Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 00:28:04 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: M-G: Communism & Family 


Hi Leslaw!

You wrote:
> 
>                 Forst, I'd like to quote myself on "collective upbringing
> of children" which "would put an end to any variety of opinions and
> ideas". You regard it as "an empty tautology that avoids the task of
> proving its factual assumptions". Quite nicely written! My point is that
> collective upbringing of children is always and ever the same, be it in
> Canada or New Zealand, or Greenland. If you want to see examples, just
> have a good look into Orwell's "1984" or Huxley's "Brave New World". A
> boring world of identical individuals who have the same set of beliefs,
> ideas, feelings and reactions, because these have been implemented in them
> as a result of "collective upbringing"! 

The problem with the attack you launch on collective childcare, is that you appear to assume that children 
brought up in their 'natural' homes are somehow free to develop as their 'inner nature' would allow, and that 
it is only the collectivisation that changes this. But this is simply not true.

In the current system in England, and in most other capitalist countries, there are hundreds of factors which 
impact upon children and shape them, and mould them. Racial and sexual stereotypes which influence how their 
parents dress them, what toys they are given, how adults talk to them, etc. Everything about being a child is 
packaged in a particular way in a particular society by those that run the society.

Thus Stalin, in Russia (and other E European states) dictated the terms on which children were to brought up 
-what values were to be indoctrinated, what ideas approved of, what behaviours condemned. The iron discipline 
involed in all of this did, I'm sure, create people just as you describe. But capitalism and the family does 
this too!

Under the pressure of class society, working class children for generations in Britain were brought up to 'know 
their place' i.e. be subservient to those richer and higher up the social scale. Only in the last forty years 
has this changed, mostly because of the socialisation of education - bringing children out of the home into 
schools, where they can interact with other children, and learn, in an environment where people are obviously 
different: where there is some opportunity to question and consider alternatives. At home, where the children 
are all brought up by the same pair of adults, and are hence all given the same values, there is little that is 
different or challenging. The socialisation of schooling was thus a big advance in the working class' 
possibilities to think for itself.

But that's only half of the battle, because the schools are stil under the control of the state, which is in 
the hands of the ruling elite (in my case the rich, in yours, the Stalinists) and they want to educate children 
into certain things. To really provide children with a childhood that is an adventure and an enriching 
experience, we have to have schools and childcare which is free from class conflict. But that can only happen 
when society is free from such conflict, i.e. after a dramatic change in society as a whole. That is why 
(partly) I am a revolutionary - I want to see such changes.

> I realise that from a strategic
> point of view of Communist (Marxist) revolution this uniform upbringing is
> the most important issue because you can control the minds of individuals
> by blocking unwanted and/or undesired information. E.g. I believe that
> most of this list members would claim that the French or Bolshevik
> Revolutions were greatest events in the history of mankind. I, for one,
> believe them to have been merely cruel & atrocious disasters. We have

How so? The French revolution ushered in a more advanced form of society for most of Europe, which up until 
that point had starved in famine frequently, and whose populace under feudalism were considered mere 
possessions. The French revolution was progressive, just as the English one a hundred years previously had 
been, even if the counter-revolution was bloody and barbaric. But that is like blaming bulls for bull fighting. 
It was not the revolutionaries who caused the bloodshed.

Likewise to condemn the bolsheviks for the bloodshed of the civil war or the tyrrany of Stalinism is to shift 
the blame away from the real culprits: those who fought to maintain capitalism in the face of the victorious 
revolution, and those who then built their own empires on the backs of the workers.


> different points of departure, so to speak. Now, if your idea of
> collective upbringing prevails, kids and adults will get to know YOUR side
> of the story, not mine. Now, to be quite frank, I don't opt for MY side of
> the story. I basically opt for THERE BEING THE RIGHT OF CHOICE which you,
> I'm afraid, want to take away from people. And where there is only one

Which Marxist on this list has said this? Where in Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky can you find such a desire? 
It does not exist. It is frankly, an invention of capitalism. The reality is that Marxist revolutionaries wish
there to be a flowering of education, whereby children (and adults, too) learn to think critically about ALL 
sides of every story, and make their own judgements based on the facts. This is, we believe, the only way to 
safeguard any future revolution from following the fate of 1917, and ending in suppression from above. You 
cannot have such suppression if every member of a society questions and thinks and challenges. Only where 
people are unthinking (such as Britain today, or Russia in the 40s and 50s) can the ruling minority hold on to 
power.

> version, there is virtually "no variety of opinions and ideas", is there?
>         Second, you treat private schools as "undemocratic institutions,
> outside of the control of society". I don't know what you need the control
> of society for in private schools. For me, the point is quite clear and,
> again, it is based upon one's personal choice: you want to attend a
> private school, you're free to do so. You prefer a different type of
> school - you're free to attend it. Please, don't say that private schools

It's got nothing to do with being better. In fact I think in some ways they are worse - they do not give 
children a feel for the real world, they educate them to expect things to be different. This can cause all 
sorts of disappointments, etc. But that is by-the-by. Where private schools are "better" is that in many 
societies, it suits the ruling class to have two types of education - one for the rich, where their children 
are educated to be bosses and rulers, and one for the poor, where their children are educated to be workers and 
wage-slaves and to know their place. Private schools offer this.

And it is nonsense to say I am free to attend a private school. Not if my parents cannot afford it, I'm not. 
Schools perform ideological functions, as I said before - and whoever pays the teachers, calls the tune. That 
is why I am in favour of the teachers, and the schools, being funded by government: so that the policies of 
education can be decided openly and voted on by the people, not sold to whover can afford them.

> are better because then you'd have to admit, at least partly, superiority
> of the private to the collective, state-owned or whatever. As for
> democracy vs private schools, let me say that democracy has nothing to do
> with schools, education and/or science, so I'm afraid your proposition is
> faulty logically and practically. What I agree with you about is schools
> "perpetuating the class system and privilege, etc." And it's natural that
> if I want to set up my own school, it is with MY OWN money that I want to
> provide and build it with. If I find enough candidates to attend it,
> that's fine. If I don't - that's fine, too. No one else perishes but
> myself. As for your claim for me "to demonstrate that no private schools
> equals conformity", it is quite easy to prove, because it reminds one of
> the rules of competitiveness. Private schools have to compete because if
> they don't, one or more might be forced to close down as people will
> NATURALLY prefer better schools. When, on the other hand, all schools are
> owned by the state, society, the working class or whoever you please, then
> all will be the same. Such schools will have no motivation to be better

But why? If all schools are run by the state, and there are two in my town, and one is very good, and the other 
is very poor, won't all the parents choose to send their children to the good one? And will the bad one then 
stay open with no children in it? Of course not. That would not be socialism, it would be idiocy.

More importantly, if the two schools are not good versus bad, but just different, what then? Perhaps one 
believes in s strict moral code, and the other is more relaxed. Would not some parents choose one, and some the 
other?

Moreover, if the schools in my area were all drab and uniform as you suggest, what could I do about it? Under 
your scheme of things, if I was rich i could open my own school. But if I was poor, I would have to just forget 
it. I would have no mechanism for changing things. In my vision of society, parents would be consulted by the 
'council' or whatever that allocated school resources. If parents said, "we want one big school for our area" 
then that's what they'd get. If they said, "we want lots of little schools" then they'd get that instead. 
Because it served no-one's purpose any more to dictate to education (or to use education to dictate), then 
people would get far more of what they want. And I believe they'd want diversity. And so diversity is what 
they'd get. Far, far more of it than udner capitalism, or Stalinism, I assure you.

> and so you'll soon have to force people NOT TO CHOOSE some schools or NOT
> TO AVOID others. Such a thing occurred in Poland under the rule of the
> Communist Party. The solution that they found was to ascribe people living
> within one area, district, region TO ONE PARTICULAR SCHOOL, whether they
> liked it or not.

Yes, this happened for a long time in the UK, too, where the Communist Party has never been in power. It's not 
socialism, though, just the arrogance of those who want people to fit their system, instead of designing a 
system to fit the people.

>         Thirdly, you've written that what I want or not has supposedly
> nothing to do with other people's "wants". Well, I guess you're right, but
> then how can you be sure of what other people's "wants" are? Unless, that
> is, that you can provide them with their "wants".

I guess that's where democracy comes in, but that's a whole other story, and this post is too long already...

>         Finally, Pavko Morozov who turned his father in to the police on
> an allegation that he was an enemy of the working class. If this is not a
> horrible monstrisity, what is?

It is. Monstrous. And, again, nothing to do with socialism. But a lot to do with capitalism. Where my father 
used to work (an engineering firm in Loughborough, UK) they used to employ many hundreds, if not thousands of 
men. They built railway engines, and parts for steam turbines and similar. This heavy industry has been on the 
decline for some years, and about once every two months, the company would sack some workers, say 50 or 100. 
The atmosphere got worse and worse. The old men were terrified of being sacked because they knew they'd never 
get another job (there are 4 million out of work in Britain, even now). And the young men were terrified 
because they had families, and mortgages on their houses which they had to keep repaying. No-one wanted to be 
sacked. But they knew that the company was going to keep sacking people. So the old men started saying to the 
bosses, "Sack the youngsters - they don't know how to do the job properly". And the young men began saying, 
"sack the old men, they tired and useless now." Eventually, the atmosphere got so bad, that there were fights 
on Fridays when the sackings were announced. Young men and old men fought with anger and bitterness. Fathers 
and sons, can you believe, fought each other, and yelled at each other, and cursed each other, because some had 
been sacked, and some had not. That I think is also monstrous - a barbaric treatment of human beings just for 
the sake of the profits of the company. That is what capitalism does to people.

>         Hopefully, I have not offended anybody. I am really looking
> forward to hearing from you soon.

Not at all. I hope I have helped to illustrate why 'socialism' for me (and I think for my fellow Marxists) is a 
very different thing to your experience of Stalinism.

Comradely regards,


Nick




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