Leon Trotsky: Tasks of the Red Army Newspaper

[My own translation from the Russian text, reprinted in Sochineniya Vol. 21, Moscow-Leningrad 1927, p. 238 f., compared to the German translation. Corrections by English native speakers would be extremely welcome]

The first task of the Red Army newspaper is to get as close as possible to the Red Army mass. The newspaper must reflect the life of the Red units, their thoughts, their needs, their demands. This task can be accomplished only on the condition that in each unit there are correspondents and contributors of the newspaper, both communists and non-party people.

The newspaper's task, of course, is not to pit the Red Army soldier against everyone who is outside the Red Army. On the contrary, every Red Army soldier must be educated in the consciousness that his unit, like the entire Red Army, is a fighting organ of the working class as a whole, fighting for its complete liberation. The closer the newspaper gets to the masses, the better it will fulfill its educational task.

As long as landlords and capitalists are in power in other countries and support the former Russian landlords and capitalists, we need to have an army. And if so, then this army must be a good, trained, cohesive, disciplined, combat-ready army. The highest honour of every Red Army soldier must be to become a good soldier of a good military unit. It is to this goal that the newspaper should direct the thought and will of the workers and peasants who make up the Red Army.

Political consciousness needs to go hand in hand with correct, accurate and complete military training. Somehow, yes somehow, maybe yes probably – are the greatest enemies of any affairs, especially the military, which requires correctness, accuracy, good skill, diligence, and conscious discipline. The task of the newspaper is to develop and strengthen these qualities, to raise and deepen interest in all aspects of military affairs, for in the Soviet Republic military affairs serve the working class.

Our struggle has a world character. The toilers of all nations and races gathered for the third time in Moscow to jointly develop plans for the struggle against the world bourgeoisie. It is necessary that every Red Army soldier understands and feels that he is a member of an international worker's family. The Red Army newspaper must tirelessly cleanse the consciousness of the Red Army of national, racial and religious prejudices, of this grave legacy of centuries of servitude. In its struggle, the Red Army must divide the people of the whole world into two camps: the oppressors and the oppressed.

For the oppressed of all countries against their oppressors! - this is the banner of the newspaper which serves to educate the Red Army.

20 July, 1921