rades have come up from the districts. Syzran in five days created a communist regiment of 1,200 men which was called "The Trotsky Regiment." The president of the Military-Revolutionary Soviet confirmed the organization of this regiment and the appropriation of a million rubles for its support and for the forming of other regiments. In Simbirsk, the town committee of the party has mobilized all the Communists. It is proposed to distribute the mobilized comrades, numbering 500, among the various regiments of the army.

20

PARTY MOBILIZATION

[Petrograd Pravda, April 25, 1919]

(Under this headline twenty-two short telegrams from all over Russia announcing the mobilization of members of the Communist Party, of which a few examples are given.)

KALUGA, April 19.-In connection with the situation on the eastern front, the Medyn organization of Communists resolved to send immediately to the front to oppose Kolchak 25 per cent of the Communists and their sympathizers. The organization of Communists of Borov has started to train Communists in military science in order to send reinforcements to the Red Army at the earliest possible date.

BORISOV, April 23.-By a resolution of the Communist Party all members of the party between the ages of 18 and 25 have been mobilized. The mobilization in the city was carried out in the course of a single night.

NOVGOROD, April 23.-At a combination meeting of the Novgorod Provincial Committee of the Russian Communist Party and of the Soviet of Trade Unions of the province it was resolved to mobilize 9 per cent of the working hands, in order to support the eastern front.

SAMARA, April 23.-The District Committee of the Communist Party is hastily organizing the first Samara peasant volunteer regiment. It is composed for the most part of Communists and sympathizers. All the volunteers are old soldiers and therefore represent ready fighting material.

VOLOGDA, April 18.-By resolution of the Party Committee a portion of the Communists have been mobilized and are being sent to the northern and eastern fronts.

21

"LET THE ENEMIES OF THE TOILERS PERISH

[Krasnaya Gazeta, October 7, 1919]

TO WORKMEN, RED ARMY SOLDIERS, AND SAILORS Comrades: By order of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party our Petrograd organization must select a maximum of its forces for the Southern front. Several hundred responsible workers have already been sent there. We have also the task of sending there to the Southern front several thousand rank and file members of our party organization.

To carry out this task of mobilization we have a couple of weeks. This means that during this period we must teach these comrades a smattering of military science and prepare them so that when they appear at the front they can become leaders of the Red Army, not only from the point of view of ideas, but also in the military, technical sense. To this end we should open special short-term courses and occupy ourselves in study.

Comrades: Is there time to do all this? We say Denikin must be defeated and we must learn how to do this. But the communists of Petrograd must show a new method of study. While setting out for the southern front against Denikin we must on the way disperse the pitiable remains of the bands of Rodzianko and Yudenich. In this will consist our science. On the skins of these White-Guardists the Communists of Petrograd will learn how to defeat Denikin and will appear at the Southern front with diplomas of victory.

Gdov must be taken and this must be done as quickly as possible. This must be done not only because we must hurry to the southern front, but also because the Gdov sector is the only place where the White-Guardists of Rodzianko still hold out and continue to threaten Red Petrograd. We consider that the Communists of Petrograd, when they go to the South, should see to it that no danger threatens their city.

Gdov must be taken. On this small sector, covered by lakes and marshes, our brothers of the Red Army have been fighting now for several months and among them are many of our Petrograd brothers. They must not be obliged to spend the winter there; they must be helped to finish this poisonous autumn flythis Rodzianko, who is always buzzing around our ears and trying to bite Red Petrograd.

The Esthonian White-Guardist government, according to the latest news, has exiled these brave fighters from Esthonia to "the territory of the North Western Government." "The territory" of this joke government is the marsh of Gdov. To date their influence does not extend further, but these rascals would be idiots if they did not count on the possibility of extending the limits of their authority right up to Petrograd.

Comrades: We shall destroy all of their hopes and deprive them of all their chances. We shall drive them back into their marshy "territory" and send them to the White-Esthonians.

Gdov must be taken: This must be done by the Communists of Petrograd. We must bring the war to a close on the Petrograd front and transfer all of our forces from there to the southern front.

PETROGRAD COMMITTEE OF RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY

22

CONTROL OF MEMBERS

[Izvestia of Petrograd Soviet, December 15, 1919]

TO ALL PROVINCIAL AND ALSO TO THE PETROGRAD AND MOSCOW COMMITTEES OF THE PARTY AND TO POLITICAL SECTIONS

OF THE ARMY

Moscow, December 14 (Rosta)

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party

announces:

1. No member of the party can go to the Ukraine for party or Soviet work without the permission of the Central Committee.

2. All who wish to go to the Ukraine can make declaration of this fact to the Provincial Committee, and in Petrograd and Moscow to the city committees, which send these declarations, together with their conclusions and an inquiry sheet, to the Central Committee of the R. C. P.

NOTE. The inquiry sheet should contain answers to the following questions: (1) full name, (2) work now being performed, (3) work formerly performed in Russia and the Ukraine, (4) when and where entered the organization of the party, (5) when entered the local organization and with whose permission, (6) profession, (7) nationality, (8) family situation, (9) state of health, (10) relation to fulfillment of military service.

3. For minors and sick, and for persons not employed and not previously employed in the Ukraine, provincial committees and the Petrograd and Moscow committees can give permission on own authority reporting immediately to the Central Committee.

4. No appointment of comrades who formerly worked in the Ukraine by local organization or by political sections of the army, to be directed by the Central Committee of the R. C. P. or by the Communist Party of the Ukraine, are allowed except in the above procedure.

23

KRESTINSKY, Secretary

TROTSKY REPORT TO SEVENTH CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
[Red Baltic Fleet, December 11, 1919. Extract]

Workmen

"Our army consists of peasants and workmen. represent scarcely more than 15-18 per cent, but they maintain the same directing position as throughout Soviet Russia. This is a privilege secured to them because of their greater consciousness, compactness and revolutionary zeal. The army is the reflection of our whole social order. It is based on the rule of the working class, in which latter the party of Communists plays the leading role."

Comrade Trotsky points out also the significance of this party for the army. The number of members of this party in the army is about 10,000. The responsible posts of commissaries are occupied by them in the overwhelming majority of instances. In each regiment there is a Communist group. The significance of the Communists in the army is shown by the fact that when conditions become unfavorable in a given division the commanding staff appeals to the Revolutionary Military Soviet with a request that a group of Communists be sent down.

Comrade Trotsky points out the following very characteristic fact: every Communist knows that he can not be captured as a prisoner of war, for to be captured means to perish. Thus there is created a psychology which Trotsky defines as a new "Communist Order of Samurai," who know how to die and are teaching this to others.

24

"IRON DISCIPLINE"

[Article by Nicholas Kochkurov, Samara Kommuna, April 11, 1919] Our party, the party of Communists-Bolsheviks, is composed almost entirely of the more conscious workmen and the poorest

peasants. At the present moment the Communist Party is the sole leader of the titanic struggle of labor and capital. The Communist Party as a whole is responsible for the future of the young Soviet socialist republic, for the whole course of the world communist revolution. In the country the highest organ of authority to which all Soviet institutions and officials are subordinate is again the Communist Party.

The capitalists of the whole world openly admit that their chief enemy is the constantly growing bolshevism, with the Soviet authority proclaimed by the Russian Communist Party.

It is quite natural that czars, generals, reactionaries, landlords, and the Allies have joined to fight the Workmen Peasants' Government. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the enemies of the toiling people, are zealously assisting them in their Cain's work. Behind the back of the heroically struggling proletariat they sharpen their knives and plan to attack from the

rear.

But the Communist Party, the Soviet authority, rests on the broad masses of the urban and village poor and its strength is unshakable.

It is true that during the year and a half of work many defects have been noted in our party activities. For example, frequently one could see how responsible party workers were out of touch with the broader mass so that the Soviet authority was not sufficiently responsive to the voice of the workmen and peasants. Also there was not sufficient discipline among the party workers.

The practical steps proposed a few days ago at the All-Russian Congress of the Communist Party give one confidence that all these defects will soon be corrected.

Frequently among separate groups of the party arise serious disputes on the questions of the tactics and resolutions just adopted by a party congress. In order to avoid such differences of opinion at the general meetings, one must constantly explain what position each member of the party should take on such questions as "the attitude of Communists toward the middle peasants" or "the attitude toward the petty bourgeoisie."

All Communists who for any reason violate party discipline should immediately be turned over to a pitiless party court, should be boycotted, and finally as a last measure of punishment excluded from the party.