Written: Unknown date, by L. Sosnovsky
First Published: Moscow Pravda, July 17, 1921
Source: The Living Age, October-December, 192.
Translated: Unknown
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Soviet History Archive 2005. This work is completely free.
On June 22 the Communist members of the agricultural commune named in honor of Lenin, in the Government of Tula, were ordered to report for registration at the village of Podkhozheye. New candidates for admission to the party were ordered to report at the same time. Now our communards - that is, members of agricultural communes - are busy people. So they called together a meeting of the local party groups, where such arguments as this were advanced: -
This is the busiest time of the year. The rye is just ready to cut. Hay is being mown, we have to turn it over and get it under cover. We have to water and weed our gardens. If we miss half a day, we can never recover it. And the weather is uncertain. Why then should all our Communist Party members lay off work just now, to go over to a town twenty miles away? Why can't the men who register the party members themselves make the rounds of the villages, instead of having the members come to them?
So the meeting decided to send two Communists and let the rest remain at work.
The next morning, bright and early, these two delegates and myself started out. On the sway over I kept wondering why the hour for reregistering was set so early in the morning, instead of in the evening. In the latter case a half day's work might have been saved.
It took us three and a half hours to reach Podkhozheye. We were there just at the appointed time; but no one was ready to receive us. We waited one hour, two hours, three hours. Other Communist Party members arrived. But the registrars did not come. Finally they appeared - three of them.
Podkhozheye was the registration point for two districts, in which there were some forty resident members of the Communist Party. Only ten reported to reregister. The others would not leave their work. Some of those who reported had walked six or eight miles; they left important work to come.
Finally the reregistration started. The registrars seated themselves, and the peasants were summoned by twos. Each was asked a number of questions, and his political competency was to depend upon his answers. I took down some of these questions and the replies to them.
Here is the examination of Comrade Ponomarev, one of the founders of the Commune in honor of Lenin; a good and trustworthy member of the party.
'Who may become a member of the Party?'
'He who has a real conscience . . . if he is a Communist in his soul.' 'What is the highest Party centre in the local department?'
'The Department Committee.' 'To what is it subordinate?'
To the Provincial Committee.' After a few leading questions, Comrade Ponomarev suddenly recalled that the District Committee is subordinate to the District Party Convention, which he himself had attended.
'What was the greatest blow dealt by the workers to capital?'
'The answer is very involved. There were many blows. How can we tell which was the greatest?'
After a few more questions of this kind, Comrade Ponomarev was dismissed, and the secretary of the agricultural commune, Chaplin, was called. These are the questions put to him, and his answers.
'What benefit do the workmen derive from freedom of the press in a bourgeois country?' 'What is the difference between the bourgeois court and the people's court?' 'What was the fundamental mistake made by the Paris Commune?'
Poor communard! Instead of saying frankly that he knew very little about the Paris Commune, but that he has for three years been standard-bearer of the Communists in a bourgeois section of the country, and that he has repeatedly taken up arms in defense of the Revolution, he began to mumble something about the Paris Commune. He appeared pitiful and ludicrous, in spite of the fact that he is a bulwark of Communism in this section, and a fighter for the cause.
Even the President of the County Executive Committee did not' pass the examination. He is an able, energetic fellow, who manages very well the affairs of the whole district; but he did not know what was the highest Soviet organ in the district. Among the questions asked were the following: -
'What is the difference between the new and the old school?'
And I, an old sinner, was afraid for a moment that he would blurt out: 'The difference is that in the old school, you could find blackboards, chalk, pencils, books, and paper, while in the new school you find none of these things.'
But the examining official wanted to hear something about 'labor processes' in the schools.
'There are no labor processes. If our teachers would only teach the children to read and write -'
The next person examined was a fellow who had lived in Petrograd before the Revolution and had formerly been an Anarchist.
'What is the difference between an Anarchist and a Communist?'
The former Anarchist could not answer this in words. He had thought much on the subject, and considered both sides carefully, before making up his mind to leave the Anarchists and join the Communists. After a long time he understood what the difference was. Otherwise he would not have left the Anarchists. But he could not explain their differences briefly. Did it do any good to ask him?
Neither could he answer the next question: -
'Without what is it impossible for nationalized industry to exist?'
But his greatest failure came when the following question was asked: - 'Is it desirable to have the trade-unions independent?'
'Undoubtedly,' he replied. 'The trade-unions should be entirely free to organize and increase production.'
'And is it desirable that the Communist Party should direct the unions?' 'By all means.'
One of the questions in the order of the day was marked, 'The current moment.' A report was presented by Comrade Klementieff, and the decision was, 'Make note of the report.'
This comrade was an active trade-union worker in 1912-1913, and saw how the trade-unions were hampered and oppressed at that time. He now fancied that the freedom which the trade-unions gained by the Revolution was the same as independence. He does not know that the latter is a term applied by the Mensheviki as a mask for their own maneuvres.
The next member was an elderly peasant. He could not answer any of the questions. For instance, they asked him: -
'Do you read the party literature?' His reply was: -
'Comrades, I get up at two o'clock in the morning, and go to bed at eleven o'clock at night. I have a large family to take care of. When I came back from the army, everything I had was destroyed; there is poverty all around, and the day isn't long enough to do my work. When would I have time to read?'
Then he was asked the following question:
'Will the institution of the family continue to exist in Communist society?'
And so the thing went on. I noticed that the examiners had an open book in front of them, with the questions already prepared. One of them, a machinist from Tula, looked in the book every time he asked a question. The secretary of the District Party Committee knew his questions by heart, but they all related to the organization of the Party.
As I sat and listened, I recalled the old days, when I was in the army and spent hours learning questions and answers like this: -
'Sosnovsky, who is commander of our corps? What is the name of the Tsar's youngest daughter? Who has the first rank and is last in command?'
'The sergeant, sir,' I would answer, without a second's hesitation. Returning home, after wasting a whole June day with this sort of nonsense, and passing fields where others were gathering the harvest, the Communists complained bitterly: - 'What is all this foolishness about? Who knows what kind of a family there will be in Communist society? Why don't they ask the peasant Communists how they gather the taxes and arrange the seeding? Or how we can hasten the transmission from individual to collective agriculture? Or how to teach the peasants better farming methods? That's what they ought to ask.'
Then, turning to me, one of them said: 'Do you remember that old chap who couldn't answer any questions? Well, he has persuaded nine families to go over to collective farming. Comrade Sosnovsky, do you think the men at. headquarters would call that Communist work?'
Let me refer that question to my readers. Is it necessary to take peasants six to twenty miles away from home, right at the end of June, when every moment is needed in the fields, to ask them questions about the mistakes of the Paris Commune, or the charms of family life in Communist society?
The examiners were very strict in asking whether the peasants had read Lenin's pamphlet on the food-tax. I think the examiners either had not read the pamphlet themselves or else did not understand it. Otherwise they would not be tormenting peasant people with scholastic questions out of a printed catechism on a hot June day in 1921. Even the stalks of rye seemed to shake their heads reproachfully at us as we passed them on our way home.