V. I.

Lenin

The politics of the government are soaked in the spirit of
nationalism. Attempts are made to confer every kind of privilege upon the
“ruling”, i.e., the Great-Russian nation, even though the Great Russians
represent a minority of the population of Russia, to be exact,
only 43 per cent.

Attempts are made to cut down still further the rights of all the other
nations inhabiting Russia, to segregate one from the other and stir up
enmity among them.

The extreme expression of present-day nationalism is the scheme for the
nationalisation of Jewish schools. The scheme emanated from the educational
officer of Odessa district, and has been sympathetically considered by the
Ministry of Public “Education”. What does this nationalisation mean?

It means segregating the Jews into special Jewish schools
(secondary schools). The doors of all other educational
establishments—both private and state—are to be completely closed to
the Jews. This “brilliant” plan is rounded off by the proposal to limit
the number of pupils in the Jewish secondary schools to the notorious
“quota”!

In all European countries such measures and laws against the Jews
existed only in the dark centuries of the Middle Ages, with their
Inquisition, the burning of heretics and similar delights. In Europe the
Jews have long since been granted complete equality and are fusing more and
more with the nations in whose midst they live.

The most harmful feature in our political life generally, and in the
above scheme particularly, apart from the oppression and persecution of the
Jews, is the striving to fan the flames of nationalism, to segregate the
nationalities in the state one from another, to increase their estrangement, to separate
their schools.

The interests of the working class—as well as the interests of
political liberty generally—require, on the contrary, the fullest
equality of all the nationalities in the state without exception, and the
elimination of every kind of barrier between the nations, the bringing
together of children of all nations in the same schools, etc. Only by
casting off every savage and foolish national prejudice, only by uniting
the workers of all nations into one association, can the working class
become a force, offer resistance to capitalism, and achieve a serious
improvement in its living conditions.

Look at the capitalists! They try to inflame national strife among the
“common people”, while they themselves manage their business affairs
remarkably well—Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and Germans together
in one and the same corporation. Against the workers the capitalists of all
nations and religions are united, but they strive to divide and weaken the
workers by national strife!

This most harmful scheme for the nationalisation of the Jewish schools
shows, incidentally, how mistaken is the plan for so—called
“cultural-national autonomy”, i.e., the idea of taking education out of
the hands of the state and handing it over to each nation separately. It is
not this we should strive for, but for the unity of the workers of all
nations in the struggle against all nationalism, in the struggle
for a truly democratic common school and for political liberty
generally. The example of the advanced countries of the world—say,
Switzerland in Western Europe or Finland in Eastern Europe—shows us that
only consistently-democratic state institutions ensure the most peaceable
and human (not bestial) coexistence of various nationalities,
without the artificial and harmful separation of education
according to nationalities.

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