During the Civil War in Russia, many military units had their own print bodies. The famous 1st Horse Army was no exception-the Budyonovites published the newspaper Red Cavalryman. On the pages of the publication, reports from the fronts, news from abroad, obituary, the work of the Red Army and other materials were published. There were special thematic sections – “corner of political literacy”, “corner of illiterate” and “thoughts of fighters”. It was in the latter that the letters of the Konarmans were published. We have prepared a selection of such materials for August 1920:
“Festive women should not be”
“Among the Red Guards, who are always in wagons, for example, in armor departments, you can see many women who do not do anything completely useful. Many live under the name “employees”. But besides employees engaged in their business, there are often women who are completely idle and not having a job. They do not bring any benefits, and many distract from the case. This, of course, greatly affects the combat effectiveness of people. Among such dietary women, there are many infected sexually transmitted diseases, which then infect many Red Army men. This is already a double crime. On the one hand, the sick leaves his own comrade to the position of doubleting efforts to combat an even strong enemy. On the other hand, in the infirmary, he distracts the medical staff from the wounded fighters, occupying him with his dirty disease. Away from the trains of all unnecessary women “
Red Army gunner of armored train No. 13, Shchekoltsov (Red Cavalryman, August 12, 1920)
“Sing Revolutionary Songs”
“Comrades of the Red Army, we are often noticed, especially in the 1st Horse Army, that, passing through the villages and cities, the fighters play the song of old-regime and, even, obscene. Comrades, ashamed of the defenders of the revolution, such songs to sing, you need to learn revolutionary songs. Freedom is not in that to sing, screaming that it hit. If you go through a place or a city, you need to sing a revolutionary song. And then the heart of the proletariat, sensing the words calling for the fight against the bourgeoisie, will vowe to give himself up to the work of the revolution. “
Red Army soldier of the machine gun team of the 23rd Kavfill, A. Ermolaev (Red Cavalryman, August 8, 1920)
“About Esperanto”
“Comrades-workers of cultural education. Some of you probably heard about the auxiliary language Esperanto. Do you know what it is? This, comrades, is such an international language, created artificially in order to facilitate international relations. Take our Russian worker. In former times, from morning till night he was busy mining a piece of bread. He had no time to be interested in what was being done somewhere abroad, the same workers oppressed by capital. But now, he was freed. Now the government not only does not interfere with the enlightenment, but rather, in every possible way goes to him in this. When we defeat all our enemies, and a peaceful life will boil inside us, the desire for international proletarian unity will be felt especially strongly, as well as the desire to get acquainted with all the interesting sides of the foreign life. But what to do with a person who is notorious of languages? Difficult. Here Esperanto goes to the rescue. With the help of it, you can easily and freely correspond with workers around the world. In our army, there are probably many people interested in this matter. Let them respond! “
Red Army soldier Aerflot S.Sh. (Red Cavalryman, August 26, 1920)
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
