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the workers of different nationalities from joining hands for a united struggle against their common enemy: the autocracy, the landed proprietors and the capitalists.

And now Grigoriev's rascals incite their robber bands against the defenseless Jews, vent on them all their anger, and torture women, old men and children.

Comrades! Those who direct and inspire these bands and gangs-Grigoriev and his like, are the same protectors of the interests of the capitalists and landed proprietors. They have the same traitorous aim: To divide the working class and to break the united proletarian front.

The black hundred and the Grigorievists, in union with the world bourgeoisie, are trying to drown the Communist revolution in the blood of innocent victims, in the blood of povertystricken Jews. Jewish pogroms are the straw at which the outworn world is clutching in order to save its capital.

Comrades, Red-Guardists, Workers and Peasants! Do not be misled by the scoundrels and provocature who sold themselves to the bourgeoisie and nobility and who urge you to make pogroms. Over the corpses of the Jewish poor the capitalists and landed proprietors are trying to find a way to the millions and the houses which they lost.

Together with the torrents of blood of the Jewish poor will swim away the lands from the peasants and the factories and workshops from the workers, will swim away the freedom and the power from the toilers, which have been won at such cost.

Comrades, Red Guardists, be firm, do not yield to provocation. Let your answer to the Black Hundred agitation be the brave and proud call:

Down with the pogrom-makers!

Hold firmly in your hands the red banner-the banner of struggle and freedom.

Long live the International Workers' and Peasants' Army. Long live the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic.

Long live the power of the workers of all countries and of all nations.

ODESSA COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST (BOLSHEVIST)
PARTY OF UKRAINE.

(Published by the Department of Soviet Propaganda attached to the Executive Committee of the Odessa Council of Workers' Deputies.)

Document No. 17

POLITICAL PROPAGANDA AND EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY IN THE

VILLAGES

("Soviet Russia," July 12, 1919, pages 13-14)

A RESOLUTION OF THE 8TH CONVENTION OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST LABOR PARTY

Bearing in mind the necessity of a firm and lasting alliance between the proletariat and the poorest peasants and peasants of medium means; also bearing in mind the political darkness, the general ignorance and the low standard of agricultural knowledge in the villages, which are serious obstacles and which condemn the poorest peasantry and the peasantry of medium means to poverty and stagnation the Communist Party is compelled to pay the most serious attention to the matter of education in the villages in the broadest sense of the word.

For the purpose of educational activities in the villages the following elements must co-operate:

1. Communistic propaganda;

2. General education;

3. Agricultural education.

1. Political propaganda in the villages must be carried on among the literate peasants as well as among the illiterate.

The propaganda among the literate must consist first of all in the distribution of popular literature and newspapers of a communistic character, specially prepared for this purpose. Such literature must be sold at very low prices in schools, reading huts and in all Soviet stores.

It is necessary to strive for the organization of reading rooms in every school with a political department and that such reading rooms should be in every village a people's house; and, in places where there are not such people's houses, popular political books must be an essential part of every reading hut.

The courses for children, and especially those for adults - the academic as well as the special (agricultural for instance), must include: (1) popular history of culture from a scientific socialistic point of view and with a specially prepared part devoted to Russian history and to the history of the Great Russian revolution; (2) the interpretation of the Soviet constitution. For both of these courses proper text-books are to be prepared immediately.

The teachers are obliged to look upon themselves as upon agents not only of a general but also of a communistic education.

In this respect they must be subjected to the control of their immediate heads, as well as of the local party organizations.

Moving picture houses, theatres, concerts, exhibitions, etc., inasmuch as they will reach the villages (and all effort is to be exerted for this purpose), must be utilized for communistic propaganda directly, i. e., through the upkeep of these and also by way of combining these with lectures and meetings.

Departments of public education, provincial and county, with the assistance and under the control of the local party organizations, must organize collegiums of propagandists who are partly permanent, i. e., attached to their locality; and partly traveling, i. e., such as will cover a more or less wide section.

In the big city centers it is necessary that the party organizations should form collegiums of propagandists-instructors (in accordance with the local organs of the Commissariat of Education), who would carry on a traveling propaganda directly among the masses, and also instruct the less experienced comrades in the localities.

In this connection the convention calls special attention to the possibility of utilizing the work of the regiments of industrial workers, who are under the direction of the All-Russian Soviet of Professional Unions.

For the illiterate, periodical readings must be arranged in the schools, on the premises of the volost Soviet of Deputies, in the reading huts, etc., for which purpose the departments of public education, with the assistance of the local party organizations, create special circles of readers, including the local teaching staff, with obligatory readings by the literate elements. The subjects of the readings should be the decrees and administrative order of the Soviets, together with specially prepared popular interpretations sent out by the centers (party or Soviet centers), also stories from readers, which are being constantly revised. It would be advisable to accompany such reading with illustrations by way of motion pictures or stereopticon slides; also with a reading of fiction, as well as concerts for the purpose of attracting large audiences.

2. General education within school and outside of school including artistic education: theatres, concerts, motion pictures, exhibitions, etc.), endeavoring not only to shed the light of a varied knowledge on the dark villages, but primarly to aid in the

creation of self-consciousness and of a clear conception of things, must be closely connected with the communistic propaganda. There are not any forms of science and art which are not connected with the great ideas of communism and with the various tasks of creating communistic economy.

It

As far as the schools are concerned, the question of revising them on principles of continuity and labor has been decided. is necessary to pay special attention to all forms of out-of-school education for adults. The party must by all means assist the Soviet authorities and the local population in the organization of a large system of community centers (people's houses), for which purpose the Soviet estates are to be used first of all. The community centers must be peasants' clubs for resting, for sensible amusements and broad enlightenment, general as well as communistic.

The Communist Party, permitting and encouraging the utilization of the knowledge of the specialists and other educated persons for conducting courses and for aiding in conducting communistic centers, must take care at the same time that the elements hostile to the Soviet power should not make use of the apparatus of general education and should not introduce in the form of literature, science and art any counter-revolutionary, or anti-social tendencies, and should not thereby paralyze the efforts of communistic propaganda.

3. The peasants feel keenly the need of agricultural education. The Soviet estates, as well as the farm schools, must become the lighthouses of agricultural education. Agricultural institutions, organized and maintained by the People's Commissariat of Education, must be in closest contact with the agricultural institutions of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture.

There must not be any schools, colleges or any other educational organizations in the villages, which would not endeavor (in accordance with the principle of combining studies with productive labor) to function at the same time as an organization of a model husbandry -- complete or in part.

Agricultural education must be carried on in such a way as to combine this with communistic ideas and it should serve as a pillar to the general effort of the party to reconstruct private establishments into one organized socialistic institution.

Propaganda among peasants must not be apart from life problems of agriculturists, but must be closely connected with the questions of rural economy.

The state school must be freed from all religious instruction and every attempt at counter-revolutionary propaganda under the guise of religious sermons must be thwarted.

But the constitution of Soviet Russia recognizes full freedom of religious propaganda for all citizens and this convention calls special attention to the absolute impossibility of any such restrictions of this right and even of a shadow of violence in the questions of religion. Persons, who encroach upon religious liberties of citizens of any creed, must be subjected to strict judgment. "Northern Commune," April 6, 1919.

Document No. 18

SOVIET RUSSIA'S CODE OF LABOR LAWS

I. The Code of Labor Laws shall take effect from the moment of its publication in the Compilation of Laws and Regulations of the Workmen's and Peasants' Government. This code must be extensively circulated among the working class of the country by all the local organs of the Soviet government and be posted in a conspicuous place in all Soviet institutions.

II. The regulations of the Code of Labor Laws shall apply to all persons receiving remuneration for their work and shall be obligatory for all enterprises, institutions and establishments. (Soviet, public, private and domestic), as well as for all private employers exploiting labor.

III. All existing regulations and those to be issued on questions of labor, of a general character (orders of individual establishments, instructions, rules of internal management, etc.,) as well as individual contracts and agreements, shall be valid only in so far as they do not conflict with this code.

IV. All labor agreements previously entered into, as well as all those which will be entered into in the future, in so far as they contradict the regulations of this code, shall not be considered valid or obligatory, either for the employees or the employers.

V. In enterprises and establishments where the work is carried on in the form of organized co-operation (section 6, Labor Division A of the present code) the wage earners must be allowed the widest possible self-government under the supervision of the Central Soviet authorities. On this basis alone can the working masses be successfully educated in the spirit of socialist and communal government.

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