Discipline plays a big role in our army. But the basis of the Red Army, its driving force, is not discipline but solidarity. The Red Army would never have coped with its mighty enemies if the feeling and consciousness of revolutionary solidarity had not bound it together, from top to bottom. It is only on a foundation of solidarity that a strong revolutionary discipline, the necessary condition for victory, can be built.
Strengthening the feeling of Communist solidarity in the army means uniting it more closely, hardening it and making it invincible. This solidarity must extend far beyond the limits of the army itself. It must embrace the working masses as a whole, all Soviet Russia, so as then to spread to the entirety of working mankind.
When does our Red warrior feel most vividly and acutely the cordial atmosphere of revolutionary solidarity? When he is wounded, when he is sick, when he is disabled, whether temporarily or permanently. If, when he is in that condition, he feels half-abandoned and half-forgetten, his soul becomes filled with dark doubts. Where is that fraternity for which he shed his blood? From the field hospitals, the casualty clearing stations and the groups of convalescents these doubts then spread to the active units, weakening their internal bones and their fighting strength. Woe to that army whose sick and wounded are left neglected and without shelter!
This is why the work of the Committee for Aid to Sick and Wounded Red Army Men is of immense importance. This is not the philanthropy, not the charity of the property-owners, the well-to-do, the well-fed, towards those they have condemned to poverty. No, this is a manifestation of the unbroken bond between the working people, this is attentive and sympathetic care on the part of the worker and the peasant, and especially the woman worker and the peasant woman, for their brother who has been disabled.
The work of bringing aid to the sick and wounded Red Army men is truly revolutionary Communist work. The more extensively it is developed in the rear, the more confidently will the hearts of our fighters beat, and the more accurately will they strike down the enemies of working people’s Russia.
Last updated on: 27.12.2006