Talk:Schools as Tools

bour·geoi·sie noun: bourgeoisie; plural noun: bourgeoisies

the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes. (in Marxist contexts) the capitalist class who own most of society's wealth and means of production.

"As such means we advocate:

1. The collective ownership of all means of

transportation and communication and all other public utilities as well as of all industries controlled by monopolies, trusts, and combines. No part of the revenue therefrom to be used on the reduction of taxes of the capitalist class, but the entire revenue to be applied first, to the increase of wages and the shortening of the hours of labor by the employees and then to the improvement of the service and diminishing the rates to the consumers.

2. The progressive reduction of the hours of labor in

proportion to the increasing facilities of production, to decrease the share of the capitalist class and to increase the share of the workers in the product of their labor.

3. State or national insurance of working people in case

of accidents, lack of employment, sickness, and want in old age, the revenue therefor to be derived from the government.

4. The inauguration of a system of public industries for

the employment of the unemployed, the public credit to be utilized for that purpose, in order that the workers may receive the product of their toil.

5. The education of all children up to the age of 18

years, and state and municipal aid for books, clothing, and food.

6. Equal civil and political rights for men and women.

7. The initiative and referendum, proportional

representation, and the right of recall of representatives by their constituents.

The Socialist Party:

Indianapolis Convention Effects Union of All Parties Represented in Response to Call of the Social Democratic Party: State Autonomy Guaranteed: Immediate Demands Adopted After Prolonged Debate — Headquarters Located in St. Louis — The New Constitution. Unsigned report published in the Social Democratic Herald [Milwaukee], v. 4, no. 7, whole no. “159” (Aug. 17, 1901), pp. 2-3. †

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§ 79. Preparation for school life

"In bourgeois society, the child is regarded as the property of its parents - if not wholly, at least to a major degree. When parents say, 'My daughter', 'My son', the words do not simply imply the existence of a parental relationship, they also give expression to the parents' view that they have a right to educate their own children. From the socialist outlook, no such right exists. The individual human being does not belong to himself, but to society, to the human race. The individual can only live and thrive owing to the existence of society. The child, therefore, belongs to the society in which it lives, and thanks to which it came into being - and this society is something wider than the 'society' of its own parents. To society, likewise, belongs the primary and basic right of educating children. From this point of view, the parents' claim to bring up their own children and thereby to impress upon the children's psychology their own limitations, must not merely be rejected, but must be absolutely laughed out of court. Society may entrust the education of children to the parents; but it may refuse to do anything of the kind; and there is all the more reason why society should refuse to entrust education to the parents, seeing that the faculty of educating children is far more rarely encountered than the faculty of begetting them. Of one hundred mothers, we shall perhaps find one or two who are competent educators. The future belongs to social education. Social education will make it possible for socialist society to train the coming generation most successfully, at lowest cost, and with the least expenditure of energy."

"The social education of children, therefore, must be realized for other reasons besides those of pedagogy. It has enormous economic advantages. Hundreds of thousands, millions of mothers will thereby be freed for productive work and for selfculture. They will be freed from the soul-destroying routine of housework, and from the endless round of petty duties which are involved in the education of children in their own homes."

"That is why the Soviet Power is striving to create a number of institutions for the improvement of social education, which are intended by degrees to universalize it. To this class of institutions belong the kindergartens, to which manual workers, clerks, etc., can send their children, thus entrusting them to experts who will prepare the children for school life. To this category, too, belong the homes or residential kindergartens. There are also children's colonies, where the children either live permanently, or for a considerable period, away from their parents. There are in addition the crèches, institutions for the reception of children under four years of age; in these the little ones are cared for while their parents are at work." N.I. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky: The ABC of Communism, Chapter 10: Communism and Education

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"But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social."

"And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class."

"The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour."

"But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus."

"The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women."

"He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production." Manifesto of the Communist Party, Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists

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"Let us quote from a yet remoter source. On March 4th, 1917, in All Souls’ Church, Winnipeg, the Rev. Horace Westwood, D.D., preached a truly remarkable sermon on ‘Our Educational Forces and the Problems of War and Peace.’ We cannot even summarise his lengthy address, and will give no more than the text upon which he preaches and, the parable with which he concludes. The text is from Aristotle, and runs: “The best laws are of no avail unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit of the polity.” Here is the parable: “One day a prophet of the Most High God went into the presence of one of His angels and said unto him: ‘O thou who art a servant of the Most High, I am weary with the troubles of earth and discouraged by the hopeless task of seeking to bring goodwill, peace, and justice among men. Will these things ever be or is it all a hopeless dream? Give unto me a vision so that I may return to earth and prophesy with certainty what shall come to pass among men.’ The angel pondered long and then said to him: ‘Return to-morrow at this hour and thy request shall be granted.’ As the prophet lay awake that night on his couch he wondered greatly what the vision would be. Then passed before his imagination the hosts of humanity glorious and free. He beheld fair cities in which there was nothing vile. He looked upon smiling villages untouched by the blight of poverty and upon nations freed from the curse of war. And he said to himself: ‘Surely this will be the vision that the angel of the Lord Will give.’ And then he slept. Next day at the appointed hour he went once more into the presence of the angel. But he was given no glorious vision. Instead, the angel led him a unto a child and said: ‘Here O prophet is the answer of the Most High God. For in the child there lies the solution of the riddle of destiny.’”"

"It is in the realist and not in the religious spirit that we quote this parable. We idealise children just as little as we are inclined to idealise their elders. But we certainly lean to the view that there is more to be hoped from the average child than from the average adult; we think that there is good ground for believing that the larger the number of those who receive a genuinely socialist education, the speedier will be the coming of the kingdom of man. The crux of socialism, and the means of its realisation, have ever seemed to us to be intimately interconnected with this question of socialist education. The active participants in the social revolution are likely to be a minority, which may be small but must not be infinitesimal. That minority must be able to count upon the active support, as soon as success looms on the horizon, of the great masses of the workers; it must not be fettered by the inertia of those whose whole education and vital experience have served to convince them that the established order is unchangeable if not positively sacrosanct. But the inevitable tendency of state systems of education – we speak, of course, of the capitalist state, without prejudice to the question whether under socialism the state as we know it will “die out” – is to turn the average proletarian into an average Henry Dubb to whom the employer is (as our German comrades phrase it) the “bread-giver.” Capitalist state education makes of the workers’ children the “ragged trousered philanthropists” of Robert Tressall’s fascinating study; people who when grow up thankfully accept what is as “good enough for the likes of us” rather than self-respecting human beings fully aware that the war against the drones must be waged to the bitter end until class rule is overthrown. It is capitalist state education which has made even avowed socialists willing to serve on governmental committees appointed “to make and consider suggestions for securing a permanent improvement in the relations between employers and workmen”!"

"Enheartening as has been the bolshevist revolution in Russia, we must not too readily apply its lessons to countries where capitalism is more strongly enthroned, and where state education has for a couple of generations been carried on under capitalist auspices." Eden and Cedar Paul 1918 Independent Working Class Education – Thoughts and Suggestions “He who has the school has the future”

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"The constitution of the Russian democratic republic must ensure: ... 8) The right of the population to receive instruction in their native tongue in schools to be established for the purpose at the expense of the state and local organs of self-government; the right of every citizen to use his native language at meetings; the native language to be used on a level with the official language in all local public and state institutions; the obligatory official language to be abolished. 14) Free and compulsory general and vocational education for all children of both sexes up to the age of sixteen; poor children to be provided with food, clothing, and school supplies at the expense of the state." "15) All students to be provided with food, clothing, and school supplies at the cost of the state. " Vladimir Lenin's From the Pamphlet materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme

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Question 17: What will be your first measure once you have established democracy?

Answer: Guaranteeing the subsistence of the proletariat.

Question 18: How will you do this?

Answer. I. By limiting private property in such a way that it gradually prepares the way for its transformation into social property, e. g., by progressive taxation, limitation of the right of inheritance in favour of the state, etc., etc.

II. By employing workers in national workshops and factories and on national estates.

III. By educating all children at the expense of the state.

Works of Frederick Engels 1847 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith

Source: Birth of the Communist Manifesto, International Publishers, 1971; Written: by Engels, June 9 1847; First published: in Gründungsdokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten, Hamburg, 1969.

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