The phalanx of school-teachers is one of the most essential units of the great army of working people in our country who are building a new life on the basis of socialism. The path along which the working class is marching to socialism can lead to victory only if the vast masses of the toiling peasantry follow this path and march in step with the working class, only if the working class exercises unrelaxing leadership of the toiling masses. The village school-teacher must realise that if there is no such leadership there can be no proletarian dictatorship, and if there is no such dictatorship, our country cannot be free and independent. To become one of the links that connect the peasant masses with the working class—such is the chief task of the village school-teacher if he really wants to serve the cause of his people, to serve the cause of its freedom and
independence.

J. Stalin

January 6, 1925

Uchitelskaya Gazeta, No. 2

January 10, 1925