful Implementation of
the Historic Derisions of the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U." 194
From the Speech at the Moscow Conference of Workers in Agriculture from the Regions and Autonomous Republics of the Non-Chernozem Zones of the R.S.F.S.R.........195
From the Speech at the. Fourteenth. Congress of the Komsomol . 196 Subject Index..................203
__ERROR__ Multiple page 9's. Next page is 9, because after this page 8, and it has just the BIG alpha level 1 header, but then there's another page numbered "9". [8] __ALPHA_LVL1__ KARL MARX
K-MARX.F-ENGELS
__NOTE__ LVL2 was here, moved back under LVL1... .The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The 9 proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all .previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property-----
__b_b_b__... In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying and all the other "brave words" of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ 10
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In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.
From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes.
You must, therefore, confess that by ``individual'' you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middleclass owner of property. This person must, indeed, be -swept out of the way, and made impossible.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.
It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. The whole of this.objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
All objections urged against the communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the communistic modes of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just 12 as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture.
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine.
But don't wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.
The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property-historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production-this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.
Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.
13The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.
But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the whole bourgeoisie in chorus.
The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.
He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.
For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and 14 officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives.
Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private....
... The charges against communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.
Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. . When people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence,
15When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.
``Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religious, moral, philosophical and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.''
``There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.''
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.
But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.
The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas....
16...The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.. . .
... In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
__ALPHA_LVL2__ K. MARX... If our conditions of life permit us to choose any profession, then we can select one that gives us the greatest dignity, one based on ideas of whose truth we are fully convinced. We can choose a profession that offers the greatest scope for work in behalf of mankind, and for __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2-2618 17 ourselves to come closer to the common aim, in relation to which every profession is only a means for getting closer to perfection.
Dignity is precisely that which most of all elevates a man, which gives supreme nobility to his work, to all his aspirations, allowing him to rise firmly above the crowd, and to arouse its amazement.'
But only the profession in which we are not slavish tools, but create independently within our own circle, can give dignity, only the profession that does not demand reprehensible actions, even if reprehensible only in outward appearance, and which can be followed even by the best with noble pride. The profession which provides all this in the highest degree is not always the highest, but is always the most to be preferred.
... If a man works only for himself he can, perhaps, become a famous scientist, a great sage, an excellent poet, but he can never become a man that is truly perfect and great.
History recognises as great men those who, by working for a common aim, themselves become ennobled; experience extols as happiest the man who has brought happiness to the greatest number of people....
... If we have chosen a profession in which we can most of all work for mankind, we shall not bend under its burden, because this is a sacrifice made for all; then we shall experience not petty, limited egoistic joy, but our happiness will belong to the millions, our deeds will then live a peaceful but perpetually active life, and over our ashes hot tears will be shed by noble people.
18 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Poems of the Young Marx Not for me a life untroubled.
Not for my tempestuous soul.
Let my life be full of struggle
For a great and lofty goal.
Art, disclose to me thy treasures
Cherished by the human race!
With my intellect and senses
All the world would I embrace.
Let us march into the distance
On a journey hard and far.
Not for us a drab existence
With no aim or guiding star.
Not for us a life of languour
In a miserable pen.
Let us feel desire and anger,
Passion, pride-as should real men!
1836
__ALPHA_LVL2__ K. MARX... Religious misery is at the same time an expression of real misery and a protest against this real misery. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart 19 of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of a soulless system. Religion is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their true happiness. The demand to give up illusions about one's position is the demand tor the rejection of a position whidh needs illusions. It follows that criticism of religion is criticism in embryo oi the vale of tears, the sacred halo of which is religion.
Criticism has discarded from the chains the false flowers which adorned them-not so that mankind should continue to wear these chains in their form devoid of all joy and pleasure, but in order that it should throw off the chains and stretch its hand for the living flower.
Criticism of religion frees man from illusions so that he should think, act and build his own reality as one who has freed himself from illusions, who has become a rational man, in order that he should revolve around himself and his own real sun. Religion is only an illusory sun which moves around man until he begins to move around himself....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ K. MARX and F. ENGELSFebruary 8, 1845
... If man draws all his knowledge, sensation, etc., from the world of the senses and the experience gained in it, the empirical world must be arranged so that in it man experiences and gets used to what is really human and that he becomes aware of himself as man. If correctly 20 understood, interest is the principle of all moral, man's private interest must be made to coincide with the interest of humanity. If man is unfree in the materialist sense, i.e., is free not through the negative power to avoid this or that, but through the positive power to assert his true individuality, crime must not be punished in the individual, but the anti-social source of crime must be destroyed, and each man must be given social scope for the vital manifestation of his being. If man is shaped by his surroundings, his surroundings must be made human. If man is social by nature, he will develop his true nature only in society, and the power of his nature must be measured not by the power of separate individuals but by the power of society.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELS... In communist society, where the interests of individuals do not conflict, but are identical, competition vanishes. There will be no longer any question, of course, of the ruin of individual classes, or of classes in general such as the rich and the poor' at the present time. In the production and distribution of benefits essential to life, private appropriation, the striving of each individual to enrich himself at his own risk, will disappear....
... To protect itself from crime, from acts of open violence, society needs an extensive, complex organism of administrative and juridical institutions requiring an infinite 21 expenditure of human forces. In communist society this will also be infinitely simplified, and for the precise reason -strange though it may sound-that in this society the administration will have to deal with not only individual aspects of social life, but with the whole life of society in all its manifestations and all its aspects. We destroy the antagonism between the individual and all the rest, we counter social war by social peace, we hack away the very roots of crime and thereby render superfluous a large, by far the largest, part of the present-day activities of the administrative and juridical institutions. Already now, crimes of passion are increasingly giving way to crimes committed by calculation, in pursuance of some interest; crimes against the person are decreasing, but crimes against property are increasing... . Crimes against property will disappear of themselves where each receives all that is needed to satisfy his physical and spiritual requirements, where social barriers and differences are removed. The criminal court will disappear of itself, the civil court which deals almost exclusively with property relations or, at any rate, relations which have for their premise the state of social war, will also disappear; the law suits which today are the natural result of universal enmity will then become rare exceptions easily settled by arbitration. The administrative organs today also have the constant state of war as the source of their activity-the police and the whole administration are only concerned that the war should remain concealed, indirect, that it should not degenerate into open violence, crime. But if it is far easier to maintain peace than to keep war within certain limits, it is also infinitely easier to administer communist society than a society in which competition holds sway. And if civilisation has already taught people to see that their interests lie in maintaining public order. 22 ensuring public security and the interests of society, and thus make the police, the administration and justice as far as possible superfluous, how much more will this take place in a society where community of interests is made a basic principle, where public interests no longer differ from the interests of each individual! What is now taking place J27 spite oi public institutions will be far more widespread when public institutions no longer hamper but, on the contrary, promote this! . . .
__ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELS... Question 21. What influence will the communist social system have on the family?
Answer. It will make relations between the sexes a purely private affair, which will be a matter only for the persons concerned, and in which society has no need to interfere. This is possible because of the abolition of private property and because of the public education of children, in consequence of which both of the bases for marriage hitherto-the dependence through private property of the wife on the husband and the children on the parents -are abolished.
It is here that we find the answer to the outcry of highlymoral philistines about common ownership of women under communism. .Common ownership of women is a phenomenon belonging wholly to bourgeois society and flourishing at the present time in the form of prostitution. But prostitution is based on private property and will disappear together with it. Consequently, instead of 23 introducing common ownership of women, communist organisation will abolish it.. ..
__ALPHA_LVL2__
Marx's Confessions^^*^^
| Your favourite virtue: | Simplicity |
" " in man: " " in woman: Your chief characteristic: Your idea of happiness:
" "
misery:
The vice you excuse most: " detest most: Your aversion: Favourite occupation: poet:
`` " prosewriter: hero: heroine: " " flower: " " colour: " " name:
" dish: Favourite maxim:
motto:
Strength Weakness Singleness of purpose To fight Submission Gullibility Servility Martin Tupper^^**^^ Bookworming Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe Diderot Spartacus, Kepler Gretchen Daphne Red Laura, Jenny Fish Nihil humani a me alienum puto De omnibus dubitandum _-_-_^^*^^ Two of the existing three variants of Marx's confessions are given on pp. 24 and 25. The facsimile on page 25 is taken from an album belonging to Marx's daughter Jenny.
^^**^^ Martin Tupper (1810-1889)-an English writer. Marx regarded him as the personification of banality, whose writings aimed at achieving cheap popularity.
24.jt J,^
__CAPTION__
Answers written in Marx's handwriting to questions written
April 30, 1867
... Well, why didn't I answer you? Because I was constantly hovering at the edge of the grave. Hence I had to make use of every moment when I was able to work to complete my book, to which I have sacrificed health, happiness, and family. I trust that this explanation needs no supplementation. I laugh at the so-called ``practical'' men with their wisdom. If one chose to be an ox, one could of course turn one's back on the sufferings of mankind and look after one's own skin. But I should have really regarded myself as impractical if I had pegged out without completely finishing my book, at least in manuscript.
The first volume of the work will be published in a few weeks by Otto Meissner in Hamburg. The title is: Capital. A Critique of Political Economy___
__ALPHA_LVL2__ K. MARXAugust 16, 1867
Dear Fred,
Have just finished correcting the last sheet (49th) of the book. The appendix-form of value-takes up iy4 sheets in small print.
Preface ditto sent back yesterday corrected. So this volume is finished. It was thanks to y o u alone that this 26 became possible. Without your self-sacrifice for me I could never possibly have done the enormous work for the three volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks!
Enclosed two sheets of corrected proofs.
The £ 15 received with best thanks.
Greetings, my dear, beloved friend!
Yours,
~ K. Marx
I shall not want the corrected proofs back until the whole book has appeared.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ K. MARXMarch 25, 1868
.. . My state of health is such that I really ought to quit working and thinking temporarily. But that would be hard on me, even it I had the means for loafing-----
__ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELSFebruary 4, 1869
Dear Emil,
I have just received from Mama the sad news that our dear Marie Bartels died of scarlet-fever on Monday evening. The news shook me to the depths of my being.. ..
27... I am writing not to comfort you but simply because I know the beneficial effect on a person of an expression of sympathy on the part of people from whom he has the right to expect it. Believe me that this sympathy comes from the heart.
Give my cordial greetings to Marie, poor Robert and all your children.
Cordially yours,
~ Frederick
... The English working class stretch the hand of fellowship to the French and German working people. They feel deeply convinced that whatever turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance of the working classes of all countries will ultimately kill war. The very fact that while official France and Germany are rushing into a fratricidal feud, the workmen of France and Germany send each other messages of peace and goodwill; this great fact, unparalleled in the history of the past, opens the vista of a brighter future. It proves that in contrast to old society, with its economical miseries and its political delirium, a new society is springing up, whose international rule will be Peace, because its national ruler will be everywhere the same-Labour \
... Wonderful, indeed, was the change the Commune had wrought in Paris! No longer any trace of the meretricious Paris of the Second Empire. No longer was Paris the rendezvous of British landlords, Irish absentees, 28 American ex-slaveholders and shoddy men, Russian exserfowners, and Wallachian boyards. No more corpses at the morgue, no nocturnal burglaries, scarcely any robberies; in fact, for the first time since the days of February 1848, the streets of Paris were safe, and that without any police of any kind. "We," said a member of the Commune, "hear no longer of assassination, theft and personal assault; it seems indeed as if the police had dragged along with it to Versailles all its Conservative friends." The cocottes had refound the scent of their protectors-the absconding men of family, religion, and, above all, of property. In their stead, the real women of Paris showed again at the surface-heroic, noble, and devoted, like the women of antiquity. Working, thinking, fighting'; bleeding Paris-almost forgetful, in its incubation of a new society, of the cannibals at its gates-radiant in the enthusiasm of its historic initiative!
__ALPHA_LVL2__ K. MARXNovember 10, 1877
... Because I am opposed to every kind of personality cult, during the existence of the International I have never allowed to be made public the numerous messages, expressing recognition of my services, with which I was pestered from various countries. I never even replied to them, except that I sometimes gave a piece of my mind to the authors. Engels and I joined our first secret society of Communists on condition that everything that might foster superstitious worshipping of authority be deleted from the rules. . . .
29 __ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELS... The conceptions of good and evil have varied so much from nation to nation and from age to age that they have often been in direct contradiction to each other.
But all the same, someone may object, good is not evil and evil is not good; if good is confused with evil there is an end to all morality, and everyone can do as he pleases. This is also, stripped of all oracular phrases, Herr Diihring's opinion. But the matter cannot be so simply disposed of. If it were such an easy business there would certainly be no dispute at all over good and evil; everyone would know what was good and what was bad. But how do things stand today? What morality is preached to us today? There is first Christian-feudal morality, inherited from earlier religious times; and this is divided, essentially, into a Catholic and a Protestant morality, each of which has no lack of subdivisions, from the Jesuit-Catholic and OrthodoxProtestant to loose ``enlightened'' moralities. Alongside these we find the modern-bourgeois morality and beside it also the proletarian morality of the future, so that in the most advanced European countries alone the past, present and future provide three great groups of moral theories which are in force simultaneously and alongside each other. Which, then, is the true one? Not one of them, in the sense of absolute finality; but certainly that morality contains the maximum elements promising permanence which, in the present, represents the overthrow of the present, represents the future, and that is proletarian morality.
30But when we see that the three classes of modern society, the feudal aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, each have a morality of their own, we can only draw the one conclusion: that men, consciously or unconsciously, derive their ethical ideas in the last resort from the practical relations on which their class position is based-from the economic relations in which they carry on production and exchange.
But nevertheless there is quite a lot which the three moral theories mentioned above have in common-is this not at least a portion of a morality which is fixed once and for all? These moral theories represent three different stages of the same historical development, have therefore a common historical background, and for that reason alone they necessarily have much in common. Even more. At similar or approximately similar stages of economic development moral theories must of necessity be more or less in agreement. From the moment when private ownership of movable property developed, all societies in which this private ownership existed had to have this moral injunction in common: Thou shalt not steal. Does this injunction thereby become an eternal moral injunction? By no means. In a society in which all motives for stealing have been done away with, in which therefore at the very most only lunatics would ever steal, how the preacher of morals would be laughed at who tried solemnly to proclaim the eternal truth: Thou shalt not steal!
We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world, too, has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions 31 of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed. That in this process there has on the whole been progress in morality, as in all other branches of human knowledge, no one will doubt. But we have not yet passed beyond class morality. A really human morality which stands above class antagonisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life....
__b_b_b__... In making itself the master of all the means of production to use them in accordance with a social plan, society puts an end to the former subjection of men to their own means of production. It goes without saying that society cannot free itself unless every individual is freed. The old mode of production must therefore be revolutionised from top to bottom, and in particular the former division of labour must disappear. Its place must be taken by an organisation of production in which, on the one hand, no individual can throw on the shoulders of others his share in productive labour, this natural condition of human existence; and in which, on the other hand, productive labour, instead of being a means of subjugating men, will become a means of their emancipation, by offering each individual the opportunity to develop all his faculties, physical and mental, in all directions and exercise them to the full-in which, therefore, productive labour will become a pleasure instead of being a burden. .. .
32... All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men's minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces. In the beginning of history it was the forces of nature which were first so reflected, and which in the course of further evolution underwent the most manifold and varied personifications among the various peoples. This early process has been traced back by comparative mythology, at least in the case of the Indo-European peoples, to its origin in the Indian Vedas, and in its further evolution it has been demonstrated in detail among the Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans and, so far as material is available, also among the Celts, Lithuanians and Slavs. But it is not long before, side by side with the forces of nature, social forces begin to be active-forces which confront man as equally alien and at first equally inexplicable, dominating him with the same apparent natural necessity as the forces of nature themselves. The fantastic figures, which at first only reflected the mysterious forces of nature, at this point acquire social attributes, become representatives of the forces of history. At a still further stage of evolution, all the natural and social attributes of the numerous gods are transferred to one almighty god, who is but a reflection of the abstract man. Such was the origin of monotheism, which was historically the last product of the vulgarised philosophy of the later Greeks and found its incarnation in the exclusively national god of the Jews, Jehovah. In this convenient, handy and universally adaptable form, religion can continue to exist as the immediate, that is, the sentimental form of men's relation to the alien, natural and social forces which dominate them, so long as men remain under the control of these forces. However, we have seen repeatedly that in existing bourgeois society men __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3-2618 33 are dominated by the economic conditions created by themselves, by the means of production which they themselves have produced, as if by an alien force. The actual basis of the reflective activity that gives rise to religion therefore continues to exist, and with it the religious reflection itself. And although bourgeois political economy has given a certain insight into the causal connection of this alien domination, this makes no essential difference. Bourgeois economics can neither prevent crises in general, nor protect the individual capitalists from losses, bad debts and bankruptcy, nor secure the individual workers against unemployment and destitution. It is still true that man proposes and God (that is, the alien domination of the capitalist mode of production) disposes. Mere knowledge, even if it went much further and deeper than that of bourgeois economic science, is not enough to bring social forces under the domination of society. What is above all necessary for this, is a social act. And when this act has been accomplished, when society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are now held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which confront them as an irresistible alien force; when therefore man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes-only then will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect. ...
[34] __ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELSMarch 11, 1883
... Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival... .
And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time. Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported him from their territories. Bourgeois, whether conservative or ultra-democratic, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this he brushed aside as though it were cobweb, ignoring it, answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. And he died beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow-workers-from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America-and I make bold to say that though he may have had many opponents he had hardly one personal enemy.
His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work!
35 __ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELS. . . Thus full freedom in marriage can become generally operative only when the abolition of capitalist production, and of the property relations created by it, has removed all those secondary economic considerations which still exert so powerful an influence on the choice of a partner. Then, no other motive remains than mutual affection....
... With the disappearance of the economic considerations which compelled women to tolerate the customary infidelity of the men-the anxiety about their own livelihood and even more about the future of their children-the equality of woman thus achieved will, judging from all previous experience, result far more effectively in the men becoming really monogamous than in the women becoming polyandrous.
What will most definitely disappear from monogamy, however, is all the characteristics stamped on it in consequence of its having arisen out of property relationships. These are, first, the dominance of the man, and secondly, the indissolubility of marriage. The predominance of the man in marriage is simply a consequence of his economic predominance and will vanish with it automatically. The indissolubility of marriage is partly the result of the economic conditions under which monogamy arose, and partly a tradition from the time when the connection between these economic conditions and monogamy was not yet correctly understood and was exaggerated by religion. Today it has been breached a thousandfold. If only marriages that are based on love are moral, then, also, only 36 those are moral in which love continues. The duration of the urge of individual sex love differs very much according to the individual, particularly among men; and a definite cessation of affection, or its displacement by a new passionate love, makes separation a blessing for both parties as well as for society. People will only be spared the experience of wading through the useless mire of divorce proceedings.
But what will be added? That will be settled after a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in all their lives have had occasion to purchase a woman's surrender either with money or with any other means of social power, and of women who have never been obliged to surrender to any man out of any consideration other than that of real love, or to refrain from giving themselves to their beloved for fear of the economic consequences. Once such people appear, they will not care a rap about what we today think they should do. They will establish their own practice and their own public opinion, conformable therewith, on the practice of each individual ---and that's the end of it. ...
__ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELS(About July 5, 1885)
... That the working woman needs special protection against capitalist exploitation because of her special physiological functions seems obvious to me. The English women who championed the formal right of members of their sex to permit themselves to be as thoroughly exploited 37 by the capitalists as the men are mostly, directly or indirectly, interested in the capitalist exploitation of both sexes. I admit I am more interested in the health of the future generations than in the absolute formal equality of the sexes during the last years of the capitalist mode of production. It is my conviction that real equality of women and men can come true only when the exploitation of either by capital has been abolished and private housework has been transformed into a public industry. ...
__ALPHA_LVL2__ F. ENGELS... A new social order is possible in which the present class differences will have disappeared and in whichperhaps after a short transitional period involving some privation, but at any rate of great value morally-through the planned utilisation and extension of the already existing enormous productive forces of all members of society, and with uniform obligation to work, the means for existence, for enjoying life, for the development and employment of all bodily and mental faculties will be available in an equal measure and in ever-increasing fulness. And that the workers are becoming more and more determined to win this new social order will be demonstrated on both sides of the ocean by May the First, tomorrow, and by Sunday, May3,
[38] __ALPHA_LVL1__ LENIN
V-LENIN
__NOTE__ Same thing with page number, this time page 39.... Two volumes of Capital are the work of two men: Marx and Engels. Old legends contain various moving instances of friendship. The European proletariat may say that its science was created by two scholars and fighters, whose relationship to each other surpasses the most moving stories of the ancients about human friendship. Engels always-and, on the whole, quite justly-placed himself after Marx. "In Marx's lifetime," he wrote to an old friend, "I played second fiddle." His love for the living Marx, and his reverence for the memory of the dead Marx were boundless. This stern fighter and austere thinker possessed a deeply loving soul....
[39] __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... We recognise the duty of comradeship, the duty to support all comrades, the duty to tolerate the opinions of comrades, but as far as we axe concerned, the duty of comradeship derives from our duty to Russian and international Social-Democracy, and not vice versa.
We recognise our comradely obligations to Rabochaya Mysl^^*^^ not because its editors are our comrades; we consider the editors of Rabochaya Mysl our comrades only because and to the extent that they work in the ranks of Russian (and, consequently, of international) SocialDemocracy. Therefore, if we are certain that the ``comrades'' are moving backwards, away from the SocialDemocratic programme, that the ``comrades'' are hemming in and distorting the aims of the working-class movement, we consider it our duty to give expression to our convictions with a complete certainty that leaves nothing unsaid!
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From a Letter to P. N. Lepeshinsky^^**^^ __NOTE__ ootnote cont. from page 40. __NOTE__ ootnote cont. on page 41.August 29, 1905, Geneva
. .. Every Party worker has shortcomings and minuses in his work, but one has to take care, in criticising _-_-_
^^*^^ Rabochaya My si-the newspaper of the ``Economists''. In articles published in the newspaper. Iskra and in his book What Is to Be Done?, Lenin criticised the views of Rabochaya Mysl as being a Russian variety of international opportunism.
^^**^^ Lepeshinsky, P. N. (1868-1944), professional revolutionary, __NOTE__ Rest of footnote comes from next page but placed here since next page has two LVL breaks. prominent Party figure, member of the C.P.S.U. since 1898; took part in the preparations for the 2nd and 3rd Congresses of the Party.
40 shortcomings or in analysing them before Party centres, not to transcend the boundary where tittle-tattle begins. __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... We are discussing party literature and its subordination to party control. Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions. But every voluntary association (including a party) is also free to expel members who use the name of the party to advocate anti-party views. Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too. I am bound to accord you, in the name of free speech, the full right to shout, lie and write to your heart's content. But you are bound to grant me, in the name of freedom of association, the right to enter into, or withdraw from, association with people advocating this or that view. The party is a voluntary association, which would inevitably break up, first ideologically and then physically, if it did not cleanse itself of people advocating anti-party views....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... Religion is the opium of the people-this dictum by Marx is the corner-stone of the whole Marxist outlook on religion. Marxism has always regarded all modern 41 religions and churches, and each and every religious organisation, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class.
. .. We must combat religion-that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which has topped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way. The combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must not be reduced to such preaching. It must be linked up with the concrete practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion. .,.
... A Marxist must be a materialist, i.e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i.e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could. A Marxist must be able to view the concrete situation as a whole, he must always be able to find the boundary between anarchism and opportunism (this boundary is relative, shifting and changeable, but it exists). And he must not succumb either to the abstract, verbal, but in reality empty ``revolutionism'' of the anarchist, or to the Philistinism and opportunism of the petty bourgeois or liberal intellectual, who boggles at the struggle against religion, forgets that this is his duty, reconciles himself to belief in God, and is guided not by the interests of the class struggle but by the petty and mean consideration of offending nobody, repelling nobody and scaring nobodyby the sage rule: "live and let live", etc., etc, >.,
42 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... But for the very reason that we uphold the Party principle, in the interests of the broad masses, for the sake of freeing them from any kind of bourgeois influence, for the sake of the fullest clarity of class alignments, we must exert to the maximum our strength and vigilance to see that the Party principle is observed not in words merely, but in tact....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From an Obituary... But there are such national heroes. They are people like Babushkin. They are people who, not for a year or two but for a whole decade before the revolution, wholeheartedly devoted themselves to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class. They are people who did not dissipate their energies on the futile terrorist acts of individuals, but who worked, persistently and unswervingly among the proletarian masses, helping to develop their consciousness, their organisation and their revolutionary _-_-_
^^*^^ Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin (1873-1906)-a professional revolutionary and pupil o£ Lenin; began his revolutionary activity in 1893 when he joined a study circle led by Lenin. He was an active member of the St. Petersburg and Yekaterinoslav "Unions of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" and also a member of the Irkutsk and Chita committees of the Russian Social-Democratic Party; played an important part in founding Iskra (1900), the first legal Marxist newspaper; took part in the 1905-1907 revolution. He was shot by a punitive expedition of the tsarist government.
43 initiative. They are people who stood at the head of the armed mass struggle against the tsarist autocracy when the crisis began, when the revolution broke out and when millions and millions were stirred into action. Everything won from the tsarist autocracy was won exclusively by the struggle of the masses led by such people as Babushkin.Without such men the Russian people would remain for ever a people of slaves and serfs. With such men the Russian people will win complete emancipation from all exploitation.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... The working class is not perishing, it is growing, becoming stronger, gaining courage, consolidating itself, educating itself and becoming steeled in battle. We are pessimists as far as serfdom, capitalism and petty production are concerned, but we are ardent optimists in what concerns the working-class movement and its aims. We are already laying the foundations of a new edifice and our children will complete its construction.
That is the reason-the only reason-why we are definitely the enemies of neomalthusianism,^^*^^ suited only to unfeeling and egoistic petty-bourgeois couples, who whisper in scared voices: "God grant we manage somehow ourselves. So much the better if we have no children----"
_-_-_^^*^^ Neomalthusianism-a variety of the reactionary doctrine of Malthus, an English bourgeois economist. To distract the workers from revolutionary struggle, the Malthusianists advocated the false idea that social evils could be removed by artificially curtailing the growth of the population.
44 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... The interests of proletarian solidarity and comradely unity in the workers' class struggle call for the fullest equality of nations with a view to removing every trace of national distrust, estrangement, suspicion and enmity. And full equality implies the repudiation of all privileges for any one language and the recognition of the right of self-determination for all nations....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... The reactionaries are opposed to freedom of divorce; they say that it must be "handled carefully", and loudly declare that it means the "disintegration of the family". The democrats, however, believe that the reactionaries are hypocrites, and that they are actually defending the omnipotence of the police and the bureaucracy, the privileges of one of the sexes, and the worst kind of oppression of women. They believe that in actual fact freedom of divorce will not cause the ``disintegration'' of family ties, but, on the contrary, will strengthen them on a democratic basis, which is the only possible and durable basis in civilised society.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to Inessa Armand^^*^^Dear friend,
I strongly advise you to write the plan of the pamphlet in more detail. Otherwise too much is not clear.
_-_-_^^*^^ Inessa Armand (Yelizaveta Fyodorovna, 1875-1920)---prominent figure in the Russian Communist Party and the international women's communist movement, a friend of Lenin's family.
45I should state one opinion already now:
§ 3--1 advise you to throw out entirely "the demand (female) for free love''.
This would, in fact, be not a proletarian, but a bourgeois demand.
As a matter of fact, what do you understand by it? What can be understood by it?
(1) Freedom from material (financial) considerations in the matter of love?
(2) from material cares as well?
(3) from religious prejudices?
(4) from the father's ban, etc.?
(5) from the prejudices of ``society''?
(6) from a narrow environment (peasant or philistine or bourgeois-intellectual) ?
(7) from the bonds of the law, the court and the police?
(8) from what is serious in love?
(9) from child-birth?
(10) freedom of adultery? etc.
I have listed several (not all, of course) of the shades of meaning. You understand, of course, not Nos. 8-10, but either Nos. 1-7 or something like Nos. 1-7.
But a different wording for Nos. 1-7 should be chosen, for free love does not accurately express this idea.
But the public reading the pamphlet will inevitably take "free love" in general as being in the nature of Nos. 8-10, even against your will.
It is precisely because in modern society the most garrulous, clamorous and ``prominent'' classes understand "free love" in the sense of Nos. 8-10, for just that reason this is not a proletarian, but a bourgeois demand.
Most important for the proletariat are Nos. 1-2, and then Nos. 1-7, and that, properly speaking, is not "free love''.
46It is not a question of what you subjectively "want to mean" by this. It is a question of the objective logic of class relations in matters of love.
Friendly shake hands, W. I. Written in Berne, on January 17, 1915
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From a Letter to Inessa ArmandDear friend,
I apologise for the delay in replying: I wanted to write yesterday, but was detained and there was no time to sit down to a letter.
Regarding your plan for the pamphlet, I found that "the demand for "free love" was not clear, and-quite apart from any will or desire on your part (I stressed this, saying: it is a question of objective, class relations and not of your subjective desires)-would in the present social situation be a bourgeois and not a proletarian demand.
You do not agree.
All right. Let us examine the matter once more.
To make clear what was unclear, I listed approximately a dozen possible (and inevitable in conditions of class differences) different interpretations, and pointed out that in my opinion interpretations 1-7 will be typical or characteristic of proletarian women and 8-10 of bourgeois women.
If this is to be refuted, it has to be shown (1) that these interpretations are incorrect (then put others in their place or indicate the incorrect ones) or (2) incomplete (then add what is lacking) or (3) are not correctly divided into proletarian and bourgeois.
47You do neither the first, nor the second, nor the third.
You do not touch on points 1-7 at all. This means you recognise them (in general) as correct? (What you write about the prostitution of proletarian women and their dependence: "the impossibility of saying no" fits perfectly under points 1-7. It is impossible to see any disagreement between us here.)
Neither do you dispute the fact that this is a proletarian interpretation.
There remain points 8-10.
These you "do not quite understand" and so you ``argue'': "I do not understand how it is possible (that is how it is written!) to identify (!!??) free love with" point 10-----
It follows that I "am identifying" and you were about to berate and rout me?
How is this? What is this?
Bourgeois women mean by free love points 8-10-that is my thesis.
Do you refute this? Tell me what do bourgeois ladies mean by free love?
You do not say. Does not literature and life prove that bourgeois women mean just that? They prove it absolutely ! You tacitly admit this.
And since that is the case, it is a matter here of their class position, and ``refuting'' them is hardly possible and might hardly be anything but naive.
It is necessary to isolate the proletarian standpoint from them and to counterpose it to them. It is necessary to take into account the objective fact that otherwise they will extract the passages that suit them from your pamphlet, interpret them in their own way, make your pamphlet bring grist to their mill, distort your ideas before the workers, ``confuse'' the workers (by arousing in them the 48 apprehension that you are putting alien ideas before them). And they have at their disposal a host of newspapers, etc.
And you, completely forgetting the objective and class point of view, launch an ``attack'' on me, as if I ``identify'' free love with points 8-10.. . . It's funny, really very funny.. ..
``Even a fleeting passion and liaison" is "more poetic and cleaner" than the "loveless kisses" of (vulgar and philistine) married couples. That is what you write. And that is what you intend to write in your pamphlet. Fine.
Is this comparison logical? Loveless kisses of philistine married couples are unclean. Agreed. They should be counterposed ... to what? It would seem: kisses with love? But you counterpose to them a ``fleeting'' (why fleeting?) ``passion'' (why not love?). It would appear, logically, that loveless (fleeting) kisses are counterposed to the loveless kisses of married couples.... It's strange.
Would it not be better for a popular pamphlet to counterpose the philistine, unclean, loveless marriage of a petty-bourgeois-intellectual-peasant kind (apparently, my point 6 or point 5) to proletarian, civil marriage with love (with the addition, if you absolutely insist, that a fleeting liaison-passion can also be unclean or it can be clean). What you have here is not counterposing class types, but something in the nature of a "special case", which, of course, is possible. But is it a matter of special cases? If you take the theme: the special, individual case of unclean kisses in marriage and clean kisses in a fleeting liaisonthen this theme should be dealt with in a novel (for here the whole crux of the matter is the individual situation, the analysis of the characters and psychology of given types). But in a pamphlet?
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4-2618 49
__CAPTION__
Facsimile of Lenin's letter to Inessa Armand
[50]
[51]
You have understood very well my idea about the unsuitable quotation from Ellen Key,^^*^^ when you said that it is ``stupid'' to appear in the role of "professors of love". Precisely. Well, and what about the role of .professors of fleeting.. ., etc.?
Honestly, I don't at all want a polemic. I would readily throw away this letter of mine and put off the matter until we could talk together. But I should like the pamphlet to be a good one, so that no one could extract from it phrases unpleasant for you (sometimes a single phrase is enough to act as a spoonful of tar.. .) or could misinterpret you. I am sure that here too you wrote "against your will", and I am sending you this letter only because I think that letters better than conversations will prompt you to examine the plan more thoroughly, for after all the plan is a very important thing.
Do you happen to know a French woman socialist? Translate for her (as if from English) my points 1-10 and your remarks about "fleeting...", etc., watch her reaction and listen carefully to what she says: a little experiment to see what other people will say, what their impressions are and what they expect from the pamphlet.
I shake hands and wish you fewer headaches and a speedy recovery.
V. U.
Written in Berne, January 24, 1915
_-_-_^^*^^ Ellen Key---Swedish bourgeois author who wrote on questions of the women's movement and the education of children.
52 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the ArticleLaughing At Yourselves!''
.. . Sincerity in politics, that is, in the field of human relations which deals not with individuals but millions, is a correspondence ot words to deeds that can be quite easily verified.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... Let us be firm in branding the blackmailers. Let us be inflexible in the analysis of the smallest doubts by the court of the politically-conscious workers, the court of our Party; we trust it, we see in it the intellect, honour and conscience of our epoch....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... The task of a genuinely revolutionary party is not to proclaim as impossible rejection of all compromises but, to be able to carry through all compromises-insofar as they are inevitable-its loyalty to principles, to its class, to its revolutionary task, to its work of preparing for the revolution and educating the mass of the people for victory in the revolution. ...
53 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Concluding SpeechNovember 10 (23), 1911
, .. Comrade Chudnovsky said here that he "allowed himself" to subject the actions of the Commissars to sharp criticism. There can be no question here of whether it is permissible or impermissible to allow oneself to criticise sharply; it is the duty of a revolutionary to make such criticism, and the People's Commissars do not consider themselves infallible. ...
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article . .. Workers and peasants, toilers and exploited! The
land, the banks, the factories and works have now become
the possession of the whole of the people! You yourselves
must set to work to take account of and control the
production and the distribution of products-this, and this alone
is the road to the victory of socialism, the only guarantee
of its victory, the guarantee of victory over all
exploitation, over all poverty and want! For there is enough bread,
iron, timber, wool, cotton and flax in Russia to satisfy
the needs of all, provided only labour and its products are
properly distributed, provided only the businesslike,
practical control over this distribution by the whole
of the people is established, provided only we can defeat
the enemies of the people: the rich and their hangers-on,
and the rogues, the idlers and the hooligans,
No mercy to these enemies of the people, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of the toilers! War to the bitter end on the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals; war on the rogues, the idlers and hooligans! Both, the former and the latter, are of the same broodthe spawn of capitalism, the offspring of aristocratic and bourgeois society; the society in which a handful of men robbed and insulted the people; the society in which poverty and want forced thousands and thousands into the path of hooliganism, corruption and roguery, and caused them to lose all semblance of human beings; the society which inevitably cultivated in the toiler the desire to escape exploitation even by means of deception, to manoeuvre out of it, to escape, if only for a moment, from loathsome toil, to procure at least a crust of bread by any possible means, at any cost, so as not to starve, so as to subdue the pangs of hunger suffered by himself and by his near ones.
The rich and the rogues are two sides of the same medal, they are the two principal categories of parasites which capitalism fostered; they are the principal enemies of socialism. These enemies must be placed under the special surveillance of the whole people; they must be ruthlessly punished for the slightest violation of the laws and regulations of socialist society. Any display of weakness, hesitation or sentimentality in this respect would be an immense crime against socialism.
In order to render these parasites harmless to socialist society we must organise the accounting and control of the amount of labour performed, of production and distribution, to be exercised by the whole of the people, by millions and millions of workers and peasants voluntarily. __FIX__ Fix all those periods at the end of a page that should be commas. 55 energetically and with revolutionary enthusiasm. And in order to organise this accounting and control, which is fully within the ability of every honest, intelligent and efficient worker and peasant, we must rouse their own organising talent, the talent which comes from their midst; we must rouse among them-and organise on a national scale-competition in the sphere of organisational successes; the workers and peasants must be brought to see clearly the difference between the necessary advice of an educated man and the necessary control by the ``common'' worker and peasant of the slovenliness that is so usual among the ``educated''.
.. . The Paris Commune gave a great example of how to combine initiative, independence, freedom of action and vigour from below with voluntary centralism free from stereotyped forms. Our Soviets are following the same road. But they are still ``shy'', they have not yet got into their stride, have not yet "bitten into" their new, great, creative task of building the socialist system. The Soviets must set to work more boldly and display greater initiative. Every ``commune'', every factory, every village, every consumers' society, every committee of supply, must compete with its neighbours as a practical organiser of accounting and control of labour and distribution of products. The programme of this accounting and control is simple, clear and intelligible to all; it is: everyone to have bread; everyone to have strong boots and decent clothing; everyone to have warm dwellings; everyone to work conscientiously; not a single rogue (including those who shirk their work) should be allowed to be at liberty, but kept in prison, or serve his sentence of compulsory labour of the hardest kind; not a single rich man who violates the laws and regulations of socialism should be allowed to escape the fate of the rogue, which should, in justice, be 56 the fate of the rich man. "He who does not work, neither shall he eat"-this is the practical commandment of socialism. This is how things should be organised practically. These are the practical successes our ``communes'' and our worker- and peasant-organisers should be proud of. And this applies particularly to the organisers among the intellectuals (particularly, because they are too much, far too much in the habit of being proud of their general instructions and resolutions)... .
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the ArticleLarge-scale machine industry-which is precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation of socialism-calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people. The technical, economic and historical necessity of this is obvious, and all those who have thought about socialism have always regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism. But how can strict unity of will be ensured?-By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one.
Given ideal class consciousness and discipline on the part of those taking part in the common work, this subordination would rather remind one of the mild leadership of a conductor of an orchestra. It may assume the sharp forms of a dictatorship if ideal discipline and class consciousness are lacking. But be that as it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of processes organised on the pattern of large-scale machine industry....
57. . . We must consolidate what we ourselves have won, what we ourselves have decreed, made law, discussed, planned-consolidate all this in stable forms of everyday labour discipline. This is the most difficult, but the most grateful task, because only its fulfilment will give us socialist conditions. We must learn to combine the "public meeting" democracy of the toiling masses-turbulent, surging, overflowing its banks like a spring flood-with iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning obedience to the will of a single person, the Soviet leader, while at work....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article. .. We can build communism only from the materials created by capitalism, from the cultural apparatus which is a product of the bourgeois conditions and therefore inevitably steeped-since the question is one of human material as part of the cultural apparatus-in bourgeois psychology. Here lies the difficulty in building communist society, but here also lies the guarantee that it can be built and built successfully. Marxism differs from the old Utopian socialism in that the latter wanted to build a new society not from the mass representatives of human material which are produced by bloody, filthy, plundering, petty-trading capitalism, but from especially virtuous people reared in special greenhouses and conservatories. Everyone now finds this ridiculous idea ludicrous and everyone has abandoned it, but not everyone wants or is able to give thought to the opposite doctrine of Marxism, to think over how it is possible (and essential) to build communism from the mass of human material spoilt by
58 ages and millennia of slavery, feudalism and capitalism, from small scattered enterprises, and wars of all against all for a place in the market, for a higher price for products, or for labour. ... __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article. .. Against people who, contrary to the laws of Soviet Government, treat the peasantry unjustly, relentless struggle, their immediate dismissal and strictest judgement of them are necessary. All the efforts of honest workers and peasants are being devoted to clearing Russia of such remnants of the landlord and capitalist way of life who permit themselves to behave like ``bosses'', whereas by the laws of our workers' and peasants' republic they are obliged to be elected representatives of the Soviets, setting an example of conscientiousness and strict observance of the law... .
__b_b_b__... It is necessary to work a great deal, work persistently, and to ensure strict, comradely discipline among workers and peasants, in order to eradicate the old, capitalist freedom of trade, freedom to make profits, freedom to indulge in strife, and freedom to oppress which has drenched the whole world in blood.
But millions upon millions of workers and peasants have now undertaken this difficult work. Every honest, conscientious peasant and worker has understood the meaning of socialism and persistently fights for it-----
59 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the ArticleThe press reports many instances of the heroism of the Red Army men. In the fight against the Kolchakites, Denikinites and other forces of the landlords and capitalists, the workers and peasants very often display miracles of bravery and endurance, defending the gains of the socialist revolution. The overcoming of the guerrilla spirit, weariness and indiscipline is a slow and difficult process, but it is making headway in spite of everything. The heroism of the toiling masses who are voluntarily making sacrifices for the cause of the victory of socialism-this is the foundation of the new, comradely discipline in the Red Army, the foundation on which it is regenerating, gaining strength and growing.
The heroism of the workers in the rear is no less worthy of attention. In this connection, the communist subbotniks^^*^^ organised by the workers on their own initiative are of enormous significance. Evidently, this is only a beginning, but it is a beginning of unusually great importance. It is the beginning of a revolution that is more difficult, more material, more radical and more decisive than the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, for it is a victory over their own _-_-_
^^*^^ Subbotniks-unpaid work which Soviet working people voluntarily performed for their country on rest days or after working hours. The first subbotnik was held on the initiative of the workers at the Sortirovochnaya Depot of the Moscow-Kazan Railway on May 10, 1919, a Saturday. (The Russian for Saturday is subbota, hence the name Subbotnik.) These subbotniks became widespread during the early years of Soviet power and during the Great Patriotic War.
60 conservatism, indiscipline, petty-bourgeois egoism, a victory over the habits that accursed capitalism left as a heritage to the worker and peasant. Only when this victory is consolidated will the new social discipline, socialist discipline, be created; then and only then will a reversion to capitalism become impossible, will communism become really invincible.... __b_b_b__... The communist organisation of social labour, the first step towards which is socialism,,rests, and will do so more and more as time goes on, on the free and conscious discipline of the toilers themselves who have thrown off the yoke both of the landlords and capitalists. ...
__b_b_b__... In order to achieve victory, in order to build and consolidate socialism, the proletariat must .fulfil a twofold or dual task: first, it must, by its supreme heroism in the revolutionary struggle against capital, win over the entire mass of the toilers and exploited; it must win them over, organise them and lead them in the struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and utterly suppress its resistance. Second, it must lead the whole mass of the toilers and exploited, as well as all the petty-bourgeois strata, into the road of new economic construction, into the road to the creation of new social ties, a new labour discipline, a new organisation of labour, which will combine the last word in science and capitalist technology with the mass association of classconscious workers creating large-scale socialist production.
The second task is more difficult than the first, for it cannot possibly be fulfilled by single acts of heroic fervour; it requires the most prolonged, most persistent and most difficult mass heroism in prosaic, everyday work. . . .
61The "communist subbotniks" are so important because they were initiated by workers who were by no means placed in exceptionally good conditions, by workers of various specialities, and some with no speciality at all, just unskilled labourers, who are living under ordinary, i.e., exceedingly hard, conditions... .
__FIX__ Probably more b_b_b markers to insert between paragraphs ... __b_b_b__... And yet these starving workers, surrounded by the malicious counter-revolutionary agitation of the bourgeoisie, the Menshevjks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries,^^*^^ are organising "communist subbotniks", working overtime without any pay, and achieving an enormous increase in productivity of labour in spite of the fact that they are weary, - tormented, and exhausted from malnutrition. Is this not supreme heroism? Is this not the beginning of a change of momentous significance?
In the last analysis, productivity of labour is the most important, the principal thing for the victory of the new social system. ...
__b_b_b__... If in starving Moscow, in the summer of 1919, the starving workers who had gone through four trying years of imperialist war and another year and a half of still more trying civil war could start this great work, how will it develop later when we triumph in the civil war and win peace?
Communism is the higher productivity of labour-- compared with that existing under capitalism-of voluntary, class-conscious and united workers employing advanced _-_-_
^^*^^ The Socialist-Revolutionaries-a petty-bourgeois party in Russia, which was organised in 1901-1902. They did not understand the real . meaning of the class struggle and rejected the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia they began to fight against Soviet power.
62 technique. Communist subbotniks are extraordinarily valuable as the actual beginning of communism; and this is a very rare thing, because we are in a stage when "only the first steps in the transition from capitalism to communism are being taken" (as our Party programme quite rightly says). __b_b_b__Communism begins when the rank-and-file workers begin to display a self-sacrificing concern that is undaunted by arduous toil for increasing productivity of labour, for husbanding every pood of grain, coal, iron and other products, which do not accrue to the workers personally or to their ``close'' kith and kin, but to their ``distant'' kith and kin, i.e., to society as a whole, to tens and hundreds of millions of people united first in one socialist state, and then in a Union of Soviet Republics. .. .
__b_b_b__... Fewer pompous phrases, more plain, everyday work, concern for the pood of grain and the pood of coal! More concern for supplying this pood of grain and pood of coal needed by the hungry workers and ragged and barefooted peasants, not by means of huckstering, not in a capitalist manner, but by means of the conscious, voluntary, boundlessly heroic labour of plain working men like the unskilled labourers and workers of the Moscow-Kazan Railway....
__b_b_b__... Take the position of women. Not a single democratic party in the world, not even in the most advanced bourgeois republic, has done in tens of years a hundredth part of what we did in the very first year we were in power. We literally did not leave a single stone standing of the despicable laws which placed women in a position of inequality, or which restricted divorce and surrounded it 63 with disgusting formalities, or which denied recognition to illegitimate children and enforced a search for their fathers, etc.-laws, numerous survivals of which, to the shame of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism be it said, are to be found in all civilised countries. We have a thousand times the right to be proud of what we have done in this sphere. But the more thoroughly we have cleared the ground of the lumber of the old, bourgeois, laws and institutions, the clearer it is to us that we have only cleared the ground to build on, but are not yet building.
Notwithstanding all the laws emancipating woman, she continues to be a domestic slave, because petty housework crushes, strangles, stultifies and degrades her, chains her to the kitchen and to the nursery, and wastes her labour on barbarously unproductive, petty, nerve-racking, stultifying and crushing drudgery. The real emancipation of women, real communism, will begin only where and when a mass struggle begins (led by the proletariat wielding the power of the state) against this petty domestic economy, or rather when its wholesale transformation into largescale socialist economy begins.
Do we in practice pay sufficient attention to this question, which, theoretically, is indisputable for every Communist? Of course not. Are we sufficiently solicitous about the young shoots of communism which already exist in this sphere? Again we must say emphatically. No! Public dining rooms, creches, kindergartens-here we have examples of these shoots, here we have the simple, everyday means, involving nothing pompous, grandiloquent or ceremonial, which can in actual fact emancipate women, which can in actual fact lessen and abolish their inequality with men as regards their role in social production and public life....
64 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... We do not need fictitious Party members even as a gift. Our Party, the Party of the revolutionary working class, is the only government party in the world which is concerned not in increasing its membership but in improving its quality, and in purging itself of ``self-seekers''. We have more than once carried out re-registration of Party members in order to get rid of these ``self-seekers'' and to leave in the Party only politically enlightened elements who are sincerely devoted to communism. We have further taken advantage of the mobilisations for the front and of the subbotniks to purge the Party of those who are only "out for" the benefits accruing to membership of a government party and do not want to bear the burden of selfsacrificing work in behalf of communism.
And at this juncture, when intensified mobilisation for the front is in progress. Party Week is a good thing because it offers no temptation to the self-seekers. We extend a broad invitation into the Party only to the rankand-file workers and to the poor peasants, to the labouring peasants, but not to the peasant profiteers. We do not promise and do not give these rank-and-file members any advantages from joining the Party. On the contrary, just now harder and more dangerous work than usual falls to the lot of Party membe'rs.
All the better. Only sincere supporters of communism, only persons who are conscientiously devoted to the workers' state, only honest working people, only genuine representatives of the masses that were oppressed under capitalism will join the Party.
And it is only such members that we need in the Party___
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5-2618 65 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article. .. Vanguard sections of the proletariat, holding the reins of state power, have by their example shown the mass of the working people during two whole years (a tremendous period for our exceptionally rapid rate of political development) a model of such devotion to the interests of the working people, of such energy. in the struggle against enemies of the working people ( exploiters in general and ``proprietors'' and profiteers in particular), of such firmness in difficult moments, of such selfless courage in rebuffing the brigands of world imperialism, that the power of the sympathy of the workers and peasants for their vanguard has by itselt proved capable of performing miracles.
For this is a miracle: the workers who experienced the unprecedented torments of famine, cold, ruin and devastation, not only retain their staunch morale, all their loyalty to Soviet Government, all the energy of self ^ sacrifice and heroism, but are also taking upon themselves, in spite of all their unpreparedness and inexperience, the burden of steering the ship of state! And this at a time when the storm is furiously raging. ...
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Speech at the First... At every difficult moment during the war, the Party mobilised the Communists, and it was they who were the first to perish in the front ranks; they perished in thousands on the Yudenich and Kolchak fronts; the, finest 66 people of the working class perished, those who sacrificed themselves realising that they would die but save generations, save thousands upon thousands of workers and peasants. They branded with ignominy and hounded the self-seekers, those who during the war were concerned for their own skins, and mercilessly shot them. We are proud of this dictatorship, of this iron power of the workers who declared: we overthrew the capitalists and we shall lay down our lives at their slightest attempt to restore their power again. No one starved as much in these two years as the workers of Petrograd, Moscow and IvanovoVoznesensk. It has now been calculated that in these two years they received not more than 7 poods of bread a year, while the peasants of the grain gubernias ate not less than 17 poods. The workers made great sacrifices, suffered disease and the death rate among them increased, and they will prove that the workers rose in revolt against the capitalists not out of feelings of revenge, but out of their inflexible determination to create a new social order in which there would be no landlords and capitalists. It was for this that the sacrifices were made; only thanks to these unprecedented sacrifices which, moreover, were made consciously, voluntarily and were consolidated by the discipline of the Red Army, which did not resort to the old methods of discipline, only thanks to these greatest sacrifices did the vanguard workers maintain their dictatorship and win for themselves the right to the respect of the workers of the entire world. It should not be forgotten by those who particularly slander the Bolsheviks that the dictatorship meant the greatest sacrifices, the greatest starvation for the workers themselves, for those who exercised it. The Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Petrograd and Moscow workers suffered in those two years more than anyone else ever suffered in the struggle on the Red fronts....
67 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article... Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the word is unpaid labour for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a compulsory duty, not in order to have the right to a certain amount of products, not according to previously established and accepted quotas, but labour that is voluntary, labour without quotas, labour performed without expecting remuneration, without any condition about remuneration, labour performed out of a habit of working for the common good, out of a conscious attitude (that has become a habit) to the need to work for the common good, labour as the requirement of the healthy organism....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Article..-. We shall work so as to root out the cursed rule: "each for himself and the devil take the hindmost", in order to eradicate the habit of regarding labour merely as a compulsory duty, and considering as rightful only that labour which is paid for at a definite rate. We shall work in order to introduce in the minds, habits and daily life of the masses the rule: "all for one and one for all", the rule: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", in order gradually but inflexibly to introduce communist discipline and communist labour....
68 __ALPHA_LVL2__ V. I. Lenin on Communist Morality... Lenin resumed the thread of his thoughts.
``Yes, yes; I know that," he said, "I too am badly suspected of philistinism on that account.^^*^^ But I don't get excited over that. Yellow-beaked fledglings who have just about been hatched from their bourgeois-tained eggs are all so terribly clever. We have to reconcile ourselves to this without mending our ways. The youth movement is also sick from the modern treatment of the sex problem and the excessive interest in it.''
Lenin emphasised the word ``modern'' with an ironical, deprecating gesture.
__b_b_b__.. ."In the atmosphere created by the aftermath of war and incipient revolution old ideological values tumble, losing their power of restraint. New values crystallise slowly, by struggle. Views on relations between man and man, and relations between man and woman, are becoming revolutionised; feelings and thoughts are also becoming revolutionised. New delimitations are being set up between the rights of the individual and the rights of the collective body, and hence also the duties of the individual. This is the slow and often very painful process of passing away and coming into being. All this applies also to the .field of sex relations, marriage, family. The decay, putrescence, filth of bourgeois marriage with its difficult dissolution, its liberty for the husband and bondage for the wife, and _-_-_
^^*^^ On account of Lenin's sharp criticism of those Social-Democrats who, during the hardest years of revolutionary struggle put in the forefront problems of love and marriage.
69 its detestably false sex morality and relations fill the best representatives of humanity with the utmost loathing.... __b_b_b__. . ."In the sphere of marriage and sexual relations a revolution is approaching in keeping with the proletarian revolution. Naturally the exceedingly tangled interlacement of questions thus brought to the fore deeply engrosses both women and the youth. Both the former and the latter suffer greatly from the messy state of sex relations. The youth is up in arms against this with the impetuosity characteristic of it. That is understandable. Nothing would be more false than to begin to preach to the youth monastic asceticism and the sanctity of filthy bourgeois morals. However one would hardly say it was a good, thing that in these years sex problems, violently pushed into the limelight by natural causes, were becoming the central feature of youth psychology. The consequences are sometimes nothing short of fatal. Just ask Comrade Lilina about it. She should have some experience from her extensive work in different educational institutions, and you know that she is a real Communist and has no prejudices.
``Youth's changed attitude to questions of sexual life is of course based, 'as a matter of principle', on theory. Many call their position `revolutionary' and `communist'. They sincerely believe that this is so. I, an old man, am not impressed by this. Although I am anything but a morose ascetic, yet quite frequently this so-called 'new sex life' of the youth-and often enough of grown-ups tooseems to me purely bourgeois, seems to me to be just a variety of the good old bourgeois brothel. All this has not the faintest resemblance to free love, as we Communists understand it. You of course have heard about the famous theory that in communist society satisfying one's sexual desire and craving for love is as simple and trivial as 70 drinking a glass of water. Our youth has gone mad, absolutely mad, over this `glass-of-water' theory. It has proved fatal to many a boy and girl. Its devotees assert that it is a Marxist theory. Thanks for such `Marxism', which deduces all phenomena and all changes in the ideological superstructure of society directly, straight and unfailingly from this one and only source-the economic basis. This is not at all such a simple matter. A certain Frederick Engels long ago established this truth, which concerns historical materialism.
``I do not consider the famous `glass-of-water' theory as Marxist at all and besides think it is anti-social. What manifests itself in sex life is not only the contribution made by nature but also an admixture derived from culture, be it on a high level or low. Engels pointed out in his Origin of the Family how significant it was that simple sexual inclination developed into individual sex love and became refined. Relations between the sexes are not simply a game between social economics and a physical want. To strive to reduce changes in these relations, taken in isolation from their general connection with the whole of ideology, directly to the economic basis of society would not be Marxism but rationalism. Of course thirst must be quenched. But will a normal person under normal conditions lie down in the gutter and drink from a puddle? Or even from a glass the edge of which has been touched by dozens of lips? But the social aspect is the most important. Drinking water is really an individual matter. But in love-making two take part and a third, a new life, comes into being. Herein lies a social interest; a duty to the collective body arises.
``As a Communist I do not like the `glass-of-water' theory in the least despite its beautiful label: 'emancipated love.' Moreover, it is neither new nor communistic. Perhaps you will recall that this theory was disseminated 71 in fine literature about the middle of the past century as the 'emancipation of the heart'. In bourgeois practice it was turned into the emancipation of the body. It was preached with much more talent than now. How things are with the practice of it I am unable to judge.
``Not that I want my criticism to breed asceticism. That never occurred to me. Communism ought to bring with it not asceticism but joy of life and good cheer called forth, among other things, by a life replete with love. However, in my opinion the plethora of sex life observable today brings neither joy of life nor cheerfulness, but on the contrary diminishes them. In revolutionary times this is bad, very bad, indeed.
``The. youth is particularly in need of joy of life and cheerfulness. Healthy sports: gymnastics, swimming, excursions, physical exercise of every description; also a diversity of intellectual pursuits: teaching, criticism, research; and all of this in combination, as far as possible. That will mean more to the youth than eternal lectures and discussions on sex problems and so-called 'utilisation of life'. Metis sana in corpoie sano. Neither monk nor Don Juan nor yet a German philistine to act the part of a mean. After all, you know young Comrade XYZ. A handsome, highly gifted youth. Yet I am afraid that in spite of all he will never amount to anything. He has one love affair after another. No good will come of this, neither for the political struggle nor for the revolution. Nor will I vouch for the reliability or staunchness in the struggle of women whose personal romance is intertwined with politics, or for men who run after every petticoat, and allow themselves to be mixed up with every slip of a girl. No, no; that does not go well together with revolution.''
Lenin jumped up, striking the table with his hand, and walked a few steps up and down the room.
72``The revolution demands ot the masses and the individual concentration, the straining of every nerve. It does not tolerate orgiastic states like those habitual with the decadent heroes and heroines of d'Annunzio.^^*^^ Laxity in sexual matters is bourgeois; it is a sign of degeneration. The proletariat is an ascending class. It requires no intoxicant to stun or excite it. It has no need of intoxication either by sexual looseness or by means of alcohol. It does not dare and does not want to forget the vileness, filth, and barbarity of capitalism. It derives its strongest stimulants to struggle from the position of its class, from the communist ideal. What it needs is clarity, clarity, and once more-clarity. Therefore, I repeat: there must be no weakness, no waste or destruction of energy. Self-possession, self-discipline are not slavery; they are necessary also in love....
__b_b_b__``... Very few husbands, even in proletarian circles, think of how greatly they could lighten the burdens and worries of their wives or relieve them entirely if they would lend a hand in this 'women's work'. But no, that would be against the 'rights and dignity of the husband'. He demands that he have rest and comfort. The domestic life of woman is a daily sacrifice of self in thousands of insignificant trifles. The ancient rights of her husband, her lord and master, continue to assert themselves in concealed form. His slave objectively takes revenge of him, also in concealed form: woman's backwardness, her lack of understanding of her husband's revolutionary ideals is a drag on his good spirits and determination to fight. They are the tiny worms which imperceptibly, slowly but surely gnaw and undermine....''
_-_-_^^*^^ Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863-1938)-a decadent Italian writer and ideologist of fascism.
73 __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Tasks of the Youth Leagues... You can become a Communist only when you enrich your mind with the knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind....
__b_b_b__... If a Communist took it into his head to boast about his communism because of the ready-made conclusions he had acquired, without putting in a great deal of serious and hard work, without understanding the facts which he must examine critically, he would be a very deplorable Communist. Such superficiality would be decidedly fatal. If I know that I know little, I shall strive to learn more; but if a man says that he is a Communist and that he need know nothing thoroughly, he will never be anything like a Communist....
__b_b_b__.. . But is there such a thing as communist ethics? Is there such a thing as communist morality? Of course, there is. It is often made to appear that we have no ethics of our own; and very often the bourgeoisie accuse us Communists of repudiating all ethics. This is a method of shuffling concepts, of throwing dust in the eyes of the workers and peasants.
In what sense do we repudiate ethics and morality?
In the sense in which it is preached by the bourgeoisie, who derived ethics from 'God's commandments. We, of course, say that we do not believe in God, and that we know perfectly well that the clergy, the landlords and the bourgeoisie spoke in the name of God in pursuit of their own interests as exploiters. Or instead of deriving ethics 74 from the commandments of morality, from the commandments of God, they derived them from idealist or semiidealist phrases, which always amounted to something very similar to God's commandments.
We repudiate all morality taken apart from human society and classes. We say that it is a deception, a fraud, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists.
We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is derived from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.. ..
... The class struggle is continuing and it is our task to subordinate all interests to this struggle. And we subordinate our communist morality to this task. We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the toilers around the proletariat, which is building up a new, communist society.
Communist morality is the morality which serves this struggle, which unites the toilers against all exploitation, against all small property; for small property puts into the hands of one person what has been created by the labour of the whole of society. In our country the land is common property.
But suppose I take a piece of this common property and grow on it twice as much grain as I need and profiteer in the surplus? Suppose I argue that the more starving people there are, the most they will pay? Would I then be behaving like a Communist? No, I would be behaving like an exploiter, like a proprietor. This must be combated. If this is allowed to go on things will slide back to the rule of the capitalists, to the rule of the bourgeoisie, as has more than once happened in previous revolutions. And 75 in order to prevent the restoration of the rule of the capitalists and the bourgeoisie we must not allow profiteering, we must not allow individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest, and the toilers must unite with the proletariat and form a communist society....
__b_b_b__... When people talk to us about morality, we say: for the Communist, morality lies entirely in this solid, united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in an eternal morality, and we expose the deceit of all the fables about morality. Morality serves the purpose of helping human society to rise to a higher level and to get rid of the exploitation of labour....
__b_b_b__...The training of the communist youth must consist not in giving them sentimental speeches and moral precepts. This is not what training consists in. When people saw how their fathers and mothers lived under the yoke of the landlords and capitalists, when they themselves experienced the sufferings that befell those who started the struggle against the exploiters, when they saw what sacrifices the continuation of this struggle entailed in order to defend what had been won, and when they saw what frenzied foes the landlords and capitalists are-they were trained in this environment to become Communists. The basis of communist morality is the struggle for the consolidation and completion of communism. That too is the basis of communist training, education, and teaching. That is the reply to the question how communism should be learnt....
__b_b_b__... But our school must impart to the youth the fundamentals of knowledge, the ability to work out communist views independently; it must make educated people of 76 them. In the time during which people attend school, it must train them to be participants in the struggle for emancipation from the exploiters. The Young Communist League will justify its name as the league of the young communist generation only when it links up every step of its teaching, training and education with participation in the general struggle of all the toilers against the exploiters...
__b_b_b__... Thus, to be a Communist means that you must organise and unite the whole rising generation and set an example of training and discipline in this struggle. Then you will be able to start building the edifice of communist society and bring it to completion....
__b_b_b__... The generation which is now about fifty years old cannot expect to see the communist society. This generation will die out before then. But the generation which is now fifteen years old will see the communist society, and will itself build this society. And it must know that the whole purpose of its life is to build this society. In the old society work was carried on by separate families, and nobody united their labour except the landlords and capitalists, who oppressed the masses of the people. We must organise all labour, no matter how dirty and arduous it may be, in such a way that every worker and peasant may say: I am part of the great army of free labour, and I can build my life without the landlords and capitalists, I can establish the communist system. The Young Communist League must train everybody to conscious and disciplined labour from an early age. In this way we shall be sure that the problems that are now confronting us will be solved. We must assume that no less than ten years will be required for the electrification of the country, so 77 that our impoverished land may be served by the latest achievements of technology. And so, the generation which is now fifteen years old, and which in ten or twenty years' time will be living in communist society, must approach all their tasks in education in such a way that every day, in every village and in every town, the young people shall engage in the practical solution of some problem of common labour, even though the smallest, even though the simplest. To the extent that this is done in every village, to the extent that communist emulation develops, to the extent that the youth prove that they can unite their labour, to that extent will the success of communist construction be ensured....
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the ReportOctober 17,1921
In my view, there are three main enemies which now face man irrespective of his departmental role, tasks which confront the political education worker if he is a Communist, and most of them are. The three main enemies facing him are the following: the first-communist conceit; the second-illiteracy, and the third-bribery....
[78] __ALPHA_LVL2__ PROBLEMS OF MORALITYSoviet society has made great progress in the' socialist education of the masses, in the moulding of active builders of socialism. But even after the socialist system has triumphed there persist in the minds and behaviour of people survivals of capitalism, which hamper the progress of society.
In the struggle for the victory of communism, ideological work becomes an increasingly powerful factor. The higher the social consciousness of the members of society, the more fully and broadly their creative activities come into play in the building of the material and technical basis of communism, in the development of communist forms of labour and new relations between people, and, consequently, the more rapidly and successfully the building of communism proceeds.
79The Party considers that the paramount task in the ideological field in the present period is to educate all working people in a spirit of ideological integrity and devotion to communism, and cultivate in them a communist attitude to labour and the social economy; to eliminate completely the survivals of .bourgeois views and morals; to ensure the all-round, harmonious development of the individual; to create a truly rich spiritual culture. Special importance is attached by the Party to the moulding of the rising generation.
The moulding of the new man is effected through his own active participation in communist construction and the development of communist principles in the economic and social spheres, under the influence of the educational work carried out by the Party, the state, and various social organisations, work in which the press, radio, cinema and television play an important part. As communist forms of social organisation are created, communist ideas will become more firmly rooted in life and work and in human relations, and people will develop the ability to enjoy the benefits of communism in a rational way. Joint planned labour by the members of society, their daily participation in the management of state and public affairs, and the development of communist relations of comradely co-operation and mutual support, recast the minds of people in a spirit of collectivism, industry, and humanism.
Increased communist consciousness of the people furthers the ideological and political unity of the workers, collective farmers, and intellectuals and promotes their gradual fusion in the single collective of the working people of communist society.
The Party sets the following tasks:
80(a) The Shaping ot a Scientific World Outlook. Under socialism and at a time when a communist society is being built, when spontaneous economic development has given way to the conscious organisation of production and social life as a whole, and when theory is daily translated into practice, it is of prime importance that a scientific world outlook be shaped in all working people of Soviet society on the basis of Marxism^Leninism, an integral and harmonious system of philosophical, economic and sociopolitical views. The Party calls for the education of the population as a whole in the spirit of scientific communism and strives to ensure that all working people fully understand the course and perspectives of world development, that they take a correct view of international and domestic events and consciously build their life on communist lines. Communist ideas and communist deeds should blend organically in the behaviour of every person and in the activities of all collectives and organisations.
The theoretical elaboration and timely practical solution of new problems raised by life are essential to the successful advance of society to communism. Theory must continue to illumine the road of practice, and help detect and eliminate obstacles and difficulties hindering sucessful communist construction. The Party regards it as one of its most important duties to further elaborate MarxistLeninist theory by studying and generalising new phenomena in the life of Soviet society and the experience of the world revolutionary working-class and liberation movements, and creatively to combine the theory and the practice of communist construction.
(b) Labour Education. The Party sees the development of a communist attitude to labour in all members of __PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6-2618 81 society as its chief educational task. Labour for the benefit of society is the sacred duty of all. Any labour for society, whether physical or mental, is honourable and commands respect. Exemplary labour and management in the social economy should serve to educate all working people.
Everything required for life and human progress is created by labour. Hence every able-bodied man must take part in creating the means which are indispensable for his life and work and for the welfare of society. Anyone who received any benefits from society without doing his share of work, would be a parasite living at the expense of others.
It is. impossible for a man in communist society not to work, for neither his social consciousness, nor public opinion would permit it. Work according to one's ability will become a habit, a prime necessity of life, for every member of society.
(c) The At&rmation oi Communist Morality. In the course of transition to communism, the moral principles of society become increasingly important; the sphere of action of the moral factor expands and the importance of the administrative control of human relations diminishes accordingly. The Party will encourage all forms of conscious civic self-discipline leading to the assertion and promotion of the basic rules of the communist way of life.
The Communists reject the class morality of the exploiters; in contrast to the perverse, selfish views and morals of the old world, they promote communist morality, which is the noblest and most just morality, for it expresses the interests and ideals of the whole of working mankind. Communism makes the elementary standards of morality and justice, which were distorted or shamelessly flouted under the rule of the exploiters, inviolable rules for relations both between individuals and between 82 peopies. Communist morality encompasses the fundamental norms of human morality which the masses of the people evolved in the course of millenniums as they fought against vice and social oppression. The revolutionary morality of the working class is of particular importance to the moral advancement of society. As socialist and communist construction progresses, communist morality is enriched with new principles, a new content.
The Party holds that the moral code oi the builder oi communism should comprise the following principles:
devotion to the communist cause; love of the socialist motherland and of the other socialist countries;
conscientious labour for the good of society---he who does not work, neither shall he eat;
concern on the part of everyone for the preservation and growth of public wealth;
a high sense of public duty; intolerance of actions harmful to the public interest;
collectivism and comradely mutual assistance: one for all and all for one;
humane relations and mutual respect between individuals-man is to man a friend, comrade and brother;
honesty and truthfulness, moral purity, modesty, and unpretentiousness in social and private life;
mutual respect in the family, and concern for the upbringing of children,-
an uncompromising attitude to injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism and money-grubbing;
friendship and brotherhood among all peoples of the U.S.S.R.; intolerance of national and racial hatred;
an uncompromising attitude to the enemies of communism, peace and the freedom of nations,-
fraternal solidarity with the working people of all countries, and with all peoples.
83(d) The Promotion oi Proletarian Internationalism and Socialist Patriotism. The Party will untiringly educate Soviet people in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and will vigorously promote the international solidarity of the working people. In fostering the Soviet people's love of their country, the Party maintains that with the emergence of the world socialist system the patriotism of the members of socialist society is expressed in devotion and loyalty to their own country and to the entire community of socialist countries. Socialist patriotism and socialist internationalism necessarily imply proletarian solidarity with the working class and all working people of all "countries. The Party will continue perseveringly to combat the reactionary ideology of bourgeois nationalism, racism, and cosmopolitanism.
(e) All-Round and Harmonious Development oi the Individual. In the period of transition to communism, there are greater opportunities of educating a new man, who will harmoniously combine spiritual wealth, moral purity and a periect physique.
All-round development of the individual has been made possible by historic social gains---freedom from exploitation, unemployment and poverty, from discrimination on account of sex, origin, nationality or race. Every member of society is provided with equal opportunities for education and creative labour. Relations of dependence and inequality between people in public affairs and in family life disappear. The personal dignity of each citizen is protected by society. Each is guaranteed an equal and free choice of occupation and profession with due regard to the interests of society. As less and less time is spent on material production, the individual is afforded ever greater opportunities to develop his abilities, gifts, and talents in the fields of production, science, engineering, literature, 84 and the arts. People will increasingly devote their leisure to public pursuits, cultural intercourse, intellectual and physical development, scientific, technical and artistic endeavour. Physical training and sports will become part and parcel of the everyday life of people.
(f) Elimination of the Survivals oi Capitalism in the Minds and Behaviour oi People. The Party considers it an integral part of its communist education work to combat manifestations of bourgeois ideology and morality, and the remnants of private-owner psychology, superstitions, and prejudices.
The general public, public opinion, and extensive criticism and self-criticism must play a big role in combating survivals of the past and manifestations of individualism and selfishness. Comradely censure of anti-social behaviour will gradually become the principal means of doing away with manifestations of bourgeois views, customs and habits. The power of example in public affairs and in private life, in the performance of one's public duty, acquires tremendous educational significance.
The Party uses ideological media to educate people in the spirit of a scientific materialist world conception to overcome religious prejudices without insulting the sentiments of believers. It is necessary to conduct regularly broad atheistic propaganda on a scientific basis, to explain patiently the untenability of religious beliefs, which were engendered in the past when people were overawed by the elemental forces and social oppression and did not know the real causes of natural and social phenomena. This can be done by making use of the achievements of modern science, which is steadily solving the mysteries of the universe and extending man's power over nature leaving no room for religious inventions about supernatural forces.
85(g) The Exposure of Bourgeois Ideology. The peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems does not imply any easing of the ideological struggle. The Communist Party will go on exposing the anti-popular, reactionary nature of capitalism and all attempts to paint bright pictures of the capitalist system.
The Party will steadfastly popularise the great advantages of socialism and communism over the declining capitalist system.
The Party advances the scientific ideology of communism in contrast to reactionary bourgeois ideology. Communist ideology, which expresses the fundamental interests of the working class and all working people, teaches them to struggle, to live and work for the happiness of all. It is the most humane ideology. Its ideals are to establish truly human relations between individuals and peoples, to deliver mankind from the threat of wars of extermination, and bring about universal peace and a free, happy life for all men on earth.
The transition to communism implies training that will make people communist-minded and highly-cultured, people fit for both physical and mental labour, for active work in various social, governmental, scientific, and cultural spheres.
The system of public education is so organised as to ensure that the instruction and education of the rising' generation are closely bound up with life and productive labour, and that the adult population can combine work in the sphere of production with further training and education in keeping with their vocations and the requirements of society. Public education along these lines will
86 make for the moulding of harmoniously developed members of communist society and for the solution of a cardinal social problem, namely, the elimination of substantial distinctions between mental and physical labour.The main tasks in the field of instruction and education are:
(a) Introduction of Universal Compulsory Secondary Education. In the next decade compulsory secondary general and polytechnical eleven-year education is to be introduced for all children of school age, and eight-year education for young people engaged in the national economy who have not had the appropriate schooling; in the subsequent decade every one will have the opportunity to receive a complete'secondary education. Universal secondary education is guaranteed by the development of general and polytechnical education, professional training combined with socially useful labour of school children to the extent of their physical capacity, and a considerable expansion of the network of all types of general schools, including evening schools, which provide a secondary education in off-work hours.
Secondary education must furnish a solid knowledge of the fundamentals of the basic sciences, and understanding of the principles of the communist world outlook, and a labour and polytechnical training in accordance with the rising level of science and engineering, with due regard to the needs of society and to the abilities and inclinations of the students, as well as the moral, aesthetic and physical education of a healthy rising generation.
In view of the rapid progress of science and engineering, the system of industrial, professional and vocational training should be improved continuously, so that the skills of those engaged in production may develop together with their better general education in the social and 87 natural sciences and with the acquisition of specialised knowledge in engineering, agronomy, medicine, and other fields.
(b) The Public Upbringing of Children of Pre-School and School Age. The communist system of public education is based on the public upbringing of children. The educational influence which the family exerts on children must be brought into ever greater harmony with their public upbringing.
The growing number of pre-school institutions and boarding-schools of different types will fully meet the requirements of all working people who wish to give their children of pre-school and school age a public upbringing. The importance of the school, which is to cultivate love of labour and knowledge in children and to raise the younger generation in the spirit of communist consciousness and morality, will increase. An honourable and responsible role in this respect falls to teachers, and to the Komsomol and Young Pioneer organisations.
(c) Creation of Conditions for High-Standard Instruction and Education of the Rising Generation. The Party plans to carry out an extensive programme for the construction of schools and cultural-education establishments to meet fully the needs of education and instruction. All schools will be housed in good buildings and will go over to a one-shift time-table. They will all have study workshops and chemical, physical and other laboratories; rural schools will also have their own farming plots; large factories will have production training shops for school children. Modern facilities-cinema, radio, and television-will be widely used in schools.
For physical training and aesthetic education, all schools and extra-school establishments will have gymnasiums, sports grounds and facilities for the creative endeavour 88 of children in music, painting, sculpture, etc. The network of sports schools, sports grounds, tourist camps, skiing centres, aquatic stations, swimming pools, and other sports facilities will be expanded in town and countryside.
(d) Higher and Secondary Special Education. In step with scientific and technical progress, higher and secondary special education, which must train highly-skilled specialists with a broad theoretical and political background, will be expanded.
Shorter working hours and a considerable improvement in the standard of living of the entire population will provide everyone with an opportunity to receive a higher or secondary special education if he so desires. The number of higher and secondary specialised schools, evening and correspondence schools in particular, as well as higher schools at factories, agricultural institutes (on large state farms), studios, conservatoires, etc., must be increased in all areas of the country with the support of factories and trade unions and other social organisations. The plan is to considerably increase every year the number of students at higher and secondary specialised schools; special education will be afforded to tens of millions of people.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ ... 4. In the Field of Cultural Development,Cultural development during the full-scale construction of communist society will constitute the closing stage of a great cultural revolution. At this stage all the necessary ideological and cultural conditions will be created for the victory of communism.
The growth of the productive forces, progress in engineering and in the organisation of production, increased 89 social activity of the working people, development of the democratic principles of self-government, and a communist reorganisation of everyday life depend in very large measure on the cultural advancement of the population.
Absorbing and developing all the best that has been created by world culture, communist culture will be a new, higher stage in the cultural progress of mankind. It will embody the versatility and richness of the spiritual life of society, and the lofty ideals and humanism of the new world. It will be the culture of a classless society, a culture of the entire people, of all mankind.
(a) All-Round Advancement of the Cultural Life of Society. In the period of transition to communism, creative effort in all fields of culture becomes particularly fruitful and accessible to all members of society. Soviet literature, music, painting, cinema and theatre, television and all the other arts, will attain higher standards in their ideological make-up and artistry. People's theatres, mass amateur art, technical invention and other forms of creative endeavour by the people will become widespread. The advancement of artistic and creative activities among the masses will ensure the appearance of new gifted writers, artists, musicians and actors. The development and enrichment of the arts are based on a combination of mass amateur endeavour and professional art.
The Party will work unremittingly to ensure that literature, art, and culture flourish, that every individual is given full scope to apply his abilities, that the people are educated aesthetically and develop a fine artistic taste and cultural habits. The artistic element will ennoble labour still more, make living conditions more attractive, and lift man up spiritually.
To provide the material basis for cultural development on a grand scale:
90 __FIX__ These paragraphs start with lower-case letter; insert "~" before first letter, like this:~book publishing and the press will be vigorously developed, and the printing and paper industries will be .expanded accordingly:
~there will be more libraries, lecture halls and readingrooms, theatres, houses of culture, clubs, and cinemas;
the country-wide radio diffusion network will be completed; television stations covering all industrial and agricultural areas will be built;
people's universities, people's theatrical companies, and other amateur cultural organisations will be widely developed;
a large network of scientific and technical laboratories and of art and cinema studios will be provided for the use of all who have the inclination and ability.
The Party considers it necessary to distribute cultural institutions evenly throughout the country in order gradually to bring the cultural standard of the countryside level with that of the town and achieve rapid cultural progress in all the newly-developed areas.
(b) Enhancement of the Educational Role of Literature and Art. Soviet literature and art, imbued with optimism and dynamic communist ideas, are great factors in ideological education and cultivate in Soviet people the qualities of builders of a new world. They must be a source of joy and inspiration to millions of people, express their will, their sentiments and ideas, enrich them ideologically and educate them morally.
The highroad of literature and art lies through the strengthening of their bond with the life of the people, through faithful and highly artistic depiction of the richness and versatility of socialist reality, inspired and vivid portrayal of all that is new and genuinely communist, and exposure of all that hinders the progress of society.
91In the art of socialist realism, which is based on the principles of partisanship and kinship with the people, bold pioneering in the artistic depiction of life goes hand in hand with the cultivation and development of the progressive traditions of world culture. Writers, artists, musicians, theatrical workers, and film makers have every opportunity of displaying creative initiative and skill, using manifold forms, styles, and genres.
The Communist Party shows solicitude for the proper development of literature and art and their ideological and artistic standards, helps social organisations and literary and art associations in their activities.
(c) The Expansion of International Cultural Relations. The Party considers it necessary to expand the Soviet Union's cultural relations with the countries of the socialist system and with all other countries for the purpose of pooling scientific and cultural achievements and of bringing about mutual understanding and friendship among the peoples....
__ALPHA_LVL3__ . .. VII. The Party in the PeriodThere must be a new, higher stage in the development of the Party itself and of its political, ideological, and organisational work that is in conformity with the fullscale building of communism. The Party will continuously improve the forms and methods of its work, so that its leadership of the masses, of the building of the material and technical basis of communism, of the development of society's spiritual life will keep pace with the growing requirements of the epoch of communist construction.
Being the vanguard of the people building a communist society, the Party must also be in the van in the 92 organisation of internal Party life and serve as an example and model in developing the most advanced forms of public communist self-government.
Undeviating observance of the Leninist standards of Party life and the principle of collective leadership, enhancement of the responsibility of Party organs and their personnel to the Party rank and file, promotion of the activity -and initiative of all Communists and of their participation in elaborating and realising the policy of the Party, and the development of criticism and self-criticism, are a law of Party life. This is an imperative condition of the ideological and organisational strength of the Party itself, of the unity and solidarity of Party ranks, of an all-round development of inner-Party democracy and an activisation on this basis of all Party forces, and of the strengthening of ties with the masses... .
.. .(d) To reduce steadily the salaried Party staffs, enlisting Communists more extensively as non-salaried workers doing voluntary work.
(e) To develop criticism and self-criticism to the utmost as a tried and tested method of work and a means of disclosing and rectifying errors and shortcomings and properly educating cadres.
In the period of full-scale communist construction the role and responsibility of every Party member will steadily increase. It is the duty of a Communist, in production, in social and personal life, to be a model in the struggle for the development and consolidation of communist relations, and to observe the principles and norms of communist morality. The C.P.S.U. will reinforce its ranks with the most politically conscious and active working people, and keep pure and hold high the name of Communist.
93The development of inner-Party democracy must ensure greater activity among Communists and enhance their responsibility for the realisation of the noble ideals of communism. It will promote the cultivation in them of an inner, organic need to act always and in all matters in full accordance with the principles of the Party and its lofty aims.
The Party will continue to strengthen the unity and solidarity of its ranks, and to maintain the purity of Marxism-Leninism. The Party preserves such organisational guarantees as are provided by the Rules of the C.P.S.U. against all manifestations of factionalism and group activity incompatible with Marxist-Leninist Party principles. The unshakable ideological and organisational unity of the Party is the most important source ot its invincibility, a guarantee tot the successful solution of the great tasks of communist construction.
The people are the decisive force in the building of communism. The Party exists for the people, and it is in serving the people that it sees the purpose of its activity. To further extend and deepen the ties between the Party and the people is an imperative condition of success in the struggle for communism. The Party considers it its duty always to consult the working people on the major questions of home and foreign policy, to make these questions an object of nation-wide discussion, and to attract the more extensive participation of non-Party members in all its work. The more socialist democracy develops, the broader and more versatile the work of the Party among the working people must be, and the stronger will be its influence among the masses.
The Party will in every way promote the extension, and improvement of the work of the Soviets, the trade unions, the Y.C.L., and other mass organisations of working 94 peopie, and the development of the creative energy and initiative of the masses, and will strengthen the unity and friendship of all the peoples of the U.S.S.R.
The CJP.SjU. is an integral part of the international Communist and working-class movement. The tried and tested Marxist-Leninist principles of proletarian internationalism will continue to be inviolable principles which the Party will follow undeviatingly.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union will continue to strengthen the unity of the international Communist movement, to develop fraternal ties with all the Communist and Workers' Parties and to co-ordinate its actions with the efforts of all the contingents of the world communist movement in the joint struggle against the danger of a new world war, for the interests of the working people, for peace, democracy, and socialism.
[95] __ALPHA_LVL1__ DZERZHINSKY,
F•DZERZHINSKY
__NOTE__ LVL2 was here, moved above.April 30, 1908
... Where lies the way out of the hell of present-day life, in which the wolfish law of exploitation, oppression and violence holds sway? The way out lies in the idea of a life which is based on harmony, a full life enjoyed by the whole of society, by all mankind; the way out is in the idea of socialism, the idea of solidarity of the working people. This idea is already approaching realisation, the people are ready to receive it with open arms. The time for it has already arrived. The ranks of the advocates of this idea must be united and the banner carried aloft so that the people see it and follow it. And today this is the most urgent of the tasks of SociaKDemocracy, of the tasks of the small handful that survives.
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7-2618 97Socialism should cease to be only the scientific prevision of the future. It should become the torch that kindles indomitable faith and energy in the hearts of people....
__b_b_b__May 10, 1908
... It would not be worthwhile living if the star of socialism, the star of the future were not shining down on mankind. For the ``ego'' cannot live if in itself it does not contain the rest of the world and the people. Such is the nature of this ``ego''....
__b_b_b__May 21, 1908
. .: It is necessary to instil in the masses our own confidence in the inevitable bankruptcy of evil, so that they will be left with no doubt, so that they will come through this moment in serried ranks, prepared for battle. This is the task of the theoreticians. But the tasks of the others are to lay bare and show up this evil, to lay bare the sufferings and torments of the masses and of the individual fighters torn from their midst by the enemy, to give them the meaning they actually have and which gives them the strength to bear everything courageously, without wavering. Only in this way is it possible to instil in the masses courage and understanding of the need for struggle. Those who influence the mind and those who put confidence in victory into the heart and mind are both needed. Scientists and poets, teachers and propagandists are needed. I recall the booklet "From the Battlefield" published by the ``Proletariat''^^*^^ Party, which described the sufferings of the people, the steadfastness and courage they displayed in the struggle, _-_-_
^^*^^ ``Proletariat''-the first revolutionary workers' party in Poland, formed in the eighties of last century.
98 and the tremendous influence it had. How I would wish such a booklet to appear now! But now it is more difficult to collect and compare facts, because they cover so much ground and there are so many of them. But, on the other hand, there are greater opportunities and possibilities now. If someone would undertake this work, or at least only the guidance of this work, then in a year or two such book could appear. It would reflect not only our sufferings and our doctrine, but also that longing for a full and real life for the sake of which man would readily endure suffering and sacrifice.... __b_b_b__December 31, 1908
... I have matured in prison in torments of solitude, in torments of longing for the world and for life. And, in spite of this, doubt in the justness of our cause has never risen in my heart. And now, when perhaps for many years " all hope is buried in torrents of blood, when they have been crucified on the gallows, when many thousands of fighters for freedom are languishing in dungeons or thrown out into snowbound Siberia-I feel proud. Already I see tremendous masses set in motion shattering the old system, masses among whom new forces are being trained for fresh struggles. I feel proud that I am with them, that I see, feel and understand them, and that I, too, have suffered much together with them. It is sometimes hard, at times even terrible, here in prison.... Yet, if I had to begin life all over again, I would begin it in the same way. And not out of a sense of duty, not because I had to. For me, it is an organic necessity.
__b_b_b__... I curse neither my fate nor the many years in prison, for I know that all this is necessary in order to
__PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* [99] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] ~ [100] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1962/CM206/20091006/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2009.10.06) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+destroy the other vast prison which lies outside the walls of this horrible ``pavilion''. This is not idle philosophising, not cold calculation, but the result of an indomitable desire for freedom, for a full life. Out there, comrades and friends are drinking our health, and I, alone in my cell, am thinking of them: may they live on, may they forge the weapons and be worthy of the cause for which the struggle is being waged....
June 3, 1909
... To live-does it not mean to have indomitable faith in victory?
human heart. And for this reason we love this place of our execution, for here we made clear to ourselves that the struggle which brought us here is also the struggle for our personal happiness, for emancipation from the violence imposed on us, from the chains that drag us down.
From Letters to Relatives*
To A. E. Bulhak**
January 25 (13), 1898
... How is your little Rudolph? He must have grown a lot-does he walk or talk? See that you bring him up so that he values honesty above all else; such a person feels happy in all circumstances of life!
September 19 (7), 1898
.. .And we, in exile, must now gain in strength, physically, mentally and morally, in order to be prepared when the time comes. True, there are few who envy us our lot, but we who see the bright future of our cause, who see and realise its might, realise that life has chosen us to be the fighters, we who are fighting for that better future would never, never exchange our position for philistine vegetating. We are least of all made despondent by the unpleasant side of life, since our life consists in work
August 8, 1909
... In this connection* I am filled with apprehension. I shall go away, but this terrible life here will continue as before. This is strange and incomprehensible. It is not the horrors of this gloomy place that draw one to it, but the feeling for all the comrades, friends and unknown neighbours-strangers, yet at the same time near ones. Here we came to feel and realise how necessary is man to man, what man means to man. Here we learned to feel love not for women alone, we learned to be unashamed of our feelings and of our desire to give people happiness.
. .. And if here we long for flowers, we have also here learned to love people as we love flowers; and precisely here, where there is no desperate struggle for a crust of bread, and where there floats to the surface that which out there was of necessity concealed in the depths of the
* The reference here is to the thoughts aroused in F. E. Dzerzhinsky by the confirmation of the sentence to exile him, which meant that he had to leave the prison.
* Letters written between 1898 and 1916 in prison and exile, except for the letter dated October 6 (September 23), 1902.
**. Aldona Edmundovna Bulhak-F. E. Dzerzhinsky's sister,
101for the cause which is above everyday trifles. Our cause was born not so long ago, but it will develop beyond bounds, it is immortal.
feel that today .. . people worship the golden calf which has turned human souls into the souls of beasts and driven love out of people's hearts. Remember that there is a sacred spark in the soul of people like me ... a spark which gives a glow of happiness even at the stake.
... I love children passionately-----When I think that terrible want, on the one hand, and excessive wealth, on the other, lead to the degeneration of these little ones .. . I am glad for your children, that you are neither rich nor poor, that from childhood they will realise the need to work in order to live and this means that they will grow up into real people. For the children are the future! They must be strong in spirit and know from childhood how to face up to life....
But I have spirit enough for another thousand years or more.... Even here in prison I see how the undying flame burns: the flame is my heart and the hearts of my comrades suffering torments here....
November 17 (5), 1898
... You say that our feelings seem to relate in greater measure to mankind as a whole than to individuals. Never believe that this is possible. People who say so are hypocrites: they are simply deceiving themselves and others. It is not possible only to feel for people in general, people in general is an abstraction, for what is concrete is the sum-total of individuals. In actual fact, feelings can only be aroused in relation to the concrete phenomenon and never in relation to an abstraction. A man can feel sympathy towards social misfortune only if he feels sympathy towards the misfortune of every individual....
October 21 (8), 1901
... I do not know how to hate by halves or to love by halves. I do not know how to give only half of my heart. I can give all my heart or I give nothing. I have drunk from the cup of life not only all the bitterness, but all the sweetness as well, and if anyone says to me: take a look at the wrinkles on your brow, at your emaciated body, at the life you now lead, take a look and recognise that life has broken you, then I would reply: life has not broken me but I have broken life, it has not taken everything from me, but I have taken everything from it with my whole being and spirit! Yes, indeed!
... I came to loathe wealth because I learned to love people, because with all the fibres of my being I see and
102To A. E. and G. A. Bulhak*
Beginning ot November 1901
... No!! I am the same as I was before; what embittered me before, embitters me now; what I loved before, I love now; what gladdened me before, gladdens me now; as I acted before, so I act now; as I thought before, so I think now; as misfortunes and trials have not passed me by, so in the future they will not pass me by; my path remains the same; as I loathed evil before, so I loathe it now; as before, I am striving heart and soul so that there will
* G. A, Bulhak-A. E. Bulhak's husband.
103be no injustice, crime, drunkenness, depravity, excessive luxury, brothels where people sell body or soul or both together; so that there will be no oppression, fratricidal wars, national strife-----I would like my love to envelop all mankind, to warm it and cleanse it of the dirt of modern life....
... A tremendous task faces you: to educate and shape the minds of your children. Be vigilant! For parents are to a large extent morally responsible for whether their children are good or bad. I would like to write a great deal more about children, but I do not know how you will accept my advice, whether you might not regard this interference in your affairs as out of place. In any case, rest assured that I am guided here only by my love for your
children. Kiss them heartily for me___May they grow up
healthy and cheerful, full of love for their parents and other people; may they grow up courageous and strong in spirit and body; may they never barter their conscience; may they be happier than we are and live to see the triumph of freedom, brotherhood and love. .. .
there is nothing false; I feel the warmth of this love and I terribly want it near me. But these are only dreams. I cannot allow myself this, I have to be moving about all the time, and with a child I could not. Often, very often, it seems to me that even a mother does not love children as ardently as I do. ...
October 22 (9), 1905
... I should like so much to perceive the beauty in nature, in people, in what they create, to delight in them, to perfect myself, because beauty and goodness are like two sisters. The asceticism that has fallen to my lot is so alien to me. I would like to be a father and put into the soul of a young creature everything good that is on the earth, to see how the rays of my love for it would produce a luxuriant blossom of the human soul.. ..
June 16 (3), 1913
.. . Like a flower, the human soul unconsciously imbibes the rays of the sun and longs eternally for it, for its light; it fades and shrivels when evil shades off the light. Our vigour and faith in a better future for mankind is built on this striving of every human soul towards the sunlight,
and so there should never be hopelessness-----The evil
genius of mankind today is hypocrisy: love in words, but in practice-a merciless struggle to exist, to achieve
so-called ``happiness'', to .make a career----To be a ray of
light for others, to irradiate light, is the greatest happiness a man can achieve. Then a man does not fear suffering or pain, misfortune or need. Then a man ceases to fear death, although only then does he really learn to love life. Only then will he walk on the earth with his eyes open,
105To A. E. Bulhak October 6 (September 23), 1902
... I do not know why I love children more than anything else. When I meet them my ill humour immediately vanishes. I could never love a woman as I love them, and I think I could never love my own children more than those that were not my own.... In particularly hard moments I dream that I have taken some child, a foundling, and am caring for it and we are both happy. I live for it, feel it near me, it loves me with the childish love in which
IQi
seeing, hearing and understanding everything, only then will he emerge from his narrow shell into the light and feel the joys and sufferings of all mankind; only then will he be a real man.
To S. S. D-zerzhinskaya* December: 15 (2), 1913
. .. Love for a child, like all great love, becomes creative and can give the child true and lasting happiness when it broadens the scope of life of the one who loves, makes him a more valuable person, and when it does not transform the person loved into an idol. Love which is showered on only one person and which derives from him alone all joy in life, making everything else a burden and torture, such love carries with it hell for both persons.. . .
In order to save and enrich his soul, he must be taught to see and hear all he is already capable of seeing and hearing, so that his love for you becomes deep friendship and infinite trust....
do his duty, follow his path to the end. And even when the eyes no longer see and are blind to the beauty of the world, the soul knows of this beauty and remains its servant. The torment of blindness remains, but there is something above this torment-there is faith in life, in people, there is freedom and the realisation of one's constant duty....
To A. E. Bulhak
March 16 (3), 1914
... When I think of all the misfortunes in life that lie in wait for a man, of the fact that a man is so often deprived of all he is most attached to, my thoughts again tell me that in life one has to love with all one's heart and soul that which is not transitory, that which cannot be taken away from a man and thanks to which his attachment to individuals and things becomes possible....
Love for suffering, oppressed mankind, the eternal longing in the heart of everyone for beauty and happiness, strength and harmony, urges us to seek a way out and to find salvation here, in life itself, and shows us the way out. It opens a man's heart not only to his near ones, it opens his eyes and ears and gives him gigantic strength and confidence in victory. Then misfortune becomes a source of happiness and strength, for then comes clear thought throwing light on a hitherto gloomy life. From that time onwards, each new misfortune is no longer a reason for withdrawal from life, a source of apathy and despondency, but again and again inspires a man to go on living, to struggle and to love. And when the time comes and a man's own life comes to an end, he can go calmly, without despair, and not be afraid of death....
January 19 (6), 1914
. .. Where there is love there should be trust. ...
. .. The man who believes in an idea and is alive cannot be useless if he does not himself renounce his idea. Only death, when it comes, will have its word to say about uselessness. But as long as there is a glimmer of life and the idea itself is alive, I shall dig the earth, do the roughest work, give everything I can. And the thought is soothing, makes it possible to endure the torment. A man must
* Sofia Sigizaiundovna Dzerzhinskaya-F. E. Dzerzhinsky's wife,
106To S. S. Dzerzhinskaya June 24 (11), 1914
... I want to be worthy of the ideas you and I share. And it seems to me that every sign of weakness on my part, of longing for the end and peace, every hint of "I can't go on" would be a betrayal and the renunciation of my feelings towards you and of that song of life that has always been and is still in me....
Yan* must not be a hot-house flower. He should have the whole dialectics of feelings, so as to be capable in life to fight for the truth and ideas. In his heart he should have something sacred that is broader and stronger than the sacred feeling for his mother or other people near and dear to him. Be should know how to love the idea, that which links him with the masses, which will be a shining light in his life. He should understand that you and all who surround him, to whom he is attached, whom he loves, have something more sacred than the love for a child, the love for him, something sacred from which he and the love and affection for him derive. This sacred feeling is stronger than all other feelings, stronger because of its moral injunction: "This is how you should live, this is what you should be." Awareness of this duty, as of every other connected with feelings, cannot be instilled by influencing the reason alone....
... To renounce the good things of life in order to fight for them together with those who are deprived of them, and to instil now a kind of asceticism in oneself. But my
thoughts never leave me and I am sharing them with you, I am not an ascetic. It is just the dialectics of feelings, which springs from life itself and, it seems to me, from the life of the proletariat. And the point is that this dialectics should complete its cycle, so that it should contain the synthesis-the solution of contradictions. And so that this synthesis, being proletarian, should at the same time be ``my'' truth, the truth of ``my'' soul. One has to have the inner consciousness of the need to go to one's death for the sake of life, to go to prison for the sake of freedom and to have the strength to go through all the hell of life with open eyes', feeling in one's heart the great and exalted, paean of beauty, truth and happiness derived from that life....
February 17 (4), 1916
I love life as it really is, in its eternal movement, in its harmony, and in its terrible contradictions. And my eyes still see, my ears hear, my soul is receptive and my heart has not yet hardened. And the song of life sings in my heart... . And it seems to me that whoever hears this song in his heart will never curse his life, no matter what torments he has endured, will never exchange it for the other, peaceful, normal life. For this song is everything, this song of the love of life alone remains. Both here in prison, and out there at liberty, where there are now so many horrors, it lives and is as eternal as the stars: the stars and all the beauty of nature give birth to it and carry it to human hearts, and these hearts sing out and strive eternally for resurrection... .
* F. E. Dzerzhinsky's son.
109 109To V. E. Dzerzhindty*
September 11 (August 29), 1916
... But in social life? I am entirely at one not only with my thoughts but with the masses, and together with them I must experience the struggle, the torment and the hopes. I have never lived with closed eyes, turned in on my own thoughts alone. I was never an idealist. I learned to know human hearts and it seemed to me that I felt every beat of those hearts.... I have lived in order to fulfil my mission and to be myself....
I must endure to the end all that I am destined to endure. It cannot be otherwise. And I am at peace. And although I do not know what awaits me ... my mind continues to draw pictures of the future which crown it all. I am, besides all else, an optimist. .. .
approaching the heart. .. . Each day forces us to resort to increasingly resolute measures. Now our greatest enemy faces us-stark famine. In order to get bread, it must be taken from those who have it and given to those who have none. The civil war must flare up on an unprecedented scale. I have been moved up to a position in the front line of fire and my will is to fight and to look with open eyes on all the danger of the grave situation and to be merciless myself. ...
August 29, 1918
. .. We are soldiers on active service. And I live by what stands ahead of me, for this demands the greatest attention and vigilance in order to win victory. My will is to win through and, although a smile is very rarely seen on my face, I am confident in the victory of the idea and the movement in which I live and work....
Here we have a dance of life and death-a moment of truly sanguinary struggle, titanic effort. . ..
To S. S. Dzerzhinskaya
May 27, 1918
To A. E. Bulhak
My dear!
I am in the very thick of the struggle. The life of a soldier who knows no rest, for it is necessary to save our home. There is no time to think of my own people and myself. The work and the struggle are hellish. But in this struggle my heart remains alive, the same as before. All my time is one continual round of activity....
My thoughts force me to be merciless, and I have the firm will to follow my thoughts to the end. ...
The ring of enemies presses harder and harder round us,
April 15,1919
... Today as before, love is everything for me. I hear and feel its song in my heart. This song calls to the struggle, to unbending will, to tireless work. And today my actions are determined only by the idea-the striving for justice. I am finding it difficult to write. ... As a perpetual wanderer, I am always in motion, in the thick of the changes and of the creation of a new life.... I see the future, and I want and must take part in its creationto be in the movement, like a stone hurled from a sling,
* Vladislav Ednrundovich Dzerzhinsky-F. E. Dzerzhinsky's brother.
no
in
until I reach the end-eternal rest. Have you ever thought what war in actual pictures is like? You have pushed aside pictures of human bodies torn by shells, of the wounded lying on the battlefield and the crows pecking out the eyes of men still living. You have pushed aside these terrible pictures which daily meet the eyes. You cannot understand me. A soldier of the revolution fighting so that there will be no more injustice on the earth, so that this war will not put millions upon millions of people at the mercy of the conquering rich. War is a horrible thing. The whole world of the rich has moved against us. The most unhappy, most ignorant people are the first to have risen up in defence of their rights-and they are repulsing the entire world.. . .
to give their aid in the seeking out and discovering bribetaking scoundrels.
Be keen-eyed and vigilant! Proletarian hands should not and cannot be sullied by bribes!
From the Article "Waifs and the Vecheka"*
July 22, 1926
I want to throw part of my own efforts and primarily the forces of the Vecheka to combat the problem of homeless children... . Two considerations have prompted me to this conclusion. Firstly, this is a terrible calamity! For when you look at the children, you cannot fail to thinkeverything is for them! The fruits of the revolution are not for us, but for them. And yet, how many of them are crippled by the struggle and by want! It is necessary to rush at once to their rescue, as we would if we saw children drowning. The People's Commissariat for Education cannot cope with the situation alone. Extensive, assistance from the Soviet public is needed. A large committee must be set up under the Ail-Russian Central Executive Committee, with the immediate participation of the People's Commissariat for Education, and including representatives from all departments and all organisations that can be useful in this work. I have already spoken to a few people. I would like to head the commission myself;
From the Article 'Citizens! RailwaymenF
December 6, 1921
... Wherever the scoundrel plants himself-in an office behind a green-baize desk or in a watchman's hut-he will be discovered and brought before the court of the R [ evolutionary] Tribunal, whose punitive hammer will fall with all the devastating might and anger of which it is capable, for there is no mercy for the deadly enemies of our revival. No circumstances will be taken into account when sentence is passed on people who take bribes. The sternest punishment awaits them.
At the same time, the Soviet Government calls on all honest citizens, in whom painful consciousness of the indelible shame and corrupting influence of bribes is alive.
* The Vecheka (Cheka)-the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to combat counter-revolution and sabotage. It was set up on the initiative of V. I. Lenin in December 1917, as an organ of the workers' and peasants' power, to defend the state security of the Soviet Republic.
1128-2618
113I want the apparatus of the Vecheka to be actually included in the work. Here I am prompted by the second consideration: I think our apparatus is one of those that work most efficiently; it has branches everywhere. People reckon with it. They are rather afraid of it. And yet, even in such a thing as the salvation and provisioning of children, one meets with negligence and even pilfering! We are steadily going over to peace-time construction, and so the thought has struck me, why not use our militant apparatus to combat such a calamity as homelessness among children?...
their group interests outweigh the interests of the working class as a whole; often they do not sufficiently realise that only their own useful labour, the productivity of their labour, can create the communist state, maintain their Soviet power. Every economic manager should wage a struggle to win prestige, to win the confidence of the working masses, but the struggle for this confidence should on no account employ the instrument of demagogy, of humouring the masses, satisfying them to the detriment and at the expense of" the state, of the interests of the . alliance with the peasants, of parochial requirements. The path of demagogy is perhaps the most harmful path, lulling the masses, deflecting them from the main tasks of the working class in production, diminishing the sacrifices the working class has made and, in the final analysis, one which is harmful for our industry....
From a Circular Letter
to the Managements of Syndicates and Trusts
and to Red Directors
June 19, 1924
. . . One must not fear criticism, or gloss over shortcomings; on the contrary, it is necessary to help to make them known and to see nothing discreditable in doing so. Only he can be discredited who conceals his shortcomings, who is unwilling to fight against evils, that is, precisely the man who ought to be discredited. It is necessary to be able to see the truth and to imbibe it from the masses and from all who are taking part in production. There is nothing worse than self-praise and self-satisfaction. It is possible to go forward only when, step by step, evils are sought out and overcome. At the same time, an end must be put to our established practice of humouring the masses, the workers. It should be remembered that in our country the workers, like ourselves, are not yet cultured, that often
114KALININ,
MIKHAIL IVANOVICH
(1875-1946)
---outstanding Soviet statesman and distinguished figure in the Communist Party; President of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. since 1938.
M-KALININ
From the Speech
at the Fifth All-Russian Congress
of the Russian Young Communist League
October 11, 1922
. .. Allow me, comrades, to wish you that our communist youth will master more fully the Marxist method of thought, for this Marxist method best of all affords the opportunity of finding our bearings in all the complexities of the situation in which we live.
Comrades, my wish is that our communist youth will continue as before to be the guardian of revolutionary behests, the guardian of the desire to struggle for com-
munism. . ..
111From the Greetings to the First All-Union Congress of Teachers
January 12,1925
. . . What are the tasks the Government has assigned to teachers? The chief and fundamental task the Soviet system puts before teachers at the present time, comrades, is to train personnel, to build up a new generation of young people, to ensure truly fraternal relations among mankind, to train up true brothers, not brothers in Christ. Teachers should build up a young generation which at difficult moments in the struggle for the Soviet Union would face death proudly and courageously. On the other hand, this young generation should have a constant desire to conquer the infinite forces of nature. This is a difficult task; on its path it encounters tremendous obstacles in the old ignorant and downtrodden world.
When our Red Army was fighting on the battlefields while still in the process of formation and organisation, it also had to face the powerful old world, and, while still in the process of formation it did not crumble to pieces, but gained in strength and grew in numbers.
In this respect teachers today have much better conditions, and step by step the Soviet system is coming into its own.
Today it is the turn of the teachers. All doubts must be cast aside. History demands this. History needs you to fulfil the following tasks: to mould the new man, to strive for ttue brotherhood among peoples, to fight for communism.
From the Pamphlet On the Road to Socialism
ON THE RESULTS OF THE FOURTEENTH ALL-UNION CONGRESS OF THE C.P.S.U. (BOLSHEVIKS)
... It seems to me that we are introducing far too many formal meetings and formal duties and, secondly, that we are doing far too much ``communising''; at the same time we are not really developing the communist spirit among the Komsomol members. Whereas in the case of old Party members it is sometimes possible to instil communism in a formal way, to instil certain communist traits, this will not work with Komsomol members; and it is particularly harmful if communism is only formally accepted there. I notice that among Komsomol members more than anywhere else, we come across a certain amount of cliche.
Take the speeches of Komsomol members. The vast majority of them speak splendidly. If you judge such a Komsomol member by his first speech, you will be astonished and say: "What a knowledgeable fellow!" But when you get to know the man better, you will find that he knows the texts of six or seven speeches, but the speeches are not his original work, based on his own knowledge. The form is splendid, but it strikes cold. Once you convey the meaning in a formal way, without going deeply into it, the very nature of the speech shows that it is sheer oratory and not the expression of turbulent inner feeling.
And so I say: we need Komsomol members in whom the creative principle will never be suppressed.
In his youth, during the best period of his life, a man should be tasting all the joys of life: dancing, music, in a word, everything that is possible to a man. With us, for
118119
example, it is considered poor taste for a Komsomol member to dance. To my mind, this is an absurdity. When I walk down the street and see a little girl of 11 or 12 running along, it is more likely she will be skipping along. Marxism is profoundly realistic; it connects every thought with the organic, material features of man, and people cannot with impunity try to replace, say, dancing by the Communist Saturday where theoretical problems are aired. The Communist Saturday should last for one hour, the dancing for two hours....
... The point is just this, comrades, that Marxism as a whole is a teaching which affords the opportunity of using all the forces of nature most effectively and, if one can put it this way, of using them to give the greatest pleasure to the" human organism, to help it to develop.
We have no reason to make all people wise and at the same time physical freaks, with a large head and short legs. No, we want to develop both the intellect and bodily beauty. We do not intend to carry hypocrisy into the sphere where it would be definitely dangerous. The inner promptings of youth should not be cramped. The pleasures natural at this age should never be overlooked either.
I personally consider that the accusations of lack of sexual restraint among Komsomol members are an exaggeration.
But have we not made a mistake in regard to young people?
We overload young people and, because of this mental strain, they rush into the sort of things which, to some extent, give them a change. A physically normal man playing games or going in for sports will, of course, lead a normal life. But when we overload him with mental work we inevitably impel him towards the realm of fantasy, towards romanticism in his private environment.
120In all probability, a great deal more work will still have to be done in this sphere. Leningrad has a vast mass of proletarians, a huge, influential mass of proletarian Komsomol members, hence the great importance of this question.
We are not going to rear rickety people.
The Party must make it its task to train Komsomol members to be physically and spiritually developed young people.
The Struggle for the New Man
FROM THE SPEECH AT THE CELEBRATION MEETING ON THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KOMSOMOL
May 28, 1928
,. . What, at the present time, are the most urgent tasks facing you and to what in particular should the millions of Komsomol members turn their attention? It seems to me that now more than ever the task before us is the shaping of the ndtu man. After all, the old generation grew up in totally different material and political conditions, with different opportunities for mass organisation, mass influence and social education. Previously, the basic aim in educating the revolutionary youth was cultivating in him civic courage, making him a political fighter devoted heart and mind to the proletariat and the working people, inculcating hatred towards the bourgeois system, so that at any moment, they would be prepared to sacrifice themselves in the struggle against that system.
Can we now limit ourselves to this?
Can we limit ourselves to these tasks alone? By no means! Whereas then, education was aimed at the denial of the bourgeois world, at training actual fighters striving
121to destroy that world, today the task before us is to build socialist society. Therefore, the study of Marx and Lenin will now be only one part of the work Komsomol members have to do.
Nowadays the Komsomol member has to know more than the theory of Marxism-Leninism. He must also know several spheres of human endeavour, in order to act as an actual builder of socialist society. Obviously, in all his actions, in all spheres of work, the Young Communist should be guided by Marxism-Leninism. Today, comrades, in order to play a positive part in socialist construction it is not enough by any means simply to criticise, to fight in general against negative aspects of existing conditions; that is not sufficient. It follows that the whole policy of the Young .Communist League on the question of shaping the new man should be not merely to master the theory of Marxism-Leninism, but also to disseminate positive knowledge which is needed in life in order to consolidate socialism by practical work,
Komsomol members should know more than the theory of Marxism-Leninism. They should, in addition, be producing engineers and technicians, agronomists, writers and painters-in a word, there should be no sphere which the Komsomol does not cover, for if any branch of activity is left outside our field of vision, it means that in some sectors there will be people who are not satisfied. It follows, therefore, that the first task facing the Young Communist League is to teach its members to respect positive, practical knowledge. I consider this to be one of the fundamental tasks before the Komsomol organisation.
Formerly, there was no need for us to be concerned about increasing labour productivity, about expanding production-the capitalist world duly "concerned itself"
122about that. But now, if we fail to take an interest in labour productivity, in the quality of production, if we fail to concern ourselves with instilling respect for labour, then who, if not the builders of the new society, will concern themselves about it? I consider that the task before you, first and foremost, is to cultivate respect for knowledge and labour or rather to propagate it and agitate for it among Komsomol members, to develop in them the desire for useful knowledge.
At the same time, another important task is to develop respect for working people, for the man who works. . ..
... That is why the Young Communist League, which has an enormous army at its disposal, faces, for its part, the task of promoting the development of this aspect of proletarian morality. We know that there is bourgeois morality as well. And so, the moment anyone opens his mouth about standards of social morality, he is immediately curbed: ``don't moralise, morality is a bourgeois concept". This is wrong. We have our proletarian morality and we should develop and strengthen it and instil it into the future generation. Our morality is this: everything that helps to strengthen the working class and its militant power, to develop socialist construction is unquestionably obligatory for the Komsomol and Party member, all this he should do, all this is his moral duty.
Development of the spirit of collectivism within the Young Communist League, instilling in man qualities of collectivism, is an essential factor in education within the Komsomol organisation. It must be said outright that this is one of the most difficult practical problems facing all of us, for it means that millions of people have to be completely reborn. But the word difficult does not mean insurmountable. And if, starting with the Komsomol
123organisation, a man's practical work takes the form of team-work with others, if he overcomes his individualistic traits, then undoubtedly his collective habits, his readiness to live and work with others, his ability to co-ordinate his actions with the interests of others will develop into a fairly considerable sum-total of the traits which are characteristic of the new man-the member of socialist society.
Man as a member of society does not mark time; he lives and develops. His character, habits and knowledge are all no more than the accumulated experience of preceding generations, accumulated social experience. And if we wish man to advance, to develop more rapidly, then obviously, we should first and foremost develop those characteristic features of man which are of especial advantage to the working class, which are of advantage in building socialism. In this field, it seems to me, there is more than enough work to be done.
Next I would like to draw your attention to another aspect of the question. Young people are a fine and the roost mobile detachment of mankind. And it is no accident that the initiators of all revolutionary action are young people. Take for example all the barricade-fighting and you will see that young people are always in the front line. Why is this? Because young people keenest of all feel the injustice of the old world, because young people have such exuberant physical strength. Young people are courageous and bold; they do not fear death. Old people will not always venture to risk their lives, they care more for them. But this, in my opinion, is not only a merit of young people, but is also due to their special physiological properties. Youth is a splendid section of mankind and the qualities and features of youth must be tended, cultivated and developed. I have no opportunity here to dwell on
124this, to give practical examples of how it should be done. But I think the Young Communist League itself and its leaders can find both the means and the opportunity for developing these fine characteristics in young people.
Finally, I would like in passing to draw attention to the question of everyday life (incidentally, I am doing this at the request of the women's department, and on this question I am completely in agreement with them and comply with their request with pleasure). Very many people here, particularly among the youth, like to talk about our new day-to-day life, but they depict it in a totally distorted way. This new life is particularly distorted where it concerns girls: "the new life", ``freedom'', "down with conventions", etc., etc.
Is it permissible in the new society for a man, for instance, to marry six or seven times in the space of ten years?
Nowadays, when we are conducting a struggle against this sort of thing and are establishing truly free relations, can this mean that in relations between man and woman there need be no sense of responsibility? Do we not see, do we not know, that when a girl gets disappointed in a young man she feels devastated and cast down for at least a year or two?
The everyday life of the proletarian demands that you weigh up your every action and consider whether what you do will not perhaps act as a noose, a death noose for the person close to you. The person who gives no consideration to this is not acting in the proletarian spirit and most certainly harms the development of the workers' Komsomol movement, harms the building of socialism. ...
125Develop Yourselves in Every Way
FROM THE SPEECH AT A CONFERENCE
OF LEADING MEMBERS OF THE YOUNG COMMUNIST
LEAGUE ORGANISATION IN DNIEPROPETROVSK
so on, their comradeship will be a splendid complement to socialist emulation, and will yield great results.
... To be a staunch Communist, you need, first and foremost, to have a firm communist world outlook. The communist world outlook enables us to approach each problem skilfully, to approach each phenomenon correctly. The communist world outlook is to fighters of the proletarian revolution what a powerful telescope, let us say, is to the astronomer, or a microscope to the laboratory researcher. The communist world outlook enables the political worker, the person active in public affairs, to understand correctly and comprehensively the situation in which he is working, to organise the masses and lead them into battle, correctly to see, understand and outline future prospects. All this taken together gives one strength, makes one practically immune not only to petty, individual misfortunes, but also to big ones. If your life is guided by the idea of the common, collective good, if the cause of the community is your supreme concern, if your interests and hopes are the same as those of the people around you-these common interests of the working people make us, Communist old-timers, feel young.
Take the period of the civil war and the period of our socialist construction. In these times all working people, the old folks not excluded, 'displayed wonders of heroism and enthusiasm, performed outstanding exploits, and are continuing to do so now. This must be realised by those who are to take our place, the Komsomol members and young workers and kolkhozniks in general. From the old Bolsheviks, the old, battle-steeled proletarians they must learn habits of collectivity, the way to put heart and soul into one's work, and to understand and get a theoretical grasp of current events.
March 3, 1934
... Particularly do, I want to say a few words about the feeling of comradeship among the youth. It is when people are young that they are most inclined to friendship, to giving collective aid to comrades. Rarely-maybe in two or three cases out of a hundred-will a young person desert a comrade in need. This feeling of comradeship is of exceptional importance on the battlefield. An army column in which every man has complete confidence in the steadfastness of his neighbour possesses a fighting capacity of an exceptionally high order. Enemy fire will cause no panic at all; at any rate, if there is any, it will be reduced. Feelings such as these unite soldiers and heighten their isense of discipline. The feeling of comradeship, of class friendship should be developed among the youth in every way. It is one of the most socialistic of qualities, and is needed everywhere, particularly in the class struggle.
Many people are accustomed to regard the feeling of comradeship as so many words, yet if this feeling is properly developed, if the effort is made to ensure that Komsomol members and young people, not belonging to the Komsomol, comrades and friends, join in sharing the joy they derive from their work, in overcoming difficulties, in really lending one another a helping hand to master the technique of their jobs, and in spending their leisure hours together, participating in physical culture and sport, and
126 127From the Speech at a Conference
of Best Urban and Rural School Teachers
Convened by the Editorial Board
of Uchitelskaya Gazeta
it means that the Soviet Union can only be protected by a wall of steel. The U.S.S.R. will be still stronger if Soviet people are brought up in the spirit of comradely team work from childhood, if they are imbued with genuine, firm comradely team spirit from their school days. In this way a person who joins the Red Army or gets to the front will find it easier to fit in with the team spirit of army life. He will come there already bound by bonds of love to his socialist native land.
Fitthly-love tor work. One must not only love work, but also be honest in one's attitude to it, with the thought firmly engraved in one's mind that a person who lives and eats without working, lives on the work ot others.
December 28,1938
... The new, socialist man is in the process ot creation in out country. This new man must be imbued with the very finest ot human qualities. For the new, socialist man will not be devoid of human emotions. Man is a human being. That should be our starting point.
What are the human qualities that must be instilled? They include, firstly, love, love tor one's own people, love for the working masses. Man should love his fellow-men. If he does, his life will be better, more joyous, for nobody lives so miserable a life as the misanthrope, who hates human beings. The misanthrope is more miserable than anyone else.
Secondly-honesty. Teach the children to be honest. The teacher must, in my opinion, work consistently to achieve this, using all possible pedagogical methods. Teach them not to lie, not to be deceitful, but to be honest.
Thirdly-courage. The socialist man-the man of labourwants to win the world, and not only the world existing on earth: he also wants to employ his mind to extend the universe.
Fourthly-a comradely team spirit. We need the comradely team spirit. It is needed if only because we are surrounded by capitalist countries, because our Union is being systematically slandered and every bourgeois is longing for a suitable moment to crush the Soviet Union. Of course they will never live to see such a moment, but
From the Speech at a Celebration Meeting in Honour of Decorated Rural School Teachers
July 8, 1939
... So, comrades, we want our children to be educated in the communist spirit, to be imbued with communist principles. You may ask: What are these communist principles?
Communist principles, taken in their elementary form, are the principles of highly-educated, honest, advanced people; they are love for one's socialist motherland, friendship, comradeship, humanity, honesty, love for socialist labour and a great many other universally understood lofty qualities. The nurturing, the cultivation of these attributes, of these lofty qualities is the most important element of communist education.
These attributes cannot be instilled in children by finesounding sermons or simple tub-thumping. They can be
1289-2618
129deeply inculcated upon children only by influencing them day in and day out, imperceptibly, on the basis of comradely contact throughout their school years. And that, of course, is possible only when the teachers themselves have mastered Marxism-Leninism, at least in broad outline,...
... The intrinsic significance of the question of safeguarding and fortifying public property as greater than would seem to outward appearances. A thrifty attitude towards public property is a communist trait. It seems to me that never in the history of mankind has there been a more economic society than communist society. And that is quite natural. For only in communist society is the disposal, the expenditure of resources in the hands of the producers. I think there is no particular need to prove that the producer is more economical in expenditure than is the exploiter or the appropriator of the wealth of others.
... And so, comrades, we must first of all learn to work according to our abilities, learn to take care of public property, and when we produce enough- and know how to take care of the results of our labours, we shall distribute everything according to needs.
That is the second component part of communist education.
... A further necessary, component element of communist education is the development of love for one's country, for one's socialist homeland, the development of Soviet patriotism.
From the Speech
at a Meeting of Leading Party Workers of the City of Moscow
On Communist Education
FROM THE SPEECH AT A MEETING OF LEADING PARTY WORKERS OF THE CITY OF MOSCOW
October 2, 1940
... Some of our people are inclined to regard communism in a somewhat abstract fashion, without making this concept concrete. But what does communism mean? It means producing as much as possible, and of as high a quality as possible. I have in view the output not only of physical but also of intellectual labour-the output turned out by engineers, architects, writers, school teachers, doctors, actors, artists, musicians, singers, etc.
... And when we speak of communist education it means, first and foremost, to inculcate upon each worker the idea that he should approach his job with at least elementary conscientiousness. We should impress it on him that if he considers himself to be a Bolshevik, or simply an honest Soviet citizen, he should do his job with at least a minimum of conscientiousness, so that the articles he produces should pass the test as far as quality is concerned.
And so, the struggle for communism is a struggle for the highest productivity of labour in the sense of both quantity and quality of output. There you have the first fundamental postulate regarding the communist education of the working people of the U.S.S.R. ...
October 2, 1940
VI
... I consider it necessary to deal in addition with the question of collectivity. There is no special need to prove that the inculcation of the idea of collective endeavour
130 131should occupy an important place in communist education. I have in view here not the theoretical principles of collectivism, but its introduction into production, into everyday life, into the world of social habits; the establishment of the conditions under which collectivity becomes an integral part of our habits and standards of behaviour, and is practised not only consciously, after deliberation, but instinctively, organically.
. .. Collectivity plays a great part in the practical life of our society, for it is based on collectivism. To capitalist society we oppose collectivism-communism, being convinced of its enormous superiority. The extent to which we are successful in implanting collective habits in production and in public and private life determines to a considerable degree the extent of our success in building communism----
energies to the struggle for the complete victory of. communism, and if this great idea predominates in your minds, then I do not doubt that you will really live big lives.
Some Problems of Party Mass Work
FROM THE SPEECH AT A CONFERENCE OF PARTY WORKERS OF MOSCOW PLANTS
April 21, 1942
... A Party leader has to be absolutely honest in his attitude to others. The secretary of a Party organisation is the eye of the Party. I do not know whether you fully appreciate the point. That is why all personal likes and dislikes must be set aside. If there are people whom, for one reason or another, you do not like, you must hide the fact so thoroughly that nobody will have the faintest idea of it. It will be a bad thing if it is noticed that you are not unbiased in your attitude to different people.
It happens occasionally that some average man is reticent and keeps to himself, but does his work well; on the other hand, the fellow who is not much good at his job, but frequents the offices of the Party committee, the trade union committee or the Young Communist League, and is always on hand, gets pushed forward. That will not do. If the secretary of a Party committee wishes to enjoy prestige he must have a clean reputation with the masses. That does not mean that he cannot have closer personal relations with certain people. Of course he can. But in his public relations he must be impartial to all people. His attitude should be this: "You are a friend of mine, which is all well and good, but if you approach your work carelessly, idle around, and shirk the jobs you have been given, I
From die Speech
at a Meeting of Pupils of Eighth,
Ninth and Tenth Grades of Secondary Schools
of Lenin District, Moscow
April 17, 1941
... To live a big, principled life means to have your life governed by the social interests of the most advanced and most progressive class of your day, and at the present time, by the interests of the Soviet people, of the socialist homeland. If your lives are governed by such interests, if all your thoughts are directed towards still further exalting your people, still further enhancing the economic and military might of your native land, if you devote all your
132 133shall demand more of you than of others, and make it hotter for you." Such must be the attitude to people on the part of a secretary of a Party organisation.
In all things your conduct should be such that those around you feel your sincerity and honesty. Hypocrisy cannot be hidden from the masses at all, and so do everything in your power to avoid it. You cannot deceive the masses, and if people discover that a person is hypocritical, they will never put their faith in him again.
If, then, we cultivate these qualities in ourselves, we will find it easier to work,.. .
to their country, are devoting all their energy and ability to hastening the hour of victory over our bitterest enemy.
There were many people abroad, particularly at the beginning of the war, who searched for an explanation of the lofty patriotic fervour of the people of the Soviet Union, of the steadfastness of the Red Army. For us, however, the source of the patriotism of Soviet people is clear. It lies in their love for their country, for their people, for their culture and way of life. It is precisely because all are equal in the great family of Soviet peoples and filled with respect for one another, mutual confidence and friendship that the Soviet Union is strong and indestructible....
From the Article "Militant Aide of the Bolshevik Party"
ON THE OCCASION OF THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KOMSOMOL
October 1943
... It is with pride and love that the Soviet people regard the youth. The war burst like a hurricane into the lives of the Soviet young people, facing them with the grim necessity of staunchly defending their native land, their future, of undergoing stern trials. For more than two years now our young people have been waging a bitter struggle against the enemy, fighting alongside their fathers and elder brothers and bravely and self-sacrificingly upholding the freedom and happiness of their people. The war has been a severe test of the spiritual and physical qualities of the Soviet youth, of its vanguard-the Komsomol. Our Komsomol, our young people, are passing this test with honour. In the rear, as at the front, the youth are working tirelessly and, fully conscious of their duty
134From the Article 'The Moral Make-up of Our People'
January 1945
... Among the working class and the working people in general dissemination of the new morality proceeded along two convergent paths: on the one hand, Marxist intellectuals spread it by means of propaganda; on the other hand, developing capitalism itself, by the cruel exploitation of labour, drove the workers to resistance. Hence, the consciousness of the community of interests of the working people and appeals to international solidarity were readily apprehended by the workers. Proletarian morals were moulded in the course of the workers' everyday life-in the factories, mills and workshops. Marxist propaganda merely widened the scope of their understanding of proletarian ethics.
235... Only the further development of the revolutionary movement, the awakening of the class consciousness of the proletariat and its transformation from a class by itself into a class for itself gave rise to ethical qualities such an honesty to one's class, discipline, mutual support and self-sacrifice in struggle and organisation. These characteristics of the ethical complexion of the proletariat formed the basis of the incipient socialist morality....
,. , Komsomol member Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya,* a girl-partisan, attained the summit of patriotism and moral grandeur. She imbibed, as it were, all the finest emotions that have moved our people in the course of their historical development. She was indeed a daughter not only of the Russian but of the whole Soviet people, a daughter of the Leninist Komsomol. Fascism resorted to barbaric cruelty in the hope of degrading Soviet women, breaking their morale; but in this it failed utterly. Zoya's moral stamina and that of the other Soviet women triumphed over fascist brutality....
... The front is the touchstone that, among a host of other human emotions, tests loyalty and friendship. The peoples of the Soviet Union have stood this test not only in concerted work in the rear but also in the conduct of their sons in the forward lines at the front. And it could not be otherwise. Our army is a fraternal family where to aid one's comrade is a self-imposed duty.
... In our country neither the colour of one's skin nor one's nationality has anything to do with advancement in service or promotions in rank. The only criterion is one's ability and combat record. This is so not merely formally, in pursuance of the law, so to speak, but is facilitated by the outlook of the Red Army men and officers. Hence the army's high morale. And the personal friendship that develops on this basis lasts long even between people who live far apart from each other....
... As I have already said, our morality has been developed and propagated by the finest of our people. Due credit must here be given to the Russian progressive intelligentsia, to Russian literature and art, which for hundreds of years fought devotedly against the dark forces of tsarism, the cruelty of the exploiters and the ignorance of the people; Russian literature has ennobled man and compelled the whole world to acknowledge his lofty moral qualities, which have risen to particularly great heights and penetrated into the very midst of the popular masses under the Soviet system. The Soviet socialist system has been the basis for the development of our communist morals....
* Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya (``Tanya'')-1923-1941. Hero of the Soviet Union, tenth-class pupil at School No. 201 in Moscow. In October 1941 she volunteered for the front and was captured by the enemy while fulfilling a military assignment in November 1941. She was cruelly tortured and hanged.
136KIROV,
SERGEI MIRONOVICH
(1886-1934)
•---prominent Soviet statesman and distinguished figure in the Communist Party; active participant in the three Russian' revolutions.
S-KIROV
From Letters to M. L. Markus*
September 30-Octobet 1,1911
. . . The devil, but it's good to be living on the earth! At times you begin to understand people who, for only one instant that can grip a man entirely and fill his heart and soul, his whole mind and being, can sacrifice even life. Indeed, man is faced with the dilemma: either a long, endlessly boring life, grey as autumn and sickeningly monotonous, followed by a senseless death, imperceptible and purposeless; or, bright as the first ray of the rising sun.
* Maria Lvovna Markus later became the wife of S. M. Kirov.
239a beautiful, blissfully glorious moment full of life, excitement and delight, no more than a moment followed by the final chord-death. And you prefer the latter.... .
Tomsk, December 13, 1911
.. . The man is happy who does not notice how the years pass.... But profoundly sad is the position of the man who feels how the minutes pass....
It is often said: "I can do nothing." This is a profound mistake. Man cannot do nothing, the psychology and physiology and everything else rise up against it and man perishes .. . from doing nothing (!). The most terrible end of all!...
From the Report
at the Fourth Astrakhan Gubernia Congress of Soviets
November 22, 1919
. .. Those who think that our task is to destroy as many enemies as possible are wrong. Often the slander is spread against us, the Communists, that we do not value human blood. This is not true. It is a foul slander. We have a sacred respect for human blood. I would like you to show me the representatives of political parties or groups in Russia who would dare to assert that they value and love the workers and peasants more than the Party of the Communists does....
From the Speech at a Meeting in the Public Gardens, Astrakhan
September 4,1919
It will soon be two years since the whole of Russia became divided into two fighting camps-bourgeoisie and proletariat. Many of us are now groaning and weeping and are unwilling to see what is taking place all round. Yet something great is taking place: two enormous giantsbourgeoisie and proletariat-are in a life and death combat. And he who does not take part in this struggle, he who runs away from it, hoping to hide from it, is a deserter and traitor to his class, his children and his brothers. There cannot be, nor must be, any non-partisans now....
From the Report
at the First City Delegate Meeting of Astrakhan Women Workers
December 4,1919
... If we call you to join our ranks, it is not in order to mitigate the wrath of our fighters, but to instil in them fresh courage and faith in victory.
What we expect from you is not hopeless grief and the tears of the mother but a call to struggle.
We need the honest mind and honest heart of the proletarian working woman. We call on you, comrades women, to help, and to take part in the struggle for a bright future.
140 141From the Report
at a Meeting of Tiflis Party Workers and Trade Unionists
April 6,1921
.. . We represent such solid ranks, such a mighty power that it is not for nothing that we are called the first and only Party in the world for unanimity, 'discipline, persistence and self-sacrifice. These qualities of our Party are one of the chief reasons for the strength of workers' and peasants' government and the growing achievements of the proletarian revolution,.. .
.. . From the point of view of proprietary psychology, what we are doing is robbery, and that is what they call us on all sides---robbers. Yes, we are robbers; we rob those who rob the oppressed; we take- away from those who have a surplus in order to feed those who have nothing....
.. . And since, in spite of all the severest trials, in spite of the incredible difficulties, our Party has not faltered, has not lost heart, but, on the contrary, rejuvenated, cheerful, breathing with vital forces, stands guard over the interests of the working people of the world-zye are all confident that very soon summoning bells will ring with such a mighty and devastating force that all the old foundations of the bourgeois world will tremble and shake and it will collapse tor all time.
From the Speech
at the Opening Session of the First Conference of Georgian Trade Unions
June 12, 1921
... It should be remembered that the struggle for the happiness of the workers and peasants does not consist only in going into battle breast-forward, and rifle in hand. The position that has been won must be consolidated day by day. Marx, one of the first teachers of socialism, said that the new system of mankind is born in indescribable travail.
For the workers and peasants to be victorious, iron steadfastness and fraternal organisation are necessary. One for all and all for one. ...
From the Report
at a Meeting of the Communist Group
of the Congress of Chairmen of Uyezd,
Volost and City Executive Committees of Leningrad
January 19, 1926
... If you have made a mistake, it must be brought out if not into god's then into our own communist light of day, examined from all sides, taken apart into its sections, and the comrades helped to understand how they came to reach such erroneous conclusions. Such a comrade must be helped to correct his mistake, if he can correct it, and then the other comrades and the Party as a whole must be
143 142given warning. If it so happens that one unfortunate morning you become lame in the left leg, then you can gradually so move to the left that you will become more left than the left side itself.
It will sound very fine that you are against the Nepman, against the kulak, against wage labour, against all kinds of deviations and conciliatory things, that you are a thoroughly left person, but you may go too far, dear comrade, and this is beyond any doubt, just as there is no doubt that it is equally dangerous for you and for the Party whether you stray too far to the right or too far to the left.
Every deviation, every departure from the Party position is extremely dangerous for us at a time like this. I have already pointed out, in connection with the general questions facing us, that it is wrong to delude ourselves with "thank God everything is going quietly and smoothly with us''.
We still have colossal difficulties ahead of us and for that reason any kind of slackness in the Party, any kind of deviation in different directions-right or left-will undoubtedly cause tremendous harm to our work. There have been differences. We have resolved these differences. There are the Congress decisions and we now suggest that these decisions be regarded as the only ones we can have at our disposal now. These decisions have to be carried out thoroughly and conscientiously, not by formal submission, but by carrying them out properly. ...
.. . We were able in complete isolation, under the hardest conditions, to defend our workers' and peasants' native land. I think we shall most certainly be able to defend ourselves in the future against every external encumbrance. But woe to our revolution, woe to the dictatorship of the
proletariat if we confuse our own communist ranks. We have lived for two years without Lenin, without the great leader and founder of our Party and state. In Lenin's place we have millions of Party members, the enormous collective which now exists. We must preserve the unity of this collective by all means.
From the Speech at the Celebration Meeting
of the Seventh Leningrad Gubernia Congress of Trade Unions
November 22, 1926
. . . Every worker must be made the real master of the country, we must make every worker so .politically conscious that actually at every moment, at every post he can be of maximum use to our workers' and peasants' state....
From the Report at a City Meeting of Leningrad Propagandists
October 8, 1927
. . . But it was not this iron discipline that was "to blame" for the historic importance of our Communist Party; what was "to blame" was that every Party member knew sufficiently fully these fundamentals of the workingclass Marxist world outlook. It is this that explains the especial persistence and especial firmness that is characteristic of the life and activity of our Party. Then, every Party
14410-2618
145member and the Party as a whole felt particularly keenlyI cannot choose another expression-the tremendous moral justice of their cause, everyone knew that he had underfoot firm, reliable ground, to slip from which it was on no account permissible.
It was also this, comrades, that served as the main reason for the fact that our Party, at that time surrounded by a great variety of trends, about which you all know perfectly well, and which numerically and in the sense of their social weight, if one can so express it, were superior to our Party, nevertheless was able to defend its positions and was able to perform the great work, which we are now continuing....
deed be a real realm of free labour, where there will truly be full, real equality, where all that is called inequality among people will be done away with, leaving no trace. ...
Revolutionary, Devoted Work Is What Is Required from Every Bolshevik
... Revolutionary, self-sacrificing and devoted work is required from the Bolshevik-ihis is what distinguishes us from every other party. For this, it is necessary to strengthen the link with the masses, to be more frequently there, where socialism is being built-in the factories, in the state farms and collective farms. It is there that every Bolshevik should learn, become educated and steeled.
Our whole Party life should be built in such a way as to strengthen the Bolshevik might by Leninist studies, where living revolutionary practice combines with the theory of Marxism-Leninism. Then, in all the work ahead as well, we shall be real followers of Lenin, the founder of our Party___
... Do not forget that our Bolshevik Party has always differed from all other parties in that it did not separate words from deeds, in that it firmly carries out its decisions in spite of everything, because these decisions are the correct and only possible ones, and are bound to bring victory.
... It is not easy to work in the Bolshevik way. He alone works in the Bolshevik way who puts the interests of the building of socialism above all else, for whom the interests of our common cause axe dear beyond all else.
From the Speech at the Celebration Meeting
of the Leningrad Soviet
on the Tenth Anniversary
of the October Socialist Revolution
November 6,1927
.. . We, comrades, are building our society not only in such a way as to add to our national wealth. No, far more complicated and serious tasks confront us. Every minute we should see to it that the principles for the sake of which we raised the great October banner, the principles which are called socialist principles, play an ever greater role in this augmenting of wealth. In industry, in agriculture and in our trade-in all spheres of our work, we should never for a moment forget, nor do we forget, that we are not simply building a new society, but are building socialist society. We are building a society which will in-
14610*
147who sets an example of discipline, higher labour productivity and an exemplary attitude to collective farm property....
... By its whole struggle, by its entire existence, the Young Communist League has indeed written glorious and heroic pages in history, rousing and elevating toiling mankind.
. .. And those of us who were then at the front remember what a tremendous, I would say exceptional, role the Young Communist League played then. It must be frankly stated, comrades, that we Bolsheviks, people who, generally speaking, know how to fight without sparing lives, we too at times have looked with a kind of envy at the heroes the Young Communist League then produced. ...
KRUPSKAYA,
NADEZHDA KONSTANT1NOVNA
(1869-1939)
---leading Soviet political figure; outstanding pedagogue; companion, wife and friend of V. I. Lenin.
N-KRUPSKAYA
From the Speech at the Sixth Congress
of the Russian Leninist Young
Communist League
July 12, 1924
. .. We should try to link our personal lives with the cause for which we struggle, with the cause of building communism.
This, of course, does not mean that we should renounce our personal life. The Party of communism is not a sect, and so such asceticism should not be advocated. At a factory, I once heard a woman addressing her work-mates say: "Comrades working women, you should remember that once you join the Party you have to give up husband and children.''
149Of course, this is not the approach to the question. It is not a matter of neglecting husband and children, but of training the children to become fighters for communism, to arrange things so that the husband becomes such a fighter, too. One has to know how to merge one's life with the life of society. This is not asceticism,. On the contrary, the fact of this merging, the fact that the common cause of all working people becomes a -personal matter, makes personal life richer. It does not become poorer, it offers deep and colourful experiences which humdrum family life has never provided. To know how to merge one's life with work for communism, with the work and struggle of the working people to build communism, is one of the tasks that face us. You, young people, are only just starting out on your lives, and you can build them so that there is no gap between your personal life and that of society....
he was able, out of a number of insignificant points, to catch the nature of the person, he was able to approach people with remarkable sensitivity, to find in them all that was good and of value and could be put to the service of the common cause.
I often noticed how after meeting Ilyich people became different, and for this the comrades loved Ilyich and he himself gained as much from his meetings with them, as very few people could gain. Not everyone can learn from life, from other people. Ilyich knew how to. He never used artifice or diplomacy in dealing with people, never hoodwinked them, and people sensed his sincerity and candour.
Concern for his comrades was characteristic of him. He was concerned about them when he was in prison, at liberty, in exile, in emigration and when he became Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. He was concerned not only about his comrades, but even about people complete strangers who needed his help. The only letter to me from Ilyich which I have preserved contains this phrase: "The letters for help which sometimes come to you I read and try to do what is possible." This was in the summer of 1919, when Ilyich had more than enough other concerns. The civil war was at its height. In the same letter he wrote: "It seems the Whites are in control of the Crimea again." There were more than enough things to see to, but I never heard Ilyich say he had no time, when it was a matter of helping people.
He was always telling me that I should be more concerned about the comrades I worked with and once, when during a party purge one of my workers from the People's Commissariat for-Education was unjustly attacked, he found time to look through back numbers of publications in order to find material confirming that the worker, even before
From the Article "Lenin as a Man"
Lenin was a revolutionary Marxist and collectivist to the depths of his being. All his life and work was devoted to one great goal-the struggle for the triumph of socialism. This left its imprint on all his thoughts and feelings. He had none of the pettiness, petty envy, anger, revengefulness and vanity so much to be found in small-- propertyminded individualists.
Lenin fought, he put questions sharply; in argument he introduced nothing personal but approached questions from the point of view of the matter in question, and, because of this, comrades were not usually offended at his sharp manner. He observed people closely, listened to what they had to say, tried to grasp the essential point, and so
150 151October, when still a member of the Bund, had defended the Bolsheviks.
Lenin was kind, some people say. But the word ``kind'' from the old language of ``virtue'' hardly suits Ilyich, it is somehow inadequate and inaccurate.
The family or group clannishness so characteristic of the old days was alien to Ilyich. He never separated the personal from the social. With him it was all merged into one. He could never have loved a woman whose views differed from his own, who was not his comrade in work. He had a habit of becoming passionately attached to people. His attachment to Plekhanov from whom he got so much, was typical in this respect, but it never prevented him from fighting hard against Plekhanov when he saw that Plekhanov was wrong, that his point of view harmed the cause; it did not prevent him from breaking completely with him when Plekhanov became a defencist*
Successful work delighted Ilyich. Work for the cause was the mainspring of his life, what he loved and what carried him away. Lenin tried to get as close as he could to the masses and he was able to do so. Association with workers gave him a very great deal. It gave him a real understanding of the tasks of the struggle of the proletariat at every stage. If we attentively study how Lenin worked as a scholar, a propagandist, a man of letters, an editor and organiser, we shall also understand him as a man....
From the Article "Lenin on Communist Morality"
Lenin was of the generation that grew up under the influence of Pisarev, Shchedrin, Nekrasov, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky,* of the revolutionary-democratic poets of the sixties. The Iskra** poets mercilessly ridiculed the survivals of the old serfdom, they flayed depravity, servility, toadying, double-dealing, philistinism and bureaucratic methods. The writers of the 1860's advocated making a closer study of life and disclosing the survivals of the old feudal system. From his earliest years Lenin loathed philistinism, gossip, futile time-wasting, family life "separated from social interests", making women a plaything, an amusement, or a submissive slave. He despised the sort of life that is full of insincerity and easy adaptation to circumstances. Ilyich was particularly fond of Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done?; he loved the keen satire of Shchedrin, loved the Iskra poets, many of whose verses he knew by heart, and he loved Nekrasov.
•
For many long years Vladimir Ilyich had to live in emigration in Germany, Switzerland, England and France. He went to workers' meetings, looked closely at the lives of
* Participants in the revolutionary-liberation movement in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. This movement produced prominent political figures, philosophers (Chernyshevsky), publicists ( Dobrolyubov, Pisarev), writers and poets (Nekrasov, Shchedrin).
** Iskra-a Russian satirical magazine published in St. Petersburg in 1859-1873, a leading printed organ of the revolutionary-democratic trend. Its distinctive feature was its irreconcilable attitude toward reactionaries and liberals and its quick reaction to current political events. Iskra played an important role in the ideological education of the democratic intelligentsia.
* Defencists-representatives of petty-bourgeois parties, who during the First World War .(1914-1918) openly supported imperialist governments and demanded rejection of the class struggle.
J53
the workers, saw how they lived at home and spent their leisure hours in cafes or out walking. ...
. .. Abroad we lived pretty poorly, for the most part lodging in cheap hired rooms where all kinds of people lived; we were boarded by a variety of landladies and ate in cheap restaurants. Ilyich was very fond of the Paris cafes, where in democratic songs singers sharply criticised bourgeois democracy and the day-to-day aspect of life. Ilyich particularly liked the songs of Montegus, the son of a Communard, who wrote good verses about life in the faubourgs (city outskirts). Ilyich once met and talked with Montegus at an evening party, and they conversed long after midnight about the revolution, the workers' movement and how socialism would create a new, socialist way of life.
Vladimir Ilyich always closely associated the questions of morality with those of the world outlook. . ..
... In his speech on October 2, 1920, at the Third Congress of the Young Communist League, Vladimir Ilyich dwelt on communist morality, gave simple, concrete examples to explain the essence of communist morality. He told his audience that feudal and bourgeois morality is downright deception, the hoodwinking and befooling of workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists; and that communist morality derives from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. He said that communist morality should aim at raising human society to a higher level, getting rid of the exploitation of labour. At the root of communist morality lies the struggle to strengthen and finally achieve communism. Lenin gave concrete examples to show the importance of solidarity, the ability to master oneself, to work tirelessly for what is
154needed to consolidate the new social system, the need for great and conscious discipline to this end, the need for strong solidarity in the fulfilment of set tasks. Ilyich told the young people that it was necessary for them to devote all their work, all their efforts to the common cause.
And Lenin's own life was a model of how this should be done. Ilyich could not live any other way, he did not know how to. But he was not an ascetic; he loved skating and fast cycling, mountain-climbing and hunting; he loved music and life in all its many-sided beauty; he loved his comrades, loved people in general. Everyone knows of his simplicity, his merry, infectious laughter. But everything about him was subordinated to the one thing-the struggle for a bright, enlightened, prosperous life of meaning and happiness for all. And nothing gladdened him so much as the successes achieved in this struggle. The personal side of him merged naturally with his social activity. . ..
From a Letter to A. M. Gorky
September 20, 1932
... To build socialism means not only building gigantic factories and flour mills. This is essential but not enough for building socialism. People must grow in mind and heart. And on the basis of this individual growth of each in our conditions a new type of mighty socialist collective will in the long run be formed, where ``I'' and ``we'' will merge into one inseparable whole. Such a collective can only develop on the basis of profound ideological solidarity and an equally profound emotional rapprochement, mutual understanding.
355And 'here, art, and literature in particular, can play a quite exceptional role. In Capital, Marx has a marvellous chapter* which I want to translate into the simplest language that even the semi-literate can understand, the chapter on co-operation, where he writes that the collective gives birth to a new force. It is not just the sum-total of people, the sum-total of their forces, but a completely new, much more powerful, force. In his chapter on co-operation Marx writes about the new material force. But when, on its basis, unity of consciousness and will springs up, it becomes an indomitable force. ...
street and frequently of hostile hooligan elements. Questions concerning the organisation of the children's out-- ofschool hours, the Young Pioneer movement, the provision of libraries and workshops and social work for the children, are of tremendous importance. Here, working men and women can do a very great deal. I firmly trust that this discussion of school and out-of-school education by the working people of the Trekhgornaya Manufaktura Mills will provide an impetus to this work.
N, Krupskaya
Letter to Working Men and Women at the Trekhgornaya Manufaktura Mills
From a Letter
to the Party and Komsomol Members, the Factory Committee, the Management
and the Entire Collective of the Clara Zetkin Factory
2033It is to be welcomed in every way that the Trekhgornaya Manufaktura Mills has seriously taken up the question of educating children. It is a highly important question.
Much attention has recently been devoted to universal education, strengthening the schools and improving teaching methods. But not everything, by a long way, has yet been done. Working men and women need to get closer to the school, to take a deeper interest in its work. They can help a great deal in the teaching work and in communist education.
Children spend the greater part of their time outside the school. Here they come under the influence of the
2935... The woman today is not simply a man's wife, she is a social worker, she wants to educate her children in the new way, she wants her whole day-to-day life to be rearranged on new lines. At every step she feels she lacks knowledge.
It is necessary that at your factory, which bears the name of the great revolutionary Clara Zetkin, a woman who fought passionately for the emancipation of womenworkers, it should be a matter of honour for all factory organisations to see to it that not a single person remains illiterate at the factory, that every working woman should become more literate.
It is not only the youth that is studying today; everyone for whom the cause of Marx, Engels and Lenin is dear is
* N. K. Krupskaya is referring to Chapter XI of Marx's Capital.
156 131studying. All politically-conscious working people in our Land of Soviets which has travelled such a hard road of struggle and has trained in this struggle self-sacrificing fighters who have achieved tremendous successes, are studying hard....
come true to life, and there will be something that would
stir you.
There is often a great deal of snobbish conceit in budding writers-and even frequently in workers' children, but [it] has to be thoroughly washed away.
With comradely greetings,
N. Ktupskaya
Letter to a Budding Writer*
July 3, 1936
Dear Comrade!
It seems to me that you are not on the right road. If you wish to become a real poet, a writer, whom the masses would love and appreciate, you have to work a great deal on yourself. Here no universities, no writers' unions will help.
I cannot see from your letter what grieves your heart, what---apart from your own literary career---disturbs you. He who looks with indifference on life all round him "from the writer's carriage window" will never become a real writer. You have been in the Mining Institute, but have you any idea about the life of the miners, about their state of mind? They are one of the leading sections of the proletariat, and you are not interested in them ... so far, I hope.
In my opinion, you will not make an engineer, that needs a different make-up, a different training.
I would advise you to go to work in a pit, to make use of the knowledge you have acquired, to work side by side with ordinary workers, to take a look at the way they live, their home conditions. Then the themes for poems will
* The name of the addressee has not been ascertained.
158KHRUSHCHOV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH
(6. April 17, 1894)
---First Secretary of the. C. C. C.P£.U., Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the US.S.R.
N-KHRUSHCHOV
From the Report
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress
February 14, 1956
. . . The millions of men and women of our glorious working class, our engineers and technicians are searching for and harnessing the enormous reserves latent in socialist production with increasing vigour. Socialist emulation is a striking expression of this. We must extend this emulation movement, always remembering that it is not a campaign, but the vital cause of millions of people, a powerful force promoting the development and perfection of socialist production. We are confident that our working
11-2618
161men and women, engineers, and technicians, will, by their creative labour, ensure the successful fulfilment of the Sixth Five-Year Plan.
the working people in town and country, to greater cooperation in production between the working class and the collective-farm peasantry, and to the development of the creative activity of the popular masses.
... The organic combination of socialist patriotism and internationalism is the ideological basis for strengthening the fraternal relations between the socialist nations. Our Party was guided by this in the past and will continue so to be guided in its national policy.
By intensifying the education of the masses in the spirit of proletarian internationalism we have done everything and will continue to do everything to aid the growth and development of the national economy of all Union republics, for the still greater enhancement of their culture, national in form and socialist in content. At the same time, we must resolutely repulse all manifestations of bourgeois ideology, including nationalism, safeguard the purity of our communist ideology, and work tirelessly to unite the peoples of the U.S.S.R. still more firmly and to further strengthen their great friendship.
... A major historic gain of our Party is the fact that under the socialist system new people have developed, active and conscious builders of communism. It would, however, be wrong to think that the survivals of capitalism in the minds of people have been done away with. Unfortunately, we still find in our splendid and industrious Soviet family people who take no part in productive labour, perform no useful work for family or society. We also come across people who maliciously violate the rules of our socialist community. It is impossible to put an end to these ugly manifestations merely by administrative measures, without participation by the masses themselves. In
... There are not a few comrades who, though they have earned pensions, do not wish to give up their active efforts in our Party's cause. As an example I could cite Comrade Orlovsky, a Communist, who is now working as chairman of the Rassvet Collective Farm in the Byelorussian Republic.
Comrade Orlovsky served in the forces many years. During the war he courageously fought the enemy. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for valour and courage. He lost an arm in the war and retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was deservedly given a pension on which he could get along quite well. But as a Communist he did not reconcile himself to the position of a pensioner; he went to his Regional Party Committee and asked for an assignment in the frontline, as chairman of a collective farm. He was recommended for election as chairman of the Rassvet Collective Farm. Comrade Orlovsky threw himself into the work, and under his management the collective farm has moved up from among the laggards to a place among the leaders. Today this collective farm is famous throughout the Soviet Union. There's a real communist patriot for you!...
... The foundation of the moral and political unity of the whole of Soviet society-a foundation as firm as granite -is the indestructible alliance of the working class and the peasantry welded by the Party. The important measures which the Party has carried out in industry and agriculture contribute to the further improvement of the well-being of
16211*
163this matter, public opinion has a great role to play. It is necessary to create such an atmosphere that people violating standards of conduct, the principles of Soviet morality, should feel that their actions are condemned by the whole of society. We must make indefeasible the following provision of our Constitution-one of its cornerstones-"Work in the U.S.S.R. is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: 'He who does not work, neither shall he eat.' "
It is the bounden duty of Party, Government, Y.C.L., and trade-union organisations to carry on vigorously the noble work of fostering in the Soviet youth and all working people a socialist attitude towards work and public property, and to educate them in the spirit of the great ideas of Marxism-Leninism.
... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the ruling party, and everything that happens on Soviet soil is of vital interest to the Party as a whole and to each of its members. A Communist has no right to be a mere onlooker.
That is why the Party demands of Party cadres that they should not divorce Party work from economic work, that their economic leadership should be concrete and based on knowledge of the business. This, of course, does not imply confusing the functions of Party bodies with those of economic bodies, or substitution of Party bodies for economic bodies. That would obliterate personal responsibility and lead to irresponsibility. What is meant is that Party work should be concentrated on organising and educating the masses, on improving guidance of the economy, on promoting the continuous development of our socialist economy, on raising the living standards of the Soviet people, and advancing their culture.
... Communism will bring about the fullest development of all the productive forces of society; it will be a social system where all the fountains of social wealth will flow freely, where every individual will work with enthusiasm according to his abilities and be compensated for his labour according to his needs. On this basis the prerequisites will be created for the all-round development of the individual, of every member of communist society.
From the Speech at the Meeting of Komsomol Members
and the Youth of Moscow
on the Occasion of the Departure
of the First Group of Volunteers
for Construction Sites in the East of the U.S.S.R.
June 2, 1956
... Millions of Soviet people took part in the Patriotic War. Many of them showed examples of courage, resourcefulness and heroism. But anyone else finding himself in the position of the pilot Maresyev,* after he had lost both legs, might have lost the will to live and his interest in life. But what did this man do? He found strength in himself to overcome his serious physical handicap, learned to walk and again joined the ranks. When the war ended, Comrade Maresyev entered an academy, graduated successfully and is now working as a teacher. This, indeed, is the real Soviet man, the real Communist! . . .
* Alexei Petrovich Maresyev was the prototype of the hero in the book The Story About a Real Man written by the Soviet writer Boris Polevoi.
164... Difficult conditions are a relative concept. You must train yourselves to overcome the greatest difficulties of all, then the hardest will seem lighter. You will have to create your own living conditions in the new districts with your own hands. There is no other way out, comrades! So it is good that you are going as a collective. You know one another and will give moral support to those who may need it....
foundations. And it is here that the enemies of socialism direct their blows. They would very much like to shake the unity of the socialist countries, to divide them and then assail them one by one. To this we can say to our illwishers: your efforts, gentlemen, are in vain!
We will firmly and consistently carry into life the great ideas of Marxism-Leninism, strengthen the fraternal friendship between the socialist countries and unswervingly pursue the Leninist policy of peaceful coexistence of states with differing political systems. We want to live in peace and co-operate with all states irrespective of their social regimes, provided they, too, pursue a peaceful policy....
... The Soviet Union builds its relations with states in a way that is not detrimental to other states. In the socialist camp these relations derive from fraternal mutual aid, as in a close-knit family, where brother helps brother. It is a pleasure to help when the help benefits the fraternal people, when it furthers the economic advancement of a country which is working to strengthen the common camp of the socialist states. That is the main thing, comrades. That has been and will continue to be our standpoint.
We must help one another and use the achievements of each of the socialist countries in the interests of our common cause. The working class of the Soviet Union has rich experience because it won power and set about building the new life earlier than the others. I have no desire whatever to convince those who try to minimise the significance of the Soviet Union's experience. And it is just because the Soviet Union has this rich experience in socialist construction, because it is the most powerful country in the socialist camp that the imperialists direct their main blow against the Soviet Union. But if we, all the socialist
From the Answers to Questions Put by the Editors of Rude Pravo
January 1, 1957
... We must be keenly alive to our momentous responsibility and mobilise our forces to strengthen the Communist and Workers' Parties, strengthen proletarian solidarity and the unity of our ranks, cement the unity of the international labour movement and be faithful to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the principles of proletarian internationalism, and to our battle slogan: "Workers of All Countries, Unite!".. .
From the Speech at a Reception
at the Embassy of the People's Republic
of Bulgaria
February 18, 1952
.. . Fraternal friendship is the greatest gain and happiness of our peoples. Unity of political views, unity of ideology of the socialist-camp countries, is the foundation of
166countries, strengthen and develop our commonwealth, firmly pursue the Leninist policy, we shall go straight ahead to the complete victory of communism....
est tasks for the sake of the welfare and happiness of the people and they spare no efforts to achieve them.
... The Party demands that every Communist, everyone working in the organs of the Party and the state should feel highly responsible for the work assigned and strictly punishes all those who in their practical work deviate from the Party's political line, forget the interests of the Party and the people. Neither the post a worker occupies nor his past services can protect him from criticism and from responsibility to the Party and the people.
The whole question is from what standpoint, and for the sake of what, the criticism is made. We reveal and criticise shortcomings and mistakes in order to eliminate them as obstacles in our path, in order further to strengthen our Soviet system and the positions of the Communist Party, to ensure new achievements and more rapid progress.
... The strength of Soviet socialist society lies in the unity of the Communist Party and the people. The policy of the Communist Party which expresses the fundamental interests of the people, forms the living basis of the Soviet social and state system. It would, therefore, be a mistake to think that in our Soviet conditions it is possible to serve the people without taking an active part in implementing the policy of the Communist Party. It is not possible to want to go with the people without sharing the views of the Party, its political line. Whoever wants to be with the people will always be with the Party. Whoever adheres firmly to Party positions will always be with the people.
... The truthful portrayal of the life of society, of people, in works of literature and art, presupposes showing
From the Speech
``For a Closer Bond Between Literature and Art and the Life of the People"
May-July, 1957
... We Communists are people of vigorous revolutionary action, we consider it our task to transform the world, to build communist society. The strength of our theory lies in the fact that it is closely connected with life, that it sums up the theoretical experience of millions, defends the fundamental interests of the working people who comprise the majority of the world's population. The strength of Marxist-Leninist theory lies in the fact that it is essentially revolutionary, it does not tolerate stagnation, routine and inertia, it illumines the path to the communist future, leads people forward by helping them to overcome difficulties and obstacles on the path to this goal.
Marxists-Leninists act as the creators of the new life, as people of great revolutionary thought, of bold fantasy, of winged dreams. At the same time they are people of the earth with two feet planted firmly on the ground of living reality, sober politicians who in their work take all the real conditions and possibilities into account, who are not afraid of difficulties, who do not conceal contradictions, who are able openly and honestly to tell their people the whole truth, no matter how bitter at times. The Communists, Lenin's pupils and followers, set themselves the bold-
168 169the positive, bright aspects of socialist reality, which form its basis, and, at the same time, criticising the shortcomings, revealing and condemning all negative phenomena which hold back our advance.
... We have resolutely and irreconcilably opposed, and will oppose, the lop-sided, unfair, untruthful interpretation in" literature and art of our life. We oppose those who seek out in life only the negative facts and gloat about them, who try to run down and besmirch our Soviet way of life. We also oppose those who paint gilded, sugary pictures, insulting the feelings of our people, who will not accept or tolerate insincerity... .
Ukrainians and other nationalities of the U.S.S.R.-and the miners of Czechoslovakia, whose ranks include Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and other nationalities. There is no reason why we shouldn't maintain these relations of brotherhood since we are fighting for a common cause....
... We are for the freedom of labour, for the freedom of people, for freedom only for those who work, who create material values for society. This man, the creator of values, should be the real master of his destiny. The reins of government should be in his hands, he should administer state and dispose of the country's wealth.
Which system can provide this? Only the socialist system. Which party stands for this? Only the Marxist-- Leninist party. That is why the people, the working class, rally under the banner of the Communist and Workers' Parties which adhere to the Marxist-Leninist teaching....
From the Answers to Questions Put by J. Reston
New York Times Chief Diplomatic Correspondent
From the Speech at a Soviet-Czechoslovak Friendship Meeting
in Ostrava During the Visit
of Soviet Party and Government Delegation
to Czechoslovakia
July 13,1952
... The new, socialist society, a society in which labour rules, has been established in our country. As Soviet people, we are proud to have been the first to enter into the kingdom of labour, where he who works is honoured and esteemed and where he who lives on another man's labour is an object of contempt.
... The most friendly relations exist between the workers and all the working people of our two countries. There is firm friendship, between the Soviet miners-Russians,
October 7, 1952
... We have always been and continue to be for peaceful coexistence between states with different social systems, for peaceful coexistence between the socialist and capitalist countries. Peace is the cornerstone of our foreign policy. Why? Because in our country there are no classes interested in seizing foreign lands and enslaving other peoples, or in profiting by the arms race. Because we need peace in order to build communism, to create an abundance of material values for all the members of our Soviet society.
171 130We stand for peaceful coexistence not because we are weak, not because we are afraid of the imperialists, but because a new war, involving modern lethal weapons, like thermonuclear bombs and the means to deliver them, like the intercontinental ballistic missile, would spell death for millions upon millions of people and the destruction of enormous material values, the fruit of the labour of many generations.
We are Communists, and the communist ideology is the world's most humane ideology. We believe there is nothing more precious than man himself, and, hence, will spare no effort to deliver mankind from the menace of another world carnage....
... According to Marxist-Leninist teaching, with the development of socialist society and its institutions, with the development of man in that society, the rise of his cultural standards, and the education of new moral qualities in people, there will no longer be any need for a number of state bodies required now to put down the attempts of the enemies of socialism to deprive the working people of their great gains or to introduce various abnormalities into the life of our country. When our society reaches the stage of communism, only those institutions will remain which are needed to organise the normal life of society, for example, the further development of industry, farming and culture, the promotion of the standard of living, etc. We have no exploiting classes even now, but then we will have no classes and no class distinctions. Under communism there will be genuine freedom, fraternity and equality of all people in society....
From the Interview Given
to Henry Shapiro, Correspondent of United Press Agency
November 14, 1952
... The communist education of man cannot be effected by the wave of a magic wand. It is a process of struggle in the development of culture, in moulding the outlook of the Soviet man. The healthy trend challenges negative manifestations, bourgeois survivals and bourgeois influence. And this influence is not only possible, it is inevitable, because there are still capitalist countries in a considerable part of the world.
... For the Soviet writer or artist who loves his people, the Party spirit in his work, the desire to be of service to his people, is a natural necessity. This has been excellently expressed by our writers and artists themselves. The Party spirit is no burden for anyone provided it follows from the essence of his convictions.
... If a writer serves the people, lives with the people and is their servant, his work fuses with the interests of the people, the interests of the Communist Party and his own personal interests. The Communist Party is the vanguard, the most advanced part of the people. The Party has no interests other than the interests of the people. It gives priority to the interests of the people, to improving the well-being and furthering the advance of our socialist society towards communism. Thus, identity has developed between the aspirations of the people and the Party which
1JZ
173is the vanguard o£ society. Literature plays a prominent role, helping the Party to educate the people correctly, to impart to them the advanced, progressive ideas which guide our Party. So, you see, it is not accidental that we call writers the engineers of the human soul....
From the Interview Given to W. R. Hearst, U. S. Newspaper Magnate
November 22, 1957
... We Communists, the Soviet politicians, are atheists. But we set high value on our pledges, on our word, and we never break our pledges. We value the life of man and devote all our efforts to ensuring that the people of our country have a good, happy life, that all Soviet people be equal in their rights and duties, that they have all the possibilities for enjoying the fruits of their labour. We Communists are fighting actively to prevent war, are doing everything that there be no new war.. ..
From the Answers to Questions Put
by Brazilian Journalists Victorio Martorelli and Tito Fleury
November 21, 1957
... The sputniks serve, as it were, to sum up the competition between the socialist and capitalist countries. And socialism has won in this competition. After taking power, the workers and peasants of our country surmounted tremendous difficulties and wiped out tsarist Russia's former backwardness, built up a mighty industry, mechanised socialist agriculture and trained numerous intellectuals of their own. Socialism has brought forth people who are blazing new trails in science and technology. Thanks to the efforts of Soviet scientists, engineers and workers, the Soviet Union was the first to launch the artificial earth satellites. And that is just another vivid proof that the economy, science and culture and the people's creative genius in all spheres of life develop better and faster under socialism....
From the Speech at the Ninth Session of the U.S.S.R.
Supreme Soviet (Fourth Convocation)
December 21, 1957
. .. The Communists, stepping out along their own road, are marching from victory to victory. They are inspired by the noble ideas of scientific communism which expresses the fundamental interests of the working class, of all working people. That is why the Communists have no need to impose their ideas by force. Theirs are the most progressive ideas of our epoch, they are found wherever people live. These ideas"'cannot be destroyed just as the people cannot be destroyed....
174 115From the Speech at the Thirteenth Congress of the Komsomol
April 18, 1958
... Lenin's behest-to study-is still a law for our youth---
... Nor can our youth mark time and be content with what has been achieved. You should know that no one will do our job for us. That is why it is extremely necessary for each to understand his personal responsibility in the common work. We must not waste even an hour on getting started and on contemplation. In the era of the gigantic competition between two systems-socialist and capitalisttempo means a great deal. Every achievement, every move forward on the economic front, is communist construction.
We firmly believe that we shall build communist society, the finest of all the societies on the earth. The Komsomol members must be taught to have what I would call the labour attitude to the understanding of communism.
In communist society each will work according to his ability and receive according to his needs. The meaning of this classic formula is that everyone will be more than an onlooker or well-wisher of communism. He will work with both sleeves rolled up like a true toiler of the new society. Under communism, it will not be the life of the idle rich where laziness and sloth reign, but a working, industrious, cultured and interesting life!...
.. . Every kind of work at a factory or a collective farm, an industrial enterprise, state farm, or institution, honest and useful work for society, is sacred work necessary for everyone who lives and enjoys the benefits of society.
Everyone who is capable of working and can work but does not work is robbing those who do work, that is to
276say, he is living at the expense of those who create material and spiritual wealth. It is necessary to create an atmosphere of social intolerance towards those who disdain work.
... Everyone who lives in communist society should, by his work, contribute his mite to the building and further development of this society.
Training the rising generation for life, for useful labour, cultivating in young people a profound respect for the principles of socialist society, should become the most important task of our schools. And here the Komsomol and Young Pioneer organisations have a vast field for their efforts.
The Soviet school is called upon to train highly-educated people with a good knowledge of the fundamentals of science, who, at the same time, are capable of systematic work, to cultivate in young people a desire to be useful to society, to take an active part in the production of the wealth society needs....
... Young people are inclined to be romantic. This is a good thing. But Lenin's behest must not be forgotten: every day in every town and every village, to find the practical solution to one or other task of common labour, no matter how small, ho matter how simple....
.. . The Young Communist League is called upon to give support to and to develop among young people a love and respect for every kind of work that the people need, for every kind of profession....
... It is necessary by joint effort, to help men to overcome the difficulties and adversities of daily life, to see to it that he does not halt in his development, does not
12-2618
111become tainted with the mildew of Philistinism. And if this should occur, we must boldly direct on him the fire of comradely criticism. When a man is fanned by a fresh and vital wind, things turn out very well....
... It is the noble duty of the Young Communist League to educate the Soviet youth in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, in the spirit that strengthens and extends the fraternal bonds with the youth of the socialist countries, with all the young people of the world who are struggling for peace and democracy on our planet.
We have overcome not a few serious obstacles on the path to communism. But the Party has never retreated from the chosen path. The Communist Party is the most revolutionary party.... It has always relied on the confidence and support of broad masses of the people.
The Party has always been concerned for the training of young forces capable of continuing its great cause and carrying forward our glorious banner to the victorious end,. ..
of the masses, the more successfully the plans of communist construction will be carried out. That is why questions of the communist education -of the people, particularly the younger generation, are now of exceptionally great importance.
The purpose of all the ideological activities of our Party and state is to develop the new traits of the Soviet people, to educate them in the spirit of collectivism and industry, socialist internationalism and patriotism, the lofty ethical principles of the new society, in the spirit of MarxismLeninism. To achieve communism, the most just and perfect human society, in which all the finest moral traits of the free man will unfold to the full, we must educate the man of the future today. Communist ethics should be developed among Soviet people, ethics founded on devotion to communism and intolerance of its enemies, on a sense of social duty, active participation in work for the good of society, voluntary observance of the basic norms of conduct, comradely mutual assistance, honesty and truthfulness, and intolerance of those who violate public order.
... Socialism upholds a different ethical code-- cooperation and collectivism, friendship and mutual assistance. It accentuates solicitude for the common good of the people, for the all-round development of the human personality in a collective where man to man is a friend and brother, and not an enemy.
The champions of communism are inspired by the lofty ideas of emancipating the masses from the tyranny of capital and serving the common good of humanity. Their personal example and behaviour are a paragon of great moral force. Communists have never spared themselves, nor their lives. They have fearlessly faced torture and death for the realisation of their lofty ideals. Even now
From the Report on the Control Figures for the Economic Development
of the U.S.S.R. for 1959-1965
at the 21st Extraordinary Congress
of the C.P.S.U.
January 27, 1959
... What we need for the transition to communism is not only a developed material and technical basis, but also a high degree of political consciousness on the part of all members of society. The higher the political consciousness
17812*
179many Communists are languishing in prisons and dungeons in the capitalist countries for their humanistic convictions, their devotion to the people and their selfless struggle for the happiness of the people.
The great moral influence of the ideas of communism in the socialist countries is vividly manifested in the active participation of millions of people in building the new life. Bourgeois politicians are unable to understand the patriotism and labour enthusiasm of Soviet men and women, who place the interests of society above their personal interests, realising that under socialism the wellbeing and happiness of people are ensured by the entire society....
... Education must above all be linked with reality, with production, with the practical activities of the masses. The Party makes the labour education of all people, the encouragement of a conscious, communist attitude to labour, the pivot of all educational activity. We want labour -the source of all material and cultural values-to become a prime vital necessity for the people.
Communist views and standards of behaviour are striking root in the struggle against the survivals of capitalism. We still frequently come across people who take a dishonest attitude to social labour, who engage in profiteering, are guilty of breaches of discipline and disturb public order. We must not sit back and wait for these survivals of capitalism to vanish of themselves; we must combat them with determination, and direct public opinion against any manifestation of bourgeois views and habits, against all anti-social elements.
In all educational work, the Party attaches special importance to the education of the younger generation. Lenin said: "All the work of bringing up, educating and training
the youth today should be aimed at developing communist ethics in them.''
The youth are already building communism, and subsequently they will live and work in communist society, will administer all its affairs. It is for this lofty mission that the Soviet youth must be trained....
... We have always adhered to the great international teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and shall always do so unfailingly. Figuratively speaking, our Communist Party regards itself as one of the forward contingents of the world communist movement, as the contingent which is the first to be scaling the heights of communism. And no avalanche or landslide can stop us on our way to communism.
... Concern for the unity and strength of our ranks is the supreme international duty of each Communist and Workers' Party. Success in the national cause ot the working class is inconceivable without the international solidarity of all its contingents.. ..
From the Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.
"For a Further Rise in the Country's Productive Forces, for Technical Progress in all Branches of the National Economy"
June 29, 1959
... I was delighted when I heard our splendid Koni; somol team-leader Valentina Gaganova speak at the Plenary Meeting on behalf of the women working at the
180181
Vyshny Volochok factory in Kalinin Region. You must realise, comrades, this has to be given thought-no one with the capitalist way of looking on life will ever believe that a worker would give up better-paid work and voluntarily undertake work that is lower paid and so earn less.
Moreover, this woman went to work with the backward team not because she doesn't need anything.
The value and nobleness of this woman's action lies in the fact that it was not material consideration that prompted her to take the step she did, but an idea, her ideological devotion to the communist system. For the sake of this system she makes personal sacrifices! True, as Valentina Gaganova herself proved, this personal sacrifice is temporary. Our workers understand the aim the Party serves---the aim of building communist society-and when necessary they make sacrifices in the material sense, for the sake of achieving this aim... .
The measures outlined by the Party in this sphere have met with nation-wide approval and have acquired the
force of law.
The most important aspect of the school reform is combining instruction with socially useful productive work and strengthening educational work in school. The struggle for the triumph of communism requires the harmonious and all-round development of Soviet man. This implies not merely mastery of the sum-total of scientific knowledge of nature, technology and society, but also learning how to apply this knowledge in practice, directly in the work of communist construction. We need not mere assimilation of knowledge but its conversion into deep ideological convictions, the sort of convictions that arouse strong feelings, that are revealed in day-to-day work and actions for the good of the people.
The great tasks of transforming society demand from young people knowledge that is comprehensive, hands that are skilful and hearts that are ardent. Love of work for the common good, supreme devotion to communism are what is most sacred, the law of life for all whose good fortune is to continue and complete the revolutionary work of older generations.
Education is only part of the work of the school and the teacher, true, one that is of great and prime importance. All the same, education is not enough. If habits of work for the common good are not developed in pupils, education alone cannot ensure the bringing up of the new man with high moral qualities, with the communist mentality and morality. Morality of this kind is born in labour, actions and behaviour.
... But the work the pupils perform is important not in itself, not only and not so much for its product. It is of
183From the Speech at the All-Russian Congress of Teachers
July 9, 1960
... At the present time we are solving two historic tasks---creating the material and technical basis of communism and educating the new man. This is essentially a single process. If we lag behind in educating and bringing up Soviet people, this will inevitably put the brake on the building of communism.
That is why, in outlining the programme of full-scale communist construction, the Party and the Government were concerned to strengthen the link between the school and everyday life and further to develop public education.
182paramount importance that the classes in productive work should be used correctly and fully to train the young people to love work for the common good.
The school must teach its pupils to be able to work collectively, that is to say, to be able, in the final analysis, to live and work in the communist way.
Recall what Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said about communist labour as early as 1920. He stressed that it was voluntary work, work without quotas, work performed without expectation of remuneration, work out of a habit or working for the common good, work as the requirement of the healthy organism. It is for this kind, of work that we must train our children, our young people!
... Upbringing in the home should be regarded as a very important part of Party work. It is necessary to develop in all working people a sense of responsibility for the bringing up of children. As in all other matters, Communists must here set the example. It is a matter of supreme Party responsibility to educate young people properly, to bring them up so that the mind is put at rest at the realisation that another good worker has grown up, another honest citizen of the Motherland, a patriot of and heir to our great communist cause....
It is this banner of peace that gives us an opportunity of rallying round us the broadest masses of the people. If we carry aloft the banner of peace, we shall achieve still greater success.
Communists consider it their sacred duty to make full use of all the opportunities which the present epoch offers to the peoples for curbing the bellicose forces of imperialism and preventing another war.
... The struggle between the communist and all popular forces, on the one hand, and the forces of imperialism, on the other, is entering a new stage. In these conditions, consolidation of the ranks of the socialist camp, of the entire international communist movement assumes prime importance. Our solidarity based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and of proletarian internationalism is the chief condition for the victory of the working class over imperialism. For us the behest of the great Lenin is sacred: to advance, shoulder to shoulder. The unity of our ranks multiplies the forces of communism. Solidarity, solidarity and again solidarity is the law of the international communist movement.
... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Soviet people will do everything continually to strengthen unity between our parties and our peoples, in order not only to disillusion our enemies but by our unity to shake them still more, to achieve our great goal-the triumph of communism.
Comrades! We are living at a splendid time. Communism has become the invincible force of our age. The further successes of communism depend to an enormous extent on our will, our unity, our farsightedness and determination. By their struggle and labour the Communists, the working
From the Report "For New Victories of the World Communist Movement"
January 6, 1961
... One of the mainsprings of the moral strength of communism, of its tremendous influence on the masses, is that it is the standard-bearer in the struggle for peace.
184 285class will achieve the fulfilment of the great aims of communism on the earth.
The people of the future, the Communists of the coming generations will envy us, will always recall these days when the lines of the Party anthem ring out with especial force:
``We'll change forthwith the old conditions And spurn the dust to win the prize."
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has always been and will continue to be loyal to the teaching of Marxism-Leninism, to proletarian internationalism and friendship among peoples, will always fight for peace throughout the world, for the victory of communism, as our great Lenin taught us!
From the Speech
at the Plenary Meeting
of the Central Committee
of the C.P.S.U.
``Improvement in the Well-Being
of the People and the Tasks for Further
Increasing the Output of Agricultural Products"
.. . The leader must have a feeling of pride. If he sees he cannot cope with the work, he should come and say:
''Comrades, I have fallen down on the job, I am not capable of leading the region, I have discredited myself; we undertook to treble the plan, but we have failed to fulfil it even one hundred per cent. Let me resign.''
In that case I would regard it as pride, self-esteem, respect for one's own dignity. But this is how he argues: "Well, what of it? I made an undertaking and I did not fulfil it, what of it? I'll make another undertaking." If we so easily assume obligations that we do not fulfil, who will have faith in us, what sort of Party will it be that has such windbags in it? There will be no respect for a party like that. Therefore, we, comrades, should fight for the honour of our Party, fight against those who discredit our Party. Measure the cloth seven times before cutting it so that it will be cut where is should be___
From the Report
of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. to the 22nd Congress of the Party
January 17, 1961
... There has developed among us a good communist tradition of fulfilling one's pledge once it has been given. It is not in the spirit of Soviet people to talk idly. Men and women collective farmers, state farm workers, and agricultural experts are working devotedly on the fields and farms, striving to keep their pledge to the people as a whole. This is good and we should welcome it.
October 17, 1961
... On the eve of the Twentieth Congress the issue facing us was: either the Party would openly, in Leninist fashion, condemn the errors and distortions committed at ihe time of the cult of Stalin's person and reject the methods of Party and government leadership that had become an obstacle to progress, or the forces which clung to the old and resisted all that was new and creative would gain the upper hand in the Party. The issue was as crucial as that.
186 187Was it really necessary to criticise, so scathingly and so frankly, the major errors and grave consequences bound up with the cult of the individual?
Yes, it was. The careful analysis and profound study of a number of records, undertaken after the exposure of that inveterate enemy and adventurer, Beria, fully revealed to the Central Committee the flagrant violations of socialist legality, abuses of power, arbitrary acts and repressive measures that had been perpetrated against many honest people, including prominent Party and government officials. The Central Committee, which was well aware of its responsibility to the Party and the people, could not possibly take the line of concealing or hushing up past errors and distortions. Following Lenin's behests, the Central Committee decided to tell the truth about the abuses of power perpetrated at the time of the cult of the individual. It was a moral requirement, the duty, of the Party-and its leadership. It was a correct decision and it had tremendous significance for the destiny of the Party and for communist construction.
Lenin called on the Party never to conceal its errors but to criticise them openly and rectify them. "The attitude of a political party towards its own mistakes," he wrote, "is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it in practice fulfils its obligations towards its class and the toiling masses. Frankly admitting a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the conditions which led to it, and thoroughly discussing the means of correcting it-that is the earmark of a serious party; that is the way it should perform its duties,- that is the way it should educate and train, first the class, and then the masses."*
What would have become of the Party and the country had the cult of the individual not been condemned, had its harmful consequences not been removed and the Leninist standards of Party and government activity restored? The result would have been a cleavage between Party and people, grave violations of Soviet democracy and revolutionary legality, slower economic progress, a lower rate of communist construction and hence a deterioration of the people's standard of living. In the sphere of international relations, the result would have been a weakening of Soviet positions in world affairs and a worsening of relations with other countries, which would have had dire consequences. That is why criticism of the cult of the individual and the elimination of its consequences were of the utmost political and practical importance.
Marxism-Leninism has always severely condemned all manifestations of the cult of the individual, which it regards as alien to the spirit of the proletarian revolutionary movement, of communism. Marx, Engels and Lenin saw the people as the real maker of history; they stressed the leading and organising role of the working-class party. Marxism-Leninism does not deny the important role of leaders of the working class, but it emphatically opposes all glorification, to say nothing of the deification, of any particular person. Glorification of any one person inevitably pushes the people and the Party into the background and thus reduces their role and significance.
... The supreme mission of every member of the Leninist Party lies in selfless service to communism. A Communist must do his job with ardour; he must devote heart and soul to the cause of the people. There is no room in the Party for a member who fails to live up to his lofty duties. ...
* V. I. Lenin, ``Left-Wing'' Communism, an Infantile Disorder, F.L.P.H., Moscow, p. 49.
288 189... Now that the struggle for communism is in full swing we must demand that all those who join the Party should be everywhere in the forefront of communist construction. The Party Rules make it incumbent on Communists to set an example of a communist attitude to labour, of the utmost devotion to our ideology, of an uncompromising attitude to all shortcomings, to moneygrubbing and parasitism, to be considerate and sympathetic to others, and loyal to the Party and the people. A Communist must be a model in the struggle to establish the lofty principles of communist morality.. ..
... To devote our all to such work, without classifying it as more important or less important, to show consideration for others, no matter on what business they come to us, to be broad-minded and approach matters from the standpoint of Party principles, and always keep pace with developments-such is our duty and our responsibility to the Party and to the people. It is only such enthusiastic, creative work that can fire people's hearts, and inspire them to do great things in the field of labour and in the struggle.
.., Stronger bonds with the niasses, the direct contacts with people that Were characteristic of Lenin, the urge to live and work among people and share their joys and sorrows, and communist ardency in the struggle for what is new and progressive, are all features that should be typical of a Party leader.
... Communism and labour go hand in hand. The great principle, "He who does not work, neither shall he eat", will continue to operate under communism and will, in fact, become a sacred principle for everyone. Man's beauty and his fame stem from his work, from what he does.
from that which he has created or that which he has performed. The abilities and talents of people, the genius of man, are revealed in labour, the immortality of man is in his labour.
The training oi man for his life's work, the steeling ot people through, labour, the inculcation oi love and respect tor labour as a vital necessity, is the central ieatute oi all work in ihe field oi communist education.
The moulding of the new man is a long and complicated process. People cannot be mechanically transported from the realm of capitalism to the realm of communism. A man steeped in capitalist prejudices cannot be taken into communism. He must first be freed from the burden of the past. It will take time and effort to eliminate the survivals of capitalism in the minds of men, to change in millions of people customs and habits that have evolved in the course of centuries-to complete the change that was begun by our revolution. Survivals of the past are a terrible power that weighs on the minds of people. They persist in the lives and in the minds of millions of people long after the economic conditions that engendered them have disappeared....
... Communist education implies the emancipation of the mind from religious prejudices and superstitions which still prevent some Soviet people from displaying their creative ability to the full. A more effective and better organised system of scientific atheist propaganda is needed, one that will embrace all sections and groups of the population, and will prevent the dissemination of religious views, especially among children and adolescents.
... The shaping of a new type of citizen, a man of great ideals and high moral principles, is one of the greatest achievements of our Party. Our opponents are scared
191by the political and cultural growth of Soviet people and by their loyalty to communism. It stands to reason that this has not been spontaneous, but has been achieved as a result of the Party's many years of educational work. We are now in a position to propose and put into effect those most noble principles of relations between people that many generations of working people have dreamed of. Those principles are given concrete form in the Communist Moral Code.
The interests of communist construction demand that questions ot communist education should be in the centre of the attention and activities of every Party organisation and the general public....
pie must work so well as to be able to say, when the bright edifice of communism is built: I have done my bit for it as well. ...
. .. Communists will not conserve and perpetuate national distinctions. We will support the objective process of the increasingly closer rapprochement of nations and nationalities proceeding under the conditions of communist construction on a voluntary and democratic basis. It is essential that we lay greater stress on the education of the masses in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and Soviet patriotism. Even the slightest vestiges of nationalism should be eradicated with uncompromising, Bolshevik determination.
The friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union is one of our greatest gains. Let us guard it as the apple of our eye!...
... It is our task to make the new moral principles a vital need for all Soviet people. Much still has to be done to wipe out the vestiges of the past. In public life the progressive is not fenced off from the old and backward. The progressive wins in the end, but the survivals of the old retard progress. The force of good example grows, and that is the basis of our education. But, as you know, weeds grow fast if they are not controlled in good time.
We must induce the general public to pay greater attention and take a more exacting attitude to people's behaviour. After all, ill deeds are committed by people who are mostly members of some collective, of an organisation, of a trade union, the Komsomol, a collective farm, or of some cultural and educational society or association, and sometimes even members of our Party. We must use the moral weight and authority of public opinion more
On the Programme
of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union
October 18,1961
:
... Communist society will have the most advanced technology, the most advanced and best organised production, the most advanced machinery. But it will be people that operate the machines. Machines are dead things, unless there is a man to operate them. Thoroughness, good organisation and discipline are therefore a golden rule, an obligatory standard of behaviour for every working man. He will not be made to perform his duties by the goad of hunger, as under capitalism; he will perform them consciously and of his own free will. Everyone will be conscious of the duty to contribute his labour to the creation of both the material and spiritual blessings. All Soviet peo-
19213-2618
193actively in combating those who break the rules and standards of socialist behaviour.
We want to make all people harmoniously developed. What other class besides the working class, and what other ruling party besides the Communist Party, has ever set the task of developing the capacities and gifts of all working people?
From the Concluding Speech at the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U.
October 27, 1961
... We Communists value highly and support the prestige of correct and mature leadership. We must safeguard the prestige of leaders recognised by the Party and the people. But every leader must bear in mind the other side of the matter-never to plume himself on his position, to remember that by holding an office he merely performs the will of the Party, of the people, who have invested him with, albeit supreme, power, but never lose control over him....
From the Speech "All Forces for the Successful Implementation
of the Historic Decisions of the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U."
November 16, 1961
... In our country man is to man a friend, comrade and brother. All Soviet peoples are equal and we shall continue to cherish as dearest of all the friendship of peoples, the fraternal community of socialist nations....
194From the Speech at the Moscow Conference
of Workers in Agriculture
from the Regions and Autonomous Republics
of the Non-Chernozem Zones
of the R.S.F.S.R.
December 14, 1961
... Every Party member, particularly every leader, should carry high the name of Communist and justify this name by the results of his labour above all. Our people trust the Leninist Party. They call the Programme of our Party, the Programme of communist construction, their own programme. Why do they do this? Because, of course, they see our Programme as the realisation of their own ideals, they see the new, still brighter life.
.. . The real Communist, the real builder of communism, who is truly a fighter for our common cause, never leaves his post until the task the Party has given him is accomplished.
... There is the worker who takes to heart every smallest reproof and tries to do better. But there is also the sort of worker who is called an idler, but if anyone asks him: did they criticise you, he will say: no, they only reproved me. Here you have a different approach to criticism, a different morality.
We should foster in everyone high moral qualities, dignity, pride, a receptive attitude to what is new, loyalty to the public interest. But as long as these qualities have not been instilled in all the people, it is necessary to reckon with reality. Morality is morality, but exactingness
13*
195must be exactingness. If the moral consciousness of a particular worker is not as high as it should be, then demand by law that he act in the way he should. You live by 'human labour, you enjoy its benefits, consequently, you are obliged to make your contribution to the common pool, to the pool you draw from and at the expense of which you live. . . .
of a young generation that will imbibe all the best mankind has created.
That is why we Communists, all Soviet people, are striving to see that our young people will be worthy successors of the old generation, so that it will be possible to rely in everything on these successors. That is why we are all so glad to realise that the old generation of Communists has such splendid successors.. ..
... To take part in the building of communism is not only a great happiness but also a tremendous responsibility. It was justly pointed out at our Party Congress that communism is created by labour, labour alone and the labour of millions. . ..
... In the struggle for a higher labour productivity, the splendid movement of our day-the movement for communist work-plays an important role. It is a genuine school of labour heroism, for the education of the new man, of communist relations among people. A number of enterprises and many teams have already won the honoured name of Communist Work Collective. These collectives are beacons/ as it were; it is necessary to follow their example, to learn from them. There is not the slightest doubt that this splendid movement will continue to develop in breadth and depth.
I want most strongly to emphasise the importance of the question of increasing labour productivity.
To be concerned for the growth of labour productivity means doing everything to increase the country's wealth, which is created by the labour of people. High labour productivity, correct organisation of labour and rational utilisation of the benefits created by the labour of millions are the basis of communist construction. ...
From the Speech at the Fourteenth Congress of the Komsomol
April 19, '1962
.. . Every thinking person dreams of living life in such a way as to leave behind something good by which he will be remembered, some trace of his good work here on earth. This view of life is specially characteristic of the Soviet man, the builder, the fighter, the man who is not only concerned about his own personal happiness but also about universal happiness. But to leave some trace of good work behind on earth is not only to produce some sort of material value. Material values are very necessary for social development, because without the creation of material values, society cannot progress, cannot develop and advance to communism, since communism presupposes, first and foremost an abundance of material and spiritual values for everyone, for all society. Besides this, however, everyone dreams of bringing up a worthy successor.
Translated into the language of social ideals, this noble human desire means that every society that has lofty aims and a programme of action to achieve these aims dreams
we
197... That man is not a happy man who, being well on in years and, perhaps having worked long and well, begins ahead of time to calculate that only a few years or months remain until he draws his pension, and thinks: see, then, how I shall live! He is under a profound misapprehension, for this man will no longer be living, because a man can live only when engaged in creative labour. To live is to work, to work is to live! When a man ceases to work, he cuts short his creative life, he then loses good contact with those around him... .
... To serve the Motherland and communism means to study well and tirelessly, to work selflessly, using all the experience- of the comrades at the bench, in the factory, on the collective and state farm, deriving more and more knowledge from the achievements of science and technology. It is in the early years that one must stand firmly on one's feet, determine one's place in order to go through life so as not to be ashamed of years lived aimlessly, as our wonderful writer, Nikolai Ostrovsky,* put it.
This means that our Komsomol youth should continue to work honestly for the benefit of the Motherland, to dream and to dare, to work wisely, economically and productively, to work as we are required to in this remarkable epoch.
To serve the Motherland, the cause of communism, means to study assiduously, to draw knowledge from the inexhaustible springs of Marxism-Leninism, to delve into the depths of science and technology, to master the treasures of modern culture.
To serve the Motherland, the cause of communism, means to be a vanguard fighter everywhere and in everything-at the factory, in the fields, in the ranks of the glorious Armed Forces, in guarding the security of our Motherland, in science and technology, in art and culture, in social, Komsomol and Party affairs.
To serve the Motherland, the cause of communism, means to be loyal to the end to the great cause of the Party, to carry high the banner of communist ideology, I would say to safeguard and add to the honour and glory of Soviet man, his spiritual beauty, the beauty of the pioneer in work and struggle, of the builder of the new world. ...
... It is necessary to cultivate in Komsomol members and all Soviet people the new traits of character of the people of the new, communist world. And this should be done not at the Komsomol age, but from childhood. In this relation I would like to mention the great and useful work the Leninist Komsomol is carrying out in the education of the Young Pioneers. Yes, Komsomol members, your work among the Pioneers is a very responsible task entrusted to you by the Party, the people and the Motherland, and you should never forget about it....
... Our Soviet, socialist society is strong in its collective spirit, where all are for one and one is for all, for the interests of society as a whole. Communist devotion to the idea, unshakable conviction in the triumph of the lofty ideals of communism, is now not an abstract concept but the meaning of our whole life, comrades....
... The strength of our social system lies precisely in the fact that in every place, in every kind of activity, the
198* Nikolai Alexandrovich Ostrovsky (1904-1936)-prominent Soviet writer, the author of the v/idely read novel about the Soviet youthHow the Steel Was Tempered.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1962/CM206/20091006/206.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2009.10.06) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+Soviet man should see and does see before him a lofty aim in life, in his work, which society so needs. . . .
... If a man is ideologically convinced, if he is equipped with the progressive theory of Marxism-Leninism, if he is a true fighter, if the aim towards which we strive is clear to him, then such a man derives high moral and political satisfaction from life.
It is very good that in its work to educate the young generation, the Young Communist League takes as its basis the moral code of the builder of communism as formulated in the Party Programme. This moral code incorporates the standard rules of conduct worked out down the ages by progressive social forces and, in particular, by the working class and its Leninist Party; they express the principles born of the revolution and of the present stage of the struggle for communism.
The moral code is imbued with noble ideas of humanism and collectivism. Just think how movingly evocative is the sound of our principles: "One for all and all for one!" and "Man is to man a friend, comrade and brother". Our code is the militant programme of the life of the revolutionary fighter, of whom devotion to communist ideas, ardent patriotism, socialist internationalism, intolerance of shortcomings are typical.
The Leninist Komsomol will be doing a good job if it organises the education of young people so that the principles of the moral code become personal convictions, the standard of behaviour of young people, become a habit.
We should strive for every young person to learn to regard the interests of the people as his chief personal interest, to become an ideologically convinced fighter.
... Our society cannot and will not tolerate people who live the life of parasites. It is necessary to instil an attitude
of intolerance towards such ugly phenomena, so that every Soviet man will look scathingly upon the idlers who want to live well but are unwilling to make their contribution in order to expedite the achievement of the communist way of life for all people in our country.
It is a law of life in our society that he who does not work shall not eat. This principle in our life is good and correct. There are still some spongers, however, who do not work, but at times these people eat better than those who do work. We must intensify the struggle against the idlers, against all sorts of swindlers, hooligans and antisocial elements. Our work in this direction should be better organised. I have in mind the state apparatus, too. Our - state organs are strong in that they rely on the solidarity and support of the masses of the people. .. .
... By resolutely fighting against the idlers, we shall be protecting our state mechanism from becoming socially rusty, protecting our socialist society from being sullied by parasitic elements. Our task is to rid society of such people, to do everything to bring back to socially useful labour those who are capable of living honest, working lives, and not to allow others to become corrupt. The idlers in our society are, after all, isolated cases. All the same, we cannot reconcile ourselves to things of this sort.. ..
.. . When it comes to the ideological conviction of the Soviet youth, their high moral and political qualities, it is precisely this above all that infuriates the enemies of communism. They realise that the strength of Soviet society lies in the moral and political unity of the people, in the fact that it gives young people a great deal of knowledge and an opportunity for interesting work, cultural and
201 200social development, in the fact that it has given and is giving the rising generation a great aim in life, powerful wings, as it were, for inspired labour and struggle....
.. . Maxim Gorky, that great man of letters, noticed and graphically expressed one remarkable feature of the people of the new, socialist world. Describing Lenin, he said that he possessed the inexhaustible ardour of youth. And Lenin passed on his youthful ardour to the people of his generation, to all our people and the Soviet youth.
May this inexhaustible, creative energy of Lenin for ever inspire our young men and women to perform fresh feats in their labour and struggle. Our aims are clear, the horizon is- clear, a straight, broad road leads to the morrow. So let us devote all our efforts, all the ardour of youth to ensure that the great plans of the Leninist Party will become a living reality....
SUBJECT INDEX
Aims of Communists -12, 17, 94,
97, 98, 121, 140, 143, 147, 150,
* 151, 166, 167, 168, 181-182,
185-186, 197, 198 Atheism-175, 191-192
B
Brotherhood-82, 83, 104, 118, 119, 136, 143, 163, 167, 172, 178, 194, 199, 200
176, 179, 189, 190, 192, 194,
196, 198, 199
-subbotniks- 60-64, 65, 120 Communist tuture-16, 28, 100,
105, 110, 141, 168, 185 Community of interests -in communist society-21, 23,
135, 149, 151, 155, 173, 180,
182-183, 201 Competition-55, 56, 78, 126, 160,
174, 175, 176 Comradeship -39, 40, 45, 80, 83,
10Q, 102, 126, 128, 130, 143,
165, 167, 177, 179, 194, 199,
200Confidence in victory-98, 99, 107 Conscientiousness-59, 65, 82, 130 Consciousness, political-15, 16, 58,
62, 65, 67, 68, 77, 79, 80, 83,
88, 93, 107, 131, 156, 165, 178-
179, 192, 195 Courage-60, 98, 122, 126, 128,
130, 160, 165 Creative works -18, 56, 84, 92, 94,
120 Criticism, self-criticism-^, 54, 85,
92, 93, 114, 143, 169, 170, 176,
18J-188, 195 Culture-89, 90, 132, 157
D
Devotion to communism-63, 66, 79, 84, 100, 122, 179, 181, 190, 192, 195, 198
Care oi people-27, 150-151, 164,
173, 174-175, 179, 189 Cheerfulness-66, 71, 91, 105, 155,
202Choice of profession-17, 84, 89 Collectivism-69, 80, 83, 93, 123,
126, 127, 131, 144, 147, 150,
155-156, 165, 179, 186, 197,
199, 200 Communist
-discipline-68, 145, 147, 154, 192 -ideals-19, 30, 72, 83, 86, 93, 97,
98, 99, 110, 141, 173, 179, 182,
192, 195, 199, 200 -labour-61, 68, 79, 80, 81, 147,
160, 162-163, 170, 175, 176,
180, 185, 189, 190, 197, 198,
202 -principles-131, 164, 165, 174,
203Diligence-27, 80, 123, 131, 132,
177, 189, 190, 198 Discipline-56, 58, 59-60, 67, 68,
73, 76, 77, 82, 126, 135, 142,
145, 147, 155, 192 Duty-26, 40, 41, 42, 52, 54, 67,
72, 85, 94, 99, 100, 106, 109,
179, 181, 185, 189, 192-193
Family-10, 13, 14, 23, 45, 63, 64, 69, 70, 77, 83, 88, 150, 184
Freedom-10, 12, 15, 19, 99, 104, 134, 146, 171, 172
Friendship-26, 28, 39, 83, 94, 105, 126, 129, 135, 136, 163, 165, 166,167, 171,178,179, 186, 193, 194, 200
166, 167, 171, 179-180, 183,
185, 186
Internationalism -83, 84, 95, 163, 166, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185,
186, 193, 194, 200 Initiative-IB, 56, 92 Intolerance ot shortcomings-168,
169, 176, 177, 178, 187-188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 200
-communist-23, 72, 81, 82, 93, 135, 136, 145, 147, 153-155, 164, 172, 179, 180, 181-182, 184, 188, 189, 192, 195, 199, 200
-general principles-15, 20, 32, 76, 81, 83, 123, 153
-proletarian-30, 31, 83, 123, 135
Moral make-up
-of a communist-24, 39, 46, 72, 73, 74, 93, 100, 101, 102, 103, 108, 109, 111, 127, 146, 147, 150, 151, 155, 160-161, 164, 174, 175, 176, 179, 181-182, 189, 190, 191, 194-195
-of the new man-91, 130, 134, 160-161, 165, 176, 178, 182, 183, 192, 195, 196, 198, 202
Mutual aid-167, 177, 179, 199, 200
N Nobleness-18, 22, 182-183, 197
O
Overcoming ditAcuities-81, 141, 166, 168, 174, 177, 178
Education
-bourgeois-14
-of children and young people -
23, 79, 83, 89, 91, 106, 117,
118, 149, 156, 157, 164, 175,
176, 178-179, 181, 182-183, 197,
199, 200 -communist-14, 76, 79, 83, 84,
85, 91, 117, 118, 123, 129, 130,
131, 147, 149, 155-156, 172, 173,
175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180,
182-183, 189-192, 193, 195, 196,
199, 200
-family-14, 149, 183 -labour-81, 86, 164, 180, 183,
191 -of people-42, 53, 58, 155-156,
163, 164, 173, 175, 180-181, 183,
188, 197, 199, 200 -tasks of-80, 87, 88, 90 -of women and youth-13, 87,
157, 175, 176, 180, 182, 183,
198Emancipation -of society-32, 35, 43 -of women-23, 64, 84, 142, 156 Enemies of socialism-54, 55, 58,
59, 67, 75, 76, 78, 83, 112, 166,
167, 168, 172, 179, 185-186,
187, 200, 201 Equality-146, 172 Equal lights tot women-36, 37,
142, 157 Equality ot nations -45-46, 134,
135, 193, 194 Exploitation and struggle against
it-10, 14, 17, 37, 42, 76, 97
Government
---of bourgeois society---22 -of communist society-22, 66, 80, 145, 171, 172
H
Happiness-18, 20, 24, 100, 103,,
104, 107, 109, 126, 139, 149,
182-183, 197, 198 Batted for enemies-84, 102, 122,
179 Heroes, heroism-29, 43, 60, 61,
66, 124, 127, 147, 162, 165, 197 Honesty-66, 83, 101, 113, 128,
130, 133, 134, 142, 179, 187,
188, 198 Human dignity-IT, 20, 28, 35, 39,
46, 186-187, 195
/oy-18, 20, 56, 91, 92, 103, 120 Justice-15, 82, 112, 142
Labour productivity-61, 63, 123,
130, 147, 163, 197 Loyalty-39, 53, 100, 107, 109,
145, 174, 186 Love-37, 46, 47, 51, 71, 72, 105,
139, 155, 157, -of life-109
-of people-26, 39, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 120, 128, 140, 150- 151, 155, 168, 172, 174
-for motherland-83, 84, 131, 134,
140, 144, 198
-of work~27, 87, 129, 130, 139,
177, 179-180, 183, 184, 189, 190, 198
M
Mamage-U, 15, 23, 36, 37, 45,
51, 69 Masses -active participation of-79, 93,
94, 98, 162, 164, 167, 176, 179,
193 -contact with-93, 94, 146-147,
151, 152, 153, 158, 160-170, 173,
178, 185, 190, 200 -enthusiasm of-30, 66, 98, 180 Mercilessness to the enemy---55,
59, 67, 111, 179 Modesty-83, 153, 194 Morality -bourgeois-10, 23, 30, 70, 84,
123, 153-154
Paris Commune-28, 29, 56 Partisanship, party attitude, party
spirii-41, 42, 43, 54, 65, 92,
93, 133, 141, 164, 169, 173,
187-188, 189
Party leadership-92, 93, 190, 194 Patriotism-^, 131, 134, 135, 162,
179, 180, 193, 198, 199 Peace and struggle tor it-22, 28,
86, 112, 167, 171, 172, 175,
178, 184-185
Persistence-^, 101, 142, 145, 166 Personality cult, its criticism-29,
187-190 Position ot women-U, 15, 23, 38,
45, 63, 64, 69, 73 Prestige of the leaders-29, 35, 57,
114-115, 127, 133, 189-190, 194 Pride-61, 99, 118, 170, 187, 195
Ideas
-general principles-15, 16, 18, 94, 99, 108, 170, 171
---bourgeois-13, 163
-revolutionary, communist-15, 79, 80, 89, 91, 97, 107, 108, 111, 132, 145, 146, 162, 164, 166, 167-168, 172, 173, 175, 179, 181, 182, 198, 199
Interests, public-lT, 20, 22, 23, 71, 75, 94, 132, 133, 149, 151, 167, 173, 176, 180, 181-182, 192-193, 195, 199, 200
International proletarian solidarity-28, 45, 84, 85, 94, 97, 135,
204 205Principle and adherence to principle-20, 28, 40, 42, 53, 93, 129, 151, 152, 174, 176, 179, 187-189, 192
Protection of people's interests- 58, 167, 168, 173 179, 200, 201
Psychology
-bourgeois-58, 142, 150
---communist---139, 142
Public
-forces-33, 177
-government-22, 92, 171, 172, 174
-security and order-22, 23, 164, 177, 193
---against anti-party views and positions-41, 53, 144, 146, 169, 188
-against bourgeois ideology; against survivals of capitalism in the minds of people-10, 22, 54, 73, 75, 80, 85, 86, 105, 118, 140, 154, 157, 158, 163-164, 173,
176, 177, 178, 180, 191-192, 193, 200, 201
---against injustice and shortcomings-59, 83, 170, 177, 182-183
-for peace-29, 56, 94, 111, 167, 171-172, 175, 178, 184, 186
-against religious prejudices-41, 42, 85, 191-192
-against red-tape-59, 77, 112, 114, 153, 191
-for socialism and communism24, 35, 43, 72, 76, 94, 101, 108, 117, 119, 130, 141, 142-143, 145- 146, 147, 149, 150, 154, 160- 161, 165, 167, 172, 173, 174- 175, 176, 180-181, 183, 185- 186, 192-193, 200, 201
Staunchness-72, 142, 143, 145, 146
Successes ot the proletariat-29, 77, 142, 168, 175, 182, 185
Survivals of capitalism in the minds of people and elimination of these survivals-21, 22, 58, 73, 85, 141, 153, 157, 176,
177, 178, 180, 191-192, 193, 200, 201
Vigilance-Ill, 113 Voluntariness-56, 60, 67, 192, 193
W
Will-57, 111, 112, 157, 165 Words and deeds-53, 82, 147, 174, 186
Work-12, 18, 26, 27, 28, 32, 62, 69, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 114, 119, 122, 125, 130, 147, 162-163, 164, 169, 170, 171, 177-179, 180, 183, 186, 189, 190, 192-193, 195, 197, 198, 201
Religion
-general principles-9, 15, 19, 32,
33, 34,-41 -struggle against it-20, 41, 42,
191-192 Respect lor working people-124,
130, 171 Responsibility-54, 57, 166, 169,
176, 184, 188, 197, 201
Self-sacrifice-27, 65, 67, 99, 136,
142, 179, 180, 182-183 Self-discipline-143, 192, 199 Sincerity in politics-53, 65, 169 Socialist humanism-81, 83, 86, 90,
129, 140, 172, 179 194, 200 Society -bourgeois-9, 10, 28, 34, 69,
174, 175 -communist-21, 22, 28, 43, 58,
59, 75, 77, 91, 94, 122, 146,
164-165, 167, 168, 170, 172,
173-174, 175, 176, 179, 183, 192,
199, 201
Solidarity-17, 24, 45, 56, 83, 94, 97, 135, 141, 155, 167, 171, 178, 180, 181, 185
Spiritual life of man-22, 28, 80, 92, 100, 104, 106
Struggle
Truthfulness-52, 65, 83, 92, 114, 150, 168, 169, 179, 187-188
U
Unity-44, 80, 93, 94, 126, 132, 143, 154, 156, 163, 185, 200
V
Vanguard-66, 93, 174, 180 Victory of communism-53, 60, 89, 98, 110, 125, 167, 186
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