heroes, prominent revolutionary activists, reports on and descriptions of party congresses, and copies of speeches of commissioners. Reports on party congresses or speeches were published in millions of copies after two or three days, both in the cheapest, popular form, and in fancy editions, especially when in European languages. [32] But it was very difficult to buy a primer or coursebook.
One more thing: oddly enough, with the opening of newly organised branches of Moscow or Kiev bookshops, there was a great demand for Russian coursebooks, Russian “teach-yourself” books, and Polish–Russian dictionaries, whereas the bookshops offered Russian–Polish dictionaries and Polish coursebooks, that is, products for those who knew Russian and wanted to study Polish, even though it was exactly the other way round. That faulty organisation characterised not only the book trade and not only at the beginning, because the same thing happened later.
As for the shortage of copybooks, until the end of the Bolsheviks’ stay in Lvov, that is even during the period of normalisation in Lvov, [33] when Lvov became one of the “supply centres” (centrum snabzhenia) and when there was plenty of everything, one still could not buy either a copybook or stationery in a Soviet shop. As for schoolchildren, stands selling school stationery, similar to the ones in Soviet schools, were placed in schools only after the spring (Easter) break, but they did not sell directly to students. Instead, class leaders bought copybooks for their class and teachers could also buy for themselves, and only after the demand had been met, if some stationery was left, it was sold to individual students. During the next school year of 1940/1941, copybooks and writing implements were sold in the same way, and that was also the case at institutes of higher education.
[34] Teacher conferences. As for the teaching technique, teachers were called to conferences from the beginning to discuss new Soviet pedagogy. The first such conferences on a wider scale were held during the winter break of 1939/1940. It should be noted here that in the USSR teacher conferences had always been held during winter and spring breaks. The entire break period was a time of intensive work for teachers, as the Bolsheviks claimed that breaks were for students and not for teachers. Such conferences were held in individual areas, that is districts, which meant that teachers from schools in a given district organised one conference. The agenda of such conferences consisted of discussions of the overall results of the current activity and
LVO V AN D SOUTH EASTERN REGIONS [ 42] 583
