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Lunacharsky on Lenin

Epigraph of section III

Such a leader as Lenin cannot but be an enlightened one. He was a teacher of the masses on a world scale, and at the same time he was our common teacher. There is no communist, young or old, who would not proudly call himself his disciple. And besides the communists, hundreds of thousands and millions consider themselves to be among them. The cause of Lenin was a matter of enlightenment to the greatest extent; enlightenment was followed, practice flowed from it.

Our enlightenment, in all its fields, is part of Lenin's work, it must be imbued with Lenin's principles. Lenin did not forget to repeat the importance of the tasks of enlightenment, realizing that neither the sword nor the machine alone could ensure the building of socialism, that this required an enormous cultural upsurge of the masses. Therefore, we, enlightened people, consider him our patriot. And we say that he is the first and greatest in our detachment of builders of socialism.

(From the article: “Enlightening the masses is Lenin’s testament”)

[1927]
 

Lenin and questions of education

In 1924, Lunacharsky made a report on this topic at a meeting of workers in education, the arts, and scientists in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. For the first time the text was published in the journal "Communist" No. 1 (Organ of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Committee of the RCP (b), Nizhny Novgorod).

“The culture of the masses and the October Revolution are phenomena closely related to each other. To clarify them, it is best to start from two propositions of Lenin.

First, Lenin firmly stated that a peaceful cultural upsurge, taking place in lasting forms, is at present the most important task facing the Soviet government and society. Developing these thoughts, Lenin mentions that the liberals were fond of asserting that only the preliminary cultural development of the people gives them the right to take power into their own hands. To these liberal tales, Lenin counters with the idea that the masses of the people would never have received a truly truthful, truly broad education if they had not taken power into their own hands.

Lenin's second proposition, concerning revolution and culture, is no less significant. He says: no minority, no party can build communism. It will be created only by tens of millions of hands, after they start doing everything themselves. Thus, the condition for the planned construction of socialism in our country is precisely this "skill" of "tens of millions of hands." Public education is the force that can enable us to industrialize our country. It is the main road to transforming our country, not only legally, but in fact, into a true democracy, a democracy that is the threshold to communism.

("October Revolution and Public Education")

Vladimir Ilyich attached absolutely exceptional importance to education.

But in order for the Russian proletariat to be able to fulfill this tremendous role, it needs to realize its own interests, it needs to understand the relations that have linked it with tsarism, with capitalism, the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry. Approaching the revolutionary tasks in Russia, Lenin, on the one hand, as an objective economist, stated with accuracy that Russia was turning into a capitalist country, that the proletariat was steadily growing in it, that he was destined to play the role of a skirmisher in the Great Russian Revolution, the great bearer of which was next to him. the Russian peasantry will be with him. At the same time, he was aware that under these extremely favorable circumstances, when the nascent revolution could arise and pass under the leadership of the proletarian class, Russia "is distinguished by an extremely difficult, disadvantageous property - namely, extreme ignorance. From this it was not difficult to conclude that the special conditions spontaneously created in Russia the precondition for a great, perhaps never before unprecedented, revolution. There are 8-10 million proletariat in Russia, most of which is concentrated in large production enterprises, which alone can put forward the vanguard of the revolution - an active revolutionary party - and, on the other hand, find support in the multi-million peasantry, solve the problem of political liberation, complete the revolution and possibly move more towards socialism.

In order to fulfill purely political tasks, in order to create hegemony in the revolution, in order to be able to overthrow the autocracy and replace it with a truly revolutionary government, an enormous degree of enlightenment of the proletariat is necessary for all this. Vladimir Ilyich understood this very well, and his whole life was a steady work in this direction.

And Vladimir Ilyich understood the task of party building as an educational task.<…>

The entire first part of the history of our Party is the work of organizing an educational political socialist apparatus. The party was mainly engaged in agitation and education of the working masses. When the time came for the revolution, many of the teachers of the revolution had to replace the weapons of propaganda with firearms for combat with enemies and turn into commanders. This does not mean that the role of the teacher has receded into the background. In order to prove the correctness of the method taken (by the Communist Party - Ed.) , she steadily had to continue political education work among the proletariat. This was important because it needed to consolidate the bond between the proletariat and the peasantry, it was necessary to enlighten the countryside. The task is so enormous that Vladimir Ilyich emphasized it.

We have now won, the state has grown stronger, foreign powers are forced to recognize us. Does this mean that educational work should be obliterated and somehow recede into the background? Vladimir Ilyich answered: of course, never, because the "third front" is now advancing here. If the first front was reduced to creating a party, creating power, organizing an army, building a state, strengthening communist ideas among the working masses, throwing bridges over the peasant masses, i.e., to questions of strengthening our power, then we can say that for three a quarter of these tasks were enlightenment in the broad sense of the word, tasks of spreading certain truths ...

The economic front comes to the fore... Can we say that education is secondary to solving economic problems? This cannot be said. Vladimir Ilyich pointed out many times the essence of communist tasks, pointed out that the greatest task was to raise peasant economy.

Let's move on to industry. We must try to make our worker more technically educated. Without this, our industry will fall in competition with the European one. This applies not only to the worker, but also to the technician and engineer. We need generations of new engineers, we need to create high labor hygiene, we must shorten his time, we must teach the worker to use his tools, nerves and muscles so that he himself does not get tired, but works out as much as possible. This poses new technical problems of great importance to our industry. Who will give it to us? This should be given by the People's Commissariat of Education and other educational bodies.<…>

Vladimir Ilyich understood perfectly well that we were faced with an enormous educational task. According to his scheme, economic development in a country like Russia can only be put on the right track by means of electrification. Only in this way can we improve our economy, use energy for transport and provide human labor with a gigantic labor force driven by electrical energy! But for this you need to have a whole army of electrical engineers. If we ask what is needed for electrification to be possible, we must say that first of all, the broadest technical education is needed. Both for solving the problems of the first front, that is, for achieving political freedom, and for solving the problems of the second front, that is, for the economic revival of the country, literacy is a necessary prerequisite. For that, In order for all people under 35 in Russia to be literate, we need to teach literacy to 17 million. This is our plan for the coming years. And one of the last behests of Vladimir Ilyich was to carry out the fight against the ignorance of this part of the population by all means by the tenth anniversary of our revolution.1

“... it doesn’t matter at all if, completely devoting themselves to the business of construction, people will organize their individual, and especially their collective life in a really human way, organize their leisure, make their very existence more joyful. Didn’t the great teacher Lenin teach us that cheerfulness is something desirable and natural in communism…”

("Our Poets")

The great leader of communism was at the same time the most powerful founder of Soviet pedagogy.

(Lenin and public education)

Insofar as we provide literacy for adults and children, the field and among the adult population in the subjects of social science through our political enlightenment workers, insofar as we carry out the main share of all political work in general. Insofar as we have, through trade unions 2 —our organs for raising the qualifications of labor—conscious, new, technically educated workers, we are providing workers for the second front. To this it must be added that for the first and second fronts we must create new specialists of a high standard. The work of the universities and workers' schools, drawing from the depths of the working masses, is also the solution of the problems of these two fronts.

At first, power is taken in order to create a transition from an unjust cannibal economy to a truly human economy, which has in mind the benefit of all mankind.

Let us suppose that all this is permitted, so that every man has plenty of food, clothes, and the worker has a lot of free time. But a person does not live for this alone, he does not live in order to satisfy a minimum of needs. He lives in order to develop comprehensively, in breadth and depth. Karl Marx says that the criterion, or measure, by which we can realize the greater or lesser height of this or that social ideal, is the extent to which this ideal or system allows the all-round development of all the needs inherent in man. That is the task of the economy. Socialist economy is that which gives the greatest degree of human development. A freely developing person seeks the greatest possible amount and variety of happiness, which would be in harmony with the happiness of others. There is no need for a transition to socialism, if people do not become wiser, more beautiful because of this. And these questions are resolved most of all in the field of human worldview, in the field of artistic creativity, in the ability to enjoy nature and in the ability to give it complete elegant forms, in the field of re-educating a person from this freak, from this egoist into a real person, whom we dream of and who is the ultimate goal of every socialist.<…>

But Lenin did not confine himself to general truths. He gave a whole host of specific and very important formulations for us, which I quote with some comments so that their meaning is clear.

In the program of our party, adopted in March 1919, there is a section on public education. All these pages were written by Vladimir Ilyich. 3

“In the field of public education, the RCP sets itself the task of completing the task, begun with the October Revolution of 1917, of transforming the school from an instrument of the class rule of the bourgeoisie into an instrument for the complete abolition of the division of society into classes, into an instrument for the communist transformation of society.

In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., in the period of preparation for the conditions that make the full realization of communism possible, the school must be not only a conductor of the principles of communism in general, but also a conductor of the ideological, organizational, educational influence of the proletariat on the semi-proletarian and non-proletarian sections of the working masses in order to educate generation capable of finally establishing communism.”*

* "CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee". M., 1970, v. 2, p. 48.

Let's take a look at these extraordinary words. First, here it is admitted that every school was the enslavement of some classes by others. The class society created the school in its own image and likeness. The fact is that the school, divided into several floors, gave the lower classes such an education that it left them in slavery, kept them in the dark, giving them some knowledge. The higher school produced a command staff - officials who would be able to rule a large herd of workers and peasants. What should the proletariat do? He also wants to make the school class. But what is the purpose of this? The proletariat class is striving not to assert its dominance, but to create the prerequisite for the complete abolition of any kind of domination of man over man. We are now in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the preparation of the conditions that make the realization of communism possible. What should the school do during this time? It must not only be imbued with communist principles, but must serve as a conductor of the ideological educational influence of the proletariat on the semi-proletarian and non-proletarian sections of the working people in order to facilitate the assimilation of communism.

This is not only a school for the children of the proletariat. It captures more than the class. It is a huge, important apparatus that gives the ideas of Marxism, educates in the spirit of these ideas, that is, influences the feelings and will of the younger generations.<…>

No solution to political and economic problems is secured if a lot of work has not been done to develop the self-consciousness of our generations. Only then can we say that victory is secured when the new school begins to saturate with new beginnings all the fibers of the being of the new generation. Whoever has not conquered the future has not conquered anything… And we conquer it at school.<….>

Vladimir Ilyich believed that the Communists not only could, but must also attract mass teachers to themselves, for this was the only way to fulfill those gigantic tasks that he foresaw, which are the axis of all revolutionary work. 4 <…>

Addressing the Narkompros, Vladimir Ilyich writes:

“The work that is now being carried out in the field of public education, generally speaking, cannot be called too narrow. A lot is being done to move the old teachers from their place, to involve them in new tasks, to interest them in the new formulation of questions of pedagogy, to interest them in such questions as the question of religion.

But we are not doing the main thing. We do not care, or far from enough care, to raise the national teacher to that height, without which there can be no talk of any kind of culture ...

We still do too little, immeasurably little, in order to move our entire state budget towards meeting, first of all, the needs of elementary public education.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 45, p. 364–365.

As you can see, it is stated quite clearly here how Vladimir Ilyich viewed the need to raise the position of a teacher.<…>

Vladimir Ilyich was the greatest educator in our country, he highly valued the title of a people's teacher, he was proud that his father was a people's teacher. I think that it will be the best memory for him if we write the words on his monument: "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - the great teacher of the people" ...

Vladimir Ilyich assigned the greatest importance to questions of education and culture. It must be clear to all those who carry out educational work that the revolution, inasmuch as it is a matter of human consciousness, is a gigantic work of enlightenment, that it raises the building of socialism and leads mankind to further enlightenment.

[1924]

VI Lenin after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in his speeches and articles repeatedly raised the question of the rapid elimination of illiteracy. When writing the draft Program of the RCP(b), Lenin wrote "Program point in the field of public education."

On December 26, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree "On the elimination of illiteracy among the population of the RSFSR", and on July 19, 1920, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Elimination of Illiteracy was formed by decree of the Council of People's Commissars.

On January 29, 1924, Lunacharsky, speaking at the XI All-Russian Congress of Soviets with a report on the elimination of illiteracy, said: "The 2nd Congress for the Elimination of Illiteracy decided to eliminate illiteracy among the population of the Union aged 18-35 years by the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution" . In the works of Lenin there is no literal expression given by Lunacharsky.

By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 29, 1920, the Main Committee for Vocational and Technical Education (Profobr) was established under the People's Commissariat of Education, which was supposed to lead "all vocational education in the country, uniting the work in this direction of individual departments and organizations." ↩
The draft paragraph of the program in the field of public education, written by V. I. Lenin (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 38, pp. 116-117), was included in the Program of the RCP (b) with some changes.

In this article, Lunacharsky cites the point of the Program approved by the Eighth Party Congress in March 1919.

See Lenin’s works on this issue: “Speech at the All-Russian Conference of Political Enlightenment Provincial and District Departments of Public Education on November 3, 1920”, “On the Work of the People’s Commissariat for Education”, “Pages from the Diary” (Poln. sobr. soch., v. 41, pp. 398-408; vol. 42, pp. 322-332; vol. 45, pp. 363-369).

 

Lenin and youth

On January 25, 1924, Lunacharsky delivered a report on this topic to the students of the Sverdlov Communist University in Moscow. This report was one of Lunacharsky's first direct responses to Lenin's death. The text was first published in 1924 in Lunacharsky's pamphlet Lenin (M., Krasnaya Nov).

… Youth and education are two concepts that are inseparable from each other.Speaking about the views of Vladimir Ilyich on the youth, I will have to constantly refer to his views on public education. This is where I should start.

“Both Lenin and our youth are products of the same era. Lenin was the focus of this era, its main essence was reflected in his ideas and personality. (“Lenin and youth”. Report)

Giving all of himself and all his energy to the daily resolution of revolutionary tasks, Lenin understood perfectly well that they could not be solved immediately, that now, at this moment, only the first foundation stones could be laid, and the youth would come to finish. This is where his great attention to youth comes from, where the covenants that he gave to the youth come from. (“X years of the Komsomol”. Report)

Vladimir Ilyich, of course, was not one of those liberal idealists who believed that the degree of cultural development of a people determines its proximity to the revolution. You remember, of course, those vulgar propositions with which Russian liberalism was rich: first it is necessary that the masses reach a certain cultural level, and then one can think about freedoms, even if they are torn out by the protest of the masses of the people. Vladimir Ilyich took a completely opposite point of view. He believed that the exploitative government would not give education to the masses. And he did not see the slightest contradiction in the fact that the bourgeois democracies, being exploiting societies, nonetheless give a certain education to the masses: he understood that this education was insufficient in its scope, poisoned in its composition by such specific impurities that should have retarded the development critical thought among the people, and does not at all aim at turning false democracy, which makes it possible to hold power in the hands of tens of thousands of exploiters, into genuine, that is, the real power of the vast majority, into the real creation of the political, economic and cultural lines of the fate of the entire people , determined by the entire array of this people. Lenin understood perfectly well that public education in bourgeois countries serves to throw the dust of external, decorative democracy into the eyes of the masses, to keep them at the level of satisfaction with their constitution.

Especially when it came to such a country as Russia, it was clear to Vladimir Ilyich that it was not possible to move forward through the doors of public education.<...>

But how to be? If a certain self-consciousness is required for the people in general, and for the proletariat in particular, in order to pose revolutionary problems and find the correct paths to their solution, and this enlightenment cannot be achieved without a revolution, is this not a snake biting its own tail? Is this not an insoluble problem: without consciousness there is no revolution, without revolution there is no self-consciousness?

This question was resolved to some extent "aristocratically", i.e., by posing the problem on the following plane: the masses of the people put forward - even if it is tight, if only through suffering, if only through sacrifices - a certain vanguard, of course, mainly from the proletariat, from the most advanced part of his. The whole mass cannot yet stand at the height of this self-consciousness; therefore, left to itself, it will inevitably make mistakes. This vanguard, which has the fullest consciousness, is the Communist Party. And the masses will be able to act, because no vanguard can act for them—and will act correctly like the masses, for revolution is a mass action—if they have sufficient confidence in their advanced party and if the advanced party is strong enough and consistent to lead the masses.

But here comes the revolution. What's next? Vladimir Ilyich's first proposition: one must be a child to think that communists can build communism with their own hands. Communists are a drop in the ocean. Proceeding from this thesis, Vladimir Ilyich formulates others: it is necessary to rely on forces outside the Party, to involve them in the work of the state, economic, cultural; following the model of the Red Army, where we subjugated and used the officers, it is necessary to attract the administrative, technical, commercial, educational, medical, etc. "officers" - the very ones that served the bourgeoisie. And Vladimir Ilyich says: that communist is truly meritorious in the field of the work entrusted to him, who has managed to look out for, approach and properly use the largest possible number of non-communist "specialists".<...>

[Vladimir Ilyich] created the Board of the Supreme Economic Council, which includes a number of professors, he created the State Planning Commission. He fought, sometimes with extreme bitterness, against the policies of the communist cells in the universities, which waged their own fight with the professors. He said: if we fail to use these people in order to learn from them and to give them the opportunity to apply their strength to the construction according to our plan, then we are no good, because without them we cannot move forward in any way.<…>

But this did not prevent Vladimir Ilyich from realizing that we were waging our construction struggle with bad weapons. Of course, among these specialists there are brilliant minds, brilliant talents, there are also those who completely go over to our side. But in general, and especially if you add to them all these innumerable small specialists, clerical technicians, who make up the thickness, so to speak, naturally advanced between; by the administrative tops and the masses of the people—then you will, of course, understand that this is to a large extent unsuitable material.

If we add to this the fact that Vladimir Ilyich constantly emphasized the well-known inexperience of the Communists themselves in many branches of their work, emphasized the existence of the fact that too often a Communist can be a commissar, but cannot be a specialist in the business he is about, then you will understand to what an enormous extent the state apparatus newly built by us must have reeked of an old eructation, what internal friction this mechanism developed. All the screws and nuts of our state machine were a set that had previously figured in a completely different mechanism and which the communist hammer had to drive to each other. Vladimir Ilyich saw this with complete clarity.

Two problems were drawn by Vladimir Ilyich. First, it is necessary as soon as possible to raise the cultural level of the masses, and not only the proletarian masses, but also the peasant masses. The path to this uplift is literacy. Vladimir Ilyich often spoke out bitterly against the introduction of "proletarian culture" in the higher forms of education. He compared the advocates of this point of view to people striving to build a fourth floor at a time when the foundation was not yet ready. With amazing sobriety of thought, he directed us, often quite harshly, to look at the earth, and said: the first task is literacy. Reading, writing, counting - this is what an immense number of people need to be taught.<…>

The famine [in 1921] hit our entire struggle against illiteracy and destroyed almost all the likpunkts all over the face of our country. But when the famine passed, Vladimir Ilyich hastened to write an article in which it was said that our direct duty was to eliminate the illiteracy of the population up to the age of 35 by the 10th anniversary. Vladimir Ilyich knew perfectly well that this was difficult, he was a great realist, and he felt these difficulties better than any of us, he knew the number of illiterate people and approximately how much it would cost, and said that it could be done .

In the same way, Vladimir Ilyich was interested in the questions of the school and the questions of public libraries. And it's understandable why. Because he, being in full measure a democrat in the most holy and radiant sense of the word, wanted in every possible way to bring closer the time when the masses of the people, not only the workers, but also the peasants, would be fully aware of their needs and the paths to their deliverance, not only in plane of politics, but also in the plane of all their daily management and life.

At a moment when we were threatened with a catastrophic separation from the peasant masses, 2 Vladimir Ilyich gave a significant cry. Let us linger, he said, in our impulse and even retreat, if this is necessary for the bond with the peasant masses. Let us hook this mass of peasants more firmly and march forward together with them, perhaps much more slowly than we would have gone without them. But come back! We will go with her, inseparably with her. Only then will this forward movement be invincible.

This is true. But it does not follow from this that we can completely withdraw into lower education, that the whole main task boils down to this: schools for the elimination of illiteracy, public libraries.

Vladimir Ilyich understood perfectly well that we would not put up schools properly, and we would not put up a mass library, and we would not liquidate illiteracy, if our economy did not develop, if the state administration would be that ever-interrupting machine that he saw before him. After all, he said bluntly: with the exception, perhaps, of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, which still looks like something, not a single commissariat is like anything else, all of them work very badly. He stated this with all severity. We built a state mechanism that withstood the fight, which turned out to be viable - but look what interruptions it causes. We need to rebuild it, we need to teach people to manage, and manage well, in convenient, clear, precise and simple forms.

We need to learn how to manage - including trading. We must learn to educate—to educate in such a way that all three aspects—general education, beginning with literacy, technical education, and political enlightenment—would be twisted into one bundle, turned into one iron rope of a single system of education. But for all this it is necessary that the educators themselves be present, that there be business executives, that there be administrators. And they are few.

Wait until little children, after we have built a satisfactory school for them, grow up and become good business executives? But we cannot organize a satisfactory school because there are not enough teachers.

It is also impossible to wait until the illiterate peasant and worker, who has only now received the first primer, grows up to Marxism. It would mean trying, drop by drop, to raise the level of the whole sea.<…>

What is the way out of this? There is only one way out: to appeal to the youth. To what youth? To our youth, of course, not to bourgeois youth.<…>

We appeal to the worker-peasant youth. Is she clueless? Yes. It is necessary to educate her - to give her the education that both she and we need.

High specialists can be obtained through higher educational institutions; but our youth is not yet capable of learning in them. The first gesture of Vladimir Ilyich was the order to open the doors of the university for all who yearn for education. These people poured into the university, filled it. So far there have been only lectures - nothing: they will crush each other's sides, but they listen. But when it came to laboratories, to the anatomical theater, things got worse. I had to take it away, because the basket of Russian higher education itself is rather small, and you can’t fill it with everyone who wants to get this education at once. Therefore, it was necessary to choose those who are now more needed, who are more capable. And for those who are excellent material, but not yet prepared, it was necessary to create forms of preparation for those. This is how the idea of ​​a workers' school and the class principle of admission to higher educational institutions arose.

Immediately after this, new problems arose, which Vladimir Ilyich knew perfectly well, the solution of which he was very concerned about, about which he constantly talked with us, although perhaps in his writings we will not find especially abundant traces of his reflections in this area.

First of all, a fundamental question. It is clear that the youth of workers and peasants cannot exist at their own expense, that it is necessary to come up with some kind of combination of study and earnings - and this is very difficult with an insignificant amount of paid labor in our country .or give students government scholarships. Of course, it would be most rational to support these young people at the expense of the state. The need for education in the country is huge, the influx of applicants is gigantic, and the country's need for people who are already educated is no less, but the tube through which this wave of knowledge-hungry people has to pass into the reservoir that must be filled is narrow, there are few funds, and this tube will always be insufficient. , until that happy moment when we have such time that we will say: we can support so many hundreds of thousands of students at public expense. This will mean that we have solved the state and economic task by three-quarters.

I do not mean to say that all the methods available to us have been exhausted. We are again and again considering from all sides the question of state appropriations. Perhaps we will have to think about narrowing down the enrollment of students from next year, about reducing the number of scholarships when they are enlarged, about all sorts of economic improvements, about attracting students to work that would be both more or less pedagogical and more or less bread. I am not saying that all these problems do not confront us, but I say that even if we solve them successfully, they will alleviate the situation, but they will not be able to completely eliminate the material crisis. We are fighting precisely for a state that would become fully capable of pursuing a cultural policy, and while we have not yet achieved it, we will have to fight in the exact sense of the word.

The second question is what to teach and how to teach. You know that Vladimir Ilyich devoted his brilliant and profound speech to the Komsomol members precisely to this question. 4 In general, principled outlines, he answered this question with exhaustive clarity.

The communist often stops before the science into which he is about to dive, before the goblet of knowledge that the “Mr. Professor” holds out to him with his own hand, because he does not know if he is diving into a pool, and does not know if they are holding out poison to him? He says: I am a Marxist, and I know that every ideology is a reflection of class existence. Is science an ideology? Yes. What class created it? Bourgeois-landlord. This means that I do not need this science, it is even hostile to me ... What kind of science do I need? The one that expresses my being, proletarian. So I need proletarian science! Where's she? There is none, except for Marxism. It does not exist in other areas. How to be? We have to invent it. Then, therefore, one must not study, but immediately teach, one must not look for a science that needs to be overcome, but create one's own. But for now, we don't know anything, where do we get knowledge from? From our being, from our insides, from ourselves. And when it seems to us ourselves that our proletarian science is a little liquid, then we only have to spit more energetically on these learned bald heads and say: well, you are there, bourgeois, with all your treasures, why are you standing in front of one stroke of my proletarian pen? Razzudy, shoulder, swing, hand! I will deduce such a proletarian science that in one pamphlet of 33 pages I will give a solution to all questions of life.

Such a possibility frightened Vladimir Ilyich terribly. I put it in a humorous way. But which of these provisions can be ignored? Every Marxist knows that ideology reflects being, and it is better for anyone who doubts this to give up his party card. And what about the ideology that still existed, didn’t it reflect bourgeois life? How can you doubt it ... So why do we need it? Here's how the question is posed.

What is wrong here? What is the delusion? The fact that ideology reflects not only the negative aspects of the existence of a given class, but reflects existence in its entirety, that is, in its progressive aspects.

Did the bourgeoisie, capitalism have any progressive sides? Of course they did. What was this main progressive side? The fact that the bourgeoisie, for example, was the organizer of the progress of machine technology. Machine technology is the basis of the latest bourgeois society. In order to come up with a machine that would work correctly, a necessary prerequisite is the knowledge of mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, etc. For millions of tasks related to trade, navigation, construction, metalworking, rocks, earth etc., all this requires a lot of positive knowledge.<…>

When we come to [bourgeois] culture, in spite of all its vices, we must understand that it has accumulated an amazing wealth of genuine experience - because the bourgeoisie wanted to get a profit in something real and real ways. The bourgeois NOT is not like our NOT, the bourgeois factory is not like our factory. But does it follow from this that we should say: to hell with all the locomotives - they are bourgeois, and until we invent our own, in our own style, let there be no railways? No, we don't want that. Vladimir Ilyich expressed his thought with all sharpness: that communist will be sad who is brought up only on communist pamphlets and books; if we do not assimilate the whole culture of the past, we will not move forward in any way.

If you re-read his speech at the Komsomol congress, you will see that Vladimir Ilyich fearlessly carries this thought through to the end. He says: learn everything, learn the whole bourgeois culture, and after that figure out what suits you and what does not. Add your proletarian instinct to the knowledge you have acquired, add your proletarian philosophy, your Marxist school, and they will illuminate all the material for you in a new way. But remember that you will be able to teach how to build only when you study for a long time.<…>

Vladimir Ilyich remarked perfectly well that the danger of bourgeois science poisoning and confusing the worker-peasant youth, given the existence of proletarian control, is not very great, although the struggle along this front must be waged unswervingly. But the opposite danger: to push bourgeois science away from oneself and to plunge wholly into the heresy of arrogance—this danger is enormous. And this would create that atmosphere of superficiality, dilettantism, all sorts of phantasmagoric, lightweight inventions that could fundamentally spoil the whole thing. That is why Vladimir Ilyich said to the Komsomol members: study without fear! Here you will receive a huge and necessary material for you and do not be afraid that in doing so you will "break away from Marxism." Your insides are healthy, and you will then perfectly understand where you need and where you don't. Draw from what you have managed to scoop, from the sea of ​​so-called all-human knowledge, which has been largely determined up to now by the bourgeois world. And when you do this, then you will determine science with your proletarian thought and give it a completely new direction and an unprecedented scope.

How to teach? Vladimir Ilyich posed this question in the following way. He said: we need to study in order to break the bourgeois class and achieve communism, and this task should be an unshakable pole star that points the way. Therefore, it is necessary to teach in direct connection with life. School - even the lowest, and even more so the highest - should not be closed in itself. She must be agitated by all the great storms of social life, she must respond to them, take the liveliest part in them.<…>

Care must be taken, says Vladimir Ilyich, to ensure that, as far as possible, all knowledge is assimilated in the order of a real labor problem.<…>

This side of Vladimir Ilyich's thoughts about youth can be summarized as follows. We must tirelessly work on a general rise in the level of the masses, both in school and out of school, but at the same time, we must push out of the masses - or rather let them out - tens, if possible hundreds of thousands of young people whom we must in an accelerated manner, with the help of the workers' faculties, to lead to the full armament of knowledge through the assimilation of the old culture - and the assimilation of this culture should take place in a labor order in connection with social practice and with constant illumination of every acquired data with the general idea of ​​the communist revolution.

What can we expect if this program is carried out? Without going back to what has already been said, we will say this: whether the “Nepmen” win or we will win - it depends on whether the working class creates its own intelligentsia.<…>

What are our prospects in this respect? If we follow the path indicated by Lenin, if we take young people, primarily workers and secondarily peasants, if we teach them what Lenin said, and in the way he said, then we will undoubtedly get an intelligentsia, despite our poverty, on the narrowness of that “tube” that I told you about, the tube through which a wave of young people thirsting for knowledge is now pushing into the reservoir of our future intelligentsia. -of the bourgeois, petty-bourgeois element, in which the voice of egoism speaks, the voice of ambition, which finds captivating, flattering notes in order to sneak into your heart. Therefore, in addition to the difficult material struggle that you are waging and the struggle for special knowledge, you will also have to fight for your soul and for the soul of your neighbor in bed, at the table at which you study - to fight for the fastest rise to the light of a complete communist consciousness, embedded in your flesh and blood to the very bones and marrow of bones.

The struggle for the youth is one of the most important, precisely because in so far as the youth will be conquered and will not fall out of the hands of the working class, they will be a powerful weapon in the forthcoming struggle. And she guarantees us victory, since together with her we will be able to launch a struggle for the enlightenment of the masses, incomparable with the current scale.

That's when your young worker-peasant shoulders, tens and hundreds of thousands of young shoulders, will bear to a large extent the burden of solving our social problems, then we will be able to say that we are truly powerful, then we will be able to say that our task is up to us. Now it is burdening the shoulders of the already thinning old guard of communism and the shoulders of the often unadapted and comparatively sparsely scattered network of workers, both Party and non-Party, who understand our tasks. This task is difficult now, but it will become easier and more joyful as you, having gone through your path of education, will stand in the ranks of the leaders of the new state and new society.

I personally fully share the titanic optimism that permeates Marxism in general. In particular, Vladimir Ilyich in the sense of optimism goes much further than the majority of Marxists of his generation. These Marxists proceeded a priori from the fact that countries with a large proletariat can make a socialist revolution. When Vladimir Ilyich said that we would make a Marxist revolution in Russia, what was the response of the Mensheviks? “You have too much optimism, Lenin,” they said. You forgot that Russia is a backward country, you forgot that there are few proletariat in it, that it is not organized and educated, that the working class, like a fly in milk, swims among the vast peasantry. Under such conditions, Marx himself, as the Mensheviks said, would never have dared to think of a Marxist revolution: it would be good if there were a more or less decent bourgeois revolution, and the rest we will postpone until the proletariat matures... And Vladimir Ilyich thought that not only in Russia, but also in Persia, Hindustan and Java, revolutions led by Marxist teachings are possible. Of course, they will not pour out immediately into communist forms, but there is no doubt that the revolutions in the petty-bourgeois countries, the revolutions of the peasants, the revolutions of the poor, can receive leaven, ferment, coloring from their proletariat and through their proletariat, no matter how small it may be in comparison with the proletariat. Western Europe and America.

The bond with the peasantry is Lenin's central idea. The proletariat infects the petty bourgeoisie with its ideas and mood, draws it to itself, moves it along. Vladimir Ilyich is based on this. That is why he was not afraid that the communists were a drop in the ocean. He knew that this all-attractive force, this proletarian yeast, is so powerful that it can make a very large dough rise. This allowed him to assume that the entire countless sea of ​​peasants could be raised by the proletariat.

Could Vladimir Ilyich be afraid that our youth, if it is not exclusively proletarian in composition, will go crazy in the other direction, that this youth will go the wrong way, to which the voice of world history is calling it and to which it is directing it with its faithful hand? our tried and tested communist party? He couldn't be afraid of it.

"Lenin and the youth" is the title of my report today. Here is the courage of Ilyich - she was young. He was young at 53 and would have remained young no matter how long he lived in the world. Leninism is also young - it exudes the youth of the world, it exudes a colossal future ahead and unbridled youthful courage.

And if Ilyich is young, then the youth must also be "Ilyich" youth. She must be imbued not only with this contagious and native youth of his, but also with the wisdom of Lenin, and prudence, and the ability to draw conclusions from a hoary culture acquired over the centuries. And when all this is combined in her, then she will become worthy of Ilyich.<…>

January 25, 1924

See comment No. 1 to the article "Lenin and questions of education".

Here we have in mind the statements about the link between the city and the countryside during the NEP period, when the economy of the city significantly outpaced the economy of the countryside in its development. Lenin devoted much attention to this issue in his speeches at the 11th Congress of the RCP(b) (1922). In his opening speech, he said:

“Close with the peasant masses, with the ordinary working peasantry, and begin to move forward immeasurably, infinitely slower than we dreamed, but in such a way that the whole mass will really move with us. Then the acceleration of this movement in due time will come about, which we cannot even dream of now.

( Poln. sobr. soch., v. 45, p. 78 ).

In the article "Pages from a Diary" Lenin speaks of the city's assistance to the countryside in its cultural development.

Apparently, Lunacharsky had in mind the difficult economic situation in the country, when there was not enough money even to pay the workers. ↩
This refers to Lenin's speech at the III All-Russian Congress of the RKSM, October 2, 1920, "The Tasks of Youth Unions" (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 41, pp. 298-318).

 Lenin in his attitude to science and art

On January 23, 1925, Lunacharsky made a presentation “V. I. Lenin on Science and Art” at the solemn meeting of the State Academic Council dedicated to the anniversary of Lenin’s death. The text of the report was first published in 1925 in the journal "People's Education" No. 1. In 1926, the report with some changes and under the title "Lenin in his attitude to science and art" was published in the journal "Scientist" No. 1.

Starting to speak or write on this or that topic connected with Vladimir Ilyich's elucidation of it, one has to admit that any attempts to tell his thoughts in one's own words, in essence speaking, do not lead to the desired goal. Vladimir Ilyich, as a publicist, as a writer, spoke in unusually concise, precisely constructed and at the same time full of inner content formulations that one does not want to state in one's own words. Therefore, I do not consider it at all wrong that the present essay is almost entirely composed of quotations. I will only try to connect these quotations with each other, comment on them and draw some conclusions from them, which, perhaps, are not immediately evident. Let Vladimir Ilyich talk about science and art himself.

At the same time, of course, I must note that Vladimir Ilyich's attention in the field of cultural tasks was drawn in particular to the problem of mass cultural work. Therefore, he spoke a lot about public education as such. Since this topic is also connected with the question of science and art, especially with the first one, I will have to touch on this material to some extent, but, of course, today I will specifically quote those pages from the legacy of Vladimir Ilyich that talk about science directly.

Much less than about science, Vladimir Ilyich spoke about art; the expressions and phrases with which Vladimir Ilyich illuminated questions of the cultural significance of art still create, so to speak, determinants from which it is not so difficult to derive Vladimir Ilyich's general teaching on the place of art in the life of human society and in Russia in particular.

Vladimir Ilyich believed that culture in the broadest sense of the word is connected in two ways with the communist revolution.

In the first place, it serves as a natural premise for it, though not in time, but, so to speak, in the general structure. Secondly, it is the goal of the communist revolution.

Vladimir Ilyich was perfectly aware, and expressed with particular brilliance in his speech at the Eighth Congress, that the communist revolution in Russia was taking place in general in a somewhat paradoxical situation. Bukharin, who criticized the draft program, pointed to a certain internal contradiction in our revolution, arising from the fact that it is unfolding within the framework of a country that is extremely backward economically. Vladimir Ilyich proved with great persuasiveness in his speech that there is nothing sociologically unexpected, improbable, or condemning our revolution to fragility in this, that nothing makes one think that the chain of countries following each other in the degree of capitalist development and capitalist maturity is in this it is precisely in order that it will enter the communist future, that here there may be the most significant interruptions, and one country may overtake another, since not only capitalist maturity in one country or another determines its general maturity for revolution, but also a number of other circumstances, other complex conditions and reasons.

But immediately after that, Vladimir Ilyich noted that it goes without saying that such capitalist backwardness, which naturally presupposes cultural backwardness, is a huge brake on communist construction. Vladimir Ilyich many times developed the idea that it was easier for us to make a political revolution and more difficult to build communism than it would be in the West. The difficulty in building communism lies in our economic and cultural backwardness; Vladimir Ilyich never made a distinction between these two phenomena, because direct economic progress is unattainable without culture, and the most practical approach to developing our economy in Russia is to raise our culture.

First of all, I take a quotation from a well-known speech at the Second Congress of Political Enlightenment, 1 where, with particular emphasis, Lenin points out the place of culture and enlightenment in the totality of our tasks, in the development of our country and thus in developing the basis for communist reorganization. Here is what Vladimir Ilyich said:

"Regarding ... illiteracy - I can say that as long as we have such a phenomenon as illiteracy in our country, it is too difficult to talk about political enlightenment ... An illiterate person is outside politics, he must first be taught the alphabet."

“The cultural task cannot be solved as quickly as the political and military tasks. You need to understand that the conditions for moving forward are not the same now. It is possible to win politically in the era of an exacerbation of the crisis in a few weeks. In a war one can win in a few months, but culturally it is impossible to win in such a period, in the very essence of the matter here a longer period is needed, and one must adapt to this longer period, calculating one's work, showing the greatest perseverance, perseverance and systematicity. Without these qualities, one cannot even begin political enlightenment. And the results of political enlightenment can only be measured by the improvement of the economy.*

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 44, p. 174–175.

I have already said that Vladimir Ilyich was especially interested in the grassroots tasks of education, and here we find the main idea: we have seized power, we have before us a colossal program for the implementation of communism, it cannot be carried out without the political enlightenment of the masses. Political enlightenment requires a certain level of culture. From the very beginning, this enlightenment must follow the eradication of illiteracy, and therefore the last task is the first task. But this does not mean that Vladimir Ilyich forgot even for a moment the natural connection that exists between all the elements of culture, between literacy and culture of a higher order.

The following very peculiar phrase was introduced into the party program by Vladimir Ilyich:

“The Soviet government has already taken a number of measures aimed at the development of science and its convergence with production: the creation of a whole network of new scientific and applied institutes, laboratories, testing stations, pilot plants for testing new technical methods, improvements and inventions, accounting and organizing all scientific forces and means, etc. The Russian Communist Party, supporting all these measures, strives for their further development and the creation of the most favorable conditions for scientific work in connection with raising the country's productive forces.*

* “CPSU in resolutions…”, part 1, p. 423–424.

... Vladimir Ilyich usually did not like such statements very much, especially since now we have managed to do very little in this area, and by the time the Eighth Party Congress met, even less had been done, and this enumeration may seem an exaggeration compared to what has actually been done is solidly done. But it is extremely characteristic that this very thought was introduced into the program in an extremely concrete form: here is a whole series of measures that we are already carrying out and undertake to carry out in the future. For what? And so that our economy can rise to the necessary level, at which our communist plans cease to be a historical outburst, but acquire a sufficient foundation to be built systematically: from below, concern for elementary culture, from above, concern for science.

“At the Eighth Party Congress, I personally was the chairman of the peasant section. I drafted a resolution on cultural work in the countryside. The rest of the resolutions, as far as I remember, were drafted by Vladimir Ilyich and his comrades from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. Vladimir Ilyich summoned me specially to his office, read my resolution in the most attentive manner, and then began to work over it together with me. Vladimir Ilyich fully approved the basic idea that cultural work in the countryside should proceed by merging and intertwining the three main lines - general education, political and agricultural, that they would be strong precisely by relying on one another, Vladimir Ilyich fully approved. It was, of course, his idea. Subsequently, he revised the resolution to such an extent that, of course, I must renounce copyright in every possible way and consider this resolution in its entirety an expression not only of the will of the RCP, as it emerged at the Eighth Congress, but also of the thoughts of its leader. I think that at the present time, when we are again talking with particular energy about the bonding of the village, about cultural patronage over it, it is appropriate to recall some of the provisions of this program: “General education - school and out of school (including art: theaters, concerts, cinemas, exhibitions, paintings, etc.), striving not only to shed light on various knowledge in the dark village, but mainly to contribute to the development of self-consciousness and a clear worldview, should closely adjoin communist propaganda. There are no such forms of science and art that would not be associated with the great ideas of communism and the endlessly varied work of building the economy.

("Lenin and public education")

And in another place, Vladimir Ilyich says: without the latest technology, without the latest scientific discoveries, we will not build communism. 2

Thus, the very construction of communism, the very attainment of our goal, is in connection with the latest technology; along the way, even before we can seriously talk about the implementation of communism, we must update technology, raise it to the height and perfection that are required within the limits of our construction. Moreover, without new discoveries, we will not build communism.

It seems to Vladimir Ilyich that there is time and a need for the further development of technology that would facilitate the transition to communism.

Under such conditions, it is clear that practical science, and indeed all science in general, with its most abstract methods, approaches, disciplines and ideas, is necessarily involved as an element of construction of the greatest importance. After all, outside the atmosphere of sharpened scientific thought, outside the depths of scientific life, no scientific discoveries as something systematic, and not as random glimpses or guesses of this or that genius, of course, are inconceivable.

I have already noted that Vladimir Ilyich, speaking of science, always emphasized in great detail its practical tasks, that to which all Vladimir Ilyich's tendencies usually culminated, i.e., the improvement of the economy. Vladimir Ilyich knew that the transition to communism corresponds to the highest development of technology...

We do not have this, but we have another base for our communist construction. We have a special combination of the imminent peasant revolution and the onslaught of the working class. The general level of our economy is low, and we have such contradictions as the extremely rapid growth of urban industry in some areas and the extraordinary backwardness of the peasantry. This made it possible to substantiate the hegemony of the proletariat and to introduce the explosion of a purely peasant revolution into the channel of the communist revolution. But all this does not serve as a normal basis for genuine communist construction. Hence the question of culture. We need, firstly, literacy and everything that follows from this, and secondly, science, the latest technology, inventions. From these two ends it is necessary to take up life. Hence Vladimir Ilyich's vital and natural approach to all questions of culture.

Already in 1923, shortly before his death, Vladimir Ilyich wrote:

“We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then check that science does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase with us. (and this, there’s nothing to hide, it happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 45, p. 391.

Does Vladimir Ilyich set a task of this kind, to hammer refined knowledge into our heads, to increase the number of weathercocks on our building, so that we can boast of this or that exquisite scientific achievement, perhaps of the most filigree character? This snobbery, aristocratic boasting of refinement of thought, all this does not matter to him. Science as a dead letter or a fashionable phrase is not needed; one must take care of such a science that would enter everyday life as a constituent element in a completely and real way.

This idea is not at all as simple as it might seem at first glance, and can serve as an excellent topic for a long work, if we ask ourselves this question: what needs to be done so that science, if possible, as a whole and as a whole, as soon as possible, becomes completely and truly into a constituent element of everyday life? Through the economy, through hygiene, through a whole series of other kinds of paths. This is the broadest and most interesting topic, if taken from the concrete angle of our conditions. So far, as far as I know, no one has approached this topic.<…>

If I were not quoting Lenin, and not on such a tremendously important issue, then I would have to apologize to the readers for having to quote many quotations from the brilliant speech of Vladimir Ilyich at the Third Congress of the Komsomol. But these words are so wise, so instructive, they have not yet entered life so fully that, of course, one must not tire of repeating them again and again.

... To the question of what to study and how to study, Vladimir Ilyich gives the following answer: “to study communism. But this answer: "to learn communism" is too general." And further: “Here we are threatened by a number of dangers…”*

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 41, p. 301.

When a young communist or an old one says: I want to study communism, this is an eminently honorable task. But Vladimir Ilyich considers that such a communist is threatened by a number of dangers, and he tries to lead him out of these dangers in the following way:

“Naturally, at first glance, the thought comes to mind that to study communism means to assimilate the amount of knowledge that is set forth in communist textbooks, pamphlets and works. But such a definition of the study of communism would be too crude and insufficient. If only the study of communism consisted in assimilation of what is set forth in communist works, books and pamphlets, then it would be too easy for us to get communist swindlers or braggarts, and this would often bring us harm and damage, since these people, having learned and read what is set forth in communist books and pamphlets, they would be unable to combine all this knowledge and would not be able to act in the way that communism really requires.

One of the greatest evils and disasters that have remained to us from the old capitalist society is the complete break of the book with the practice of life, because we had books where everything was described in the best possible way, and these books, in most cases, were the most disgusting hypocrisy a lie that falsely painted us a capitalist society.

Therefore, a simple book-like assimilation of what is said in books about communism would be extremely wrong... Without work, without struggle, book knowledge of communism from communist pamphlets and works is worth absolutely nothing...”*

This means that the first warning is from the dogmatists; communism must be learned from life, it must be learned in work, it must be learned in struggle. The book is not a path to the knowledge of communism, it is only a manual, although important, but even secondary in comparison with the lessons of life ...

Further:

“It would be even more dangerous if we began to assimilate only communist slogans. If we had not realized this danger in time, and if we had not directed all our work towards eliminating this danger, then the presence of half a million or a million people, young boys and girls, who, after such training in communism, would call themselves communists, would only bring great damage to the cause of communism.

Here we face the question of how we need to combine all this to teach communism? What do we need to take from the old school, from the old science?

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 41, p. 301–302.

** Ibid., p. 302–303.

This is, of course, the fundamental question.

“The old school declared that it wanted to create a comprehensively educated person, that it taught the sciences in general. We know that this was false through and through, for the whole of society was founded and maintained on the division of people into classes, into exploiters and oppressed. Naturally, the entire old school, being wholly saturated with the class spirit, gave knowledge only to the children of the bourgeoisie. Every word of it was forged in the interests of the bourgeoisie. In these schools, the young generation of workers and peasants was not so much educated as trained in the interests of the same bourgeoisie. They brought them up in such a way as to create suitable servants for her, who would be able to give her profit and at the same time would not disturb her peace and idleness. Therefore, rejecting the old school, we set ourselves the task of taking from it only what we need in order to

Here I come to those reproaches, to those accusations of the old school, which one constantly hears and which often lead to a completely wrong interpretation. They say that the old school was a school of study, a school of drill, a school of cramming. This is true, but one must be able to distinguish between what was bad and useful in the old school, and one must be able to choose from it what is necessary for communism.

The old school was a school of study, it forced people to learn a mass of unnecessary, superfluous, dead knowledge, which clogged their heads and turned the younger generation into bureaucrats adjusted to the general rank. But you would be making a huge mistake if you tried to conclude that you can become a communist without assimilating what has been accumulated by human knowledge. It would be a mistake to think that it is enough to assimilate communist slogans, the conclusions of communist science, without having assimilated the sum of knowledge, the consequence of which is communism itself. An example of how communism emerged from the sum of human knowledge is Marxism.

... If you put forward the following question: why could Marx's teachings take over millions and tens of millions of hearts of the most revolutionary class - you can get one answer: this happened because Marx relied on a solid foundation of human knowledge won under capitalism ... "*

* * Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 41, p. 303–304.

This is an extremely important point on which I would like to dwell. We almost always understand that we must take the natural sciences and technical sciences as the bourgeois heritage transmits them to us, and in this respect we can almost entirely accept their conclusions. Not so with sociology. Vladimir Ilyich sufficiently stressed here that the sociological sciences, more than any other, reflected this tendency to train the growing youth of their own class and those of others into a spirit that would be pleasing to the bourgeoisie. From this, of course, one can draw the following conclusion: bourgeois social science is harmful and unnecessary. Of course, it is harmful and unnecessary insofar as the old school is unnecessary and harmful. But is there anything useful in it? Yes, how else. Marxism grew out of it. Marxism has become the teaching of millions of workers, meanwhile it has grown out of bourgeois social science. There can be no doubts here. Relying on the solid foundation of human knowledge won under capitalism, having studied the laws of the development of human society, Marxism could become the teaching of millions of workers.

But can it be one thing before Marx, and another thing after Marx? Marx had to build his sociological system on the basis of semi-finished products created by bourgeois science. He took from this science only those elements that were healthy and progressive, but if someone had said that Marx's sociological edifice had been completed, he would have provoked a protest from every communist. A number of problems have not yet been resolved. An enormous amount of work lies ahead for Marxist thought to complete the edifice of Marx, not in the sense of revising his principles, but in the sense of examining in his light an enormous amount of material. Where could we move now with our problems about the West and the East, if we did not study both the new phases in the development of capitalism and what is being done in this East. Indeed, the theoretical greatness of Lenin lies in the fact that he took into account the new phases in the development of capitalism and the new conditions in which this capitalism has become.

If we only put this problem before ourselves, we will see what a lot of profound work must be done here. If in the future we build Marxism only on the basis of research carried out by Marxist scholars, if we say that now we are inclined to abandon all sociological works, statistical, ethnographic, economic, geographical, historical, etc., that could to do bourgeois science outside Russia and in Russia, we would, of course, deprive ourselves of the most essential elements of our cultural construction,<…>

“Everything that was created by human society, he (Marx. - A. L.) reworked critically, without leaving a single point without attention. Everything that was created by human thought, he revised, criticized, tested on the working-class movement, and drew those conclusions that people, limited by bourgeois boundaries or bound by bourgeois prejudices, could not draw.

This must be kept in mind when, for example, we are talking about proletarian culture. Without a clear understanding that it is only by exact knowledge of the culture created by the entire development of mankind, only by reworking it, that proletarian culture can be built—without such an understanding, we will not be able to solve this problem. Proletarian culture is not something that has jumped out of nowhere, is not an invention of people who call themselves specialists in proletarian culture. This is all sheer nonsense. Proletarian culture should be a natural development of those stocks of knowledge that humanity has developed under the yoke of capitalist society, landlord society, bureaucratic society.*

Thus, capitalist science and landowner culture, which bear the stigma of bureaucracy, are the roots of proletarian culture, and there are no other roots of proletarian culture; the whole plant must grow from these same roots. Now culture takes on a new character, passes through some kind of inoculation, through some kind of new eye, through which its whole character changes. But it feeds on the same roots, and if, relying on an eye, you cut a plant under it, deprive it of its roots, then you will get absolutely nothing except withering, drying out.

Here is an extremely important truth that we must know and remember.

... Now I will add a short quotation from the article "Successes and Difficulties of the Soviet Power", which will serve for me as a transition from the presentation of Vladimir Ilyich's thoughts on science to the presentation of his thoughts on art ... The quotation, about which I said, reads as follows:

“We need to take all the culture that capitalism left behind and build socialism out of it. We need to take all science, technology, all knowledge, art.”**

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 41, p. 304–305.

** Lenin V.I. Poln. coll. cit., vol. 38, p. 55.

In addition to the fact that Lenin was aware of the enormous role of education and science in society and in our communist construction, in addition to the fact that he approached this without illusions, knowing that we were dealing with bourgeois, bureaucratic, landowner science and art, and in addition to the fact that he I understood very well that from this material, from the most brilliant sides and from worthless slags, one has to build, subjecting all this to our criticism, our new culture - in addition to this, it must be said that Lenin himself was a great scientist.

... Lenin acted in his works as a scientist in the proper sense of the word, such a work as "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" is, of course, a scientific work in the most accurate and best sense of the word. Great philosophical work of Vladimir Ilyich 3is also a learned work, although popular, as he always tried to write and wrote. But Vladimir Ilyich acted not only in this as a scientist, he acted as a scientist in all his communist tactics; in substantiating this tactic lies the enormous effort of thought, which is getting acquainted in a comprehensive way with all the facts that make up the essence of our present social fabric. In order to draw conclusions about the essence of imperialism, about the essence of colonial policy, about the essence of the national question, and hence about the essence of the relationship between the Bolshevik and Menshevik currents in the labor movement, on the one hand, about the peasant masses, their position, moods and aspirations, on the other in order to draw these brilliant conclusions, with which he supplemented and modernized Marxism, a huge amount of scientific work was needed for this.

It is hard to imagine when this man, even when he was already head of the Council of People's Commissars, found time to read such a mass of newspapers, brochures, notes, in order to be able to snatch out, catch with such amazing ability, figures, data that are just needed for a deep diagnosis of ongoing phenomena. Vladimir Ilyich did not miss a single important moment in the diverse and complex reality, which was important for accelerating the pace of the movement of history forward.

In addition to the enormous amount of material that Vladimir Ilyich always put into his conclusions, what makes him a scientist is the extraordinary rigor of his methods. This is indeed an unmistakable application of Marxist thought. Vladimir Ilyich assimilated this strictest scientific method to such an extent that it seems to me that the very figure of Lenin the scientist, his logic, are proof of the profound naturalness of Marxism.<…>

And, being a scientist both in the field of induction and in the field of scientific dialectical thought, Vladimir Ilyich had great respect for science, both for the work of accumulating materials and for working out clear conclusions from these materials. I will quote Comrade Pavlovich's preface to his book on Lenin, 4 or rather, one quotation from his preface, which vividly characterizes Vladimir Ilyich in this respect.

“In Pravda and Izvestia, a message appeared about the forthcoming Gosizdat edition of the World Geographic Atlas named after Lenin ... A note in Pravda and Izvestia ... contains, among other things, the following lines: Marxist illumination. Work on the publication of the atlas has been underway since 1922. The idea for the publication of the atlas was given by V.I. Lenin.

As a person with whom Lenin was already in May 1921 (that is, at the height of the civil war, during the famine. - A. L.)negotiated the publication of the said atlas, I must say that Vladimir Ilyich gave not only the idea of ​​the atlas, but that he also gave the scheme of the atlas itself, took an active part in the development of the program of the latter and was interested in attracting outstanding specialists to work on compiling the atlas ... Isn't it amazing that Vladimir Ilyich, standing at the head of a vast country, guiding all foreign and domestic policy in the era of the radical reorganization of the latter and a titanic struggle with the outside world, found time to think about an educational atlas for our schools? I noted that Vladimir Ilyich was interested not only in the atlas program, but also in those who would work on the implementation of this program. Vladimir Ilyich is better than many of our outstanding members of Tsekubu 5knew the names of all our outstanding scientific ethnographers, geographers, geologists, botanists, engineers, writers, their scientific merits, works, etc. I remember how in 1919, during my visit to Lenin, I and the engineer Tartakovsky who accompanied me were struck by this versatility of Ilyich. There was not a single major engineer whose name and activity would not have been known to Ilyich, there was not a single major project that he would not have thought about. The same feature manifested itself in the compilation of a geographical atlas. Vladimir Ilyich pointed out the need to involve a number of specialists in the work on the atlas ...

The commission was formed on April 26, 1921, at the initiative of Ilyich, from outstanding specialists. The basis for the formation of such a commission was the unsatisfactory independent work of the 1st State Cartographic Institution in publishing such an atlas. Vladimir Ilyich demanded that a test copy of this publication be sent to him for viewing and rejected it, finding it completely unsatisfactory and not corresponding to the requirements that should be made for such publications from a Marxist point of view.

It was then that a new commission was organized, and Vladimir Ilyich gave a detailed plan for the work of this new commission.

Here is the attitude towards things in which Vladimir Ilyich was not a specialist. This is a small example of what he expected from science, what he wanted from it.<…>

My analysis of Lenin's attitude to science would be incomplete if I did not give at least a small quotation characterizing Lenin's attitude to religion. Vladimir Ilyich believed that science, genuine, real, revolutionary science, is the opposite of religion. And therefore, while respecting science, he hated religion as its antipode. Here is what Vladimir Ilyich wrote:

“Our program is entirely built on a scientific and, moreover, precisely a materialistic worldview. The elucidation of our program necessarily includes, therefore, an elucidation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism; the publication of relevant scientific literature, which has hitherto been strictly prohibited and persecuted by the autocratic-feudal state power, must now form one of the branches of our party work.*

In a letter concerning the journal Under the Banner of Marxism, Lenin wrote:

“... A journal that wants to be an organ of militant materialism must be a militant organ, firstly, in the sense of steadily exposing and persecuting all modern “certified lackeys, clergy”, it doesn’t matter whether they act as representatives of official science or as free shooters who call themselves "democratic left or ideological-socialist" publicists.

Such a journal should be, secondly, an organ of militant atheism.**

Vladimir Ilyich points out what kind of allies the Marxist-Communists can find in the struggle against religious intoxication. He said bluntly that in this area the strongest alliance should be made with natural scientists who adhere to a strictly realistic approach to the world.

On the question of art, unfortunately, Vladimir Ilyich's literary heritage contains much less data on his thoughts than on the question of science. Nevertheless, here we have, as I mentioned, very definite indications.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 12, p. 145.

** Lenin V.I. Poln. coll. cit., vol. 45, p. 25.

First of all, in one of the quotations that I have already quoted, Vladimir Ilyich puts art on the same level as science and technology and says that we cannot build a new culture without mastering all the old culture, i.e., all technology, science and art. . Vladimir Ilyich considered it necessary to mention in the party program our tasks in the field of art. The program talks about the so-called academic art, which is sometimes very strongly pecked at in our country.

The program says: "... it is necessary to open and make available to the working people all the treasures of art created on the basis of the exploitation of their labor and which have until now been at the exclusive disposal of the exploiters." , it served the exploiters, and therefore adapted itself to serve them. Such was the pre-revolutionary, landlord, capitalist art. What should be done with it? It must be made available to the people. This may seem like a contradiction, but it is not a contradiction; it is the very depth of Vladimir Ilyich's thought. It comes from the fact that he takes into account the art that we have. Now we already have some kind of proletarian art, it may not have yet left the stage of handicrafts, it is in the process of growth, and we could not speak definitely about it at the time of drawing up the program. Then we had the so-called leftist, bohemian art, which in the most impetuous and decisive manner declared that it was proletarian art. Vladimir Ilyich considered this art unfounded, shaky, devoid of special value, he himself did not like it, did not feel it. It was necessary to reckon with art, what it is. And this art existed. Enormous repositories of this art and outstanding institutions that practiced this art remained to be seen. How was it to be approached? Discard as unnecessary? Vladimir Ilyich believed that it was necessary.

* “CPSU in resolutions…”, part 1, p. 420.

"One can write an excellent book on the role of art in the revolution, commenting exclusively on this unusually vivid and profound formulation."

("Lenin and public education")

“... every real builder and fighter loves joy, loves the thirst for life, therefore loves the beautiful. It is not for nothing that our great leader, Lenin, directly said that beauty is needed.

(“I. A. Rimsky-Korsakov”)

“Having listened to one of Beethoven's piano sonatas, Vladimir Ilyich said: you are proud that you are a man when you hear what a human genius could create. That's what a huge, I would say, poetic assessment given by the truly brilliant politician Vladimir Ilyich to the brilliant musician Beethoven. So, to the great heart and great mind of Ilyich, Beethoven could say something new and important, since Ilyich felt a new surge of pride in wearing a human face after listening to his works.

("Why We Love Beethoven")

Thus, he, perhaps, did not trust the new art, did not yet have an example of proletarian art as such, was afraid that it would not turn out to be the result of the work of those "specialists" from proletarian art, whom he mentions more than once.

He was afraid that this art might spring up "out of nowhere," as he puts it about proletarian culture, and he wanted it to grow out of the organic growth of the mainstream art that had existed before. That is why he emphasized in the party program that this art should become the property of the masses, believing that the masses would make of it, of course, not what the exploiters did.

Vladimir Ilyich understood perfectly well that art should serve precisely the masses, and in his famous, many times quoted conversation with Clara Zetkin, he said: art should serve the people, lead to the development and uplift of the masses.

Can "landlord" art, etc., do this? Partly it can, but only partly, and partly it must be rejected. The same as with bourgeois science, bourgeois school. Everywhere Vladimir Ilyich seemed to be afraid that because of the fact that there is a fly in the ointment in this honey, they would not refuse the honey itself. Let's not show misunderstanding, arrogance, we must be able to distinguish between useful and harmful.

It is true that, in addition to analyzing the finished material, we need to start some kind of construction, more direct and important. But the slogan of Vladimir Ilyich remains in force.<…>

Vladimir Ilyich perfectly understood the slogan of the day after the victory, but he also understood that the day of struggle dictated completely different tasks and methods. He knew that along the way we must have other goals, other forms, other principles of behavior than those that would become natural under triumphant communism. The dialectical materialist does not dream of approaching this differently. He also knew that we need art both as propaganda with images and as relaxation, because sometimes it is difficult to fight and work and not experience at least a little happiness for which you are fighting, and in the end art can give it. He knew that art gives deep and lofty pleasure, deep and good rest. But he knew that now it was less timely and urgent than a textbook, than a map, less important than a primer. Both political struggle and economic construction are all for human happiness, and human happiness is a beautifully organized life; it is an object of art, one that, like science, should not be a fashion or a dead letter, but should enter into everyday life really and in every possible way. Now it is extraordinarily difficult to introduce art into everyday life, this can only be done in part, this is the task of tomorrow, but this does not completely negate its significance. Let anyone who can and how can work on this today. Ilyich thought so.

This does not diminish the art in any way. We have a second, third front. Maybe art will be relegated to the fourth front. But in general, Lenin did not assume that these fronts follow one after another. He believed that they were a chain, and political, economic and cultural work intertwined, that everything made up one inseparable fabric. Only, perhaps, the golden threads of art should be attributed to a somewhat later time.

There is no need for me to even try to summarize all the material that I have presented. My task was to take these quotations and arrange them sequentially so that from their totality a complete teaching of Vladimir Ilyich about science and art would be obtained. It seems to me that from the quotations I have quoted, a clear and instructive picture emerges. Knowing how to put it into practice is one of the most enormous tasks in realizing Leninism, about which we talk so much, and not in vain. And just as a deviation from Leninism in any field is fraught with enormous dangers and must in itself a priori cause extraordinary fears, so deviations from these clear, highly unambiguous directives of Vladimir Ilyich in the field of culture are impossible. . And we, workers of culture, in awe of all the unforgettable greatness of Vladimir Ilyich, even taking only this facet of his personality, only his attitude to science and art, bow before the clarity, practicality of his views, before his extraordinary farsightedness and cannot imagine a higher goal. We cannot consider ourselves worthy of a higher appointment, to which we must strive with all our hearts and all thoughts, as well as to be Lenin's disciples in this area.

[1926]

The All-Russian Congress of Political Education was held on October 11-22, 1921 in Moscow. Lenin delivered a report at the congress entitled "The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Enlightenment" (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 44, pp. 155–175).
Apparently, here Lunacharsky has in mind the following passage from Lenin’s speech at the Third All-Russian Congress of the RKSM on October 2, 1920, “The Tasks of Youth Unions”:

“We know that a communist society cannot be built unless industry and agriculture are revived, and it is necessary to revive them not in the old way. It is necessary to revive them on a modern basis built according to the last word of science. You know that this basis is electricity, that only when the whole country, all branches of industry and agriculture are electrified, when you have mastered this task, only then will you be able to build for yourself that communist society that the old generation cannot build. Before you is the task of the economic revival of the whole country, the reorganization, restoration of both agriculture and industry on a modern technical basis, which rests on modern science, technology, and electricity.

This refers to the book of V. I. Lenin “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Critical Notes on a Reactionary Philosophy.

It was written by V. I. Lenin in February-October 1908 in Geneva and London. Published in Moscow in April 1909. The announcement of its publication was placed in the German magazine "Die Neue Zeit".

This refers to the book by M. Pavlovich (M. Veltman) "Lenin (Materials for the Study of Leninism)". M., Krasnaya Nov, 1924 ↩
Tsekubu - Central Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists. In December 1919, on the initiative of V. I. Lenin, the Council of People's Commissars created the All-Russian Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists. In November 1921, it was reorganized into Tsekubu. A. M. Gorky took an active part in the work of the commission.

To the 200th anniversary of the All-Union Academy of Sciences

Under this title, the article was published in the journal Novy Mir, 1925, No. 10. In the journal Narodnoye Prosveshchenie, 1925, No. 9, it had the title "To the Anniversary of the Academy of Sciences."

We know that the scientific world, by and large, treated the new revolution as an unexpected and ridiculous occurrence. Such an unprecedented storm, which, moreover, brought down on the head of every scientist both in the field of private life and in the scientific field a colossal amount of inconvenience, caused discontent and grumbling in the widest scientific circles. Many hoped that this obsession would pass quickly.

Other scholars fell prey to the political short-sightedness of the liberal parties to which they belonged, and to the hopes of the Western European bourgeoisie, whom they were accustomed to respect. The deepest isolation from public life, in which the learned caste existed, made for many of them completely incomprehensible what was happening around, and painfully beat on the nerves. I am not familiar enough with the inner life of the academy to say whose merit it was that the academy of sciences, by and large as an institution, like the majority of its members, managed to position itself differently.

At the beginning of 1918, having just looked around the walls of the Ministry of Education recently occupied by us in Chernyshevsky lane, I decided to find out the academy's attitude towards us in the midst of the general raging waves of vicious boycott. I asked the academy what kind of participation it was going to take in our cultural and educational work and what it could give in connection with the mobilization of science for the needs of state building, which the new government considers necessary.

The Russian Academy of Sciences, signed by its president Karpinsky and its indispensable secretary Oldenburg, literally answered me that “it is always ready, at the request of life and the state, for a feasible scientific theoretical development of individual tasks put forward by the needs of state building, being at the same time organizing and attracting scientific forces the center of the country.”<…>

At the same time, say some of its opponents, the academy booked itself behind its old charter, presented to it by tsarist times, and behind its new charter, which it began to develop, and sat out in every possible way in autonomy, which other scientists and higher educational institutions also tried to do. The People's Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR also received its share of reprimands.* You didn't allow the autonomy of higher educational institutions and did a good job, but learned societies, especially the Russian Academy, retained their autonomy. This is a state within a state.

  Reproaches, reprimands (fr.). —Ed.

But I ask, could the academy and we have a more reasonable policy? What could we demand from the academy? So that she suddenly turns into a communist conference all in a crowd, so that she suddenly crosses over into Marxism and, laying her hand on Capital, swears that she is the most orthodox Bolshevik? I think that we would hardly have survived such an event without a certain feeling of disgust. After all, such a transformation could not be sincere. Perhaps it will come with time and through the gradual replacement of the previous generation by a new one and through the process of lively penetration through the imaginary armor of the juice academy of the new public that we are noticing. But under what conditions can this process be successfully completed?

Only under the conditions of a good neighborhood. The Academy expressed such a wish. Did the academy sit out? Was she fruitless for us?

This I emphatically deny. We took a new spelling from the academy; we used the results of the work of her commission on the reform of the calendar; we received a lot of interesting information from her KEPS*; we relied on it in negotiations with neighboring powers for peace; she created, on our order, the most accurate ethnographic maps of Belarus and Bessarabia. We received strong support for it in the introduction of literacy in the mother language for nationalities that did not have a written language or had a germinal script. And it would be difficult to enumerate all those minor services that the academy provided to the People's Commissariat of Education, the Supreme Economic Council, the State Planning Commission, etc.

Of course, there is still no complete correspondence between the work of the academy and the nature of the work of the state, but this will take time. Or should the People's Commissariat of Education, seeing that the academy is delaying being baptized into a new faith, baptize it, like Dobrynya, with fire and sword? But I repeat the words of V. I. Lenin: “We must not let some communist fanatics eat the Academy.”

Yes, V. I. Lenin not only did not disagree with the People’s Commissariat for Education on this issue, but very often went further, and I remember very well two or three conversations in which he literally warned me not to “play naughty” around the academy. One very respected young communist and astronomer** came up with a wonderful plan for the reorganization of the academy.

* KEPS - Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces of Russia, established on the initiative of a number of academicians during the First World War. —Ed.``

** We are talking about P. K. Shternberg, a member of the editorial board of the People's Commissariat of Education, head of the department of higher education. —Ed.

It came out very nice on paper. The precondition was, of course, to demolish the existing building in order to construct a model academic city. V. I. Lenin became very worried, called me and asked: “Do you want to reform the Academy? Do you have any plans for this?

I answered: “The Academy must be adapted to the general state and social life, it cannot be left as some kind of state within a state. We have to pull her closer to us, know what she's doing and give her some directives. But, of course, the plans for a radical reform are untimely and we do not attach serious importance to them.

Somewhat reassured, Ilyich replied: “We now have no time to deal with the Academy, and this is an important national issue. This requires caution, tact and great knowledge, but for now we are busy with more damned questions. There will be some daredevil with you, he will run into the Academy and smash so many dishes there that later you will have to be strictly exacted from you.

I remember this order of Vladimir Ilyich in both its parts - in the part of the threat to exact from those who break academic dishes, and in the part that the time will come when this "important state question" will be settled with all the force of thought of our great party.

I do not think that the dates have already come, and that in connection with the entry of the academy into the third century, it would be possible to bluntly raise the question of some kind of radical Sovietization of it. But this question is not far off, it will, of course, be resolved amicably, taking into account all the good traditions of the Academy, while preserving this respect that we have for it not only for its brilliant scientific past, but which many of its representatives have won from us, constantly who communicate with us and become in our eyes major, respected figures in our cultural campaign.

[1925]

 Lenin on monumental propaganda

This article was first published on January 29, 1933 in Literaturnaya Gazeta Nos. 4, 5.

I would like to recall Lenin's remarkable initiative, which, if I am not mistaken, dates back to the winter of 1918/19 and which had rather broad consequences at that time, but then, unfortunately, remained on the sidelines.

I do this with all the greater pleasure, because we are approaching the time and conditions under which the idea given by Lenin then can be implemented much more widely and successfully than in those first military, hungry, cold years of the civil war. I don't remember exactly on what day (according to archival materials it is probably not difficult to establish) Vladimir Ilyich called me to his place. 1 I will allow myself to convey here our conversation in a lively dialogue, without vouching, of course, for the accuracy of each word, this is out of the question, but taking full responsibility for the general course of the conversation and its meaning.

“Anatoly Vasilyevich,” Lenin said to me, “you probably have a considerable number of artists who can give something and who must be very poor.

“Of course,” I said, “both in Moscow and in Leningrad there are many such artists.

“We are talking,” continued Vladimir Ilyich, “about sculptors, and partly, perhaps, also about poets and writers. For a long time this idea, which I will present to you, has been hovering in front of me for a long time. Do you remember that Campanella in his "Solar State" says that frescoes are painted on the walls of his fantastic socialist city, which serve for young people as an object lesson in natural science, history, arouse civic feeling - in a word, they participate in the education, upbringing of new generations. It seems to me that this is far from being naive and, with a certain change, could be assimilated and implemented by us right now.

To tell the truth, I became terribly interested in this introduction by Vladimir Ilyich. Firstly, the question of the socialist order for artists really interested me keenly. There were no funds for this, and my promises to the artists about how much they would gain by moving from the service of the private market to the service of the state, naturally, hung in the air. To use art for such a huge purpose as the educational propaganda of our great ideas, it immediately seemed to me extremely tempting. And Vladimir Ilyich continued:

“I would call what I think of monumental propaganda. For this purpose, you must come to an agreement for the first term with the Moscow and St. Petersburg Soviets, at the same time you organize artistic forces, choose suitable places in the squares. Our climate is unlikely to allow the frescoes that Campanella dreams of. That is why I speak mainly of sculptors and poets. In various conspicuous places on suitable walls or on some special structures, brief but expressive inscriptions containing the longest fundamental principles and slogans of Marxism could be scattered, as well as, perhaps, strongly cobbled together formulas giving an assessment of one or another great historical event. Please don't think that I'm imagining marble and granite and golden letters. For now, we must do everything modestly. Let it be some kind of concrete slabs, and the inscriptions on them are as clear as possible. I don't think about eternity or at least duration. Let it all be temporary.

Even more important than inscriptions, I consider monuments: busts or whole figures, maybe bas-reliefs, groups.

It is necessary to compile a list of those predecessors of socialism or its theoreticians and fighters, as well as those luminaries of philosophical thought, science, art, etc., who, although they had no direct relation to socialism, were genuine heroes of culture. 2

According to this list, order the sculptor also temporary, at least from plaster or concrete, works. It is important that they are accessible to the masses, that they are conspicuous. It is important that they are somewhat resistant to our climate, that they do not become sour, that they are not crippled by wind, frost and rain. Of course, on the pedestals you can make intelligible brief inscriptions about who it was.

Particular attention should be paid to the discovery of such monuments. Here we ourselves, and other comrades, and prominent specialists can be called in to deliver speeches. Let each such discovery be an act of propaganda and a small holiday, and then, on the occasion of anniversaries, you can repeat a reminder of this great man, always, of course, clearly linking him with our revolution and its tasks.

To tell the truth, I was completely stunned and blinded by this offer. I liked it extremely. We immediately set about implementing it. Implementation, however, went a little awry. True, we made a number of inscriptions in different places. It seems that some of them survived. In the same way, we erected several dozen monuments in Leningrad and Moscow, attracting both old and young sculptors here. 3 <…>

I ask myself now, when we are carrying out such extensive construction, could we not return to the idea of ​​monumental propaganda, could we not put up for the time being only temporary monuments and include in new buildings such planes on which great the words of our teachers,<…>

[1933]

On April 4, 1918, Lenin, in a conversation with Lunacharsky, expressed the idea of ​​monumental propaganda. On April 12, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree "On the Monuments of the Republic", which set the task of removing monuments to the tsars and their servants, which were of no value in historical and artistic terms, and installing revolutionary monuments. A special commission consisting of the people's commissar of education, the people's commissar of property of the Republic and the head of the department of fine arts of the People's Commissariat of Education was instructed to determine which monuments in Moscow and Petrograd were to be removed, and it was recommended to attract artistic forces to develop projects for new, revolutionary monuments. VI Lenin attached great importance to the implementation of this decree. This question was discussed at the meetings of the Council of People's Commissars on July 8, 17 and 30, 1918. Lenin repeatedly criticized the leaders of the People's Commissariat of Education, the People's Commissariat for Property and the Moscow Soviet for the unsatisfactory implementation of the decree of the Council of People's Commissars. For more on this, see Literary Heritage, vol. 80, p. 61–64. ↩
On July 17, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars, having heard the report of the Deputy People's Commissar of Education M.N. Pokrovsky on the installation of monuments to outstanding revolutionaries and public figures, as well as thinkers, scientists, writers, artists, decided: to submit the list to the Council of People's Commissars in 5 days.

On July 30, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars approved a list of monuments to great people. The corresponding resolution stated: "put in first place the erection of monuments to the greatest figures of the revolution - Marx and Engels." On August 2, in the newspaper Izvestiya No. 163, signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. I. Lenin, the “List of persons who are supposed to erect monuments in Moscow and other cities of the RSFSR, presented to the Council of People's Commissars by the Department of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat for Education ...” was published and further listed the names of revolutionary and public figures, writers and poets, philosophers and scientists, artists, composers, artists who were supposed to erect monuments.

↩
On July 20, 1918, the Izvestiya newspaper, No. 152, published an appeal from the Commissariat of Public Education, which stated that the Commissariat was starting to install boards with inscriptions and quotations in all the largest cities of Russia and that the choice of texts for them should be made with the widest possible participation. people.

The sculptors L. V. Sherwood, T. E. Zalkaun, B. D. Korolev, S. D. Merkulov, S. T. Konenkov and others took part in this work.

In pursuance of the decree At the end of August 1918, the Department of Fine Arts V. E. Tatlin wrote a letter to Lunacharsky stating that 30 monuments would be ready by November.

A document has been preserved in the CPA IML : 28 sayings of Marx, Danton, Chernyshevsky, Lassalle, Cicero, Heine, Thomas More, Schiller with an inscription by Lunacharsky stating that these sayings were approved as texts for monumental propaganda by him, V. Ya. Bryusov and V. M. Friche.

On September 9, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, Lunacharsky, in response to a request for the preparation of inscriptions, replied that the commission (Fritche, Pokrovsky, Bryusov) had presented 28 sayings, which, as he noted, "approved by me and Ilyich" ("Literary Heritage", vol. 80 , p. 63).

Lenin and art

These memoirs were first published in 1924 in the magazine "Artist and Spectator" Nos. 2, 3.

Lenin had very little time in the course of his life to engage in any kind of intent art ... and since amateurism was always alien and hateful to him, he did not like to speak out about art. Nevertheless, his tastes were very definite. He loved Russian classics, loved realism in literature, in painting, etc. Back in 1905, during the first revolution, he had to spend the night in the apartment of comrade D. I. Leshchenko, where, by the way, there was a whole collection of Knakfuss publications , 1dedicated to the world's greatest artists. The next morning Vladimir Ilyich said to me: “What a fascinating field is the history of art! How much work is there for a communist! Yesterday I could not sleep until morning, I kept looking at one book after another. And I became annoyed that I did not have and will not have time to do art. I remember these words of Ilyich very clearly.

Several times I had to meet with him after the revolution on the basis of various artistic juries.

For example, I remember he called me, and we went with him to an exhibition of monument projects to replace the figure of Alexander III, who was overthrown from a luxurious pedestal near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Vladimir Ilyich examined all these monuments very critically. He didn't like any of them. With particular surprise, he stood in front of a monument of a futuristic type, but when asked about his opinion, he said: "I don't understand anything here, ask Lunacharsky." In response to my statement that I did not see a single worthy monument, he was very happy and said to me: “And I thought that you would put up some kind of futuristic scarecrow” ...

Another time it was about the monument to Karl Marx. The famous sculptor M. (Merkurov. - Ed. ) showed particular perseverance. He exhibited a large project of the monument: "Karl Marx standing on four elephants." Such an unexpected motive seemed strange to all of us, and to Vladimir Ilyich as well. The artist began to remake his monument and remade it three times, never wanting to give up winning the competition. When the jury, under my chairmanship, finally rejected his project and settled on the collective project of a group of artists led by Aleshin, the sculptor burst into Ilyich's office and complained to him. Vladimir Ilyich took his complaint to heart and called me specifically to convene a new jury.

“Lenin wrote and spoke little about art. But in his harmonious revolutionary consciousness everything occupied the right place. If he had anywhere given a systematic expression of his views on art and artistic policy, it would have been as authoritative and wise as anything he wrote. But the time was different. The tasks of the artistic education of the people were only just beginning to glimmer through the smoke of war and the columns of dust of destruction and initial construction. That is why we have in Lenin only outlines, fragments. They are precious. You need to be able to think about them, interpret them, apply them.

(Foreword to the book "Lenin and art. Literature, music, cinema theater, art")

He said that he would come to watch Alyosha's project and Merkurov's project. Came. I was very pleased with the Alyosha project, but rejected Merkurov's project.<…>

Back in 1918, Vladimir Ilyich called me and told me that art had to be advanced as a means of agitation; in doing so, he outlined two projects.

Firstly, in his opinion, it was necessary to decorate buildings, fences, etc., places where posters are usually found, with large revolutionary inscriptions. Some of them he immediately offered.<…>

The second project concerned the erection of monuments to the great revolutionaries on an extremely large scale, temporary monuments, made of plaster, both in St. Petersburg and in Moscow. Both cities enthusiastically responded to my proposal to implement Ilyich's idea, and it was assumed that each monument would be solemnly opened with a speech about a given revolutionary and that explanatory inscriptions would be made under it. Vladimir Ilyich called it "monumental propaganda."

In Petrograd, this "monumental propaganda" was quite successful.

The first such monument was Radishchev - Sherwood. A copy of it was put in Moscow. Unfortunately, the monument in Petrograd crashed and was not restored. In general, most of the good Petersburg monuments, due to the very fragility of the material, could not resist, but I remember very good monuments, for example, the busts of Garibaldi, Shevchenko, Dobrolyubov, Herzen and some others. Monuments with a left slant came out worse, so, for example, when the cubic stylized head of Perovskaya was opened, some of them directly shied aside. Just as accurately, I remember, the monument to Chernyshevsky seemed to many extremely pretentious. Best of all was the monument to Lassalle. The full-length monument to Karl Marx, made by the sculptor Matveev, was also extremely successful. Unfortunately, it crashed and has now been replaced in the same place, that is, near Smolny, by a bronze head of Marx of a more or less ordinary type, without the original plastic interpretation of Matveev.

In Moscow, where Vladimir Ilyich could just see the monuments, they were unsuccessful.<…>

I do not know whether Vladimir Ilyich looked at them in detail, but, in any case, he somehow told me with displeasure that nothing came of the monumental propaganda. I replied with a reference to the Petrograd experience. Vladimir Ilyich shook his head doubtfully and said: “Well, all the talents have gathered in Petrograd, and mediocrity in Moscow?” I could not explain such a strange phenomenon to him.

He also had some doubts about Konenkov's memorial plaque. 2She didn't seem particularly convincing to him. Konenkov himself, by the way, not without wit, called this work of his "an imaginary board." I also remember how the artist Altman gave Vladimir Ilyich a bas-relief depicting Khalturin. Vladimir Ilyich liked the bas-relief very much, but he asked me if it was a futuristic work. He generally had a negative attitude towards futurism. I was not present at his conversation at Vkhutemas, in whose hostel he once stopped by. I was later told about a big conversation between him and the Vkhutemasovtsy, of course, entirely "leftist". Vladimir Ilyich laughed at them, mocked them a little, but even here he declared that he would not undertake to speak seriously about such subjects, because he felt himself insufficiently competent. He found the youth itself very good and rejoiced at its communist mood. 3

During the last period of his life, Vladimir Ilyich rarely managed to enjoy art. He visited the theater several times, it seems, exclusively at the Artistic Theater, which he placed very highly. 4 Performances in this theater invariably made an excellent impression on him.<…>

Comrades who are interested in art remember the appeal of the Central Committee on questions about art, which was rather sharply directed against futurism. 5 At that time, and quite erroneously, Vladimir Ilyich considered me either a supporter of Futurism, or a person who exclusively condoned it, and therefore, probably, he did not consult with me before issuing this rescript of the Central Committee, which, in his opinion, should have rectified my line.

Vladimir Ilyich disagreed with me quite sharply in relation to Proletkult as well. 6 Once he even scolded me strongly. I will say first of all that Vladimir Ilyich by no means denied the importance of workers' circles for developing writers and artists from the proletarian environment and considered it expedient to unite them all over Russia, but he was very afraid of the inclinations of the Proletcult to engage in the development of proletarian science and, in general, proletarian culture in its entirety. This, firstly, seemed to him a completely untimely and unbearable task, and secondly, he thought that such, naturally, while hasty inventions, the proletariat would fence itself off from study, from the perception of elements of already finished science and culture ...

The new artistic and literary formations that emerged during the revolution, for the most part, passed by the attention of Vladimir Ilyich. He didn't have time to deal with them. Nevertheless, I will say “150,000,000” by Mayakovsky, Vladimir Ilyich definitely did not like it. He found this book pretentious and stucco*. It is impossible not to regret that he was no longer able to comment on other, later and more mature turns of literature towards the revolution.

*On the other hand, a small poem by the same Mayakovsky about red tape made Vladimir Ilyich very amused, and he even repeated some lines. (Author's note)

Everyone knows the great interest that Vladimir Ilyich showed in cinematography.

[1924]

* * *

My long conversation with Ilyich about cinema was caused by his special interest in the film industry, which was also reflected in his well-known letter to Comrade. Litkens, written by him in January. a Approximately in the middle of February, and perhaps towards the end of it, Vladimir Ilyich suggested that I go to him for a talk. As far as I remember, the conversation touched upon several current issues in the life of the People's Commissariat for Education. He also asked me about what had been done in response to his paper sent to Litkens. In response, I set out in some detail everything I knew about the state of cinema in the Soviet Republic and about the enormous difficulties that the development of this business encounters.

In particular, I pointed out the lack of funds at the People's Commissariat of Education for a large-scale staging of film production, as well as the lack of leaders in this business, or, more precisely, communist leaders, on whom one could completely rely. In response to this, Vladimir Ilyich told me that he would try to do something to increase the resources of the photography department. He once again emphasized the need to establish a certain proportion between exciting films and scientific ones. (Unfortunately, this is still very weakly posed.) Vladimir Ilyich told me that the production of new films imbued with communist ideas, reflecting Soviet reality, should begin with a chronicle that, in his opinion, the time for the production of such films, perhaps, had not yet come.

“If you have a good chronicle, serious and enlightening pictures, then it does not matter that some useless tape, more or less of the usual type, will be used to attract the public. Of course, censorship is still needed. Tapes counter-revolutionary and immoral should not take place.

To this Vladimir Ilyich added:

“As soon as you get on your feet, thanks to proper management, and perhaps receive a certain loan for this work with a general improvement in the situation of the country, you will have to develop production on a wider scale, and in particular to promote healthy cinema to the masses in the city, and even more so in the countryside.

Then, smiling, Vladimir Ilyich added:

“You are reputed to be the patron of the arts, so you must firmly remember that of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us.”

[1925]

* * *

Art critic G. Boltyansky turned to A. V. Lunacharsky with a request to inform him of the content of the conversation between Lunacharsky and Lenin in the cinema. The text of this conversation was first published in 1925 in the book: G. Boltyansky. Lenin and cinema. M.–L., 1925, p. 16–17 .

a Apparently, Lunacharsky is referring to the Directives on Film Making, dictated by Lenin to N.P. Gorbunov on January 17, 1922 (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 44, pp. 360–361).

This refers to the series of richly illustrated monographs about artists published since 1895 in Germany by the artist and art critic Hermann Knackfuss. ↩
This refers to the memorial plaque by the sculptor S. T. Konenkov "To the fallen in the struggle for peace and the brotherhood of peoples" (colored cement), mounted on the wall of the Senate Tower of the Kremlin. On November 7, 1918, at the opening of the memorial plaque, V. I. Lenin delivered a speech (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 37, pp. 171–172).

Lenin's critical attitude to this board is apparently explained by the fact that it was made in the spirit of abstract symbolism: the allegorical meaning of the fantastic figure in the center could be incomprehensible to the general public.

↩
On February 25, 1921, V. I. Lenin, together with N. K. Krupskaya, visited the hostel of the Vkhutemas (Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops), where at that time the daughter of the deceased activist of the international communist movement I. F. Armand lived. For this trip of Lenin to Vkhutemas and the conversation with students, see Memories of V. I. Lenin. In 5 volumes, M., 1969, v. 4, p. 331–340. ↩
During these years, Lenin visited the following performances at the Moscow Art Theater: “Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man”, “Uncle Vanya”, “At the Bottom”, as well as performances of the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theater: “The Flood” and “Cricket on the Stove”. ↩
This refers to the letter of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) "On Proletcults", published on December 1, 1920 in the newspaper Pravda No. 270. ↩
"Proletkult" - the Union of Cultural and Educational Organizations, arose in September 1917 as an independent independent workers' organization. Proletkult was headed by A. A. Bogdanov. Proletkult continued to defend its "independence" even after the October Revolution, thereby opposing itself to the proletarian state. Proletcultists actually denied the significance of the cultural heritage of the past, sought to isolate themselves from the tasks of mass cultural and educational work and, in isolation from life, “by laboratory” create a special “proletarian culture”. Recognizing Marxism in words, Bogdanov, the chief ideologist of the Proletkult, in fact preached a subjective-idealistic philosophy. The Proletkult was not a homogeneous organization. Along with the bourgeois intellectuals, who ruled in many organizations of the Proletkult, they also included working youth who sincerely strove to help the cultural construction of the Soviet state. The proletarian cult organizations received the greatest development in 1919. In the early 1920s they fell into disrepair; in 1932 Proletkult ceased to exist

To the centenary of the Alexandria Theater

This article in an abridged form was first published in 1932 in the journal "Worker and Theater" Nos. 25, 26. In the same year, the full text of this article was published as a preface to the book: K. Derzhavin. Epochs of the Alexandrian scene (1832–1932). L., Goslitizdat, 1932. The book was published for the centenary of the Alexandria Theater (now the Pushkin State Academic Drama Theater).

In 1918, the attack of the proletarians on the Alexandrinsky Theater was strong. Personally, I was close to Proletkult, and in the end I was somewhat embarrassed by the insistent demands to do away with the "nest of reactionary art."

I decided to ask Vladimir Ilyich himself for advice.

I must say that I do my best not to cite officially any verbal directives, which were quite often given to me by our brilliant leader through the people's commissariat entrusted to me. I had the criminal ingenuity not to write down immediately and in the most exact way every word that I heard from Vladimir Ilyich. Lenin's world authority is so huge that it's just scary to speak on his behalf. Leaving aside the complete inadmissibility of imposing anything on him, a simple error of memory is also dangerous. Therefore, I ask the reader in advance to take into account that the summary of the conversation that I had at that time with Vladimir Ilyich is transmitted with the utmost conscientiousness available to me, but that I ask you not to rely on it at all as on the direct word of the teacher.

So, having come to Vladimir Ilyich’s office, I don’t remember exactly what date, but, in any case, in the 1918/19 season, I told him that I thought I would make every effort to preserve all the best theaters in the country. To this I added:

“So far, of course, their repertoire is old, but we will immediately clean it of any dirt. The public, and, moreover, the proletarian one, goes there willingly. Both this audience and time itself will force even the most conservative theaters to gradually change. I think that this change will happen relatively soon. I consider it dangerous to introduce a direct break here: we still have nothing to replace in this area. And the new that will grow, perhaps, will lose the cultural thread. After all, it’s impossible, taking into account the fact that the music of the near future after the victory of the revolution will become proletarian and socialist, after all, it’s impossible to believe that it is possible to close conservatories and music schools and burn the old “feudal-bourgeois” instruments and notes.

Vladimir Ilyich listened attentively to me and replied that I should adhere to precisely this line, only that I should not forget to support the new that would be born under the influence of the revolution. Let it be weak at first: only aesthetic judgments cannot be applied here, otherwise the old, more mature art will slow down the development of the new, and although it itself will change, it will be all the more slowly, the less it will be spurred on by the competition of young phenomena.

I hastened to assure Vladimir Ilyich that I would do everything to avoid such a mistake.

“Only we must not allow,” I said, “so that the psychopaths and charlatans, who are now in fairly large numbers trying to become attached to our steamer, begin to play a role that is inappropriate for them and harmful to us by our own forces.”

Vladimir Ilyich said literally the following:

“As for psychopaths and charlatans, you are profoundly right. The victorious class, and even one whose own intellectual strength is still small in number, will inevitably fall victim to such elements if it does not protect itself from them. This is to some extent,” Lenin added, laughing, “and the inevitable result and even a sign of victory.”

“So let’s sum it up like this,” I said. “Everything more or less respectable in the old art is guarding. Not a museum art, but an active art - theatre, literature, music - should be subjected to some, not rough, influence in the direction of the fastest evolution to meet new needs. Treat new phenomena with scrutiny. Give them the opportunity to win more and more prominent place for themselves with real artistic merit. In this regard, it is possible to help them as much as possible.”

To this Lenin said:

“I think it's a pretty accurate formula. Try to explain it to our public, and to the public in general, in your public speeches and articles.”

"May I refer to you?" I asked.

"Why? I don't claim to be an art expert. Since you are a people's commissar, you yourself should have enough authority.

This is where our conversation ended. It was precisely this policy that, on the whole, was pursued by our Party and the Soviet government.

[1932]

Culture in our country and in the West

This article was first published on January 17, 1929 in the newspaper Izvestia No. 14.

Once, during my stay in France, the "super-realistic" youth tried to put forward the slogan that the Bolshevik revolution brings with it the end of the triumph of realism, faith in the intellect and seeks to replace all this with the realm of intuition, etc. I spoke out in all sharpness against such an interpretation of our revolution and emphasized that Leninism is a deeply scientific trend and, thereby, thoroughly imbued with respect for the intellect. It is difficult to go further in respect for science than Lenin did.

Lenin paid tribute to Western culture. Of course, this does not mean that he took all Western European science, and even more so Western European culture, for something positive. Of course, he clearly saw that shameful stigma of bourgeois narrow-mindedness, which so far stains both culture in the West and even its noblest part - science. But Lenin knew the virtues of this culture, and especially of exact science, from the most abstract theories to applied technical disciplines. He therefore said that if the American, British or German proletariat could wrest power from the hands of the bourgeoisie, they would be able to create a socialist system much sooner than we, precisely because they could rely on a very mature science, moreover, not left only in books, but realized in gigantic industry, advanced agriculture, etc.

From this side, Lenin considered the transfer of healthy positive forms of culture from the West to be extremely important and was in the full sense of the word a Westerner, without a shadow of any kind of Slavophile, Russian or Eurasian swagger. But he pointed out that not only on all forms of bourgeois life in the most diverse strata of European-American society, on the forms of its art, etc., there is a disgusting stamp caused by a kind of capitalist barbarism, an exploitative spirit that penetrates this society, but even the staining shadow of the bourgeois-class spirit falls on science. Not to mention the complete distortion of the social sciences, philosophical, psychological, and the exact sciences in their epistemological parts, in their conclusions, and often even in the very depths of their constructions, are distorted by the pernicious class interest of a limited and doomed bourgeoisie.

How did Lenin view our culture? He considered us quantitatively poor in cultural terms, he pointed out that the lack of culture of our masses is the main obstacle to the building of socialism in our country, that without overcoming its construction, this cannot be crowned with success. He drew attention to the colossal importance of solving the most elementary cultural tasks in our country, for example, the achievement of universal literacy, and at the same time emphasized the need for the development of the highest cultural forms of genuine, leading, educative art and genuine, strong, bold, materialistic, socially useful scientific thought. He taught us that although we are culturally weak in quantitative terms, yet, having the power of the Soviets, we can critically select in the old culture what we need. We can build our own cultural edifice in a new way, more purely, more systematically. We can catch up and overtake Europe on this way, and it will not be just a cultural skyscraper of the European-American type, only a few floors higher than those built in the West - no, it will be a building of a completely different order, although in its foundation, in his materials will be very, very much from the cultural values that have been assimilated and selected in the treasury already achieved by mankind.<…>.

[1929]