Public Education: Why every compromise is a step towards capitulation

Education & its instruments dissemination are critical instruments for the continued sustenance of the capitalist system. The bourgeois perceive knowledge to be their monopoly, and the goals of such systems are merely training for efficient production, not to make people ‘owners of their own lives’. To the working class & poverty-stricken, education however is necessary for social mobility, to break the separation of our children from the huge accumulation of scientific knowledge that humanity has developed. Education, especially with privatization, closely aligns itself with the tenets of capitalism with the reproduction of an indoctrinated docile working force alienated from the products of their labor. This is propagated not only via the curriculum, but the structuring of schools, universities, of academic environments & even campuses & classrooms (which is crucial for our understanding of state encroachment).

“The bourgeoisie themselves, who advocated this principle, made their own bourgeois politics the cornerstone of the school system, and tried to reduce schooling to the training of docile and efficient servants of the bourgeoisie, to reduce even universal education from top to bottom to the training of docile and efficient servants of the bourgeoisie, of slaves and tools of capital. They never gave a thought to making the school a means of developing the human personality.” - V.I. Lenin

However public education, even if under the yoke of the bourgeois interests’, does not conform entirely to this purpose. This is because, the path to public education was paved with continuous agitation, resistance & class-conscious organization whereupon concessions were won in terms of funding, & universal access (to varying degrees). They were a natural consequence & accompaniment to labor laws won with the blood & sweat of the proletariat. Though inevitably through its participation in the capitalist system it is an instrument of the state, it is nevertheless a concession from the bourgeois state itself. The question of the fate of public education is irrevocably intertwined with the liberation of the poor, and thus one cannot view education as ‘neutral’ & ‘apolitical’, for class conscious education is at the center of class struggle. Whatever we have today - subsidized education, scholarships, resistance to corporate encroachment etc., are in place despite the resistance of the ruling class. Naturally, public education & its ethos are an ideological battleground today.

As put forth by Com. Gabriela Lamelas Paz, “The bourgeoisie is not willing to give the working class the means for a real education — instead, it limits the potential of the working class by dividing manual and intellectual labour, spending a limited amount of money on education, and creating biased content as it constantly tries to limit access to quality public education.”

Once we understand the incentive of the ruling class to curb, infiltrate this sphere, i.e., the annihilation of class-conscious education, the task of understanding privatisation legislation, surveillance and increased paramlitary presence in educational institutions becomes quite elementary. Thus, it is the most natural duty of every Marxist to defend these vestiges of progressive thought against predatory policies. We must hold these truths & realities to be self-evident. The erosion of public education, can only be followed by the swift collapse of resistance & submission to to fascist forces.

One need only look at the browbeating of institutions like Harvard, MIT, Columbia into submission by the Trump administration. The crackdown on foreign students, the demonization of academic freedom, deportation of activists, and the proposed dismantling of the Department of Education are all steps that represent a broader effort to undermine public education in favour of ideological control crackdown. This is the logical fate of neutral, apolitical academics which is followed by the delegitimization of the social arts, with critical thinking shunned and replaced by political indoctrination.

One may not need to search for long, to find examples of such degradation & degeneration which in the inevitable periodic collapses of capitalism leads to the descent & demise of liberal bourgeois democracies into fascism.

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, openly acknowledged the Nazi regime's view of education as a tool for ideological indoctrination. In a speech from 1933, he declared: “We will not allow our youth to be educated in a way that goes against the will of the state. The state’s interest is now the highest law in education.” This statement highlights the regime's effort to place education directly under state control, ensuring that teachers and curricula aligned with Nazi ideology. Similarly, Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi ideologue and author of The Myth of the Twentieth Century, argued in 1934 that “The school is the most important institution in the state. It is the institution that will mould the youth into tools of the Führer’s will. Everything that does not serve this aim must be purged.”

Today, the manifestations of these changes, are subtler & more incremental. The National Education Policy (NEP 2020) is one of the first & most fundamental steps, attacking the fabric of public education & ethos. Privatisation, creating artificial competition for funds & favour (read more on NIRF), are nothing but the manifestation of the will of a government that shows an alarming affinity to resort to authoritarianism. In this vein, the indefinite halting of union elections, installation of CCTVs, & sanction of policing of education campuses, are a clear effort to create a chokehold on arguably the only instrument of class consciousness, & social mobility left in the hands of the working class of this country. The reformists such as the CPI(M), who believe the system can be adjudicated & moderated through lawful intervention have begun compromising at every step, allowing courts to act as executors & guarantors of the state’s vision for a docile, homogenous society.

However, as we seen before, such follies are equivalent to capitulation to fascists in the longer run. It is alarming, to see current progressive, & self-proclaimed leftist student organisations to give in to the diktats for increased surveillance in campuses, as they believe they fear they will ‘alienate the masses’ if they oppose such measures. However, to compromise now, is to compromise with our ideology & beliefs. By validating the very mechanisms of control, they claim to oppose, they will ultimately alienate and disillusion the working-class base that relies on them as a principled bulwark leading directly to a state of despair and frustration among the masses. (Results of which we have previously analysed)

"Attention must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not our task to descend to the level of the 'working masses.' " ~ What is to be done? (1902)

It is not the task of Marxists to cater to the populist line, to cater to the masses, so that they may rise & fall at our word. Liberation will not come through compromise, but through steadfast belief in the scientific nature of our analysis of the systems that govern our lives, & through the raising of consciousness of the people. Compromise for mass appeal is the highest form of opportunism, one which will only strengthen the hands of the bourgeois. Thus, it is clear, that the task at hand is to oppose vehemently & reject every encroachment of the state into democratic campuses, with the highest urgency whether that be CCTVs, police outposts, & the delegitimization of student unions & representation. (Read about our demands, and thoughts about surveillance in campuses here)

The fight for the soul, the ethos of public education is the fight for the intellectual life of the proletariat; to surrender this ground now is to ensure our future capitulation. Education is & always will the strongest pillar of class war.

"Your 'order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am, I shall be!" ~ Rosa Luxemborg