The daily worker., 1933-09-08
Behind the Phrase
"Loev theological
Level of Members''
The Problem of Marxist-Leninist Education;
Workers School Now Largest in World

and the Y. C. L. are very small
section.
The Y. c. L. Buro of District 4
(and in this respect the Y. G.. L. is
more. progressive than the Party
District Buro) proposed amongst
other steps in carrying out the Open
Letter, to carry on campaign to
send a quota of 200 Y. G. L. mem-
bers to the Workers School this
fall term. The comrades thought
this would be a great achievement.
But, as the old saying goes, There
is no Valor in shooting dead dog"
We pointed out to these comrades
that last fall there were 200 Y. G. L.
members taking courses at the Work.
ers' School and in the last winter
term we had 205 Y. G. L. members
at the school, The quota should
therefore be doubled. Unfortunately
these Y. @. L. students were not OBJ
tanned by the school through very
much effort on the part of the Y.
C. L. The same is true of the Party,
as will be seen in what follows.
In the school years of 1928 there
were about 4,300 students at the
Workers School or an average Of
1927 each for the fall, winter and
spring terms. In these three terms
we had 1874 Party members, or an
average of 298 Party members per
term. AS for the Y. G. L., the fig
ures are 568 members for the three
termso or an average of 189 per term.
The fact that the Workers School
has an average of 487 Party and Y.
c. l., members per term is not due
to the efforts of the district section
and unit leadership. This is mainly
the result of the efforts of the school
and its student activities in reaching
Party and League members in the
same, general manner as all other
students are contacted. In fact,
this is so in spite of the lack of CO.
operation and such base indifference
on the part of the functionaries as
to tempt us to denounce it as sab
otage!r
What proof have we for such sharp
criticism? At the opening of regis
tratione for each term Gas we have
already done last week. we send to
every unit of the Party and the
League an envelope containing our
new descriptive catalogue and enough
credentials for three scholarships, to-
gether with a letter of appeal for
students and detailed instructions as
to what to do. What have been the
results? The students sent to the
school by the units are those who
come on scholarships because the
scholarship rate is lower than the
regular fee. We have had an av-
erageii' of I'll combined Party and
Y. O. L. scholarship students per
term
This means that through the Party
and the League channels the school
obtained an average of 211 out OF an
average of 1,427 students each school
term.
For the largest workers school In
the capitalist world, not only are the
number of Party and League mem
bers small, but the number OF stu
dents as whole is too small. This
Workers School should have at least
5000 students each school term. This
can be done very easily. II every
unit of the Party and League alone
should send its quota of three stu
dents there would be more than 5000
students, exclusive of those sent by
unions and other workers organiza-
tions.
If the Party and the League units
continue to show the same indiffer-
ence toward political education, they
hamper the workers from acquiring
revolutionary theory. The members
of the Communist Party and this
Young Communist League should
raise this question at their unit
meetings now, while registration is
still on. since no students can be
accepted when the school term starts
on Sept. 25