Gems of Narodnik Project Mongering - Part 9 of 18

Lenin quotes Yuzhakov's claim for his proposals,

““A complete gymnasium education for the entire population of both sexes, compulsory for all, and involving no expenditure by the state, Zemstvo or people—such is my grand educational utopia” (201)! The worthy Mr. Yuzhakov evidently thinks that the crux of the matter is that of “expenditure”; on this same page he repeats that universal elementary education entails expenditure, but that universal secondary education, according to his “plan,” entails no expenditure at all.” (p 469)

But, Yuzhakov, Lenin says, promises even more. The proposal to combine this education with labour by the students on school land has been described, and was discussed in Lenin's article on Gymnasium Farms.

“The cultivation of the school land... will ensure abundant, palatable and wholesome food for the entire younger generation from birth to graduation from the gymnasium and also for the young people working off the cost of their education” (about this institution of the Yuzhakov Zukunftsstaat, more anon) “and for the whole staff of administrators, teachers and managers. Furthermore, they will all be supplied with footwear, and clothes will be made for them. In addition, the school land will yield about 20,000 roubles, to wit, 15,000 roubles from surplus milk and spring wheat ... and about 5,000 roubles from the sale of skins, bristle, feathers, and other by-products” (216).” (p 470)

So, now, the labour of the secondary school students is not only to cover the costs of their own education, but also the costs of those students in elementary schools too, everyone from birth until 25.

“Why, that means maintaining half the country’s total population. The maintenance and education of scores of millions—that is real “organisation of labour” for you! Mr. Yuzhakov, evidently, was seriously annoyed with the wicked people who asserted that the Narodnik projects for the “organisation of labour” are nothing but the empty twaddle of empty windbags, and so he decided to annihilate these wicked people completely by publishing a full “plan” for this “organisation of labour”—to be achieved “without any expenditure.” ... But even that is not all: “. . .In the process, we enlarged the task; we had this same organisation assume the cost of maintaining the entire child population; we took care to ensure dowries for young people about to be married—one that is quite good for the countryside; we found it possible out of the same funds to appoint in every gymnasium, that is, in every rural area, a doctor, a veterinary surgeon, a trained agronomist, a trained gardener, a technologist and six artisans, no less (who will raise the level-of culture and satisfy the corresponding requirements of the whole locality).... And the financial and economic problems involved in realising these aims will all be solved by the adoption of our plan....”” (p 470-1)

But, at least, the Narodniks proposed, however unbelievably, to have all of this funded by the labour of secondary school students, as against to day's liberal welfarists who propose to fund all of that and more from the Magic Money Tree.

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