February 28th.
At the Commissariat of Public Education I showed
Professor Pokrovsky a copy of The German-Bolshevik
Conspiracy, published in America, containing documents
supposed to prove that the German General Staff arranged
the November Revolution, and that the Bolsheviks were no
more than German agents. The weak point about the
documents is that the most important of them have no
reason for existence except to prove that there was such a
conspiracy. These are the documents bought by Mr.
Sisson. I was interested to see what Pokrovsky would say
of them. He looked through them, and while saying that he
had seen forged documents better done, pointed as evidence
to the third of them which ends with the alleged signatures
of Zalkind, Polivanov, Mekhinoshin and Joffe. He
observed that whoever forged the things knew a good
deal, but did not know quite enough, because these persons,
described as "plenipotentiaries of the Council of Peoples'
Commissars," though all actually in the service of the
Soviet Government, could not all, at that time, have been
what they were said to be. Polivanov, for example, was a
very minor official. Joffe, on the other: hand, was indeed a
person of some importance. The putting of the names in
that order was almost as funny as if they had produced a
document signed by Lenin and the Commandant of the
Kremlin, putting the latter first.
Pokrovsky told me a good deal about the organization of
this Commissariat, as Lunacharsky, the actual head of it,
was away in Petrograd. The routine work is run by a
College of nine members appointed by the Council of
People's Commissars. The Commissar of Education
himself is appointed by the All-Russian Executive
Committee. Besides this, there is a Grand College which
meets rarely for the settlement of important questions. In it
are representatives of the Trades Unions, the
Workers' Co-operatives, the Teachers' Union, various
Commissariats such as that for affairs of Nationality, and
other public organizations. He also gave me then and at a
later date a number of figures illustrating the work that has
been done since the revolution. Thus whereas there used to
be six universities there are now sixteen, most of the new
universities having been opened on the initiative of the local
Soviets, as at Astrakhan, Nijni, Kostroma, Tambov,
Smolensk and other places. New polytechnics are being
founded. At Ivano-Vosnesensk the new polytechnic is
opened and that at Briansk is being prepared. The number
of students in the universities has increased enormously
though not to the same proportion as the number of
universities, partly because the difficulties of food supply
keep many students out of the towns, and partly because of
the newness of some of the universities which are only now
gathering their students about them. All education is free.
In August last a decree was passed abolishing preliminary
examinations for persons wishing to become students. It
was considered that very many people who could attend the
lectures with profit to themselves had been prevented
by the war or by pre-revolution conditions from acquiring
the sort of knowledge that could be tested by examination.
It was also believed that no one would willingly listen to
lectures that were of no use to him. They hoped to get as
many working men into the universities as possible. Since
the passing of that decree the number of students at
Moscow University, for example, has more than doubled.
It is interesting to notice that of the new students a greater
number are studying in the faculties of science and history
and philosophy than in those of medicine or law. Schools
are being unified on a new basis in which labour plays a
great part. I frankly admit I do not understand, and I gather
that many teachers have also failed to understand, how this
is done. Crafts of all kinds take a big place in the scheme.
The schools are divided into two classes-one for children
from seven to twelve years old, and one for those aged
from thirteen to seventeen. A milliard roubles has been
assigned to feeding children in the schools, and those who
most need them are supplied with clothes and footgear.
Then there are many classes for working men,
designed to give the worker a general scientific knowledge
of his own trade and so prevent him from being merely a
machine carrying out a single uncomprehended process.
Thus a boiler-maker can attend a course on mechanical
engineering, an electrical worker a course on electricity,
and the best agricultural experts are being employed to give
similar lectures to the peasants. The workmen crowd to
these courses. One course, for example, is attended by a
thousand men in spite of the appalling cold of the lecture
rooms. The hands of the science professors, so Pokrovsky
told me, are frostbitten from touching the icy metal of their
instruments during demonstrations.
The following figures represent roughly the growth in the
number of libraries. In October, 1917, there were 23
libraries in Petrograd, 30 in Moscow. Today there are 49
in Petrograd and 85 in Moscow, besides a hundred book
distributing centres. A similar growth in the number of
libraries has taken place in the country districts. In
Ousolsky ouezd, for example, there are now 73 village
libraries, 35 larger libraries and 500 hut libraries or
reading rooms. In Moscow educational institutions, not
including schools, have increased from 369 to 1,357.
There are special departments for the circulation of printed
matter, and they really have developed a remarkable
organization. I was shown over their headquarters on the
Tverskaya, and saw huge maps of Russia with all the
distributing centres marked with reference numbers so that
it was possible to tell in a moment what number of any new
publication should be sent to each. Every post office is a
distributing centre to which is sent a certain number of all
publications, periodical and other. The local Soviets ask
through the post offices for such quantities as are required,
so that the supply can be closely regulated by the demand.
The book-selling kiosks send in reports of the sale of the
various newspapers, etc., to eliminate the waste of
over-production, a very important matter in a country faced
simultaneously by a vigorous demand for printed matter
and an extreme scarcity of paper.
It would be interesting to have statistics to illustrate the
character of the literature in demand. One thing can be
said at once. No one reads sentimental romances. As is
natural in a period of tremendous political upheaval
pamphlets sell by the thousand, speeches of Lenin and
Trotsky are only equalled in popularity by Demian Biedny's
more or less political poetry. Pamphlets and books on
Marx, on the war, and particularly on certain phases of the
revolution, on different aspects of economic reconstruction,
simply written explanations of laws or policies vanish
almost as soon as they are put on the stalls. The reading of
this kind has been something prodigious during the
revolution. A great deal of poetry is read, and much is
written. It is amusing to find in a red-hot revolutionary
paper serious articles and letters by well-meaning persons
advising would-be proletarian poets to stick to Pushkin
and Lermontov. There is much excited controversy both in
magazine and pamphlet form as to the distinguishing marks
of the new proletarian art which is expected to come out of
the revolution and no doubt will come, though not in the
form expected. But the Communists cannot be accused of
being unfaithful to the Russian classics. Even Radek,
a foreign fosterchild and an adopted Russian, took Gogol as
well as Shakespeare with him when he went to annoy
General Hoffmann at Brest. The Soviet Government has
earned the gratitude of many Russians who dislike it for
everything else it has done by the resolute way in which it
has brought the Russian classics into the bookshops.
Books that were out of print and unobtainable, like
Kliutchevsky's "Courses in Russian History," have been
reprinted from the stereotypes and set afloat again at most
reasonable prices. I was also able to buy a book of his
which I have long wanted, his "Foreigners' Accounts of the
Muscovite State," which had also fallen out of print. In the
same way the Government has reprinted, and sells at fixed
low prices that may not be raised by retailers, the works of
Koltzov, Nikitin, Krylov, Saltykov-Shtchedrin, Chekhov,
Goncharov, Uspensky, Tchernyshevsky, Pomyalovsky and
others. It is issuing Chukovsky's edition of Nekrasov,
reprints of Tolstoy, Dostoievsky and Turgenev, and books
by Professor Timiriazev, Karl Pearson and others of a
scientific character, besides the complete works of
Lenin's old rival, Plekhanov. It is true that most of
this work is simply done by reprinting from old
stereotypes, but the point is that the books are there, and the
sale for them is very large.
Among the other experts on the subject of the Soviet's
educational work I consulted two friends, a little boy,
Glyeb, who sturdily calls himself a Cadet though three of
his sisters work in Soviet institutions, and an old and very
wise porter. Glyeb says that during the winter they had no
heating, so that they sat in school in their coats, and only
sat for a very short time, because of the great cold. He told
me, however, that they gave him a good dinner there every
day, and that lessons would be all right as soon as the
weather got warmer. He showed me a pair of felt boots
which had been given him at the school. The old porter
summed up the similar experience of his sons. "Yes," he
said, "they go there, sing the Marseillaise twice through,
have dinner and come home." I then took these expert
criticisms to Pokrovsky who said, "It is perfectly true. We
have not enough transport to feed the armies, let alone
bringing food and warmth for ourselves.
And if, under these conditions, we forced children to
go through all their lessons we should have corpses to
teach, not children. But by making them come for their
meals we do two things, keep them alive, and keep them in
the habit of coming, so that when the warm weather comes
we can do better."