The Nationality of Pupils in Russian Schools¶
Core Argument¶
Lenin’s 1913 article, The Nationality of Pupils in Russian Schools, is a polemical demolition of the concept of ‘cultural-national autonomy’, a programme then advocated by the Bund and other nationalist currents within the socialist movement. The core argument is that this policy, which would segregate schools by nationality, is not only impracticable but reactionary, serving bourgeois nationalism and clericalism rather than the interests of the working class.
To substantiate this, Lenin deploys concrete data from the 1911 school census for the St. Petersburg educational area, covering 265,660 pupils. The figures reveal an extraordinarily mixed national composition: alongside 232,618 classified as Russian (a category that bureaucratically lumped together Great-Russian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian), the schools contained Finnish, Estonian, Zyryan, Karelian, German, Polish, Jewish, Lettish, Swedish, and dozens of other nationalities, including single pupils speaking Georgian, Persian, or Chinese. Even within the city of St. Petersburg alone, 48,076 children represented a multitude of tongues. Lenin insists this is no accident but a law of capitalism: large industrial and commercial centres inevitably attract mixed populations and grow fastest. To apply ‘cultural-national autonomy’ to such conditions would mean transferring educational affairs from the state to twenty-three separate ‘national associations’ in St. Petersburg alone, each developing its own ‘national culture’. Lenin dismisses this as a lifeless utopia, arguing that in practice it means pursuing bourgeois chauvinism.
The alternative is not to champion ‘national culture’ but the international culture of the world working-class movement. Lenin demands the mixing of children of all nationalities in uniform local schools, with workers of all nationalities jointly pursuing a proletarian educational policy. He anticipates the objection that this might neglect tiny minorities, such as the single Georgian child among 48,076 in St. Petersburg. His reply is sharp: it is impossible and harmful to establish a special Georgian school for one child, but under real democracy—with bureaucracy and ‘Peredonovism’ (the mentality of the sadistic, spy-like teacher from Sologub’s novel) eliminated—it is perfectly possible to provide that child with state-funded premises for lectures on Georgian language and history, Georgian books from a central library, and a contribution to a teacher’s fees. This can be achieved without splitting schools by nationality, and complete local self-government would prevent any group from having a culture forced upon it, whether the 713 Karelian children in Kem Uyezd or the 267 Lettish children in Novgorod Uyezd.
The polemic is directed squarely at the Bundists and advocates of ‘cultural-national autonomy’, whom Lenin accuses of sowing pernicious ideas that disunite workers ideologically. The chapter draws on the concrete experience of the tsarist empire’s multi-national composition and the debates within Russian social democracy over the national question, citing the statement of Bolshevik deputy Fyodor Samoilov in the State Duma as the correct proletarian line. The conclusion is unequivocal: amalgamation of workers of all nationalities, not segregation, guarantees equal rights and maximum peaceful coexistence.