The expressed will of the organization becomes the supreme law of the membership, and like a smoothly running machine the hundreds of thousands of Communists, in their political, industrial, military, trade union, and other yatchaykas, set themselves vigorously and unitedly in motion to enforce it. The result is irresistible power; the wonderful party discipline carries the organization on to another victory.
An important phase of this dicipline is the draft, or "mobilization" as it is called, to which the members are subject. Not even the highest officials are exempt. Constantly the paper contain long lists of the names of members sent to all parts of the country to perfom every sort of task. Only recently the Petrograd Communist Party mobilized 300 of its members, serving in high Government offices, and sent them into the factories for three months, so that they could refresh their proletarian spirit. Indeed, in many other respects besides its draft, the Russian Communist Party has the characteristics of a military organization. Its members all have the right to bear arms, and most of them do. They drill regularly once or twice a week in their yatchaykas. During the critical periods of the civil wars the entire Party was under arms.
Despite its semi-military character and its high discipline, the Russian Communist Party remains a voluntary organization. Its members do not absolutely have to follow out its commands. Save in extreme military cases, they may refuse to do so, without fear of physical punishments. But the Party finds ways to square accounts with them nevertheless. And it makes no difference how big their reputation may be nor how irksome or dangerous the mandates that were given them, they must pay the reckoning. It is just a few weeks since Tomsky, who held the very important position of President of the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions, was forced to resign from his office because he declined to carry out vital Party instructions. If the offense is of great importance the offender is expelled from the Party. Thereafter he is a marked man; he has been weighed and found wanting; and he can hold no important post of any kind in Russia.
The Russian Communist Party is a stern, Spartan organization, and its membership requirements are high. Those wishing to join it must come thoroughly
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