VI Lenin on

Speech On

Red Officers’ Day

November 24, 1918 [1] (Thunderous applause, singing of the “Internationale".)

Greetings on behalf of the People’s Commissars. Whenever 1
think about the tasks of our army and Red officers, I recall
something that happened in,a train on Finnish Railways not so
long ago.

I noticed that the passengers were smiling at something an old
Finnish woman was saying, so I asked someone to translate her
words. She was comparing the revolutiouary soldiers to the old
soldiers and saying that the former protected the poor whereas
the latter used to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie and
the landowners. “ Formerly the poor man had to pay heavily
for every stick of wood he took without permission,” the
old woman said. “ But when you meet a soldier in the woods
nowadays he’ll even give you a hand with your bundle of
sticks. You don’t have to fear the man with the gun any
more,” she said.

l think it would be hard to imagine any better tribute to the
Red Army than that.

Most of the old officers were the spoiled and depraved darling
sons of capitalists, who had nothing in common with the private
soldier. So in building our new army now, we must draw our
officers solely from among the people. Only Red officers will have
any respect among the soldiers and be able to strengthen socialism
in our army. Such an army will be invincible.

Endnotes

[1] Red Officers’ Day was appointed for the purpose of popularising the cause of training officers for the Red Army. On November 24, 1918, at 2. p. m., military cadets paraded on Red Square, from where they marched to Sovetskaya Square to be greeted by Lenin	from the balcony of the Moscow Soviet building.