⧠63. Universal military training of the workers

One of the primary aims of the system of military training for the workers which the Russian Soviet Republic has set out to realize, must be to reduce barrack life to a minimum. As far as possible, the workers and peasants must not be withdrawn from the work of production while they are being trained for military service. This will greatly diminish expenditure upon the army and will obviate the slackening down and disorganization of production. Workers and peasants who are trained to arms in their spare time, fit themselves to be soldiers of the revolution without ceasing to be producers of value.

The second great need in connexion with the universal military training of the workers is to create in every town, and in every rural district, proletarian and peasant reserves able to take the field at a moment's notice on the approach of the enemy. The experience of the civil war in Russia has shown how important such reserves are for the success of the socialist campaign. It suffices to remember how the regiments of the workers' reserves successfully defended Petrograd from the White Guards; or to think of the workers of the Ural region and the Donetz basin; or of the workers and peasants in the town and province of Orenburg, in the town of Uralsk, etc.