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To all Russian teachers and all figures of public education

The time has come to liquidate the strife that has arisen between the proletariat and the working strata of the people led by it, on the one hand, and the intelligentsia, on the other.

That in broad state building, in the rapid creation of a new socialist order, the dictator class needs the support of the people of knowledge to the highest degree—of this no one doubted for a moment.

It is rather surprising that despite the complete refusal of the intelligentsia to support the Workers' and Peasants' Government for many months, it was still able to advance the cause of re-creating the entire life of a vast backward country and to state conspicuous successes in a number of areas and in the general political situation.

When taking into account all the resources that Russia has at its disposal for its salvation and socialist renewal, the entire sum of knowledge and technical skills must also be taken into account, and the entire army of the intelligentsia must also be mobilized. There is no dispute that this must be done, that it is never too early to do this, if the Soviet Government, and in particular the Commissariat of Enlightenment, has not yet used the strength of the Russian intelligentsia to the fullest extent and has not established good neighborly relations with it, then the blame for this is by no means does not fall on them.

The destruction of the foundations of bourgeois-capitalist society was perceived by the top layer of the most qualified intelligentsia as the collapse and death of the entire European culture. A peculiar and furiously unexpected passive rebuff was organized against the People's Revolution, which seemed so unsympathetic to the intelligentsia.

And, of course, the proletariat, for its part, took into account the active opposition to its triumph on the part of the intellectual elite, the confusion of the rest of the masses, the almost complete absence of the intelligentsia in the advanced ranks of the fighters for the decisive revolution, and was imbued with a deep distrust of the entire intelligentsia. With the strengthening of the Workers' and Peasants' power, the crisis weakened. The intelligentsia was forced to capitulate.

More need than considerations of an ideal and political nature drew the intelligentsia into the circle of Soviet work.

The proletariat tried to use the strength of the people who came to its service, but its confidence did not increase in the least in relation to them.

The new socialist construction required an enormous exertion of strength, a clear consciousness of the ultimate ideal, and a clear understanding of the paths leading to its achievement. Of course, no one could demand from the intelligentsia that they suddenly become imbued with a communist mood, believe in communist truths and, with apostolic zeal, set about devoted work alongside the party to create a communist system. But deep, genuine cooperation was possible only if the intelligentsia showed at least objectivity in this respect. She would have been able to appreciate the gigantic cultural work planned by the proletariat. She would be imbued with a desire for mutual understanding with the communists and would outline those forms of work in which her goals coincide with ours, and where she can work, devoting herself entirely to the deep reforms of the legacy that everyone equally hates, the past.

It always seemed to us that teaching in general and, first of all, people of a genuine pedagogical vocation and the grass-roots folk teaching, more or less in their entirety, are more or less capable of finding a wide zone of cultural and labor contact with the proletarian power in the person of the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment and its local departments.

No matter how rudely the teaching staff repelled the hand that the People’s Commissar for Enlightenment extended to them in the first days after the revolution, no matter how hard our relations developed, which forced us to close the All-Russian Teachers’ Union completely, the hope of finding truly common, really friendly forms never left us. working with the best and most of the teaching staff.

Favorable conditions are now being created for the liquidation of a difficult period in the history of the intelligentsia, the period of its struggle against the self-determination of the working masses, the transition of a significant part of it to the position of the proletariat, or at least to a policy of deep agreement with it on the basis of one or another, is becoming more and more noticeable. special tasks of socialist construction.

The consolidation of the power of the proletariat, the development of the revolution on a world scale, the emergence of certain already established forms of the socialist way of life - all this was a powerful stimulus for the intelligentsia to embark on the path of sincere reconciliation with Soviet Russia.

Now it is up to her, to Soviet Russia, to make this transition easier for the intelligentsia, to create the most favorable conditions for work, to rally the forces of the intelligentsia and bind it in fraternal ties with the new young intelligentsia rising from the ranks of the proletariat itself.

The intelligentsia must clearly realize that it will have to be re-educated in many respects, just as the whole country is being re-educated, in pain, but with bright faith, being transformed for a new existence.

The basis for such a re-education is, in particular for the teaching staff, that part of the intelligentsia, which is infinitely important for the people, the elevated socialist form of its work in labor schools, in agricultural communes, in socialist factories and factories and in creating the basic foundations of a new working society in the closest cooperation with the industrial and rural proletariat.

Dispersed teachers will not do this. He needs organization. But not only can it not be a renewed organization of a counter-revolutionary type, like the All-Russian Teachers' Union, which died never to be resurrected, it cannot be a simple professional organization either. Favorable conditions must be created for the collective and collectivistic creativity of teachers. We do not want to create a corporation that wakes up when it is necessary to protect the interests of the stomach and occasionally rants about raising the ethical and scientific level of teaching. We want to unite all the workers of education into an active collective, full of consciousness of the solemnity of the present moment and the greatness of their calling, which would carry out, jointly with the organs of the proletarian power and under its leadership, the work of revolutionary, deeply popular, labor, truly socialist education and would consciously strive to promote the construction a just social system, to which a true teacher cannot but strive - the creator of a harmonious person and harmonious humanity.

To this end, the Commissariat of Public Education and the Initiative Conference of Communist Leaders in Education and Socialist Culture decided to take the lead in the systematic professional organization of all workers in education and culture in Russia.

This union should be broad. In principle, any worker of education and culture can enter it. The moral condition for such an entry is, of course, the readiness to work on that principled school and general cultural platform, which was put forward by the Soviet Power.

We are interested in opening the doors to our new union for teaching as widely as possible. But we cannot, of course, allow obviously hostile elements, or a disguised enemy, or inert people unfit for pedagogical activity, to enter through these doors.

We know that we cannot immediately, with all the desire of both ours and teachers, give revolutionary Russia an army of educators and educators that would be at the height of the requirements of our exceptional time, but we can and must give an army that, teaching and enlightening, feverishly and persistently learns and enlightens herself. If that is not the army of the grandfather's ideal fulfillment, then it must be an army of good will and constant self-improvement.

The All-Russian Conference of Communists on the Organization of Education Workers defined the aims and tasks of this union as follows:

I) The All-Russian Union of Educational and Socialist Cultural Workers unites all educationalists participating in the cause of socialist construction and acts hand in hand with the proletariat in its struggle for the complete triumph of the socialist revolution and international communism.

II) His immediate task within the R.S.F.S.R. are:

jointly with the organized proletariat and its organs of power, work on socialist construction in the field of popular culture and education, on the basis of combating the remnants of the bourgeois system and strengthening the principles of collectivism;

raising the level of political awareness, education and labor productivity of education workers;

creation of the most favorable technical, cultural, legal and economic conditions for their work;

participation and creation of new communist conditions for the life and development of the younger generation;

assistance to the People's Commissariat for Education and its departments in the development and implementation of programs and plans for public education;

close cooperation with other communist cultural and educational organizations, Proletkult, the Union of Communist Workers' Youth, etc.;

assistance to the councils of public education in creating close cooperation between the working population and the bodies of the People's Commissariat for Education in order to raise culture and spread education;

rallying into organized groups of all figures in the field of education based on the platform of the Union.

In the most urgent future, the initiative cells, which will be created everywhere by the People's Commissariat for Education and the All-Russian Conference of Communist Education Workers, will begin the work of building an alliance of workers in education and socialist culture in accordance with a specific statute.

We believe and know that this union will have a bright, laboring future and that its very creation will mark a new stage in the rallying and organization of all the forces of working Russia without exception at a moment in her life when, despite the heaviness bending her shoulders , it fulfills an unprecedented mission in history as the vanguard of mankind on its military and labor path to the communist ideal.

People's Commissar for Education A. Lunacharsky.

Presidium of the All-Russian Conference of Communists on the organization of the All-Russian Union of Educational Workers and Socialist Culture.