The 150th anniversary of Lenin’s birth almost coincides with the 100th anniversary of his decree “On the Elimination of Illiteracy”
“We must tackle the simple urgent mission of mobilizing literate people and combating illiteracy in Russia… We must develop a unified, systematic organization,” wrote Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin found himself at the head of a huge and mostly agrarian country, he used every possible method to≈eliminate illiteracy within the population.
By the end of the 19th century in Russia, only 29.3% of men and 13.1% of women could read and write. Among the entire Russian population, only 21.1% were considered literate. The majority of the educated and literate population at the time resided in the capital and other large industrial cities, primarily in the western part of the country. The situation was far worse in the villages and the so-called “national outskirts” of the Russian Empire. For example, in Central Asia only 5% of the population could read, write, and count. Siberia had a slightly higher literacy rate of 12%. However, the situation began to improve at the beginning of the 20th century. According to various estimates, between 30 to 40% of Russians were literate by 1916.
Help the peasant
“Every worker should set themselves the task of helping the peasants raise their standard of living to city levels,” claimed Vladimir Lenin. “We must ensure that the ability to read, write and count serves to enhance our culture and that the peasants can use these skills to improve their household and the state.” Accordingly, on December 26, 1919, the Soviet government issued the decree “On the elimination of illiteracy among the population of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic”. The country was suffering from a civil war, famine, and devastation, yet Lenin still insisted that all illiterate people between the ages of 8 and 50 be taught to read and write! His closest aides and comrades-in-arms in the elimination of illiteracy were his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and the People’s Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky, who was convinced that “any truly democratic state should aim to fight the darkness of illiteracy in a country full of ignorance”. In 1920, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Elimination of Illiteracy was established, kicking off work at an unprecedented pace. That year alone, teacher training courses were launched in 26 provinces around the country.
The elimination of illiteracy, or “likbez” in Russian, was an extremely important feature of politics and economic life in Soviet Russia. In the cities, literacy courses were held in factories, workshops, and private houses, while in the countryside, they were organized in newly created clubs and libraries. “Anyone studying reading and writing while employed, with the exception of those in the military, are allowed to take two hours off their working day while retaining full pay,” stated Lenin’s decree. Special intensive grammar schools were established rapidly throughout the country, each designed to teach at least 15 people. Priority was given to the 7 million children who had lost their families and homes in the civil war, as well as to industrial workers and the poorest members of the peasantry. Students received 7 months of intensive writing, reading, and basic arithmetic lessons, totaling 6–8 hours a week.
We are not slaves, slaves are not us
What many consider to be a political slogan is actually a line from a primer for adults, written in part by Nadezhda Krupskaya. The role of Lenin’s wife in the elimination of illiteracy cannot be overstated. Although she started as her husband’s cohort, she continued to fight illiteracy even after his death.
The first primer for adults containing this legendary phrase was reprinted twice between 1920 and 1924. The second edition of the primer was titled “Down with Illiteracy!”. Two other unique learning resources were published during this period as well: “The Worker and Peasant Primer for Adults” by Vadim Smushkov and “The Primer for Workers” by Evgeny Golant. A special tribute should be paid to the author of the latter, Evgeny Golant. Golant was one of the founders of Soviet pedagogical science. A graduate of the Department of History, Philology and Law at St. Petersburg University, he had been an active participant in the elimination of illiteracy in the country since 1918. Nadezhda Krupskaya considered him one of her main assistants and a like-minded comrade. Golant developed methods for adult education that remain relevant to this day and are still widely applied around the world.
Although the country was facing the difficulties of hunger and devastation, the government continued to allocate funds to educational programs. For example, money from the reserve monetary fund was used to print primers abroad. The country was multinational, so teaching was conducted in both Russian and various national languages. As such, primers and textbooks were published in 40 different languages. The intellectual elite, including writer Maxim Gorky and the poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Demyan Bedny, also contributed to the elimination of illiteracy.
The revival of the country
“You are faced with the important and demanding task of reviving the economy of the entire country, rebuilding both agriculture and industry with a more advanced technical foundation based in modern science, technology, and electricity. You perfectly understand that illiterate people will not participate in the electrification of the country, and even basic literacy will not be sufficient. It is not enough to understand what electricity is: you need to know how to use it in industry and agriculture. We must learn this ourselves, and we must teach this to the younger working generations,” said Lenin, setting an ambitious task. Yet, despite the difficulties of the severe war, new economic politics, industrialization, and collectivization, his task would eventually be accomplished. The elimination of illiteracy, spearheaded by Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, continued even after his death. Between 1917 and 1927, about 10 million adults were taught reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. In 1928, so-called “cultural trips” became widely popular throughout the country as part of a volunteer movement of highly educated urban youth who proudly called themselves the “cultural army”. These young people organized voluntary and free trips to villages, with the purpose of teaching young Soviet comrades the basics of literacy and mathematics. In 1930, around one million people were taking part in these “cultural trips”, which had managed to teach some 10 million illiterate people outside of the cities. That same year, the law on universal compulsory primary education was adopted for all children living in the Soviet country. From 1933 to 1937, about 40 million completely illiterate and undereducated individuals received a basic education.
The result of Vladimir Lenin’s fight against illiteracy was amazingly effective. Although our country may have ranked 19th in Europe for population literacy in 1926, we quickly transformed into a global leader in world literacy rates. By 1939, 90% of the country’s population between the ages of 16 and 50 were literate.
Evgenia Sineva