I shall have occasion to deal with education in another chapter. Here I only need say that the unions are very keen on adult education. Lenin has given a great impetus to this by his famous message, “ To get more we must produce more ; to produce more we must know more.” Ignorance is looked upon as a crime against the commonweal. Universities are springing up everywhere ; university extension lectures and classes are held in order to substitute knowledge and understanding for the deadly superstition and ignorance fostered and supported by the Czars and their handmaiden, the Church.
In order that I might see people at work, I asked Melnichansky to arrange visits which he very readily did for the next day. Going round one workshop we met men who had not seen our friend since the days before the revolution and I had the pleasure of hearing the story of the effect created by the revolution on socialists, anarchists and communists living abroad ; how all their dislike of each other’s methods seemed to be forgotten, and how one and all decided to get back to Russia at the earliest possible moment. It is not as well known as it should be, that thousands of workers in Russia to-day were, before the war, exiles who at the call of revolution gave up all they possessed in order to go home and assist the revolution. I met one group of such men
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