The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 14, 1925, Page 14

By A. LUNARCHARSKY. People’s Commissar of Education, Un- ion of Socialist Soviet Republics. HE first federal conference of the teachers. of the U.S.S.R. repre- sents without a doubt an event of tre- mendous significance. There never was a time when the workers’ and peas- ants’ ‘government failed to grasp the whole import of the task of popular edunation. Adequate testimony to this fact is furnished by the numerous articles and speeches of our readers upon this subject. Progress Was Gradual. ET there were endless obstacles in the way of the realization of our extensive plans. Economic impoverish= ment brought us into such straits that we simply could not carry On any nor- mal work. It was but gradually that we achieved victory after victory, and re- pulsing ‘both.our internal and external enemies, we disposed of the more, acute;forms: of distress and created the political. and-economic postulates for proper activity on the third front. This, of course, does not mean to say that the third front has thus far been dormant, that there has been no movement and no important achieve- ments. N the contrary, great tasks have been performed on the third front, a general political program has been unfolded and adapted in a considerable degree to the requirements of life; numerous teachers have been trained and retrained, being thus equipped to tackle real Communist educational work, if not the whole mass of the teachers, at least some quite import- ant groups of them. New textbooks were compiled and published copious- Some Russian Teachers, ly on the various branches of school Knowledge. The apparatus of popular education was ‘created, both as re- gards staffs and methods. Labor Colleges Greatest Achievement. HE largest possible amount of work was done in the maintenance of the educational front, and in the care and training of the children, under trying conditions when ‘this. work seemed exceptionally difficult. Politi- cal education amongst other things was brought into being, work which hitherto hardly existed. At the same time it ought not to be forgotten that on our third front we had to take care also of our science and of the treas- ures of past culture, which on the whole have been preserved, and which are kept alive, adjusting themselves more and more to the tasks of our revolutionary society. Perhaps by far the most important of our victories was the creation of a mighty wave of worker and peasant students in the labor colleges and universities. Never- theless we think that the pace of the work should be and can be speeded up. OTH central and local educational’ grants are being steadily inrreased and altho still insufficient, the re- The Myth of Rural Prosperity ERAT \thé sworking farmers are mainly” interested in is) how their problems can be solved. They know by actual experience that some- thing is wrong because no matter how hard they work and how much they try to save, it is impossible for them to make both ends meet. The very conditions under which they are forced to work and make a living are operating against them. The fact is that today the working farmer is beginning to realize that he is butting his head against the stone wall of the capitalist system, and as long as this barrier stands in the way it is utterly useless for him to expect any relief. © do away with the capitalist sys- tem, then, is the important task for the working farmer, and it should be clearly understood by all exploited farmers that this cannot be _accom- plished by trying to purify, improve or reform the present social order. Only thru united action with the workers in the industries and the building of a teal class government by actual farmers and workers, will the mortgaged. and tenant farmers ever be able to solve their problems. ogee the last few years one mil- lion farmers have lost their en- tire life-time savings and a still great- er number have debts larger than their resources. There are about six and one-half million farmers in the United States; three million are ten- ants and over one and one-half mil- lion are mortgaged farmers. The mortgaged owner is often worse off than the tenant because of the taxes and the interest he has to pay for the privilege of working his land. The rapid increase in tenantry and the mortgaged system will, in the not distant future, almost completely abol- ish the fiction of “farm ownership” in the United States. AXES have increased an average of 122 per cent from 1914 to 1922 and the total farm debt has reached the stupendous sum of 14 billion dol- lars. Farmers generally have come to the conclusion that their debts never can be paid. Their main strug- By ALFRED KNUDSON. gle at present is ‘to: be “able td ‘pay taxes and interest and even this, as far as hundreds of thousands of farm- ers are concerned, has become impos- sible. So-called “prosperity periods” do not benefit them in reality because any “extra” money they may make from an increase in the price of farm products, is used to pay off debts and the industrial products the farmers have to buy are correspondingly high- er during boom periods. The capital- ist system is so arranged that the ex- ploited farmer gets only the crumbs— barely enough to exist on—while the big slices are gobbled up by food gamblers, bankers and trust compan- ies. WORD should be said about the 1924 crop. The capitalist press has heralded it all over the country that the farmer now is on easy street because he got a good crop and a good price last fall, and even now with wheat hovering around the $2 mark, the inference is that the farm- er is getting rich. HERE are a very few farmers who have been able to take advantage of the good crops and the good prices and they’are the best fixed ones, but the overwhelming majority of the ten- ant and mortgaged farmers had to sell their crop about the time it was ready for market in order to pay pressing bills. It was the business men and the bankers who benefited most from the 1924 crop and not the struggling farmers, In North Dakota 80 per cent of the wheat crop was marketed and sold-before December 1, when the price of}wheat at the prim- ary markets stood between $1.20 and $1.30 per bushel. HE tenant and mortgaged farmer cannot beat the capitalist sys- tem. What must they do? There is only one way out for them and that is to ally themselves with the workers in the industries in a revolutioanry or- ganization for the complete abolition of the whole capitalist system. They should join the Workers Party, the only revolutionary party in the United States, and subscribe to the DAILY WORKER and become real fighters in the movement for the emancipation of their class. No time should be wasted in clearing the decks for action. Paviowa Will Not Return. By ALFRED V. FRANKENSTEIN. The last program the great Russian dancer will ever give in Chicago she gave last Sunday night. For is we are ‘to believe the words of her press bs . ? Ew RK Cl " , ‘- a agents, Anna Pavlowa is never again to visit America. “Don Quixote,” tion, is a fantastic ballet rendering of scenes in Cervantes’ novel. The music to this is old-fashioned ballet stuff, early nineteenth century music written before the influence of Delibus revolutionized ballet. It is the sort of music that is played in beer gardens on Sunday afternoons, sentimental, sugary and with no varia- tion from the same dead level of pret- tiness. “ae Four principal dancers stand out particularly when one thinks back over the performance. They are Domoslavski, who played the Don; Markovski, who took Sancho Panza; Anna Pavlowa as Dulcinea, and Hilda her major presenta- Butsova as a street dancer in the first act and as cupid in the last. One of the divertissements at the end of the program was the famous Pavliwa solo, “The Swan.” Pavlow: does this thing in a white costume She flits around a bit, curls up and dies. She. dies most gracefully and one likes to see her do it. Some good folk have been sorely disappointed in Paylowa. They have gone to her performances eexpecting to see Pavlowa herself outdo all the rest of the company. This is the wrong attitude. Pavlowa herself out- do all the rest of the company. This is the wrong attitude. Pavlowa is not the greatest dancer on the stage to- day. If I may utter an awful blas- phemy, in my estimation, jump for jump and whirl Hilda Busova is a finer premier danseuse than Pavlowa, But Pavlowa gets the credit and deserves it. A captain who leads a charge gets the credit for it even tho the privates under him are better riflemen. , Conference sources have been increased and en- able us already to carry on normal work, General, attention has been at-’ tracted to the educational workers, to the liquidation of illiteracy, to the vil- lage school, and in the first place to politico-educational work in the vil- lages. Everybody concedes the im- portance. of, bringing the vast back- ward masses into line with the van- guard. For this work we need first of all the mass-worker, i. e., the teach- er. Vladimir Ilyitch had long since said that the party could never rely on general political and agronomical education of the peasantry, if it failed to put itself at the head of an army of four hundred thousand teachers, if it failed to organize them into an appar- atus which would work freely and en- thusiastically. We have now drawn near to such a consummation. Teachers Respond to Communism. HILE the Communist Party and the Soviet’ government. have come to the conclusion: that itds time: to get hold of this apparatus, Hat itis time to direct the chief*attention to education work, particularly in; the villages; then on the other hand, there has been a colossal change of heart among the teachers themselves. All trace of deliberate political opposition or inertia among the teachers has dis- appeared as well as the political aloof- ness of the teacher in the past, for which he himself was largely to blame. The whole mass of the teach- ers has begun to feel the spirit of the new times as never before, having conceived their new obligations and rights bestowed on them by the creat- ive genius of the people. 'HE teachers’ conference will be a parade of the Red Army of educa- tion. The representatives of the mass teachers will meet face to face with the leaders of the work on education, and what is still more important, with the leaders of the state and social life of the Soviet Union. HIS conférence will mark import- ant stagés-in our onward move- ment. It will constitue an event not on- ly on the third front, but on the great world-wide front of the trade union movement marching towards Com munism. 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