the teaching of Communist principles is always one of the most important items in the curriculum of every educational institution in Russia.
In the Red Army Communist sentiment is strong, well-placed and highly-organized. All the officers are either outspoken Communists or, where they are non-party men, they have given ample evidence of their unwavering loyalty to the revolution. All the new officers, the graduates from the Soviet military schools, are Party members—no others may take the course of instruction. Likewise all the Army Commissars are devoted Communists. It is the important function of these officials, one of whom is attached to each military sub-division, to look after the political education of the soldiers: they check up on the commanding officers and see to it that the Red Army is kept faithful to the revolution. And so far they have accomplished their task wonderfully well. Each military unit has its yatchayka, composed of officers and men, all on an equal footing. At its maximum strength the Red Army numbered 5,300,000 men, five-sixths of them peasants, yet this great mass was like so much putty in the hands of the thin sprinkling of planful, determined, and throughly organized Communists. They had no trouble at all in wielding it as a powerful defensive weapon for the revolution.
Naturally, being essentially an industrial movement, the Russian Communist Party exerts a powerful control in the trade unions and co-operatives. Most of these organizations are entirely in the hands of its militants, although one or two national labor unions and here and there a local are still controlled by Menshevik elements. For the various types of labor organization, as indeed for nearly every class of institution, the Communist Party's method of control is indirect, It merely maps out its programs and then instructs its members to put them into effect in their respective organizations. This they proceeded to do in a thorough manner. Before all labor meetings, congresses and deliberative assemblies of every sort the Communist delegations always caucus and decide upon their plans of action. That usually settles the matter. Grace to their splendid organization, discipline, and well-thought-out programs, the Communists ordinarily have but
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