The most powerful method of State communist propaganda is the State publishing activity. The nationalisation of all the reserves of paper and of all the printing establishments, makes it possible for the proletarian State, despite the great scarcity of paper, to publish by the million any literature which is peculiarly important for the masses at a given moment. Everything issued from the State presses is made available to the generality of the people by publication at a very low price, and by degrees it is becoming possible to issue books, pamphlets, newspapers, and posters, gratuitously. The State propaganda of communism becomes in the long run a means for the eradication of the last traces of bourgeois propaganda dating from the old regime; and it is a powerful instrument for the creation of a new ideology, of new modes of thought, of a new outlook on the world.
88. Popular Education under Tsarism and under the Soviet Power.
State expenditure upon popular education in Russia is set forth in the following table.
We see that the transference of power to the proletariat was immediately followed by nearly a tenfold increase in the expenditure upon popular education.