Political Education Rooms

(kabinety politicheskogo prosveshcheniia), facilities established in 1956 on the basis of reorganized party libraries attached to city committees, raion committees, and major primary party organizations of the CPSU.

The purpose of political education rooms is to provide theoretical and methodological support to propagandists, lecturers, and leaders of agitation groups and to individual Communists and nonparty people studying Marxist-Leninist theory. Seminars, lectures, conferences on theory and methodology, and assemblies for exchanging experiences are organized and evening question-and-answer sessions are held in the political education rooms; trips to advanced economic enterprises and to schools for propaganda skills are arranged. For those studying Marxist-Leninist theory independently, lectures or lecture series are arranged, as well as tutorials and theoretical conferences and discussions. The libraries in the political education rooms include works on society and politics, reference works, text books, visual aids, newspapers, and party magazines. Many of these rooms have slide or filmstrip projectors, phonographs with appropriate records, and similar materials. As of Jan. 1, 1973, there were some 6, 400 political education study facilities, including182 houses for political education (doma politicheskogo prosveshcheniia).