236 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
him with eloquent words. Once again he had the impression
of a spontaneous demonstration of ccYoung Russia" displaying
sympathy for the great bourgeois republic of France, that
friend of Communist Russia, as well as for himself personally
as a friend of peace. Much moved, he addressed the children
in the following significant words: "I have seen many fine
things in your great country, but nothing finer than this vast
hall full of children. I am deeply moved. I am fond of children,
and shall tell the children of France that the children of the
great .Soviet country share with their fathers the great work of
building up the Soviet Union. I am proud of the attention
shown to my friends and me, and I assure you that the con-
solidation of Franco-Russian relations which you have just
mentioned serves the cause of peace, and, still more, friendship
between the children of Russia and those of France."
M. Herriot forgot that, on Moscow's own admission, the
education of children, from Moscow to the remotest village
in Siberia, has but one guiding line, which is to inspire the
young with hate and contempt for the non-Communist
countries. He also forgot that Moscow does not intend for a
moment to alter its educational principles in order to please
France or any other country, and that the attitude of young
Communists to that quintessence of the bourgeois order, the
French Republic, had not been changed in the very least by
his visit. In education, as in other departments, Moscow's
openly declared attitude in dealing with the non-Communist
world remains one of uncompromising strife.
As for the youthful Pioneers, or "dear children," who greeted
M. Herriot at Rostov, the reader must know that they were those
bodies of regularly organized children whose function it was,
during the weeks before the harvest, to prevent the starving
peasants, even if they happened to be their own parents or
relatives, from filling their stores at night with the grain of
which they were in such bitter need. This "light cavalry" was
armed and literally let loose upon the starving peasantry. The