Lenin’s Thoughts on Education

Lenin applied Marxist educational thought to Russian proletarian revolution and construction, and created an important exposition of socialist education. The main contents are as follows: (1) It is pointed out clearly that socialist education must be connected with proletarian politics. According to the slogan of “no politics” in education, Lenin argued that “the more civilized a bourgeois country is, the more likely it will lie, saying that schools can serve the whole society regardless of politics”. It is a lie that we publicly declare that schools can be separated from life and politics. After the proletariat gains power, the school should be changed from a bourgeois class ruling tool to a tool for destroying this kind of rule and completely eliminating social class division, so that schools can cultivate new people who can finally realize communism. (2) To establish the important position of national education in socialist construction. In the face of the backward situation of Russian education, Lenin regarded improving the people’s cultural level, vigorously developing education, and training new intellectuals with all-round development as an important condition to ensure the victory of socialism. He said it would be ridiculous to talk about the new economic policy if the minimum task was not solved. If teenagers don’t receive modern education, they can’t build a communist society. (3) We should formulate the policy of combining education with production and labor. Lenin pointed out that without the combination of education and productive labor of the younger generation, the ideal of the future society could not be imagined; neither the teaching and education separated from the production labor nor the production labor without teaching and education at the same time can not reach the height required by the level of modern technology and the status quo of scientific knowledge. Lenin suggested that the thought of combining education with productive labor should be written into the “Draft Programme of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)”. (4) Advocate the good study style of integrating theory with practice. Lenin said that the old school was a school for dead study. It forced people to learn a lot of useless, cumbersome and dead knowledge, which filled the minds of the young generation and turned them into a model official. The new school must study in accordance with practice, develop a good style of study in which theory is integrated with practice, train young people into knowledgeable people, enable them to acquire knowledge of natural and Social Sciences and master the basic viewpoints of communism. (5) We should transform old schools and run schools at various levels and in various forms. The old school is a political tool of the bourgeoisie and a “servant trained to be useful to the Bourgeoisie”. But the old school is not totally negated. The knowledge, organization, organization, human and material resources left by it are the materials that must be used in the construction of new schools. We should be good at distinguishing the bad things in the old schools from the ones that are good for us, and select what we need and make them useful after transformation. Lenin’s “Draft Programme of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)” drafted for the Eighth National Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) stipulates that free universal compulsory comprehensive technical education shall be implemented for boys and girls under the age of 16; the State shall provide all students with meals, clothing, teaching materials and teaching aids. This is a great change in the history of education. Lenin divided education into three levels: general education, comprehensive technical education and vocational education. Comprehensive technical education is to educate students to be familiar with the general principles of production of major production departments in theory and practice and master the skills of using common and most common labor tools, mainly including the production principles and operation technologies of industrial departments such as electric power, machinery and chemistry, and the basic knowledge of agronomy. Students should master the knowledge and skills of comprehensive technical education. After short-term training and training, they can quickly master the knowledge and skills of professional production they are engaged in and can freely shift from one production department to another. (6) Improve the status of teachers and give full play to their role. Lenin pointed out that the army of teachers is the “main force of socialist education”. If we do not improve the status of the teachers, there will be no culture, neither proletarian culture nor bourgeois culture.

Lenin argued that the teachers should be raised to a higher position than they had ever to improve the ideological quality of teachers, so that they have truly in line with their noble title in all aspects of literacy. Teachers should attach importance to their own mental transformation, especially the improvement of their ideological and political awareness, establish the concept of education serving the socialist construction, so that students can learn the correct knowledge in line with the modern educational point of view. He also believes that the role of teachers in schools is crucial, and teachers can even determine the nature and direction of schools. Educational institutions should formulate correct policies, be good at finding talents, arrange work for educational experts and teachers, and fully mobilize their socialist enthusiasm and initiative.