TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE 1920-IES

By Tatyana Shvetsova

The New Economic Policy resulted in a swift livening of the economy. Moreover, the private sector thrived more than the state owned one. And this, despite the fact the government wouldn’t allow it to develop at full force, and retained a stifling control over the economy of the country.

Historian Yefim Gimpelson notes that the Bolsheviks greatly feared a possibly reinstatement of capitalism, and many of them openly believed that NEP was a betrayal of communism. The historian, thus, wrote:

“Adhering to this policy as a social compromise with a majority of the population, the Communist Party hoped by way of clever manipulation to nonetheless inch the country gradually towards socialism. Certainly, this would be a slower method than in conditions of military communism, yet entailing lesser risks. The admission of market mechanisms in the economy not only led to a resurrection of the economy, but strengthened the political regime. However, the principal incompatibility of this regime with the essence of NEP inevitably led to a rejection of this policy. Even in the period most conducive for the development of the new economic policy (from the beginning to the mid-1920-ies) the movement of progress in its implementation was tentative and very inconsistent. The country’s leadership was constantly looking back over its shoulder at the military communism phase, which a majority of Bolsheviks had accepted wholeheartedly, particularly in the years of Civil war. Everything was being done to stop NEP from overstepping the boundaries that threatened socialism.”

As a result there accumulated contradictions between requirements for a normal functioning of the economy and political priorities of the party leadership. These priorities were aimed at limiting and later completely ousting private enterprise.

According to Yefim Gimpelson: “Gripped by a fear of NEP, the party-state leadership took measures aimed at discrediting it. Official propaganda hounded the private entrepreneur. They were inculcating in the public conscience the image of the latter as a class enemy, an exploiter.

From the mid-1920-ies the course aimed at restricting development of NEP was exchanged for a policy of curtailing it altogether. The dismantling of NEP began latently. To begin with, through measures of stifling the private sector of the economy, and afterwards – by stripping it of all legal rights and guarantees. In the meantime, at all Party Forums they voiced an adherence to the new economic policy.”

On December 27th 1929, in his speech at a conference of Marxist-historians Joseph Stalin said: “If we adhere to the policy of NEP, it’s because it serves the socialist cause. The moment it stops to serve the interests of socialism, we shall send this policy to the devil.”

At the end of the 1920-ies this finally happened. The methods with which NEP was dismantled point to a different approach to this policy shown by the founder of the Soviet state Vladimir Lenin and the man who succeeded him in governing the country – Joseph Stalin. 

The analytical paper “Urzhumsk vedomosti” wrote: “The New economic Policy, in Lenin’s opinion, was an attempt to gently turn round revolutionary Russia back to the natural capitalist development of the economy and social relations. The attempt was successful in many respects. But… In case of the success of NEP, the Bolsheviks, as a political party, undeniably stood to lose their influence on the life of the state. Moreover, they were actually in danger of being summoned to stand trial for the coup they masterminded and its consequences. This is on the one hand… And on the other, a return to a capitalist course of development would once again plunge the country into turmoil, a fresh outbreak of civil strife, and, quite possibly, could entail a complete loss of sovereignty for Russia for many decades.”

Historian Yefim Gimpelson wrote: “Lenin believed that with the crossover to socialism NEP would outlive itself in the course of evolution. However, by the end of the 1920-ies there was still no sign of socialism in the country, although it had been proclaimed in Russia. The New Economic Policy hadn’t outlived itself, but Stalin, in defiance of Lenin, effected a transition to socialism forcibly, by revolutionary methods.

A down-side of this manner of transition was the Stalin’s policy of eliminating the so-called ‘exploiting classes’. 

As a result of this policy all well-to-do peasants were proclaimed village ‘bourgeois”, their property was confiscated and they themselves were exiled to Siberia in whole families. They died by the thousands, either en route or at their final place of destination.

The remnants of town ‘bourgeoisie’, that is entrepreneurs, private traders, craftsmen, as well as members of their families were stripped of political rights, subjected to court persecution.

Back in March 1922 Vladimir Lenin wrote in a letter to Central Committee Party Member Lev Rozenfeld, known in history under the pseudonym of Kamenev, that: “It is a great error to think that the new economic policy will put an end to terror. We shall yet return to terror and economic terror.”

In those years, fear, compulsion, terror were the principal driving force in public and private life. In a popular play of the time “Fear” by Nikolai Afinogenov, one of the characters – Professor Borodin, says that: “…the general motivating force for 80 percent of the citizens of the country is fear… A dairywoman fears her cow will be confiscated; a peasant fears forcible collectivization; a soviet worker – constant purges; a party official – fears accusations of departure from the official party line; a scientist – accusations of idealism; a technician – charges of sabotage. We live in an epoch of Great Fear. Fear forces talented intellectuals to renounce their mothers, to forge documents on their social origins… Fear hounds us. Man becomes distrustful, aloof, unscrupulous, slatternly, unprincipled… A rabbit, upon spying the snake, is rooted to the spot… It waits resignedly as the snake coils it’s death-grip round it and crushes the life out of it. We are all rabbits. How can one be expected to show creativity after this? Of course one cannot.”

Outstanding Russian scientist physiologist Ivan Pavlov wrote to the head of the soviet government Vyacheslav Molotov in 1934:

“We have been living and continue to live in conditions of a relentless regime of terror and violence. If our philistine reality could be recreated in full, without omissions, with all the daily details, it would make for a horrifying tableau, the effect of which on real people would hardly be mitigated by placing alongside it a tableau depicting our mushrooming new towns, hydropower stations, giant plants, endless scientific and educational establishments. When the first tableau captures my attention, I see a great similarity between our life and that of Asian despotisms.”

Bolshevist theoretician Nikolai Bukharin wrote:

“Proletarian compulsion in all its forms, beginning with firing squads and ending in labor duties, is, paradoxically as it sounds, a method of developing communist humanity out of the human material of the capitalist epoch.”

“GPU, or Secret Police, that in February 1922 came to take the place of the notorious Extraordinary Committee in reality differed little from the latter,” historian Oleg Platonov noted. “Although some of its rights were initially limited (as compared to the VCHka), already in a few months time they were reinstated in full. GPU received the right to exile, imprison and even execute without trial counterrevolutionaries, which a major part of the native Russian people were branded. 

In the 1920-ies under the aegis of the GPU they set up so-called reform labor camps. They were an analogue of the concentration camps that existed in Russia from autumn of 1918. The head of the Front Office of all these camps Matvei Berman thus explained his task: “An inmate costs the state over 500 roubles a year. Why should workers and peasants feed and maintain such a horde of louts, thieves, vermin and counterrevolutionaries? We shall send them to camp and say: here are your production implements. Work, if you like. This is the principle of existence in this country. There shall be no exception made for you. Camps should be directed by an organization that will be able to carry out outstanding economic commissions and initiatives of the soviet authorities, and shall reclaim a number of new regions. This is a directive of the party and government…”

Historian Oleg Platonov writes: “Many-million-strong masses of ‘labor teams’ made up of prison inmates, eroded the traditional Russian culture in the manner of a cancerous tumor, decaying its spiritual-moral foundation. At these camps a major part of the inmates developed a lasting distaste for work. An intentionally sloppy and inconscientious attitude towards work became a life principle for many who had endured forcible labor.”

Contemporary Russian writer Varlaam Shalamov, who experienced in person all the torments of camp during his stint as political prisoner, wrote: “The first illusion was done away with most swiftly. It’s an illusion of work – the same work that is referred to in an inscription gracing all the camp gates: “Work is an affair of honor; an affair of glory, heroism and virtue.” However, the camp could only inculcate hatred and distaste for work.”

In the words of historian Oleg Platonov: “Millions of Russian people, who found themselves in camp, lost their ideals in life, which were expressed in a perception of work as a virtue. For them, work became the most dreaded curse. The entire system of camps, in the final count, was aimed at just this: to discredit work as a lofty priority and value in the life of a Russian person.”

The system of coercive labor at prison camps became an object of particular attention on the part of the bolshevist authorities. In a circular letter signed in January 1925 by the head of the Front Office of the detention centers of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Yevsei Shirvindt it was noted:

“With the purpose of developing the prisoners’ work operations, they are conducted on the self-support principle…”

In the mid-1920-ies the prison press began to come out with the following announcements:

“Making use of the convicts’ labor, the work department of the gubernia correction facility has the opportunity to take on orders that are 10 percent cheaper than co-op prices.”

Oleg Platonov comments this thus: “Of course, work done at a cheaper price was at the expense of the prisoners, who were shamelessly exploited. Moreover, the convicts were even loaned out, as cattle.”

In substantiation of this, another announcement: “The work department of the Yekaterinburg correctional facility ? 1 … is dispensing work force, both qualified and unqualified, piece-rate and time-work, in groups of no less than 5… There is a technical bureau available, comprising experienced engineers and technicians. We carry out construction estimates… Prices are 10 to 25 percent lower than at other enterprises.”

According to Oleg Platonov, “from 1929 the camp system enters a new, ‘target’ phase of development. The labor of camp inmates is incorporated into the state plan. Moreover, an annual increase of economic criterion is planned from the ‘average achieved’. What emerges isn’t simply a new branch of the economy, but a super-branch – a camp sector of the socialist economy, incorporating all types of economic activity.”

Predominantly prison labor secured half of the timber provisions in the Far East, the North and in other areas of the country. The inmates delivered 40 % of the all-union ore production, worked in uranium and coal mines and at gold mines. They made cement, boats and barges, agricultural implements, cars, furniture, knitted goods, footwear. In a word, their labor was used everywhere. The work of camp inmates was predominantly used in the construction of a major part of the now well-known towns and settlements, many kilometers of railways and highways, three gigantic canals – Belomorsk, Volga and Volgodonsk. The smallest of these – Belomorsk – was 227 kilometers long and comprised 19 sluices, 15 dikes and 49 dams. All this was built with picks, shovels and barrows…

Prison labor was made use of not only in the industrial sphere. There were also camp scientific-research and technological-design institutes, where many thousands of inmates were engaged in intellectual labor: scientists, engineers, arts and culture personalities. WE can read about this in the novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn “In the First Circle”.

Historian Oleg Platonov insists: “Generally, the number of those engaged in the prison sector of the economy was approximately no less than 10 million people – 15 percent of all engaged in the economy. A minimum of the proceeds from this work went towards the inmates needs, while the bulk augmented the state coffers.”

1920-ies in Russia was a time of considerable transformations in the sphere of culture.

By the early 1920-ies the overwhelming majority of Russia’s population was illiterate. This wouldn’t do for the Bolsheviks! They needed to disseminate their ideas and views not only by word of mouth, but through the press. In 1919 Vladimir Lenin signed a decree on the eradication of illiteracy. 

Historian Leonid Katzva thus sums up the essence of this decree: “Education was pronounced obligatory for the entire illiterate adult population. New primers were published, manuals, all permeated with revolutionary notions, and special schools aimed at rooting out illiteracy were established. All literate citizens were obliged to participate in the general effort to teach the illiterate. In villages the adults frequently studied together with the youngsters. During the years of Civil war some 7 million people were taught elementary grammar. In 1920 out of every thousand residents of Russia 319 people were literate.

Illiteracy was basically eradicated by the end of the 1930-ies.”

The organization of educational institutions underwent total upheaval. Thus, all previously existing types of the latter were substituted by a uniform training school. The education was free of charge. Boys and girls now studied together. Democracy reigned at school. The functioning of the schools was overseen by pupils’ committees, instead of teachers, as before. And the committees, in turn, were superintended by the Communist Union of Youth (Komsomol, in short), set up back in 1918.

The principal task facing the schools was to bring up a generation, capable of finally making communism a reality. Due to this, there was an increasing ideologisation of education.

The Bolshevist ideologists pronounced: “Study books should be banished from schools!”

Historian Oleg Platonov, sharply criticizing the Bolshevist system of education and upbringing, says the following: “Instead of old, reliable and time-tested textbooks, they introduced pathetic manuals and tutorials, which only engendered ideal ripe conditions for brainwashing the pupils. “The sole correct way,” announced the ideologist of new education Professor Albert Pinkevich, “is to forget, for the time being, everything that has been written in the sphere of pedagogics.” “There must be no sparing of religious feelings of others,” enunciated the Deputy of the People’s Commissar for Education Mikhail Pokrovsky. While his follower, Aaron Zalkind suggested rejecting the old morals and ethics, placing class interests, i.e. the interests of the Bolsheviks, at the head of the matter. 

This new moral code pronounced: to kill an enemy of the revolution is a lawful, ethical killing. Children ought to reform and rectify their parents. A choice of mate should have adequate class utility, in regard to the ‘usefulness of the sexual object’. With the aim of setting generations of Russian people against each other, clashing children and  parents, the new ‘pedagogues’ recommend teaching the youngsters to ‘inform’ on their parents, should the latter do or say anything unpalatable for the existing regime.”

However, with the passing of time, the content of study programs and approach to children’s education altered. The revolutionary extremism disappeared; its advocates left the schools. The soviet school began to return to the time-tested pre-revolutionary Russian pedagogical traditions, so mindlessly rejected by the radical revolutionaries. 

According to historian Leonid Katzva, “the school was again beginning to study historical facts, which had temporarily been substituted by sociological schemes and ‘fundamentals of Marxism’. This decision was connected with ideological changes, in part – the authorities’ rejection of a nihilistic attitude to Russia’s past and a return to the ‘sovereign’ course.”

After the revolution it was higher education that was in the most complicated situation. Soviet powers were highly suspicious of the old Russian intelligentsia, aiming to create one of their own. So with this aim in mind, a course was set for boosting the number of Institutions of Higher Learning. Thus the system of higher education became broader than the pre-revolutionary one. However, the content of the student body seriously deteriorated: first and foremost they were enrolling children of workers and peasants, without entrance exams and regardless of their level of knowledge, while representatives of the intelligentsia, bourgeoisie and civil servants could only enter a Higher Educational Establishment if they had several years of work seniority. This nature of social discrimination was far from beneficial to the state. 

Historian Leonid Katzva wrote: “Soon it became quite clear that it was simply impossible to teach totally unprepared people at Higher Institutions of learning. Thus, in 1919 they set up so-called workers’ faculties, where in a span of three years the pupils intensively mastered the full volume of knowledge offered at senior classes of the general education schools. These faculties afforded an opportunity to alter the social make-up of the student body. The restrictions for enrollees, connected with social origin, were cancelled only in 1936.”

Schools and Higher Education establishments were set up to train Communist Party personnel and propagandists of bolshevist ideas. Back in 1919 a Communist University named after one of the bolshevist leaders – Yakov Sverdlov – was established in Moscow. And in 1921 an Institute of Red Professorate began its work. It was intended to turn out experts in the sphere of social disciplines.

The transition to industrialization required the setting up in 1927 of an Industrial Academy, where they trained leaders of industrial enterprises. Prior to this, the industry was managed by so-called ‘red directors’, originally from the working masses. At best they only boasted an elementary education.

The system of Higher learning continued to develop, and by the end of the 1930-s the USSR had 23 new Universities. However, the leader and pace-maker among them all when it came to quality of education was still the oldest in Russia – Moscow State University. Incidentally, it holds its own to this day.

A leading role in humanities training was delegated to Moscow and Leningrad Institutes of History, Philology and Literature.

A very important step forward was the opening of Higher Education facilities in national republics, where prior to that there hadn’t been any Higher learning to speak of, for example, in Azerbaijan and Central Asia. It’s hard to overestimate the role played by the Institute of Peoples of the North, set up in Leningrad, in training the local intelligentsia, particularly teachers, for illiterate peoples.

Soviet power gave an eye to development of technical and natural sciences. Thus, a scientific-technical department was established at the Supreme Soviet for National Economy – the central body in managing industrial matters in the state. The department brought together prominent Russian scientists, such as chemist Nikolai Zelinsky and geologist Ivan Gubkin. In Leningrad they set up a Radiological Institute, headed by Academician Abram Yoffe. Later, a Physico-Technical Institute splintered off from it, which played a huge role in development of this country’s physics. There evolved two leading centers of theoretical physics. The first was the Lebedev Physics institute, led by Sergey Vavilov, and the other – the Institute of Physics led by Piotr Kapitsa. Both achieved tremendous breakthroughs in the sphere of physics, in particular – in studies of the atomic nucleus.

At the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute situated outside Moscow, under the guidance of Nikolai Zhukovsky, the founding Father of contemporary aerodynamics, the groundwork was laid for the development of our own aircraft construction industry. In the 1920-ies Soviet pilots on domestic planes set off on unprecedented for those times long-duration flights: Moscow-Peking, and Moscow-New York. Later, in 1933, the first Soviet liquid fuel missile was launched.

Geological studies were progressing in the country at an impressive pace. Primarily, in the Urals, Siberia, Central Asia. As a result, new deposits of mineral resources were discovered.

This country’s biology achieved remarkable successes. This happened to a great extent due to the founding in 1929 of the now famous All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It comprised 12 research and development institutes. President of the Academy was none other than the outstanding Russian geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, who also headed the Institute of Plant Industry. 

As for Russian artistic culture, in the opinion of the bolshevist leaders it needed radical purging, or, better still, it ought to be created afresh. Thus, Russian cultural values were proclaimed a legacy of the detested exploiting classes and elements – the landed gentry, bourgeoisie, clergy, well-to-do peasants and merchantry. These ‘vestiges’ were branded as ‘hostile’ to the revolution, and subject to purging. 

Historian Oleg Platonov draws the following examples: “The country is swamped by a murky flow of pogrom summons. Particularly impassioned ones are aimed at inciting pogroms against monuments of culture, depicting the history of Russia. They are declared as having no artistic value or even quite ugly. “All these tons of ferrous and nonferrous metal,” wrote the newspaper “Vechernyaya Moskva”, “have long been crying out for the scrap heap!”

Quite symptomatically, one of the first holy relics, destroyed by the Bolsheviks back in 1922, was the chapel of Saint Alexander Nevsky, - a monument to heroes of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 – 1878. It stood in the centre of Moscow, near Red Square.”

A destruction of monuments of Russian culture brought the Bolsheviks barbaric enjoyment. One of their leaders, Nikolai Bukharin, said with glee: “We are sending up into the air tons of church rubble, the equivalent of the Pharaoh’s pyramids, the Petersburg-Moscow piles inspired by Byzantine.”

Under the pretext of clearing space for the barracks, in the Kremlin they destroyed great Russian holy relics, the Chudov and Voznesensky monasteries, erected in the 14th century. The public lifted its voice against this, with even some of the Bolsheviks joining in, yet the powers-that-be were adamant, deaf to the popular protest. Thus, the masterpieces of wonderful architects of the past and some remarkable frescos disappeared in an act of random barbarity.

The 1920-ies are also noted for the greatest plundering of church values, launched by the soviet authorities under the pretext of garnering funds in aid of hunger-stricken people in the Volga area and other regions of the country.

In the early 1920-ies Russian cultural treasures were shipped out of the country on a grand scale. They were sold cheaply to foreigners after the 15 percent export tax had been cleared. Thus, the notorious Hammer family from the USA made a fortune on Russian art treasures.

Swedish banker Ulof Ashberg, visiting Moscow in the 1920-ies, put together a collection of hundreds of icons of the 15th-17th centuries. With the personal permission of the Soviet Culture Minister Anatoly Lunacharsky this collection was later taken out of Russian to Stockholm.

As historian Oleg Platonov insists, “the sale of Russian artwork abroad became a regular source of income for the soviet state coffers. In the course of the 1920-ies Soviet foreign trade organizations regularly sold abroad items of church art, stolen from the believers; paintings, confiscated from enemies of the regime. 

In the early 1920-ies the whole industry of selling abroad Russian sacred relics and artworks was overseen by Bolshevik party Central Committee member freemason Leonid Krasin. And keeping a close eye on the entire process was the founder of the Soviet state – Vladimir Lenin.

The historian makes reference to a surviving secret missive, dated February 1921, which gives us an insight into the dreadful scope of plunder of Russian cultural values. Here is an excerpt from the letter:

“To Comrade Lenin.

Expert commissions at the Art values department of the Export Management of the People’s Commissariat for External Trade of Petrograd and Moscow have to date determined and registered, partly placing into storage and rendering a marketable appearance to up to 500 thousand various items of antique and luxury art of significant currency value. Work to further collect and register such items is proceeding according to plans elaborated by the People’s Commissariat for External Trade.

Top-grade goods are chiefly sent to England and France. Second-grade goods – to Germany. Silver of pseudo-Russian style and new porcelain – to Scandinavia. Articles of a sensational nature are predominantly suitable for export to America.

Our central warehouses are at the large harbor in Hamburg. From there it is easier to quickly distribute the goods to the appropriate countries, where they possess well-adapted for the purpose storage facilities, an organized and cheap technical force and reliable guards.

The Bolsheviks conducted part of their clandestine operations in the sale of Russia’s national wealth through the Komintern and communist activists of foreign countries. According to historian Oleg Platonov, “In a short period they sold dozens of thousands of artworks from collections of the State Hermitage and other central museums of the country. This was done in complete secrecy from the population of the country.”

The most noteworthy works of art were acquired by American millionaire Everet Mellon. Antiquary Joseph Dewvin wrote; “As a result of some brilliant acquisitions made by Mellon the Hermitage was robbed of the greatest in the world collection of paintings.”

Later, in 1935, these paintings were estimated at 50 million dollars worth… Soon after World War Two – their value doubled. Needless to say, today they are priceless. 

The 1920-ies were characterized by a swift growth of theatres. 

Historian Leonid Katzva, characterizing the theatres of the time, wrote: “New theatres, as a rule, adopted an extreme leftist stance, rejecting the old theatrical art values. Standing at the heart of this ‘theatre revolution’ was one of its leading ideologists, world-acclaimed avant-garde director Vsevolod Meyerhold. The first Soviet plays were of placard, agitprop nature. At the time this kind of art seemed the most called-for.

By the end of the 1920-ies theatrical avant-gardism ceased to satisfy the workers that it was first and foremost intended for. The theatre thus rediscovered Realism. There emerged some wonderful soviet plays written by Mikhail Bulgakov, Konstantin Treniov, Boris Lavreniov, Vsevolod Vishnevsky and others. In their plays these authors attempted to reappraise the revolutionary events, of which they were witnesses. Their work was highly talented, and is still of interest to today’s audiences. 

In the 1920-ies they also staged works written by the classics.”

The soviet authorities displayed a marked interest towards cinematography. Vladimir Lenin said pointblank: “Of all forms of art, it’s the cinema we find of utmost importance’. And it’s easy to understand why. The cinema offers unlimited propaganda possibilities.

The first soviet movies began to be filmed in the Civil war years. The most famous one in the world, made in the 1920-ies, was the film by Sergei Eisenstein “Battleship ‘Potyomkin”, which depicted the events of the Russian revolution of 1905. This film is still considered a classic of the movie heritage.

Cinematography became truly widespread at the end of the 1920-ies – and further in the 1930-ies. The dominating theme in the cinema was the history of the revolution and Civil war.

Right after the revolution they began to implement Lenin’s plan of monumental propaganda. Monuments were erected to the leading revolutionaries. Mainly made of plaster or wood, they turned out to be short-lived, though. Dwelling on the fine arts of the 1920-ies, historian Leonid Katzva noted:

“Fine art of the 1920-ies was characterized by sharp conflict between ‘leftist’ trends and realism. In 1922 the artists-realists set up an Association of artists of revolutionary Russia. In the mid-1920-ies they succeeded in ousting the ‘leftists’ from the leading positions in fine art. Through the efforts of those who had triumphed, the method of so-called Socialist Realism started to emerge. It was characterized by a heroization of reality.”

Let us note that the method of Socialist Realism spread to all forms of art and literature, securing a position of dominance for many a decade to come.

“In the architecture of the 1920-ies,” historian Leonid Katzva wrote, “the ‘constructivism’ style was particularly evident. This style was distinguished by an exaggerated simplicity and utilitarian approach to architectural forms. In the 1930-ies it was gradually supplanted by the Art-Deco style, noted for aggressive monumentality and neo-classic decor. Afterwards, this style was replaced by the so-called ‘stalin’ style. It was noted for a solemn pomposity. The buildings on Tverskaya street, in the heart of Moscow, as well as many old stations of the Moscow metro were all built in this style.”

A characteristic feature of the 1920-ies was the emergence of an overwhelming number of public organizations with ideological leanings. There was the Pioneer organization – a communist analogue of the scouts movement; the Communist Union  of Youth; the Trade Unions; Voluntary Unions of Army, Aviation and Fleet Assistance. Occupying a special place were Unions of the artistic intelligentsia. 

“Masterminding vast-scale industrial construction, and simultaneously implementing radical economic and social upheavals,” Professor of History Olshtynsky notes, “the Soviet leadership was anxious to draw support from the revolutionary enthusiasm and labor effort of the masses, their readiness to survive hardships for the sake of building a new society of social justice. The activity of all public organizations ultimately served this purpose.”