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ON EDUCATION WORK

Directive No 17 of Central People’s Committee
15 September 1933

[Text] Culture and education occupy an important position in the entire
soviet movement and constitute an indispensable force in the current mobilization against the fifth enemy encirclement and suppression. Intensifying
education to raise the political and cultural levels of the broad masses,
enhance their class awareness and train revolutionary successors is one of
our major tasks.

The education work at present apparently lags behind other soviet work and
still cannot truly keep pace with the need of the successful development of
the revolutionary war. It is due to the many errors and defects in the work
of the Education Department so far, the neglect of education by some soviet
organs and responsible comrades, the failure to understand the importance
of education in the current domestic war, and even the opportunist viewpoint
that it is impossible to pursue education in an environment of war. This
situation must not be allowed to continue.

The biggest defect of education so far is the lack of a clear policy. Though
the issue was mentioned in Directive No 1 of the Central Education Depart-ment, it was inadequate and not completely correct. The Education Department
has so far, as shown in its work and documents, neglected to build a popular
free education system. It has not properly linked popular education with
social education and developed them. Instead of placing the tasks of communist education in the forefront, it limits education to the realm of the
bourgeois democratic tasks of opposing feudalism and superstition. Meanwhile,
it must also be pointed out that the lack of planning to wipe out illiteracy,
an extremely important cultural-educational task, and the "leftwing" opportunist error in the issue of utilizing bourgeois intellectuals are, so far,
the big defects of the work of the Education Department.

While mobilizing for the current revolutionary war, we must establish a free
popular education system, create revolutionary successors according to the
communist spirit and spread Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theories. We
must completely eliminate in the shortest possible time the most vicious
legacy left by the evil gentry and landlord bourgeoisie--illiteracy. We

must set up Lenin teachers’ schools and all types of cadre training schools,
cultivate a powerful educators' army that can popularize education and give
full attention to and organize the development of social education work such
as worker-peasant drama associations, blue-shirt leagues, clubs, libraries
and reading rooms. These constitute the education policy and central task
at the present time.

Besides training large groups of worker-peasant education work cadres, we
must utilize those bourgeois intellectuals and experts who are willing to
serve the Soviet.

Whenever possible, we must educate and give preferential treatment to elementary school teachers. At the very least, we must give government funds
to the elementary school students for their books and stationary and meals
to the elementary school teachers.

The People's Committee is in complete agreement with the Central Education
Department's suggestion to hold a culture and education rally with the League
Central Bureau in October. Without doubt, such a rally will be extremely
important in the future of the culture and education of the Soviet areas.
For its complete success, the Central Education Department is charged with
the responsibility of making full preparations.

The People's Committee believes that the education work assistance movement
recently initiated by the League Central Bureau will serve as an effective
surprise attack on the culture-education front of the Soviet areas and help
to expedite the elimination of the backward situation of education.

For the prompt and thorough change in education work and the successful completion of the central task of education at the present time, we must ruthlessly struggle against the neglect of education and all the incorrect concepts in education work. Only under such an ideological struggle will the
culture-education construction of the Soviet areas urgently needed by the
war be truly developed. It is so ordered.

                                        Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central
                                        Executive Committee of the Soviet Re-
                                        public of China

                                        Hsiang Ying, Vice Chairman

                                        Chang Kuo-t’ao, Vice Chairman

15 September 1933

*   "Directive No 17 of the Central People’s Committee of the Soviet Republic
of China" (mimeographed), 15 September 1933.