Education
p An efficient system of education, which embraces the family, secondary special schools, institutions of higher learning, political education, the press, radio, TV programmes, and so forth has been built up in the Soviet Union.
p Take the family. It fulfils an important social function by not only reproducing the human race but also bringing up the rising generation. In the family a child’s organism, spiritual world, attitude to its environment, behaviour, deeds and actions are formed. In the family a child learns the elementary principles of human life, begins to differentiate 299 between good and bad, and learns to do good and steer clear of the bad.
p The school is one of the key links of communist education. It gives man a knowledge of the rudiments of science, enables him to penetrate the secrets of nature and society, forms his outlook and morals, and gives him a broad polytechnical education, thereby preparing him for socially useful work and making it possible for him to continue his education. With the family the school brings to light and encourages young people’s talents and inclinations, develops their senses and thinking and helps them choose their road in life.
p The Soviet higher school is of inestimable value in promoting communist education. It has acquired extensive experience in training specialists and giving them not only knowledge but also a scientific, Marxist-Leninist outlook, in educating people who are not only well brought up themselves but are able to engage successfully in the bringing up of the new man.
p The system of Party education has become a genuine Marxist-Leninist university for millions of people. More than 26 million people attended various forms of political schools during the 1964/65 school year alone.
p In the system of Party education, Communists and nonParty people study the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, the Programme of the C.P.S.U., the decisions of Party congresses and the most important Party documents. The mastering of theory is combined with the study of problems connected with the economy and industry and is closely tied up with the specific tasks confronting factories and collective and state farms. This brings political study close to life, makes it purposeful and enhances its educational value.
p The factory, collective or state farm, team, workshop, office or other place of work is man’s best teacher. In the Soviet Union every able-bodied person is obliged to work and he therefore belongs to a definite collective. Through this collective man is linked up materially and spiritually with the whole of society.
In the collective he comes into contact with other people, with the result that he develops both as a specialist and a toiler. Here his spiritual world is enriched and his morals 300 —collectivism, comradeship, discipline, exactness and lofty sense of responsibility for the work assigned to him—are shaped.
Notes