At the Congress of Public Instruction held in Moscow in 1918, Comrades Lunacharski and Nadezhda Krupskaya delivered two important speeches, explaining, in general lines, the policy of the Soviets towards education. Lunacharski was the People’s Commissar for Education; Krupskaya was Deputy Minister for Education, 1929-39 and wife of V I Lenin.

LUNACHARSKI’S SPEECH

The Bolshevik revolution has given prominence to the question of education. The people made the revolution to conquer political power, economic independence, and the freedom of education. To conquer, even at one stroke, is not enough: one must organise.

The intellectuals, who gave their assistance to the Lvov and Kerensky régime, have refused it to the government of the workers and peasants. They have used sabotage against it. Nevertheless, we have been able to do much useful work, especially since February last. The old system of education has been completely abolished; the old educationists have been dismissed; the curriculum based on “Church and Latin” has been swept away. Co-education of both sexes has been introduced.

What will the “New School” be? It cannot, in any way, resemble that which the ruling class had organised for the “inferior” working people. In order to destroy this “class” education we have to adopt the principles of “one standard of education for all,” without special privileges for any. The people being the principal factor in the production of commodities, it follows, of necessity, that the “new school” must be one that prepares the student to work. The teachers also must be persons able to work. The motto of the new school must be: “To live is to work.” We therefore take “work” as the starting-point of our pedagogical system, as the chief subject of our teaching, aiming at the increase of technical knowledge. Our students must feel themselves part and parcel of the work of the community. The young girls and boys must prepare themselves to become big producers. Moreover, we must never lose sight of the fact that the chief aim of education is the knowledge of the various forms of human culture, which, in its turn, includes all forms of mental and manual activity. The artistic and physical education must be the fitting completion of the technical. There must be educational freedom and freedom in the school. We must preserve our ancient monuments, since these are to us the witnesses of the old Russian civilisation, but, at the same time, we hope to see the birth of an art completely in touch with the emotions of the modern world: of an art that will lead us to further conquests for liberty.

KRUPSKAYA’S SPEECH

Comrade Krupskaya began by observing that, since the Bolshevik revolution, there has arisen in the people an immense desire for education, but ignorance, the dreadful result of the old régime, cannot disappear, in a day. A vast number of persons, already engaged in production, cannot return to school; hence the pressing need of a post-scholastic education.

We must cover the country, she explains, with a multitude of elementary schools for adults, for the illiterate, and for the semi-illiterate. In Soviet Russia ignorance must disappear. We ask everybody’s assistance in this great work. Knowledge and science, just like property, must not be the privilege of the few, but accessible to all. It is the common duty of everybody to impart knowledge to others.

The essential thing to be remembered is that we must teach people how to make use of books. The student – let us call him the post-scholastic, the evening, or the artisan student – must know how to use the dictionary and he must always have it handy by him; likewise, books of reference, encyclopaedias, etc. We must not only give him a key to open the door, but we must tell him where that door leads to.

Under the old régime, the intellectuals amongst the workers and peasants were chiefly interested in abstract sciences, since they opened to them new horizons. Those, on the contrary, who aimed at bettering their position were interested solely in the practice of science. The effect of the revolution has been that practical science is of interest now, even to the most politically advanced of our workers. In order to organise production in an efficient manner, to put in the right direction the great peasant communities, good technical education is necessary. The workers and the peasants have learned that without scientific knowledge they will never be able to control the economic life of the nation. Therefore the whole character of professional education must be changed. Formerly it aimed at giving to the worker a purely mechanical proficiency; now it must give him a larger view of his trade, and of its importance and value to society. Education must also give him the theoretical knowledge of the various sciences that are linked with his daily work, the history of his trade, the history of “work,” and of production in the several forms of past society. It must tell him what part his special trade plays in the economic evolution of the world, and the best means of increasing the communal production. This knowledge was not needed when the worker was only a machine, producing for others; it is necessary now that he is working for himself and for the free community in which he lives.

After that there must be the “Popular University,” which will take the place of secondary education for the present adult worker. In that University there will be lectures, excursions, visits to museums, etc. The cinema, if properly used, can be of great assistance. The Commissary of Education has just opened a credit of six million roubles to assist and prepare educational films. There must be Museums of Social Economy, in order to spread knowledge on social and political questions.

We have called in specialists to assist the government in preparing “subject catalogues,” with short explanatory notes, for all the circulating libraries instituted by the Soviets, and there will be a central buying office to feed all provincial libraries. Art, too, must not be lost sight of in our post-scholastic education. The Commissary of Instruction has formed a musical and a theatrical section, and one also for decorative art; these will work jointly to assist the workers in their efforts towards mental improvement. The theatrical section will shortly put within the reach of all the plays of Romain Rolland.

We are also doing our utmost, continued Comrade Krupskaya, to open Peoples’ Halls, to take the place of the churches of the old régime. Above all, she said in conclusion, all these forms of technical, scientific, and artistic activity, to be truly popular in their character, must be moved by popular enthusiasm and carried out by the workers themselves, under their direct control. He only can be educated who works to educate himself.

NEW SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES

During 1918 the Soviet Government opened over 1,000 new elementary schools in the county of Moscow alone, and more would have been opened but for the difficulty of finding new teachers. During 1918 six new universities were established in Soviet Russia. During the last two hundred years of the old régime there existed only twelve universities in all Russia.

A census has been taken of all children of school age and the educational system reorganised. There will now be two scholastic periods: one of five years; another of four. The former is obligatory for everybody.