The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-01
They Are Celebrating the Fifteenth Annivers

sponsible political secretary of the
editorial colegium and n. /. Bucharin.
Editor-in-C Chief. The chairman was
Uglanov, Secretary of the Moscow
Party organization The first ant
principal speaker was our old Com.
rade Gussiev, known To a great many
American Communists for his service!
to the American movement. AS heat
If the CPSU Central Committee De
)artment for the Press it was hi
function to review the work done an,
vet to be done by the "Pravda" ar
The other far-flung Communist pres
the Soviet Union.
He began by threatening. humoI
9usly, to speak Is minutes on the /
years Of "Pravda" history, one minut
FOR each year, and then two hours O
more Of excursions through the realm
IF the Soviet literary world. Then HI
Promised to do no such thing and con
lined himself. after a short statemen
Of the significance Of "Pravds" to tn
movement, to a detailed analysis o.
he tasks and trends in the present
Nv Communist press in the Soyie
Union.
The 18th anniversary, he said
marks a turning point in the history
Of "Pravda" and our press generally
Our task now embraces the enlighten-
ment Of the vast masses Of workers
md especially the raising of the cul
tural level of the peasant people
Quoting Lenin he reminded the grea'
audience that when 'Iskra" was star
ted there were perhaps 40 revolution
lists grouped around it in all Russia
"Proletar" already had about a thou
sand such. "Pravda" when launched
enjoyed the active support Of tens o.
thousands, which have now growr
into millions The task of our press
is to find suitable forms for the
mobilizing of these no longer thou
sands but millions. The modelling Of
these masses for the demands of the
Observation-Disclosures. economy, lower
urices-is the immediate task of our
press.
The RabcOr's Job.
We all realize, he continued, that
the worker-correspondents are one
# our most valuable and indispensable
ties between our press and the
masses. But this movement. which
now includes between 250000 and
100000 worker, peasant, red army
and youth correspondents is beginning
to show some signs of development IL
a direction not beneficial to its rea
function. There is to be observed
a tendency towards Separation, as
though the Workers. Correspondents
movement is something exclusive anG
apart from the toiling masses instead
of their voice. The whole well-de.
veloped structure Of worker CORE
spondent circles, conferences, organ
iers, special press, etc. faces the
danger Of institutionalism, and this
must be avoided. The consequence
has been that during the last year
their ranks have not grown at the
desired tempo, there is often an in
clination to narrow the membership
of worker-correspondent circles dowr
to only Party and Youth League mem
bers, and in turn this has it's reflec-
tion on the one hand in certain con-
servatism and even resentment among
worker correspondents towards PRO
posed new forms of mass work by
the press, and on the other in neglect
by the special work-correspondent
press organs Of the specific problems
of their own field in favor of general
politics, thus invading the field of the
regular Party press. Several glaring
cases were cited: of a Leningrad
work er correspondence organ al
legedly reporting on a gubernia con-
ference actually devoted only few
lines to this and the rest of the paper
to China, Italian Fascism, world eco
Monies. etc, Everything except work