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Relationship between the work of adolescents and the educational base

"Controversial problems of Marxist pedagogy", Sat. articles ed. A. Z. Ioanisiani M., Publishing House "Worker of Education", 1930 OCR Detskiysad.Ru

Given with some abbreviations

Marx wanted, on the one hand (and this became one of the foundations of the communist program), that factory work itself should be the main basis for educating working youth; on the other hand, so that the education of working youth must be integrated into the framework of the work of children and adolescents. Let us recall once again the famous resolution of the First International:

“Neither parents nor employers should be allowed by society to use the labor of children and adolescents, except on the condition that their productive labor will be connected with education.”

“By education we mean three things: first, spiritual education; secondly, bodily development, which is given by gymnastic schools, and military exercises; thirdly, polytechnic education, which should acquaint with the general scientific foundations of all production processes and at the same time teach the child and adolescent the practical use and application of elementary tools for all industries.

The combination of paid productive labor, religious education, physical exercise and polytechnic education will raise the working class far above the upper and middle classes.

( resolution of the Geneva Congress of the First International, drafted by Marx ).

The head of the CIT'a comrade. Gastev (who, of course, this precept of Marx is extremely unpleasant, for Gastev is the main conductor of the idea of ​​a gap in the training of the labor force and workers' education) declares that Marx, after all, turned to "society" in capitalist times, moreover, more than 60 years ago. This ideal of combining "paid productive labor with education" is an old joke, much water has flowed under the bridge since then. It depicted a certain advanced, capitalist school, and not at all the communist order of labor education.

But these assertions of Gastev, which he constantly repeats, are utter nonsense. Yes, Marx set the task for the working class, even in the depths of capitalist society, to fight for the use of the factory labor of children and adolescents as a support for the working class in its cultural and political development. But does this mean that in the event of the victory of the working class, a new, purely proletarian "society" can allow, if not the capitalists, then at least their own state, to separate the work of adolescents from the educational base? Of course it doesn't mean anything. If Marx said that it was precisely this school, merged with factory labor, that would enable the proletarians “even in the depths of the capitalist system” to rise above the upper and middle classes, then this becomes a basic commandment for us! After all, we must now rise above the upper and middle classes of Europe and America. We must rise above them in our industry. But industrial development is closely connected with cultural development. If we were to start overtaking Europe by renouncing the demands of our program protecting the interests of the proletariat as a production worker, this would mean that we fell into the most harmful heresy, that we simply forgot the colossally important cultural side of our program, that we were captured by a peculiar "economism".

Gastev's clumsy objections fall down also because in the article "Pearls of Narodnik Projectionism" Lenin pointed out with particular force the same side of the matter. He wrote:

“... it is impossible to imagine the ideal of the future society without combining education with the productive labor of the younger generation; neither training nor education without productive labor, nor productive labor without parallel training and education could be raised to the height required by the present level of technology and the state of scientific knowledge.
A. Lunacharsky.