Ten Days That Shook the World

On Social Insurance

The Russian proletariat has inscribed on its banners the promise of complete Social Insurance of wage-workers, as well as of the town and village poor.  The Government of the Tsar, the proprietors and the capitalists, as well as the Government of coalition and conciliation, failed to realise the desires of the workers with regard to Social Insurance.

The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, relying upon the support of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, announces to the working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that it will immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the formulas proposed by the Labour organisations: 

1.  Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for all urban and rural poor.

2.  Insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity, such as illness, infirmities, old age, childbirth, widowhood, orphanage, and unemployment.

3.  All the costs of insurance to be charged to employers.

4.  Compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working capacity and unemployment.

5.  Complete workers’ self-government of all Insurance institutions.

In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,
                                The People’s Commissar of Labour,
                                                ALEXANDER SHLIAPNIKOV.

On Popular Education

Citizens of Russia!

With the insurrection of November 7th the working masses have won for the first time the real power.

The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this power both to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People’s Commissars.

By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed People’s Commissar of Education.

The work of guiding in general the people’s education, inasmuch as it remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent Assembly meets, entrusted to a Commission on the People’s Education, whose chairman and executive is the People’s Commissar.

Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission?  How is its sphere of competence determined?

The General Line of Educational Activity: Every genuinely democratic power must, in the domain of education, in a country where illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the struggle against this darkness.  It must acquire in the shortest time universal literacy, by organising a network of schools answering to the demands of modern pedagogics; it must introduce universal, obligatory and free tuition for all, and establish at the same time a series of such teachers’ institutes and seminaries as will in the shortest time furnish a powerful army of people’s teachers so necessary for the universal instruction of the population of our boundless Russia.

Decentralisation: The State Commission on People’s Education is by no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction and education.  On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be transferred to the organs of local self-government.  The independent work of the workers, soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own initiative cultural educational organisations, must be given full autonomy, both by the State centre and the Municipal centres.

The work of the State Commission serves as a link and helpmate to organise resources of material and moral support to the Municipal and private institutions, particularly to those with a class-character established by the workers.

The State Committee on People’s Education: A whole series of invaluable law projects was elaborated from the beginning of the Revolution by the State Committee for People’s Education, a tolerably democratic body as to its composition, and rich in experts.  The State Commission sincerely desires the collaboration of this Committee.

It has addressed itself to the bureau of the Committee, with the request at once to convoke an extraordinary session of the Committee for the fulfilment of the following programme: 

1.  The revision of rules of representation in the Committee, in the sense of greater democratisation.

2.  The revision of the Committee’s rights in the sense of widening them, and of converting the Committee into a fundamental State institute for the elaboration of law projects calculated to reorganise public instruction and education in Russia upon democratic principles.

3.  The revision, jointly with the new State Commission, of the laws already created by the Committee, a revision required by the fact that in editing them the Committee had to take into account the bourgeois spirit of previous Ministries, which obstructed it even in this its narrowed form.

After this revision these laws will be put into effect without any bureau-cratic red tape, in the revolutionary order.

The Pedagogues and the Societists: The State Commission welcomes the pedagogues to the bright and honourable work of educating the people—the masters of the country.

No one measure in the domain of the people’s education ought to be adopted by any power without the attentive deliberation of those who represent the pedagogues.

On the other hand, a decision cannot by any means be reached exclusively through the cooperation of specialists.  This refers as well to reforms of the institutes of general education.

The cooperation of the pedagogues with the social forces—this is how the Commission will work both in its own constitution, in the State Committee, and in all its activities.

As its first task the Commission considers the improvement of the teachers’ status, and first of all of those very poor though almost most important contributors to the work of culture—the elementary school teachers.  Their just demands ought to be satisfied at once and at any cost.  The proletariat of the schools has in vain demanded an increase of salary to one hundred rubles per month.  It would be a disgrace any longer to keep in poverty the teachers of the overwhelming majority of the Russian people.

But a real democracy cannot stop at mere literacy, at universal elementary instruction.  It must endeavour to organise a uniform secular school of several grades.  The ideal is, equal and if possible higher education for all the citizens.  So long as this idea has not been realised for all, the natural transition through all the schooling grades up to the university—a transition to a higher stage—must depend entirely upon the pupil’s aptitude, and not upon the resources of his family.

The problem of a genuinely democratic organisation of instruction is particularly difficult in a country impoverished by a long, criminal, imperialistic war; but the workers who have taken the power must remember that education will serve them as the greatest instrument in their struggle for a better lot and for a spiritual growth.  However needful it may be to curtail other articles of the people’s budget, the expenses on education must stand high.  A large educational budget is the pride and glory of a nation.  The free and enfranchised peoples of Russia will not forget this.

The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a thorough establishment of school education for children and youths.  Adults, too, will be anxious to save themselves from the debasing position of a man who cannot read and write.  The school for adults must occupy a conspicuous place in the general plan of popular instruction.

Instruction and Education: One must emphasise the difference between instruction and education.

Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to his pupil.  Education is a creative process.  The personality of the individual is being “educated” throughout life, is being formed, grows richer in content, stronger and more perfect.

The toiling masses of the people—the workmen, the peasants, the soldiers—are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction.  But they are also thirsting for education.  Neither the government nor the intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it to them.  The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may here by only aids.  They have their own ideas, formed by their social position, so different from the position of those ruling classes and intellectuals who have hitherto created culture.  They have their own ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems of personality and society.  The city labourer, according to his own fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear world-conception permeated with the class-idea of the workers.  There is no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants:  The building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.

Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element.  What is more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the masses themselves; for science and art have only in some of their parts a general human importance.  They suffer radical changes with every far-reaching class upheaval.

Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also among the peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement has arisen; workers’ and soldiers’ organisations of this kind are multiplying rapidly.  To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the road before them is the first task of a revolutionary and popular government in the domain of democratic education.

The Constituent Assembly will doubtless soon begin its work.  It alone can permanently establish the order of national and social life in our country, and at the same time the general character of the organisation of popular education.

Now, however, with the passage of power to the Soviets, the really democratic character of the Constituent Assembly is assured.  The line which the State Commission, relying upon the State Committee, will follow, will hardly suffer any modification under the influence of the Constituent Assembly.  Without pre-determining it, the new People’s Government considers itself within its rights in enacting in this domain a series of measures which aim at enriching and enlightening as soon as possible the spiritual life of the country.

The Ministry: The present work must in the interim proceed through the Ministry of the People’s Education.  Of all the necessary alterations in its composition and construction the State Commission will have charge, elected by the Executive Committee of the Soviets and the State Committee.  Of course the order of State authority in the domain of the people’s education will be established by the Constituent Assembly.  Until then, the Ministry must play the part of the executive apparatus for both the State Committee and the State Commission for People’s Education.

The pledge of the country’s safety lies in the cooperation of all its vital and genuinely democratic forces.

We believe that the energetic effort of the working people and of the honest enlightened intellectuals will lead the country out of its painful crisis, and through complete democracy to the reign of Socialism and the brotherhood of nations.

People’s Commissar on Education,

A. V. LUNACHARSKY.