The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 15, 1924, Page 7

—" Keeping Them Young and Red - NOTE:—This is the first of a series of three articles to be published in “ue akegazine section on the Com- munist children’s movement. In the two articles to follow, Comrade Shachtman will write on The Group Leader, Teacher of the Future, and The New Relations Between Old and Young.—Editor. OW many of the adult Commu- nists in this country know of the existence of an organized movement of revolutionary working class chil- dren, numbering almost 5,000, formed into. regular units, school fractions, city central committees; and having their own national organ? Of those few that are aware of this movement, I am willing to wager that an even smaller percentage have come into closer contact with it than having listened to one of these Communist children recite a revolutionary poem at a mass meeting to the tune of mur- mured: “How sweet! How cute!” And yet the formation, activity and education of these 5,000 members of the junior groups.of the Young Work- ers’ League is one of the most inter- esting examples of Communist peda- gogy and organization, a completion of the revolutionary principle that the workers are exploited, in one form or another, from their childhood; that it is therefore, imperative that they be organized and trained for the strug- gles of the day and the morrow. Train Wage Slaves. The keen bourgeoisie, unlike its pre- decessors, has realized almost from the beginning of its rule, the import- ance of gaining the youth, for its own purposes, of course. Besides the steady flow of poison it administers to the children in the public schools, it has conscientiously subsidized or- ganizations like the Boy and Girl Scouts, numerous young people's reli- gious leagues, and social and sport clubs. The purpose of the sum total of these institutions has been to make efficient wage ers’ children, to believe firmly in the eternity of that which is, and to have a holy horror and hatred towards any radical movement. Based on the old Jesuit principle of controlling the edu- cation of a child up to-a certain age, the success of the bourgeoisie has been capped with a big measure of success. Socialists always veenbaned the necessity of counteracting the influ- ence of capitalist education upon pro- letarian children, and various ways and means were devised to accomplish this. The problem that then confront- ed them was: the child class cqpscious without at the same time depriving him of the joyful innocence of youth? Is is possible to make Socialist “Sunday Schools” Fail The fact that this “joyful innocence of youth” was being taken from the children by every hour of class room teaching was not considered; and the good old social-democrats forthwith cut the Gordian knot with the estab- lishment of socialist Sunday schools, which neither made the children re- bels nor kept them youthful. however, leave them in joyful inno- cence of the class struggle. It did, The adult leader of the school would discipline the children as sternly as the average old hatchet face in the public school. The curriculum con- sisted either of painfully “simplified” discourses on theoretical subjects or else of lectures on the brotherhood of man, peace on earth and the hor- rors of class strife. In the Sunday schools the child was never made a rebel. He left it with a vague feel- ing of the necessity of brotherhood and an admonition on the wisdom of joining the socialist party when he came of age. They were never told to— “ , . . stick a mental pin in this— “The warfare of the classes isn’t honey or molasses; “And you'll need a sharper weapon than a kiss!” The training of the children in the young Communist groups is based on an entirely different principle. The junior groups are not intended to give the workers’ children a “liberal” edu- cation, with a so-called broad-minded, tolerant view of things. Not at all. They are formed for the purpose of making working class, revolutionary fighters out of the children, teaching them to regard all things from the point of view of the working class. child a participant.in t what the class struggle is all about, learned revolutionary phrases, dren as the adult Communist does among the adult workers. fairs is no mean task. It requires more of the group leader than it does of the child. ; Communist Leadership. In the simplest manner does the dren in the elements of the class The aim of the Communist children’s groups is to make the proletarian one who understands not one who can repeat a few well- but one who forms as definite and import- ant a part of the working class chil- The achievement of this state of af- leader of a junior group train the chil- struggle. By taking the children thru the proletarian and bourgeois districts of a city, by skillful questioning of the children on their impressions of the contrast, there is instilled in the children the knowledge of the exist- ence of classes. Not only is the child given an un- derstanding of the fact that the class struggle exists, but in that understand- ing is embod the principle that the child hims: inust participate in the struggle. This does not mean that his participation shall be limited to aiding in strikes, lockouts, demonstra- tions, political campaigns, and other activities of the adult workers; it means also that the child shall be a fighter for his class where it affects him directly: in the school. In the school the child igs made a receptacle into which is regularly dumped bourgeois refuse. Be it ma- thematics or history, it is the ruling class viewpoint that is tammed into the minds of the children. In the higher grades, the study of. history, “current events” and “civics” in par- ticular is the occasion for the vilest attacks and misinformation about the labor and revolutionary movement. The. mildest reformers, if they are alive, are painted the deepest black and pointed to as horrible examples of evils to be shunned; if the reformer happens to be dead, and his ideas already embodied in the status quo, his “constructive” side is emphasized and his more revolutionary outlook is lepreciated, excused,-perverted or ‘ig- aored. The School Struggle. It is the struggle against this bour- zeois miseducation that the Commu- vist children groups carry on. Some- imes this Struggle takes on the rela- ively mild form of distributing their official paper. At other times, when ‘he movement is sufficiently strong ind the grievances are felt more than ing of school strikes. To the bourgeois heroes and jingoes like Roosevelt, the children oppose working class or revolutionary heroes like Joe Hill or John Reed, John Brown or Jacob Leisler. To the anti- labor teachings of the instructor with regard to strikers, Communists, jingo- ism, and the like, the children oppose their verbal and written protests, open up discussions and ask questions that serve to enlighten the children and confound the teacher. Where teach- ers are expelled for their sympathy to the workers, the children conduct an agitation for reinstatement, usual, the activity of the redjchildren , toute’ Sacher in thecalaes réoi, 0 tie dae By Max Shachtman numerous instances where children are subjeeted to the brutal tyranny of corporal punishment, the children are shows how to carry on a mass strug- gle for its abolition, for the establish- ment of children’s councils for the regulation of discipline. Learn Thru Struggle. In all of these activities, which bring the child into conflict with some institution of capitalist society, the child is educated in the spirit of an active soldier in the army of the work- ers, fighting in the class struggle. Thru this personal participation in the fight, the child learns more of the sway of the dictatorship of the bour- geoisie, of the existence of classes, of the necessity of revolutionary organ- ization—than he would in a hundred lectures. In the Communist children’s groups, the working class child pre- pares himself for the sharper strug- gles, first in the Communist youth or- ganization and finally in the Commu- nist Party. In struggle there is life and youth, It is in the struggle that the children are enabled to become revolutionists without foregoing their “youth.” Their minds are not stultified with a hard and fast dogma; they are not burden- ed with the necessity of repeating high-sounding revolutionary phrases; they are not cramped or hampered by the existence of their older leader, who, far from imposing himself or his discipline upon them, far from being their obvious instructor, seeks as much as possible to obliterate himself from any prominence, to permit the children to work out their own reac- tions to the phenomena of the class struggle, to edueate themselves ~ to the ideal of service to their class un- der capitalism and to the community under Communism. For Service to Working Class. Their very gamé@s, while chosen and comnosed for the purpose of strength- ee class solidarity and ideas ‘iildren; are used tn otwe e~- “~~ p4r¢ atue fev. combination of reality and ion that keeps thé spirit of youth in the class struggle. In these games, in their dramatics and socials, the aim is always to remove the men- © tal servitude imposed upon them in school, to free them from the choking influence of discipline and the oblitera- tion of the individual child in favor of the manufacture of goslings; to in- culcate in the child the essence of free childhood: service to his class in order that he may be able to serve the community; the emancipation of humanity in order to accomplish the emancipation of the individual; work, play and study in the spirit of the In the struggle! THE RED SOLDIER’S MANUAL - Aims and Structure mare at the Red Army 1. The Red Army is an armed force intended for the defense of the interests of the toilers against the as- isaults and violence on the part of the oppressors and ‘exploiters. The Red Army will continue to exist as long as there remain in the world monarchies or bourgeois republics, Only the final of the toilers of Europe and then of the entire world will forever secure peace among the nations and will make unnecesary the existence of armies of any kind. 2. The Red Army is composed of workers and working peasants who do not exploit the labor of others. Bourgeois, nepmen, rich peasants as well as corrupted elements from among the workers are not admitted into the ranks of the Red Army. In order that the Red Army may preserve under all circumstances its unshak- able devotion to the cause of the working class it must remain an un- alloyed part of the working class. * 3. The bourgeois elements of mili- tary age are called only into the non- combatant service and remain un- armed all the time. In a Soviet Re- public the privilege of carrying arms belongs to the toilers only. The ex- ploiters have no access to arms, so that they may not take possession of them and with the aid of foreign ex- ploiters again subjugate the workers and peasants. 4. The principal aim of the Red Army is to secure the independence and freedom of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, to safeguard them against all possible encroachments of the outside capitalist world, so that the workers and peasants may remain undisturbed in the pursuit of their peaceful occupations and in their work of building up a socialist society. The ideas of conquest and of enslavement of other nations are alien to the Soviet government. The Soviet gov- ernment is striving to preserve peace by all possible means. 5. All the bourgeois classes and their governments, monarchist as well as republican are hostile to the first government of workers and peas- ants who have overthrown their op- pressors and have taken away from them the means of oppression. During the first years of the revolution the bourgeois of the entire world has supported with money, munitions and armies the Russian White Guards, i. e. the armed bands of the Russian land- lords and capitalists. Only the heroic struggle of the Red Army has presented the world bourgeoisie from stifltag the Workers’ Republic. During a period of six years the leading cap- italist governments persistently refus- ed to recognize the Soviet Republic in the hope of overthrowing it. Only the stability. and perseverance of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic and of its army, and also the support of the revolutionary workers of the en- tire world, have compelled the bour- geoisie of several countries to recognize our government and to enter into economic and diplomatic rela- tions with us. 6. However, even after they recog- nized us the hostility of the exploiters to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic did not cease nor weaken, but as- sumed other, more subtle forms. At the first opportunity the bourgeiosie will again make attempts to attack us. The working class of the capitalist countries, being unarmed, may not be able with its own forces to prevent the bourgeoisie from attgcking us. Wo must therefore be prepared with armed force to assist the workers of the entire world in their struggle against the rapacious,- bloody inten- tions of the bourgeoisie. There is no higher task in the history of man- kind than that which fate has assign- ed to the first workers’ and peasants’ army, the champion of the cause of the oppressed. Military Technique and Militant Morale 7. Capitalism is creating all the time new implements of destruction, more perfected, more cruel. machines for killing. In order not to fall again into serfdom, in a colony, the Union of Soviets must By L. Trotsky continually improve its armaments. The growth of industry, especially of war industry, the development of transportation are the most important factors in the strength of the Red ‘Army, 8. Alongside with the development of the old branches of military tech- nique and with the constant perfection of firearms, the foremost place in modern warfare is occupied by mili- tary aviation and war chemistry. Side by side with the development of high’ explosives, poisonous gases are gain- ing greater and greater importance. The Soviet government, with the friendly co-operation of the workers, is doing and will also in the future do its best to make the Red Army an ef- fective means of defense by perfecting the technical equipment of the army, developing a strong air fleet and en- couraging the invention of powerful war chemicals. 9. However, military technique ro is not the only deciding factor ar. War machines, just as ma- p Fos in industry require men for their operation. The capitalist coun- tries have a superior technique, be- cause they are richer. However, after the experience of the late im- periafist war which left the laboring masses of all countries destitute and disillusioned, the bourgeoisie of those countries can no longer be certain of the loyalty of the soldiers drafted (Continued on next page.)