p Education is effected within a group of people, and the effectiveness of the calculated, planned and purpose-orientated efforts of the teacher depends on the degree to which the moral achievements of the human race, man’s world, the ideas of society and state are reflected in that group. (12, 23)

p Education theory dating from the first decade after the revolution is associated with the names Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lunacharsky, Blonsky, Lepeshinsky, Shatsky, Soroka-Rosinsky, Pinkevich, Pistrak, and all of them regarded the collective as the most important means of promoting the all-round development of the individual. The outstanding educationists named above emphatically warned teachers against methods which level each and every individuality and stressed indefatigably that the richness of society stems from the diversity of the individuals who make up that society, and therefore the supreme purpose of education should be to educate citizens worthy of the name of Man. (28)

p Concern with the educative role of the collective means concern shown for the spiritual enrichment and growth of each member in the collective and the vast range of relations within it. (12, 216)

p When forging a collective it is vital not to lose sight of each child within it with his unique inner world, and carefully nurture each one. Development of the individual is a process closely bound up with the development of the collective, but in a specific sense it is a special territory for the educator. (5, 5)

p What does the reproach to the effect that a school or class is not a real collective imply? First of all, and most important of all, it means that in the establishment concerned pupils are not taught to appreciate the need for other, fellow human beings .... The skill and art of forging a collective and nurturing a collective spirit begins when a teacher shows profound and careful attention to each pupil as an individual with interests, inclinations, needs and abilities of his own. The spiritual riches of a collective take shape and blossom only when hundreds, even thousands of emotional ties grow up and develop between the pupils, ties which will eventually emerge as an inexhaustible stimulus for that ever-present need, the most human need of all—the need for other, fellow human beings. (14, 2)

p Close study of the intellectual and emotional development of schoolchildren has convinced 275 us that the thoughts and ideas which grip their minds most profoundly of all are those which we would call noble. The essential feature of these thoughts and ideas is that they open up to pupils prospects for working for the good of society and the collective. (6, 21)

p Noble ideas are invaluable from the point of view of education in that they bring together and make compatible the collective and the individual, the social and personal. This unity is the essential condition for moral education in general. (6, 22)

p A decline or interruption of emotional and intellectual ties leads to those abnormal phenomena in the forging of pupil collectives ( particularly where pupils are going through what we know as the awkward, “transitional” age) that are all too often to be encountered in teaching practice. .. . Yet they are all secondary factors that stem from a decline in that unity of ideas and preoccupations based on shared noble principles. (6, 27)

p A collective in which a child does not find any stimulation for his mind and emotions and which cannot lead him towards lofty goals will not be a source of authority for him. (6, 97)

p Why does it happen all so often in the school context that a class after being a first-rate collective in junior school literally fell apart in the older classes? This happened when, after 276 discovering all there was to discover about his peers early in his school career, a young teenager has nothing new to seek and does not find what his heart and mind are so anxiously and insistently demanding. The reason why he cannot find it is that the life of the collective is not being enriched by interesting, mentally stimulating activity based on high principles. (12, 216)

p A collective is not a faceless mass. It exists as a wealth of individualities—-Its educative potential is based on what there is within each member, his spiritual riches, what he brings to the collective and what others take from him. Yet the rich endowment of each personality is only the basis of a full and interesting life for the collective. The collective becomes an educative factor on the strength of its joint activity in which there unfolds the noble inspiration behind its work of noble moral purpose. (12, 215)

p An important principle of our work is making sure that every child be a member of several collectives during his years at the school; each one of them should open up before him one or other of the many facets of man’s intellectual and emotional life. (9, 23)

p Correct organisation of education for children in their early teens implies achieving a situation in which each pupil came into his own precisely in that activity which corresponds 277 most fully to his talents and abilities... . There is nothing worse for pupils of this age group than to be forced all to do the same thing. However attractive some kind of collective activity might be, it can never be interesting for everyone or be interesting always.... Many teachers who complain of a lack of cohesion in collectives of these pupils fail precisely because they attempt to rein in the diverse interests and needs of the pupils in the uninteresting framework of repetitive “ projects”. (6, 89)

p One of the factors which complicates the education of young teenagers is to be found in the qualitative changes in the relationships between the individual and the collective. The urge to belong to a collective that is already to be found among children of pre-school age becomes increasingly conscious and definite in the early teens. They start to seek not merely constant opportunities for communication, which also takes place with pupils from the junior classes, but also those who share their ideas. The opportunities for finding others who share their thoughts, views, convictions and intellectual interests and moral principles are appreciated by children in their early teens as a force that attracts them to the collective. A pupil, at the age of 14-15 in particular, sets store not only by the fact that in his immediate collective his comrades share his interests and take part in the same activities as he does, but also by that their views on all fundamental 278 questions of interest to him coincide. (6, 150)

p The correlation between the collective ( general) and personal (individual) elements in the inner life of a young teenager is more complex than in children from the junior classes. A pupil, particularly at the age of 14 or 15, is interested not merely in what his friends are doing, but also in what they think about their activity, and the attitudes with which they approach the work in question. In collectives consisting of younger children individual pupils do not yet stand out as creative personalities, or in the light of their aspirations to achieve something quite unique, all of their own. However when it comes to those in their early teens this side of their character becomes all-important and gains the upper hand in their relationship with the rest of the collective: they see the children in the collective as individuals each of which is set apart by distinctive characteristics, and is unique in his activities, his mind and his abilities.. . . The search for the like-minded begins at this stage and becomes one of the most important factors binding groups of these young teenagers together. (6, 154)

p The life and activity of the collective satisfies the adolescent only if he is able to satisfy his various interests within that collective. Between the ages of 12 and 15 schoolchildren’s intellectual interests come to vary more and more: a worthwhile collective in which 279 members share the same noble ideals is no longer in a position to satisfy all the members’ interests, and so the young person’s participation in the life of several collectives starts to assume increasing importance. (6, 155)

p It is important to remember that a child in his early teens is not always within a collective, and neither are you the teacher always with him. Often he will be by himself. It is important that when on his own he should feel the urge to think or meditate, visualise in his mind’s eye a majestic picture of the beautiful and heroic, and also to imagine himself in the complex conditions of the struggle to uphold good. Without minutes and hours of this kind there can be no real individuality and no young heart will sense a noble urge to aspire after a moral ideal. This does not imply self-adulation, or any selfish setting himself apart from the collective. It is merely a stage in the individual’s intellectual and mental activity, the stage of self-education, assertion of personal convictions. I always went out of my way to give every pupil of that age ample material for individual mental activity—for a strict rigorous look at himself, so that he might judge himself by the highest standard of all, that of communist principles. (12, 205)

p Long periods in a collective demand changes of scene—solitude, complete relaxation after the tension which meaningful communication involves. ... A long rest away from the 280 collective is essential after long periods in school. After each term at school a young teenager should have time on his own, or in the family circle. This is just as important for him as is the rich, versatile life in the collective. (12, 107)

p Once again I feel I should warn against inaccurate interpretations of what I call individual intellectual activity. This does not imply dreams that have no relation to real life, not fruitless flights of fantasy, but above all thoughts on such questions as what lends a man’s life meaning, what is important to him, what concerns him. It implies reflection on work and dreams of future prospects in that sphere, reflection about what has already been achieved and what should be achieved in the future.

p If there is no full-blooded life rich in ideas, no work and no inspiring moral atmosphere in the collective, then there cannot be any really meaningful intellectual activity for the individual directed towards self-assessment and self-education. (12, 205)

p The educational potential of the collective and the curative power of work are all elementary truths in the world of education, but they do not extend beyond the elementary level, if there is no individual mental activity in the course of which ideals emerge and take root. An ideal as regards moral behaviour has social and at the same time profoundly emotional 281 implications: moral ideals reflect the individual’s political, moral, aesthetic principles on the personal plane. (12, 206)

Compatibility of social and personal interests is the cornerstone of true freedom for man. Freedom of the individual finds expression not in man’s independence of society, but in the harmonious combination of personal interests and social interests, in the deep interaction of social and personal ideals. In the Programme of the CPSU it is stated: “Communism is the system under which the abilities and talents of free man, his best moral qualities, blossom forth and reveal themselves in full.”