By Brendan Duncan-Shah

There is no question of the connection between socialist organising and socialist education. Propaganda—important in all phases of socialist activity, but especially in periods like our own, characterised by a comparatively low level of mass action—presupposes political education. To propagandise successfully, to advocate for socialism convincingly, we must be well informed. What is needed is an understanding of the system as a whole, as well as the concrete facts on the ground. And for that, what is needed is education. 

But normal education in capitalist society will not help us. In fact, it will do the opposite. Marx, Engels and others like Louis Althusser and Paolo Freire have long pointed out the function of formal education in capitalist society. On the one hand it teaches the technical literacies (reading, writing, basic mathematics) required to maintain the dominant social system. And on the other hand it reproduces in the student herself the dominant ideology of the ruling class: it teaches the rules of “proper” behaviour, the ‘rules of morality, civic and professional conscience,’ as Althusser puts it.¹

If we are to organise against capitalist society from within capitalist society, then what is needed is a new form of education. As the Editorial Collective of the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Liberation School write, in the introduction to their short but highly valuable book on Revolutionary Education, ‘A socialist revolution will not take place spontaneously as a response to worsening conditions; it requires a mass revolutionary movement of millions of human beings who have the consciousness, confidence and desire to fight for it.’² If as Marx wrote, the emancipation of the working class is supposed to be its self-emancipation, then it is undoubtedly necessary for the working class to self-educate. If we cannot rely on the educational institutions of capitalist society, and if socialist institutions are not yet in existence, then teaching ourselves is the only option left. For this reason, the question of how to self-educate becomes especially important. 

This is a problem that is not new. It has occupied the attention of a number of socialists and revolutionaries: Vygotsky, Mao, Cabral, Freire, to name a few. In this article I take a look at the thinking of one socialist figure for whom ‘the question of self-education … the question of how one is to acquire knowledge independently,’  was central: the Bolshevik revolutionary Nadezhda Krupskaya. (224)

Krupskaya was the Deputy Commissar of Education in the Soviet Union between 1929 and her death in 1939. Under her tenure, Soviet society saw a massive expansion in education—through reading rooms, libraries, party schools, clubs, trade unions, women’s organisations, youth organisations, even the army. But even with these institutions working people’s demand for education remained unsatisfied, according to Krupskaya. For this reason, self-education remained especially important in revolutionary society, and Krupskaya continued to write on it well into the 1930s.

Krupskaya published voluminously on education: her collected writings on the topic, published as Pedagogicheskie Sochineniya (Pedagogical Essays), total eleven volumes. Only the tiniest fraction of this material is available in English in the collection titled On Education, first published in 1957. Still, what is available to us is valuable. 

The most substantive text in On Education is a pamphlet Krupskaya wrote after the revolution, in 1922: “The Organisation of Self-Education.” The text is, more than anything else, a practical manual on how to carry out self-education, how to teach oneself—containing advice on such granular topics as what sort of material to study, how to economise time and energy, how to get the most out of collective study, and even what sort of environment you should study in (no smoky rooms). Much of this advice remains sound. Some of it is highly useful. Consider the following passage which outlines, in a nutshell, the type of knowledge necessary to carry out an analysis of the current conjuncture, and how to get it: 

‘People desiring to understand current events—and they are exceptionally important—should read newspapers, and such newspapers, for instance, as Pravda, provide them with an opportunity to understand a lot. A newspaper, however, can compel a mind to work only in a certain direction, draw attention to a certain fact and show how to approach the problem. Briefly, it can do what a talented and well-informed lecturer or orator does: push the mind on the right path, show how to tackle things and outline important problems. But in addition to the newspaper one must read appropriate literature to grasp the significance of a given problem. One cannot hope to understand the various phenomena of the capitalist system if one does not understand its subtle mechanism. And so, if one wants to understand current developments, one must study the capitalist system, its structure, the relationship between the capitalist economy and the capitalist ideology. Moreover, one must have a good idea of the anti-capitalist forces that rise and develop in capitalist society. Therein lies the key to the understanding of current events.’ ³

Passages like these give away the fact that the text was authored by a socialist who, at this stage, had already carried out a successful revolution. 

But what is especially compelling about Krupskaya’s text today is, if not so much the advice itself, the way in which Krupskaya contextualises it. Formal education today is of course alienating and, because of fragmentation of social life under capitalism, much of it comes across as unmotivated, or at least disconnected from the rest of a person’s life. By contrast, in Krupskaya’s text, self-education is theorised as part of one’s overall practice; it is conceived as a response to problems arising from the social being of a worker in capitalist society in crisis, and for that reason comes across as even urgent: 

We live on the borderline of two social systems: the old, capitalist system is dying, and the new, communist system is rising. In these days we cannot live as did our fathers and grandfathers. Every day brings something new, and we should be able to see it with our own eyes, to judge and decide on it. But to do that correctly, we must know a lot. That applies to the working class in general and to every worker in particular. There is no time to work leisurely, with one’s sleeves down. We must study as economically, i.e., as fast as possible. (‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ 209)

As socialist organisers, we may be very familiar with the need to “know a lot,” about the history of our movement, our situation, the essence of modern capitalism, etc. What needs to be known is always “too much,” just as what needs to be done is always “too much.” One of the values of Krupskaya’s text is the seriousness with which it approaches that need, the need to know as much as possible as fast as possible. So seriously is it taken, in fact, that Krupskaya treats our capacity to self educate as a productive force in its own right, one that must be revolutionised in the same way that the means of production are! 

Much is being said and written in our country about organization of labor and production propaganda. What all that implies is chiefly organization of production. There are a great many books on how to organize labor in factories and plants, arrange lathes in workshops, distribute tools, divide labor, issue instructions and asses the work done. All these questions are discussed with the aim of avoiding waste of time and energy. From the viewpoint of efficient organization of labor, the best and the most qualified worker is the one who does his job with expediency, speed and the least expenditure of time and energy. But while in the case of physical work we constantly stress the vast significance of properly organizing labor, in the case of mental work this self-evident truth is ignored, although it is of tremendous import for students and for those who are compelled to improve their knowledge through self-education. (‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ 194-5)

Education is conceived by Krupskaya as above all a political necessity. The need to know a lot as fast as possible is a revolutionary demand. The purpose of knowledge is not just for one’s own edification; we have to learn because learning increases our powers of acting, because knowing more allows us to do more, and the socialist transformation of society is only possible if we can do a great deal. Leisure in learning is therefore a luxury. This is surely true, if our self-emancipation relies on our self-education. Seen in this light, it our responsibility to investigate the best techniques for educating ourselves, to find out how it is possible to know a lot quickly, and to practice—train ourselves in—these techniques. This is the aim of Krupskaya’s pamphlet.

One technique from the pamphlet is worth drawing attention to: making use of one’s own personal interests, pursuing what one is compelled by, whether that be technology, the arts, social life, etc. In Krupskaya’s view, it is a mistake to completely ignore one’s own special interests in self-educating. Attention, effort, is a resource, and less of it is expended pursuing what one finds interesting in its own right. But the point is not to follow your interests uncritically and without restriction—no revolutionary cadre can be trained in such a way. The point is rather, as Krupskaya says, to marshal your own interests as a way into what you need to study, as a jumping off point. Krupskaya explains: 

You have, for instance, two students: one interested in technology and the other in social sciences. Both of them have to study, say, electrification. But here each approaches the subject in his own way. The technician will study the question from the point of view of what technical facilities are required for the electrification of the RSFSR. That will be the focal point of his studies. But, in planning the network of the necessary facilities, he will also reckon with the social conditions which will help best to build this network. Here, special interest will lead him to study social conditions. The student interested in social sciences will approach the problem from the social angle: electrification is indispensable as a material foundation for the Soviet system. But to determine whether or not it is possible to electrify the RSFSR, he will have to familiarize himself with electricity, electrical equipment, etc. (‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ 202)

That is, argues Krupskaya, ‘interest determines not so much the content of the acquired knowledge as the approach to this knowledge, the core around which all other knowledge revolves.’ (‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ 202-3) Sometimes it is necessary to knuckle down and study Marx’s reproduction schemas. But most of the time, our interests can be the entryway into knowledge. They can form the core around which we can build systematic knowledge, the form of knowledge that is most valuable, according to Krupskaya: 

To link the newly acquired knowledge with what is already known, to rely on it—that is the rule one should be guided by in choosing the necessary study material. The question is not one of getting a smattering of various sciences and of becoming a walking encyclopedia, but one of gradually perfecting the knowledge one already possesses, of knitting the newly acquired knowledge on to what is already known. Hence, it is a question of taking interest as a basis and of constantly reinforcing it. It is not only important to have knowledge; it is important to systematize it properly. The word “education” in this case means formation around the core of the concepts held by man of a whole tissue of new concepts that are closely linked with the core. (‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ 204)

The study of social reality teaches us that the capitalist system is a constantly evolving process: contradictions rapidly emerge and just as rapidly recede into the background, the balance of forces can change in an instant, and all that can be surely foreseen are unforeseen crises. A socialist is one who is able to comport themselves to these new developments as they are thrown up by the system itself. More than that, a socialist should be someone able to provide orientation, stability and direction to others from within the heady mess of capitalist social reality. For this reason, socialist knowledge should not be piecemeal—it should be systematic, able to provide a firm foundation for action. As Krupskaya writes, ‘the broad working masses must be armed not with scraps or bits of knowledge, but with knowledge that forms an integrated whole, knowledge that is essential to raise our practical work to a higher level.’ (‘On Self-Education,’ in On Education (Paris: Foreign Languages Press, 2022), 229) Events take place in history, within social, economic and political structures, involving agents with different relative strengths who pursue different, sometimes compatible, sometimes antagonistic, interests. For these reasons, only a comprehensive worldview, one which brings every element of the conjuncture into view, can orient us in practical struggle. This is why self-education itself should not be haphazard, but should proceed in an orderly way, and should provide us with a framework through which to analyse and approach our situation: 

One must learn to work according to a definite, pre-arranged plan. An inexperienced man usually tries to do too many things at one time; he grabs one book, drops it to take another, shifts from subject to subject without mastering any of them. Such method of studying is unproductive and uneconomical. One should not jump from one thing to another; one should set oneself a definite target—and not too far-reaching or broad, but concrete and definite. Say, a man wants to study capitalism. That is a very comprehensive subject. To master it, one must break it up into a series of limited themes, and then choose one of them—say, modern capitalism. After that, one should break up this theme too: for instance, start studying modern capitalism in just one country—England. One should continue along this path and choose, say, the position of the British working class in the present stage of capitalism. Only when one has mastered this definite task should one proceed to the next concrete theme, and so on. This is the most economical way of fully mastering the subject. (‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ 214)

Today, a huge amount of self-education takes place through social media. Marxist creators produce content that tries to synthesise theory, history and news into the manageable portions of short form content. It would be a serious mistake for socialists to ignore the online sphere; it is already the entry point to Marxist thought for many, and there is an argument to be made that it is one of the most important spaces through which the left can rapidly expand its base. But education through social media runs the risk of the kind of fragmented learning that Krupskaya warns against here. Since the form of social media

constrains content to small, highly focused and selective portions, it is not well suited for the kind of systematic understanding necessary to develop a comprehensive Marxist perspective on society. This is not to understate the importance of social media—far from it, we should recognise that the traditional left formations are not using this space to its full potential. Rather, we should only emphasise the need for online education to be supported by a “concrete and definite” plan for our own self-education, one that can provide us with a fully fleshed out socialist worldview. 

There are some texts which acquire a greater significance the more time you spend organising. On the face of it, the material may seem straightforward, but over time, you come to realise that they are responses to practical problems that are nevertheless profound. Anyone who has read Mao has had this experience. For socialists self-education may seem completely mundane. If you have already arrived at a socialist position in a wealthy imperialist country, it is likely that you did so by teaching yourself. But it is the responsibility of socialists to approach all their activity with the utmost intention and thought, and self-education is no exception to this. 

1. Althusser, Louis. (1984). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In Essays on Ideology London: Verso, 6. ↩︎
2. Revolutionary Education: Theory and Practice for Socialist Organizers (San Franscisco: Liberation Media, 2021). ↩︎
3. ‘Organisation and Self-Education,’ in Krupskaya, On Education (Paris: Foreign Languages Press, 2022), 196. ↩︎