The daily worker., 1933-09-08
BY SIDNEY BLOOMFIELD

Whenever serious discussion
takes place in the Party or the
Young Communist League the ques-
ton of education occupies a rela-
lively small place. In the resolution
and plan of work of District 2, which
was drawn up recently for the pur-
pose of carrying out the open letter,
no reference was even made to the
Workers School.
1t may perhaps surprise many to
learn that at present the Workers
School at 35 E. 18th st. is the largest
workers school in the capitalist world.
Before the rise of the Nazi in Ger
many, the school conducted by the
Communist Party in Berlin was the
largest in the capitalist world, with
staff of 200 instructors and more
than 10000 students studying by
correspondence alone.
Now that the Workers School has
already started registration for the
fall term, which begins on Sept. 25,
few important matters must be
brought home to every worker and
particularly to every Party and
Young Communist League member
A lot of talk is heard everywhere
about the low level of political I'M
derstanding of the bulk of the mem
bers because Of their newness in the
movement. While this is true, it very
often serves to cover great deal of
sins committed by the comrades who
are functionaries. Low level" is a
magic phrase used for the purpose
of diStracting attention from much
inertia, incompetence, ETC., by throw
ing all the blame upon the rank and
file.
The question of allowing every
comrade one night a week as an as
signment for the purpose of study
has been long forgotten. Comrades
are going around in circles with in
ner party activity until they become
dizzy. They drop out before they
get an opportunity to anchor them
selves in the solid knowledge of
Marxism-Leninism. Many comrades
can find no explanation for theil
own predicament and drop out be-
cause they see nothing ahead while
they continue, so-to-speak, to churn
water in a fruitless effort to make
butter-an utter impossibility.
Our problem is to guarantee that
every Party and Y. G. L. member
shall acquire political education
The extremist lengths to which
many comrades go in proposing "prac-
tical" work almost to the exclusion
of revolutionary theory borders on
the danger line of the Anarcho-syn-
dicalist or Business unionist con-
tempt for theory. To acquire a
political education means not only
to be able to expose conditions on
the job or in the block. Nor does it
mean that we must limit ourselves
to the every day small and immediate
activities alone, although these are
the foundation for greater struggles.
To be politically educated is to be
equipped with a good knowledge OF
the experiences of the class strug-
gle, to have Marxist-Leninist
method of keen penetration and
analysis of the conditions and the
relation Of forces in the struggle at
every moment.
Not only Party and Y. c. L. men,
bers, but every worker whom we can
reach must be induced to take up
the study of the works of Marx, En-
gels, Lenin and Stain and learn the
experiences Of the struggles led by
the Communist International and its
parties.
The Workers School has for It's
purpose Training for the Glass
Struggle" The Workers School has
grown in the ten years of its exist
ence to such proportions as to raise
the problem of a special building for
the school. Yet if we examine the
composition of the students it will be
seen that the members of the Party