The Red Army

TWO preliminary observations are necessary to this study of the armed forces of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. First of all, one must bear in mind that statistics prepared in Soviet Russia are often unreliable and even dishonest. Bolsheviks themselves make sarcastic comments on this fact. The Soviet authorities do not think of statistical data as the basis for scientific deductions, but as something to be arranged so as to serve special propaganda ends. Only by analyzing statistics, comparing them with each other, and then modifying them in view of the special conditions which exist in Russia and in view of what we knew about former conditions in the old Russia, can one form a true picture.

The second observation to be made is that one must drop for the time being the conception of Law which is natural to every citizen of a legally constituted State. It must be remembered that the Soviet is a revolutionary régime whose inevitable companions are administrative arbitrariness and general lawlessness of life. For all their impressive wording, the articles of the many codes and statutes often remain a dead letter, either on account of the difficulty of executing their provisions or because of the resistance of local authorities. In any case, between the date of the promulgation of a law and its practical and integral application a long period usually elapses. All this is particularly true in the case of the laws which attempt to regulate a citizen's military obligation to the State over a period of years.

The fundamental Soviet law which regulates the discharge of military obligations is the Law on Compulsory Military Service of September 18, 1925. According to it, the armed forces of the Soviet Union are defined as "The Workmen's and Peasants' Red Army." This title has a strange sound. On the one hand, the law establishes the compulsory character of military service, which is understood throughout the world as including all citizens of a country; on the other hand, it introduces into its definition a restricted conception which clearly indicates the class character of the army. The latter point is emphasized by the declaration that the Red Army is an organization of the armed forces of the laboring classes. This is more than a contradiction of words. The principle of compulsory service is really used in the law in its widest sense, as conscription in the Soviet Union applies even to women. It is true that in peace time the principle of voluntary service applies to them, but in time of war the law establishes the right to call women for the discharge of certain special duties.

The class character which is an integral part of the Red Army organization appears, moreover, in the fact that the obligation of personal active service applies only to the laboring classes. Citizens lacking this qualification are deprived of their -- one might say -- natural right to defend their country in case of an external menace. Indeed, according to the present law, the so-called non-laboring elements, which include inter alia all those who have been deprived of electoral or civil rights on the ground of a legal sentence or who have been deported by an administrative order, cannot serve in the army. In time of peace these persons pay a certain tax; in war time they can serve only in the rear ranks.

When one takes into account all the difficulties with which the Soviet Union surrounds the right of franchise and how carefully it removes from the elections all elements tainted with the slightest suspicion of counter-revolutionary ideas, one is justified in concluding that the régime aims to mould the Red Army not merely into a class organization but into an armed force destined to protect the interests of the Communist Party, and more particularly the interests of that section of the Party which has concentrated the supreme control in its hands.^[i] According to the letter of the law, even prominent members of the Communist Party who have gone over to the Opposition are disqualified for military service. For instance, Trotsky, who was not so long ago the Commissar for War, would have been formally deprived of the right to serve in the army if he had not already passed the military age limit; and the same fate would have befallen ex-Comrades Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek and their associates if they had not hastened to make amends to the ruling group of the Party. Thus the Soviet shows its open distrust of a certain category of persons and, by shutting them out of active army service, contravenes the principle of the general application of conscriptive military service.

In examining the organization of the Red Army we find a number of deviations from generally accepted principles regarding the organization of modern armies. They result from the clash of two opposing factors, both of which have a strong influence on Soviet military legislation. On the one hand, the old officers of the former army who had gone through the mill of the World War and who by force of circumstances had come to look upon the Red Army as the only power capable of safeguarding their country's interests, tried to give to the organization of that army the sum total of their experience. They had learnt that success in a great modern war can be had only on condition that all the active forces of the nation are required to take up arms and are made to put forth their maximum effort. During the last war Germany and France each had to mobilize twenty percent of its total population, which was tantamount to putting into uniform the entire physically fit male population of working age. It is evident that the successful realization of such an effort, especially with the present complicated machinery of military art, demands the preliminary instruction of every man fit to bear arms.

But in the formation of the Red Army the dominant organs of the Communist Party brought other considerations into play also. The Political Bureau of the Party issued instructions to the Moscow Government urging it to adapt the organization of the troops to the special objectives of the Party, which meant that military contingents should be recruited only from among elements devoted to the Communist régime. The Soviet therefore first established the Red Guards, which were composed principally of workmen who had been well schooled by propaganda -- the "Vanguards of the Revolution." Later, when the number of troops had to be increased owing to the civil war, the detachments of the Red Army were formed. But wherever possible elements of the Opposition were kept out of its ranks.

This dualism of purpose is the outstanding feature of the Red Army; it can be detected in every relevant military regulation. At the base of the organization are the generally accepted principles established by experience in the late war. But the structure is warped by the preposterous tendency, first to deprive the army of its national character, and then not even to let it have a class character, but to build it up along narrow Party lines.

According to the census of December, 1926, the total population of the U. S. S. R. was 147,000,000. The number of men in active service in the Red Army was 562,000. Consequently, the armed forces of the Soviet Union on a peace footing represent 0.4 percent of the total population. Compared with the United States, where the armed forces represent only 0.1 percent, the Soviet military effort under peace conditions appears very great. But we must take into account the exceptionally advantageous conditions in which the countries of the two American continents in general, and the United States in particular, find themselves. Unfortunately, the position of the countries in Europe is very different. With the menace of sudden aggression constantly before their eyes, they feel compelled to safeguard their territorial security chiefly by the maintenance of armed forces in a continual state of efficiency and preparedness. For them the army in time of peace is not only a school of military training for the rising generation and a skeleton formation for eventual war time organization, but it is also the chosen instrument for watching over and giving security to the frontier zones. Moreover, not merely have improved methods of mobilization and the development of military technique not lessened the possibility of a sudden attack on a peaceful country, but, on the contrary, they have increased it. Nor must it be forgotten that aerial and chemical warfare may mortally injure a country within a few hours.

This necessity of being constantly on the alert is the main reason why European countries, while trying to lighten the military burden by reducing the time of service, do not dare take the risk of adopting the territorial army system. The frontier between the United States and Canada runs nearly 4,000 miles; along this whole distance one finds hardly a soldier, only customs or police guards. But look at the situation on our side of the Atlantic -- for example, at the middle Rhine as it appeared not so very long ago: along every one of those few hundred kilometres ran an almost uninterrupted fence spiked with bayonets. Locarno mitigated this condition, but only to a certain degree. Here we see the full significance of security as the dominating factor in the problem of armaments.

Studying the situation of Russia from this point of view, we see that she has a common frontier with twelve different States, and we find that the forces of merely the six States which border upon her western frontier amount to the imposing figure of 520,000 men. In proportion to the number of inhabitants, these armies represent one percent of the total population of these six countries. When, furthermore, we bear in mind that before the war Russia found it necessary to maintain in peace time an army of 1,300,000 men, and that this represented 0.8 percent of the country's total population, we must admit in fairness that the number of the armed forces of the Soviet Union cannot be considered excessive and that, on the whole, it is not superior to the military strength which any other country in Europe would require under similar conditions.

But, while arriving at this conclusion, we must also admit that no other Russian Government of recent times has equalled the warlike aggressiveness of the present international Government of the Bolsheviks. The war-cries they sent up over a misunderstanding which they had with Great Britain are still fresh in our ears. All over the country "Defense Weeks" were arranged and subscriptions were opened to a special fund called "Our Reply to Chamberlain." Only recently, too, according to Berlin reports, one of the prominent chieftains of the Red Army, Tukhachevski, has again taken up in his speeches the subject of a possible war between the Soviet Union and the so-called capitalist States. The World War, he points out, demonstrated the fact that to gain a complete victory it is essential not only to crush the military forces of the enemy but at the same time to weaken, and if possible destroy, his economic resources and social organization. He thinks the preparation of the last part of this program can be begun while peace still reigns, and he recommends the strengthening of Communist propaganda and the sowing of dissension between the different bourgeois countries.

Granted that aggressive action in the strict sense of the word cannot be risked by the Bolsheviks, for the simple reason that the Russian people will never sacrifice their lives and blood in behalf of ideas which they execrate, it nevertheless seems clear that the Bolsheviks (at their own peril) actually are already making aggressive war against the so-called capitalist countries. Espionage, world-wide support of political strikes, systematic attempts to disintegrate foreign troops by the propaganda of utopian ideas -- and this even in countries which have not yet grown up to the use of the most elementary gifts of civilization -- all these activities are nothing else but methods of warfare, underground but none the less aggressive. A war by inversion, one might say.

In view of these activities, the proposal of complete disarmament made by the Soviet delegation at the Preparatory Disarmament Conference in Geneva was pure hypocrisy. It also had a demagogic purpose. The agents of the Third International saw the opportunity of using the tribune of the League of Nations for astute propaganda which would be flashed over the whole world. Little they cared that their proposal was not realizable. It is not reality that counts with them, but only demagogy.

But let us return to a closer study of the subject of this article. Before long it was conclusively proved to the Soviet authorities that the principle of universal compulsory military service could not be carried out by maintaining only a standing army, for the two-year term of active service in the ranks which had to be adopted on account of the low educational average in Russia restricts the number of men that can be passed through the standing army and considered as thoroughly trained. Accordingly a law adopted in 1925 provided for the organization of supplementary territorial troops whose time of service is much shorter. Of course, the military preparation which these young men receive is very incomplete. The number of persons annually reaching military age is so great that the standing army and the territorial troops cannot make room for all the young men who pass the physical test; hence, the above-mentioned law provides a scheme of compulsory extra-military training for the recruits who are not accepted for active service. Allotment to one category or the other is determined by the conscript's physical fitness, by his domestic status, and by lot.

Such are the general lines on which universal military instruction is regulated in Soviet Russia -- on paper. In practice the scheme works somewhat differently. In the Soviet press one finds authoritative statements to the effect that actually less than fifty percent of the young men who come of military age each year receive any military training at all. This state of affairs would naturally complicate the problem of mobilization and of bringing units up to full strength in time of war.

In the old days in Russia certain whole national groups were exempted from compulsory military service, either for political reasons (for instance, the inhabitants of Finland and some of the peoples in the Caucasus and Turkestan), or for considerations connected with the colonization of sparsely settled regions, or on account of the low cultural level of the populations in some of the border lands. It was estimated that those thus exempted constituted from ten to eleven percent of the total population of Russia. At the same time, it should be pointed out that such legal exemptions from compulsory military service were no bar against the enlistment in the army of individual members of the exempted groups, nor against their occupying posts of command and responsibility. It is fair to say, then, that the military laws of the Russian Empire granted an optional exemption to certain sections of the population, while in the Soviet Union they set up a discrimination against a section of the Russian people.

In this connection it may be remarked that the inhabitants of the Cossack military provinces now perform military service on an equal basis with the rest of the population of Soviet Russia; formerly much heavier military obligations were imposed on the Cossacks than on other Russian subjects. In this respect the present law does in theory establish a new standard of equality.

Everybody knows that the commanding staff of an army is its motive power and that the stronger the community of purpose among the officers, the more potent their influence over the soldiers. The significance of this axiom was promptly grasped by the Bolsheviks, who began in every way possible to proletarize and later Communize the officers's corps, a remnant of former régimes. At first the Bolshevik rulers were on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, they could not count on the faithful devotion of the old officers, imbued as they were with patriotic feelings; on the other hand, they could not dispense with their services. They solved the problem by forcibly retaining these officers in active service but restricting them to the simple rôle of technical advisers (spetses); they deliberately undermined the moral authority of such officers by destroying all vestiges of former hierarchical divisions and discipline. In so doing they of course exploited political class antagonism by accusing the old officers of reactionary and anti-democratic tendencies, regardless of the fact that the commanding staff of the former Russian army, except for a few privileged units, was drawn from all classes and conditions of society and was never distinguished by exclusiveness. This accomplished, the Soviet authorities set themselves with vigor to the creation of a new commanding staff devoted to Bolshevik rule; at first they built it up on class lines, later on narrow Party lines.

The policy of the Soviet in this domain is well illustrated by the composition of the graduating classes in the so-called normal schools of the Red Army, which are the reservoir from which the commanding staff are recruited. Take, for instance, the figures for 1925. The class which graduated that year was composed as follows: 53 percent of peasant origin, 38 percent from the workmen class, and 9 percent from other classes of the population. These figures are eloquent; they show the preference given to candidates from the workmen class to the prejudice of candidates from the peasantry, which, as is well known, constitutes the overwhelming majority of the Russian population: at the highest estimate, the proportion of workmen in the total population does not exceed 15 percent.

This proves that from the Bolshevik viewpoint a Red Commander from the workmen class is preferable to a Red Commander from the peasantry. But the Soviet wants not only a proletarian commanding staff but, as far as possible, one giving unhesitating allegiance to the Party. Accordingly, the classes which graduated from the normal schools in 1925 were of the following composition: 47 percent were Communists or candidates of the Party, 29 percent were Komsomols (Communist youths) and only 24 percent were independents (partyless).^[ii]

Comparing these figures with those of preceding years, we see that the percentage of Communists among the graduates rises from year to year. As a result, the increase in the number of Communists in the commanding staff is more pronounced than in the ranks. According to the All-Federal Census, the number of Party members and candidates and of Komsomol members in the army at the end of 1926 was as follows: 30 percent^[iii] in the ranks and over 50 percent in the commanding staff. In one way this increase in the number of Communists in the army is deceptive; it is not due to the gradual infiltration of Communist ideas among the masses of the population, but is explained by the great advantages accruing to those who have joined the Party as against those who remain outside. These newly-baked Communists naturally lack the old revolutionary enthusiasm. Not without reason do the pure Communists proceed from time to time to an energetic combing out of what they call parasytic elements. None the less, the Bolsheviks themselves complain that the Communist Party is gradually degenerating, that it has already to some extent been "de-proletarized."

Concurrently with the increase in the number of Red Commanders, the spetses are being gradually pushed out. Either they are made to leave the army, or they are transferred to administrative offices or to positions in the rear. As three-quarters of the present commanding staff belong to the new generations which have gone through the Red Army schools, not more than one-quarter of the commissioned officers now are spetses.

What is the price which is being paid for these efforts, first at the "proletarization" of the commanding staff of the Red Army and subsequently at its "Communization?" It is the indisputable decline of the intellectual level and technical experience of the men who are chosen to lead and direct the armies in time of war. Moreover, this is being done at a time when the military art has developed with unprecedented rapidity and has made war a mechanical duel that requires the most expert and technical knowledge. To illustrate the intellectual qualifications of the Red Commanders, let me cite the examinations for admission to the normal schools, where the course of studies is from three to four years. The requirements are most elementary -- ability to read fluently and to express one's thoughts in writing; a knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic; and some notion of simple and decimal fractions. That is practically all. Out of 164 persons who were admitted in 1925 to the Military Academy in Moscow, the highest military school in the Soviet Union, 60 percent had an elementary education and the rest had only finished a secondary school; only one had an academic education. Nearly 50 percent of them were from the working class; less than thirty persons were partyless; all the others were members or candidates of the Communist Party. Adherence to the Party ticket compensates for all deficiencies. To see this, it is only necessary to study the biographies of the majority of the principal Red Army leaders, beginning with Voroshilov, the head of the Army, a former workman whose education consisted of two years in a rural school.

In order to make sure that the Red Army is true to its tenets, the Soviet has invented a compact and disciplined Party apparatus, the members of which operate upon the politically unorganized mass of the soldiers and at the same time jealously control and watch each other. The argus-eye of the G. P. U. in turn supervises the whole machinery of the Communist organization, spreading its web of agents over the whole country and over every field of activity.

To begin with, two rules are observed in the recruitment of the Red Army. First, for the sake of "proletarization," every unit must contain a certain percentage of workmen, and, for the sake of "Communization," a certain percentage of Party members. This percentage varies, depending upon the category of the unit and the arms used. For instance, the troops serving the immediate purposes of the G. P. U. must contain at least 20 percent of Communists. Moreover, these units, which are garrisoned in all parts of the Soviet Union, are recruited with special care, preferably from among volunteers.

In every military detachment the Party elements elect their organizations, such as regimental bureaus and company "cells," which are charged among other things with watching the political tendencies of the detachment. Apart from this, every detachment has its political club, to which are attached one or two teachers of general subjects, whose chief task nevertheless is to give instruction in the Political Grammar, in other words, to permeate the minds of the men with Communist ideas. Moreover, a special military Commissar is attached to every regimental commander, and revolutionary military councils assist the Commissar for War and the Commanders-in-Chief of the military circuits into which the Soviet Union is divided. In the military divisions below the regimental unit, the post of politruk (political director) has been created. While the Commissars watch over the activities of the higher ranking officers, the politruks supervise the political education of the men in the units under their care.

Only by closely following Soviet military literature can one understand the intricate character of the duties assigned to the above-named political organs and get an inkling of the high hopes which the Bolsheviks place on their activities. One of the best Soviet military journals, Voennyi Vestnik (The Military Messenger), edited by the most prominent Soviet devotees of military science, gives half its space to explaining the significance and value of Party work in the army. At the same time, we catch in this literature a note of complaint over the scant success of efforts to influence the rank and file, who in political matters are far removed from those who are continually importuning them.

The apparent success which attended the weeding out of old army officers from the commanding staff, and the development of the process of "Communizing" the army, made the military leaders in 1925 recommend the reestablishment of the authority of the regular commanders, by suppressing gradually the military Commissars and restoring to the commanders complete control over the ranks, the administration and the commissariat. As a result of this reform, the authority of the regular military commanders is beginning to reassert itself and discipline is increasing. Whether the Communist Party will benefit by this development is a matter open to discussion; but certainly the Army, as regards internal service relations, is becoming more normal. The functions of the politruks, however, have not been abolished, though according to latest reports the Party nucleus in each unit has shrunk considerably.

When we look over the military rules and regulations now in force in the Red Army we easily trace in them the influence of German theories which require troops to attack regardless of the deadliness of modern fire. A striking divergence from the German theory, however, is the distrust with which the Bolsheviks seem to regard the rank and file, and even, until very recently, the commanding staff, notwithstanding the apparent "Communization" of the latter. Signs of this are the cumbersome Party apparatus in the army, even in time of war; the continuous holding of meetings before an action; in times of rest, endless meetings for the purpose of political drill; and the consequent deterioration of the regular military commander's authority, which is submerged, moreover, in a flood of instructions and directions from superior quarters. Very telling, too, is the constant fear lest the soldiers escape from the tutelage of Soviet political organs, as clearly reflected in the section of the Military Rules and Regulations which prescribes that troops shall be held in mass formations during a battle regardless of the resulting greater exposure to enemy fire. All these rules tend to make the army slow in action and deprive it of the suppleness so essential in tactics of attack.

In the organization of military industries we perceive the influence of the spetses. The World War strikingly demonstrated to us the truth that success in an armed conflict can only be attained by straining to the utmost not only the active forces of the nation, but also all its material resources. The time when wars were won solely by armies is gone. Under present conditions the country's whole economic life must be dedicated to the prosecution of a war, hence it must be prepared in advance so as to be easily and quickly adjusted to the necessities of war time. No country can in peace time develop its war industries or accumulate war material to the extent required for the purposes of a war. Not only do financial considerations forbid, but also the necessity of a constant re-modeling of armament stocks. In other words, an armed conflict unavoidably entails the mobilization of industries for the supplementary manufacture of war material.

With a view to coordinating the economic organism of peace and war the Council of Labor and Defense, which is one of the government organs of the Soviet Union, functions in peace time under the presidency of Rykov, the Chief of the Bolshevik Government. This Council drafts the orders and instructions to the Superior National Council, which in turn controls the administration of war industries; the latter, like all other branches of industry, are monopolized by the State. The precarious position of Soviet industries in general is a matter of common knowledge. The recent court proceedings in the Shakhta affair have thrown new light on the glaring abuses of Bolshevik economic mismanagement. Though war industries enjoy special protection, the results in this domain are nevertheless far from satisfactory. At least the head of the Red Army, Voroshilov, in one of his Jubilee speeches on the occasion of the anniversary of the Red Army in 1926 complained in very forceful terms that the production of war industries was below the standard and that the finished material of these industries was of low quality.

The foreign press speaks often of the intensive work of the Soviets in the domain of "Avio-Chemistry," but it is very difficult to give a reasoned opinion of the probable results of this work. In every country the preparation of chemical war is wrapped in deep mystery. On the other hand, the preparedness of a country for aerial warfare may be measured to a certain extent by the development of its peace time aviation, and by the adaptability of its industrial plant in war time to rapid construction of a sufficient number of aircraft; for these, as is known, wear out very quickly and soon become obsolete. From neither viewpoint can the progress of aviation in the Soviet Union be given a particularly good rating. None the less, the slogan of the development of Avio-Chemistry furnishes the Soviets with an excellent instrument of propaganda, both at home and abroad.

An interesting event has been the creation of the powerful society Aviakhim, which under the pretext of defending the country from a supposed menace really aims to cultivate distrust and enmity towards the capitalist states. Recent legislation has commissioned the Aviakhim and its sister organization, the Society for Military Research, to effect the militarization of the whole civil population and prepare it morally and physically against a supposedly impending war. But as it is obviously impossible to make a population which is not Communist anxious to raise the sword in behalf of the ideals of the Third International, the Bolsheviks are compelled to trim their sails. They veil their real aims and confine their military preparations to the incitement of suspicion and hatred of foreign countries. These were the methods followed by the agents of the Third International in Turkey and China. They seem even less likely to succeed in Russia than in most countries. On the contrary, every sign in Russia points to the steady growth of a healthy national consciousness and self-reliance.

What can we set down, in conclusion, as a responsible opinion regarding the real military strength of Soviet Russia? Is there any justification for expecting any aggressive action on her part? I believe that it is possible to give a fairly precise answer.

Russia, judging by the character of the bulk of its population, is a profoundly peaceful country. It is essentially agricultural, the industrial labor problem not yet having become acute. For another thing, it is inclined less than almost any other country to be carried away by enthusiasm for extreme social movements; no one who knows the country can visualize its people in the forefront of the forces which are fighting modern organization and civilization. The protagonists of the Third International have succeeded in subjugating the Russian people solely because of their extreme war-weariness and their dissatisfaction over internal conditions. All the efforts of the Communist Party to implant Communism in Russia have been, and still are, unsuccessful. For this reason, all the efforts of the Bolsheviks to "Communize" the Army, which consists of the very life-elements of the people, are doomed to failure. Held as it is in rigid Party clutches, the Army can only display its true nature sporadically. But this silence does not signify that the army can be mobilized for the purpose of imposing on others ideas which are alien to its own mind and instinct. Even in the commanding staff, which is so carefully sifted, there are many officers with an outer veneer of faithfulness to the present despotic power, but who cannot resist occasional gusts of passionate love for Russia, of craving to serve her with all their soul and being. If one reads carefully the letter of a Red officer which was published outside of Russia in the periodical Bor'ba za Rossiu, under the title "From Over There," it is obvious that the presence of such officers in the Red Army is bound to communicate to the younger generation of soldiers the principles of a vigorous national consciousness. Their forced silence meantime is what the French call "le silence qui parle."

We may conclude, then, that aggressive military action by Russia at the instigation of the Third International is unthinkable. A war for such purposes would find no echo in the hearts of the Russian people, nor, in consequence, in the Red Army. The Bolsheviks realize their false position in Russia; they know that not only an aggressive war, but an ordinary mobilization, would very likely sound the death knell of their régime.

Hence it is out of the question that the Bolshevik Government, which is intrinsically an organ of the Comintern, will in furtherance of its external aggressive policy go beyond empty intimidation and efforts to incite internal quarrels in the countries which it still considers as hopeful centres for starting a world conflagration. After the definitive disappearance of all prospects for a world revolution, the force which at present holds sway in Moscow will have only two possible choices -- to collapse and vanish to its former underground hiding places, after "slamming the door behind it," to use Trotsky's expression -- or else to content itself with the role of an ordinary political party submitting to the laws of a constitutional State.

But in attempting to estimate the proper value of the Red Army, we must not lose sight of another set of circumstances in which its strength would be entirely different. I have mentioned already the awakening in the Russian people of vigorous national aspirations, which seem destined to grow quite independently of the character of the central government. This development has to be taken into careful account. Any attempt to violate Russia's present boundaries or limit its independence might well rouse feelings of national indignation and provoke a tremendous revulsion. What repercussions this might have on the position of the present régime is a question by itself. Certain it is, however, that the Red Army would increase its strength tenfold. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the Red Army would in these circumstances throw off the net which has been woven across its surface and that it would stand up for the defense of the territory of the Fatherland as a true Russian National Army.

^[i] On January 1, 1926, the Communist Party consisted of 620,000 members and 437,000 considered as eligible candidates.

^[ii] We may recall here that in Soviet Russia the Communist Party is the only authorized party. Persons who are not members of the Party or listed as candidates for admission to the Party or who do not belong to the Komsomol (Communist youths) are considered as partyless.

^[iii] According to the other sources, this figure appears greatly exaggerated.