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Special pages :
The Military Academies and Non-Party People
Letter to the editors of Izvestzya V.Ts.I.K.
In No.2 of the Petrograd journal Voyennoye Obozrenie (Military Review), it is said, in the correspondence from Moscow:
‘In December a conference was held in Moscow of the Communist cells in military-educational institutions. At this conference Comrade Petrovsky made a detailed speech dealing with the international situation and the tasks of the military-educational institutions resulting from it. Later on at the conference, Comrade Trotsky raised the question of the admission of non-Party workers to higher educational institutions (this year, the intake of the Military Academies consisted exclusively of Communists). Comrade Trotsky finds that, in view of the large number of commanders who do not belong to the Russian Communist Party, it would be proper to allow the abler of the non-Party men to enter the Academies. A lively debate took place on this question, but no final decision on it was reached.’
These lines give a completely false account of the matter. I did not and could not have put it to a conference of Communist cells to decide the question whether or not to allow non-Party persons to enter the Military Academies. I merely explained to the conference that the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic opens wide the doors of all the Military Academies to commanders who are able, industrious and conscientious, both Party members and non-Party men. The writer’s statement that ‘no final decision was reached on this question’ shows merely that he does not know how such questions are, in fact decided: not at conferences of Communist cells, but by the appropriate organs of the state – in this case, by the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic.
The doors of the Military Academies are open to every military worker who is conscientious and devoted to the Red Army. To the Communist Party the idea of demanding a monopoly for its members where the Military Academies are concerned is utterly alien.