Lenin's “Own Words”
(Part Two: On the Issues of Sex, Women, Youth, Education, and Morality)

6. Youth and Education

What are the Tasks of Youth?

“And so, in dealing from this angle with the tasks confronting the youth, I must say that the tasks of the youth in general, and of the Young Communist Leagues and all other organizations in particular, might be summed up in a single word: learn.” (“The Tasks of the Youth Leagues” Collected Works vol. 31, p. 283)
 
Lenin said that the task of youth should be “to learn” after the revolution, and this is worth noting. Prior to the revolution he probably would not have posed the question in this way, and would have said something about the task of youth being “to fight” against the old system.

At any rate, however, Lenin’s words were like a bolt out of the blue for the progressive youth in the Soviet Union at the time. At the time, the fierce civil war against the counter-revolutionaries had not yet ended. One leader of the Young Communist League described the shock he felt from Lenin’s words in the following way: “When Lenin expressed the fundamental task of youth in one word, I was surprised. And I became even more surprised when this one word was “study.” What about the struggle of Ostrov Vrangelya in the Crimean? We had believed that in line with the unanimous agreement at the komsomol (YCL) conference, we would dedicate ourselves to aiding those who are crushing the armed enemies of the Soviet government” [translated from Japanese].

For Lenin, youth must first of all study. Following the revolution, the task for constructing a new society would fall on the shoulders of youth, but they would be unable to perform this task if they were ignorant, mentally untrained, and full of empty talk.

What is Important for Youth?

“Young people are particularly in need of joy and strength. Healthy sports, such as gymnastics, swimming, hiking, physical exercises of every description and a wide range of intellectuals interests is what they need, as well as learning, study and research, and as far as possible collectively. This will be far more useful to young people than endless lectures and discussions on sex problems and the so-called living by one’s nature. Mens sana in corpore sano. Be neither monk nor Don Juan, but not anything in between either, like a German philistine.” (Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, p. 107)

It is inevitable that youth will have a great interest in sex and love. And this can even be called the special right of youth. But for youth to overindulge or only be interested in this is not good for the young person or for society. In addition to sex and love, there are many other questions that young people should be interested in. In particular, they should spend time engaged in such things as healthy sporting activities or group study. 

What Should be Studied?

“I must say that the first and most natural reply would seem to be that the Youth League, and the youth in general, who want to advance to communism, should learn communism.” (“The Tasks of the Youth Leagues” Collected Works vol. 31, p. 284)

The response that youth should “study communism” is of course a very general way of speaking. First of all, there is the question of how we are to understand what communism, i.e. Marxism, is today. Lenin emphasizes that Marxism “arose out of the sum of human knowledge” (Ibid. p. 286) and that “[Marx] critically reshaped everything that had been created by human society, without ignoring a single detail. He reconsidered, subjected to criticism, and verified on the working-class movement everything that human thinking had created.” (Ibid. p. 287)

Therefore, in studying communism these things should also be considered. In other words, Marxism should be studied not as simple dogma, but as the result of the principled development of human knowledge. This is Lenin’s response to the question of “what should be studied.”

How Should One Study?

“We have no need of cramming, but we do need to develop and perfect the mind of every student with a knowledge of fundamental facts. Communism will become an empty word, a mere signboard, and a Communist a mere boaster, if all the knowledge he has acquired is not digested in his mind. You should not merely assimilate this knowledge, but assimilate it critically, so as not to cram your mind with useless lumber, but enrich it with all those facts that are indispensable to the well-educated man of today. If a Communist took it into his head to boast about his communism because of the cut-and-dried conclusions he had acquired, without putting in a great deal of serious and hard work and without understanding facts he should examine critically, he would be a deplorable Communist indeed. Such superficiality would be decidedly fatal. If I know that I know little, I shall strive to learn more, but if a man says that he is a Communist and that he need not know anything thoroughly, he will never become anything like a Communist.” (“The Tasks of the Youth Leagues” Collected Works vol. 31, pp. 287-8)

Concerning the question of how a person should study, Lenin was firmly opposed to those who recommended merely studying the conclusions reached by communists, or memorizing Communist Party slogans. Certainly, cramming education is unnecessary, and in fact nonsense. The “old schools” [in Russia] were based on cramming education, and burdened youth with a bunch of fragmented knowledge, most of which was essentially useless information that in fact would not qualify as knowledge. Despite this, however, to become a true communist, a rich basis of knowledge is necessary. This is because communist theory itself is the “sum of human knowledge.” It would be mistaken to equate the slogan of opposition to cramming education with an anarchistic rejection of past education, dismissal of all knowledge, or opposition to serious study. .Lenin in fact said, “[I]t would mean falling into a grave error for you to try to draw the conclusion that one can become a  Communist without assimilating the wealth of knowledge amassed by mankind. It would be mistaken to think it sufficient to learn communist slogans and the conclusions of communist science, without acquiring that sum of knowledge of which communism itself is a result. Marxism is an example which shows how communism arose out of the sum of human knowledge. (Ibid. p. 286)

On the Old School System

“It was the declared aim of the old type of school to produce men with an all-round education, to teach the sciences in general. We know that this was utterly false, since the whole of society was based and maintained on the division of people into classes, into exploiters and oppressed. Since they were thoroughly imbued with the class spirit, the old schools naturally gave knowledge only to the children of the bourgeoisie. Every word was falsified in the interests of the bourgeoisie. In these schools the younger generation of workers and peasants were not so much educated as drilled in the interests of that bourgeoisie. They were trained in such a way as to be useful servants of the bourgeoisie, able to create profits for it without disturbing its peace and leisure. That is why, while rejecting the old type of schools, we have made it our task to take from it only what we require for genuine communist education.” (“The Tasks of the Youth Leagues” vol. 31, pp. 285-6)

In class society, the education of the “old schools” is unable to teach “general knowledge” or to be a “place to seek truth,” but rather is distorted by class interests and rotten. The old schools educate the younger generation for the sake of the bourgeoisie, adapting and training them for this purpose. For example, the education of the old schools is criticized for being based on cramming education, teaching for examinations, rote memorization, and presenting a mountain of unnecessary and fragmentary knowledge, and this is just one example of how the old schools are distorted by the interests of the ruling class, and damage for youth. Education that provides comprehensive, fundamental knowledge and truly scientific education would conflict with the interests of the bourgeoisie. Based on all of this, the old schools clearly must be completely rejected.

Needless to say, however, this certainly does not mean throwing out the useful or rational elements of the old system. Lenin says that must distinguish and select the necessary and useful things within this system.

To take a concrete example: unlike feudal society in which peasants could not read or write and were completely ignorant of scientific knowledge, bourgeois society, in correspondence to its productive power, has a need for workers to have a certain education level. For this reason, this society has a need for “public education.” In order to operate certain machines it is necessary to have knowledge concerning the machine -- but, in simplest terms, bourgeois education seeks to limit the worker’s knowledge to this particular machine or only provide dispersed and fragmentary pieces of knowledge with no internal relation to each other. This is in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and this is the essence and limitation of “public education” or “general education” that their interests allows. Thus, socialism is not the abandonment of “public” or “general” education, but its logical and consistent sublation.

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