Date: 1911-01-18
Source: ru:PSS/v24

To gain a more precise understanding of the plan for “cultural-national autonomy,” which essentially amounts to segregating educational affairs along national lines, it is instructive to examine concrete data on the ethnic composition of students enrolled in Russian schools. With regard to the St. Petersburg Educational District, such data were compiled in the school census conducted on January 18, 1911.

Here are the figures detailing the distribution of pupils in primary schools under the Ministry of Public Education according to their native language. The data pertain to the entire St. Petersburg Educational District; in parentheses, we provide the corresponding figures for St. Petersburg itself. Under the rubric “Russian language,” officials consistently conflate Great Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian—what was officially designated as “Little Russian.” In total, there were 265,660 students (48,076 in St. Petersburg).

Russian—232,618 (44,223); Polish—1,737 (780); Czech—3 (2); Lithuanian—84 (35); Latvian—1,371 (113); Samogitian—1 (0); French—14 (13); Italian—4 (4); Romanian—2 (2); German—2,408 (845); Swedish—228 (217); Norwegian—31 (0); Danish—1 (1); Dutch—1 (0); English—8 (7); Armenian—3 (3); Romani—4 (0); Jewish—1,196 (396); Georgian—2 (1); Ossetian—1 (0); Finnish—10,750 (874); Karelian—3,998 (2); Chudic—247 (0); Estonian—4,723 (536); Lopari—9 (0); Zyrian—6,008 (0); Samoyedic—5 (0); Tatar—63 (13); Persian—1 (1); Chinese—1 (1); unknown—138 (7).

These are relatively precise figures. They reveal the profound ethnic diversity of the population—even though they pertain to one of the most heavily Russified regions of Russia. The greatest ethnic heterogeneity is immediately apparent in the large city of St. Petersburg. This phenomenon is not accidental; rather, it is a law inherent in capitalism across all countries and every corner of the globe. Large cities, factory towns, mining and metallurgical centers, railway hubs—and, in general, commercial and industrial settlements—are inevitably characterized by the highest degree of ethnic diversity among their populations; and it is precisely these kinds of settlements that grow most rapidly, steadily siphoning off ever-larger shares of the rural population in favor of urban life.

Now, let us attempt to juxtapose these real-life data with the lifeless utopia of nationalist petty-bourgeois ideologues known as “cultural-national autonomy”—or, in the Bundists’ terminology, the “exclusion from state jurisdiction” of matters pertaining to national culture, above all, educational affairs.

The realm of schooling is “excluded from state jurisdiction” and handed over to 23 “national unions” (in the case of St. Petersburg), each tasked with cultivating its own “national culture”!!

It is almost laughable even to waste words in attempting to demonstrate the absurdity and reactionary nature of such a “national program.”

It is as clear as day that the advocacy of such a plan, in practice, amounts to the promotion—or at least the tacit endorsement—of bourgeois nationalism, chauvinism, and clericalism. The interests of democracy as a whole, and the interests of the working class in particular, demand precisely the opposite: we must strive to integrate children of all nationalities into unified schools within a given locality; we must ensure that workers of all nationalities jointly pursue, in the field of education, the proletarian policies so eloquently articulated by Samoilov, the deputy representing the Vladimir workers on behalf of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Fraction in the State Duma.{90} We must oppose, in the strongest possible terms, any attempt to divide educational affairs along national lines.

Our concern should not be to carve up nations in one way or another within the sphere of schooling; on the contrary, our task is to create the fundamental democratic conditions for the peaceful coexistence of nations on the basis of equality. It is not “national culture” that we ought to elevate to a sacred ideal—but rather to expose the clerical and bourgeois character of this slogan in the name of an international (global) culture rooted in the worldwide workers’ movement.

But can we, some may ask, truly secure the interests of a single Georgian child amid the 48,076 schoolchildren of St. Petersburg on the basis of equality? To this we reply: to establish a separate Georgian school in St. Petersburg founded upon the principles of Georgian “national culture” is simply impossible; and the advocacy of such a plan is nothing less than the propagation of harmful ideas among the broad masses.

Yet we will not champion anything harmful nor pursue the impossible—instead, we will advocate for the provision of free, state-funded facilities where Georgian-language lectures, Georgian history, and related subjects can be taught; for the translation of Georgian books from the central library for the benefit of Georgian-speaking students; for the reimbursement by the state of a portion of the costs associated with remunerating Georgian teachers, and so forth. Under genuine democracy, when bureaucracy and “pre-donism”{91} have been completely banished from the school system, the local population can quite easily achieve these goals. And the attainment of such genuine democracy is possible only through the integration of workers of all nationalities.

To preach the establishment of separate national schools for each “national culture” is reactionary. But under conditions of genuine democracy, it is entirely feasible to ensure that instruction is delivered in the students’ native languages, that they study their own histories, and so on—without dividing schools along national lines. Moreover, full local self-government means that no one can impose anything by force—for example, we cannot compel 713 Karelian children in Kemsky Uyezd (where there are only 514 Russian children) to attend a school that teaches exclusively in Russian; nor can we force 681 Zyrian children in Pechorsky Uyezd (with just 153 Russians) to attend a school that teaches solely in Russian; nor can we require 267 Latvians in Novgorodsky Uyezd (where more than 7,000 are Russians) to study in Latvian, and so on, ad infinitum.

The advocacy of an unattainable cultural-national autonomy is an absurdity that only serves to fragment the workers’ ranks ideologically, even at this very moment. By contrast, the call for the integration of workers of all nationalities facilitates the success of proletarian class solidarity—a solidarity capable of guaranteeing equality and the most peaceful coexistence among all nations.

“Proletarskaya Pravda,” No. 7, December 14, 1913

Printed from the text of the newspaper “Proletarskaya Pravda.”