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Lenin and the Politics of Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Frederic Lilge
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Extract

Men whom Hegel defines as world-historical figures because they shape the lives of generations by establishing systems of rule, law, or belief are sometimes called educators of their times. In such a general and figurative use of the term, the title educator is of course honorific and not bestowed for achievements specifically educational. This has happened to Lenin. When a historian attributes to him “an enormous pedagogical success,” he really means that Lenin managed to impose upon his party a style of rule in which expedient action is supported by ideological justification. The educator in this case is a master political strategist and might seem to be a more suitable subject of inquiry for the political scientist than for the historian of education. The metaphor, however, conceals a part of reality. It is true that Lenin wrote no treatise on education.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 230 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1968

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References

1 Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks (New York, 1965), p. 455.

2 Lenin's five articles on Tolstoi, written between 1908 and 1911, are reprinted in Lev Tolstoi kak zerkalo russkoi revoliutsii (Moscow, 1965).

3 N. K. Krupskaia, Pedagogicheskie sochineniia (Moscow, 1958), II, 143.

4 N. K. Krupskaia, Vospominaniia o Lenine (Moscow, 1931), p. 5.

5 V. I. Lenin, “O smeshenii politiki s pedagogikoi,” in O vospitanii i obrazovanii (Moscow, 1963), p. 165.

6 “O nashei revoliutsii,” in O vospitanii i obrazovanii, p. 569.

7 Viktor Nikolaevich Shul'gin (1897- ) was since 1922 director of the Institute of School Methods in Moscow, renamed in 1930 the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Pedagogy. His closest collaborator was M. V. Krupenina. For an excellent summary of Shul'gin's ideas and their significance, see Oscar Anweiler, Geschichte der Schule und Padagogik in Russland vom Ende des Zarenreiches bis zum Beginn der Stalin-Ara (Berlin, 1964), pp. 414-28.

8 These indictments are found in his book O vospitanii kommunisticheskoi morali (Moscow, 1928). Krupenina made similar charges in some of her writings.

9 Shul'gin, V. N. and Krupenina, M. V., V bor'be za marksistkuiu pedagogiku (Moscow, 1929), p. 18.Google Scholar

10 O vospitanii i obrazovanii, p. 301.

11 Lunacharskii, A. V., O narodnom obrazovanii (Moscow, 1958), p. 197 Google Scholar. According to Kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo (Leningrad, 1927), Diagram 17, the social composition of the nineyear school in 1927 was: workers’ children 28.2 percent, peasants’ children 14 percent, others 57.8 percent

12 Historical note in O vospitanii i obrazovanii, p. 646.

13 Capital (New York, Modern Library), p. 534.

14 The German term in Das Kapital is technologischer Unterricht, and a very similar equivalent was apparently used in an analogous passage in Instructions to the Delegates of the Provisional Central Council, which Marx wrote in English for the Geneva congress of the International in September 1866. The original English publication of the Instructions in The International Courier in 1867 is now rare and was not available to me. The Russian translation of the term in the relevant passage is teknicheskoe obuchenie ( Marks, K. and Engel's, F., Sochineniia, XVI [Moscow, 1960], 198 Google Scholar), whereas the German translation is polytechnische Ausbildung ( Marx, K. and Engels, F., Werke, XVI [Berlin, 1962], 195 Google Scholar). Hence the uncertainty.

15 Full text in O vospitanii i obrazovanii, pp. 482-84.

16 One whom Lenin read and admired was P. P. Blonskii. His book, Trudovaia shkola, appeared in 1919.

17 O vospitanii i obrazovanii, p. 550.

18 Ibid., pp. 544-45.

19 Ibid., p. 508

20 M. N. Pokrovskii, Marksizm v programmakh shkoly I i II stupenii (Moscow, 1924), p. 16. For a brief summary of Pokrovskii's educational achievements, see Pedagogicheskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1966), III, 430-31.

21 “Zadachi soiuzov molodezhi,” in O vospitanii i obrazovanii, pp. 434

22 Lenin, V. I., O kul'ture i iskusstve (Moscow, 1956), p. 496.Google Scholar

23 For biographical and historical information I have drawn on the well documented study by Grille, Dietrich, Lenins Rivale: Bogdanov und seine Philosophic (Cologne, 1966)Google Scholar. See also the short account by Utechin, S. V., “Philosophy and Society: Alexander Bogdanov, “ in Revisionism, ed. Labedz, Leopold (New York, 1962), pp. 117–25.Google Scholar

24 O kul'ture 1 iskusstve, p. 299.

25 Izvestiia, Oct. 8, 1920.

26 O kul'ture i iskusstve, p. 547.

27 Bogdanov, A. A., O proletarskoi kul'ture: Stat'i, 1904-1924 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1924). P. 36.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., p. 249.

29 Ibid., pp. 231-38.

30 Ibid., p. 96.

31 Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 206.

32 Bobrovnikov, N., Proletariat i kul'tura (Moscow and Leningrad, 1929), pp. 22–23 Google Scholar. The book is a polemic, from the Leninist point of view, against Bogdanov, Pletnev, and the proletarian-culture movement.

33 Bogdanov, p. 245.

34 For this aspect see Brown, Edward J., The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928-1932 (New York, 1953).Google Scholar

35 Boldyrev, N. I., ed., Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva 0 narodnom obrazovanii, 1917-1947 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1947), p. 11.Google Scholar

36 Both had a certain appreciation for Nietzsche. It is interesting to note that the 1958 edition of Lunacharskii's papers and speeches on education omits the reference to Nietzsche that can be found in the earlier edition, Problemy narodnogo obrazovanii (Moscow, 1923), p. 60. There are numerous other omissions as well.

37 Lenin's tastes in art and literature are described by Fischer, Louis, The Life of Lenin (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, Chap. 34.

38 O vospitanii i obrazovanii, p. 280.

39 Bogdanov, pp. 328-32.

40 O vospitanii i obrazovanii, pp. 404, 406, 433, 513.

41 Soviet educational historians, moreover, see to it that he should also be forgotten. Neither the two-volume Pedagogicheskii slovar (Moscow, i960) nor Pedagogicheskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1964-66), of which three volumes have thus far been published, carries an entry for “Bogdanov,” “Proletkul't,” or “proletarskie universitety.“

42 See especially “The Theory of Political Propaganda,” American Political Science Review, XXI (1927), and the introduction to Propaganda and Promotional Activities (Minneapolis, 1935).

43 Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (New York, 1965), p. 109.

44 John Dewey, Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World, Mexico, China, Turkey (New York, 1929), pp. 81-82.

45 O vospitanii i obrazovanii, pp. 337, 349.

46 Boldyrev, ed., p. 7.

47 O vospitanii i obrazovanii, p. 531.

48 O narodnom obrazovanii, p. 235.