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in Prussia twenty-five years ago, when there was a vigorous campaign against Socialism. Everybody breaks the law almost daily, and no one knows which among his acquaintances is a spy of the Extraordinary Commission. Even in the prisons, among prisoners, there are spies, who are allowed certain privileges but not their liberty.
Newspapers are not taken in, except by very few people, but they are stuck up in public places, where passers-by occasionally glance at them.[1] There is very little to read; owing to paper shortage, books are rare, and money to buy them is still rarer. One does not see people reading, as one does here in the Underground for example. There is practically
- ↑ The ninth Communist Congress (March-April, 1920) says on this subject: "In view of the fact that the first condition of the success of the Soviet Republic in all departments, including the economic, is chiefly systematic printed agitation, the Congress draws the attention of the Soviet Government to the deplorable state in which our paper and printing industries find themselves. The ever decreasing number of newspapers fail to reach not only the peasants but even the workers, in addition to which our poor technical means render the papers hardly readable. The Congress strongly appeals to the Supreme Council of Public Economy, to the corresponding Trade Unions and other interested institutions, to apply all efforts to raise the quantity, to introduce general system and order in the printing business, and so secure for the worker and peasant in Russia a supply of Socialist printed matter."
