Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Army and People (1920).pdf/9

 This is why the present Red Army, with its present command, reflects all that makes our country rich or poor, all her qualities both of strength and of weakness. It is the reflection of all Russia, of our entire social order, of our entire economic and political structure.

And here it is first of all necessary to give a clear answer to the question, whether it is possible for the army to keep out of politics.

You know that there never was nor is there a more widely spread, and in my opinion more erroneous idea, than that the army stands or should stand outside of politics. Under the old regime Tsarist Russia and bourgeois Europe agreed that the Army must be non-political. I repeat that this is wrong; it is not actually so and cannot be so.

The bourgeois regime and the old regime generally, both assert that the schools too must keep out of politics; but we say they should not, and moreover that they never did.

The school is flesh of the flesh, blood of the blood, bone of the bone of the entire social order; it bears the stamp of it. Of the school it may be said, (with a slight adaptation of the saying): „Tell me what sort of school you have,