Written: ProletarskayaPravda No. 7, December 14, 1913
Source:Collected Works, Vol. 19
To obtain a more precise idea of the plan for "cultural nationalautonomy", which boils down to segregating the schools according tonationality, it is useful to take the concrete data which show the nationalityof the pupils attending Russian schools. For the St. Petersburg educationalarea such data are provided by the returns of the school census taken onJanuary 18, 1911.
The following are the data on the distribution of pupils attendingelementary schools under the Ministry of Public Education according to the nativelanguages of the pupils. The data cover the whole of the St. Petersburgeducational area, but in brackets we give the figures for the city of St.Petersburg. Under the term "Russian language" the officialsconstantly lump together Great Russian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian("Little Russian", according to official terminology). Total pupils--265,660 (48,076).
Russian--232,618 (44,223); Polish--1,737 (780); Czech--3 (2); Lithuanian--84 (35);Lettish--1,371 (113); Zhmud--1 (O); French--14 (13); Italian--4 (4); Rumanian--2 (2) ;German--2,408 (845); Swedish--228 (217) ; Norwegian--31(0); Danish--1 (1); Dutch--i (O); English--R (7);Armenian--3 (3);Glpsy-4 (O); Jewish--1,196 (396) ; Georgian--2 (1); Ossetian--l (O) ; Finnish--10,750 (874) ;Karelian--3,998 (2); Chud--247 (0); Estonian--4,723(536); Lapp--9 (O) ; Zyryan--6,OO8 (O) ; Samoyed--5 (O); Tatar--63 (13);Persian--1 (1); Chinese--1 (1); not ascertained--138 (7).
These are comparatively accurate figures. They show that the nationalcomposition of the population is extremely mixed, although they apply to one ofthe basically Great-Russian districts of Russia. The extremely mixed nationalcomposition of the population of the large city of St. Petersburg is at onceevident. This is no accident, but results from a law of capitalismthat operates in all countries and in all parts of the world. Large cities,factory, metallurgical, railway and commercial and industrial centres generally, arecertain, more than any other, to have very mixed populations,and it is precisely these centres that grow faster than all others andconstantly attract larger and larger numbers of the inhabitants of the backwardrural areas.
Now try to apply to these real-life data the lifeless utopia of thenationalist philistines called "cultural-national autonomy" or (inthe language of the Bundists) "taking out of the jurisdiction of thestate" questions of national culture, i.e., primarily educational affairs.
Educational affairs "shall be taken out of the jurisdiction of thestate" and transferred to 23 (in St. Petersburg) "nationalassociations" each developing "its own" "nationalculture"!
It would be ridiculous to waste words to prove the absurdity andreactionary nature of a "national programme" of this sort.
It is as clear as daylight that the advocacy of such a plan means, infact, pursuing or supporting the ideas of bourgeois nationalism,chauvinism and clericalism. The interests of democracy in general, and theinterests of the working class in particular, demand the very opposite. We muststrive to secure the mixing of the children of allnationalities in uniform schools in each locality; the workers of allnationalities must jointly pursue the proletarian educational policywhich Samoilov, the deputy of the Vladimir workers, so ably formulated onbehalf of the Russian Social-Democratic workers' group in the State Duma. Wemust most emphatically oppose segregating the schools according to nationality,no matter what form it may take.
It is not our business to segregate the nations in matters of educationin any way; on the contrary, we must strive to create the fundamentaldemocratic conditions for the peaceful coexistence of the nations on the basisof equal rights. We must not champion "national culture", but exposethe clerical and bourgeois character of this slogan in the name of theinternational culture of the world working-class movement.
But we may be asked whether it is impossible to safeguard the interestsof the one Georgian child among the 48,076 schoolchildren in St.Petersburg on the basis of equal rights. And we should reply that it isimpossible to establish a special Georgian school in St. Petersburg on thebasis of Georgian "national culture", and that to advocate such aplan means sowing pernicious ideas among the masses of the people.
But we shall not he defending anything harmful, or be striving afteranything that is impossible, if we demand for this child free government premisesfor lectures on the Georgian language, Georgian history, etc., the provision ofGeorgian books from the Central Library for this child, a state contributiontowards the fees of the Georgian teacher, and so forth. Under real democracy,when bureaucracy and "Peredonovism" are completely eliminated fromthe schools, the people can quite easily achieve this. But this real democracycan be achieved only when the workers of all nationalitiesare united.
To preach the establishment of special national schools for every"national culture" is reactionary. But under real democracy it isquite possible to ensure instruction in the native language, in native history,and so forth, without splitting up the schools according to nationality. And complete local self-government will make it impossible foranything to be forced upon the people, as for example, upon the 713 Karelianchildren in Kem Uyezd (where there are only 514 Russian children) or upon the681 Zyryan children in Pechora Uyezd (153 Russian), or upon the 267 Lettishchildren in Novgorod Uyezd (over 7,000 Russian), and so on and so forth.
Advocacy of impracticable cultural-national autonomy is an absurdity,which now already is only disuniting the workers ideologically. To advocate theamalgamation of the workers of all nationalities means facilitating the successof proletarian class solidarity, which will guarantee equal rights for, andmaximum peaceful coexistence of, all nationalities.