The Practical Dimension of Lenin’s Thought on Socialist Cultural Construction

Lenin’s thought on socialist cultural construction is an important component of Leninism. In the great practice of leading the Russian revolution and construction, Lenin keenly perceived that the deep-seated root of the many difficulties encountered by the proletariat in economic management, consolidation of political power, and social transformation lay in the cultural backwardness of the masses. Based on this profound understanding, Lenin integrated Marx and Engels’ theory on proletarian cultural construction with the concrete realities of Russia, achieving an innovative development of Marxist theory and a systematic construction of his own cultural thought. He scientifically answered major theoretical and practical questions such as “what is socialist culture and how to build socialist culture,” demonstrating the truth appeal and practical power of this thought.

列宁关于社会主义文化建设的思想是列宁主义的重要组成部分。在领导俄国革命和建设的伟大实践时，列宁敏锐地察觉到，无产阶级在经济管理、政权巩固与社会改造时遭遇诸多困境的深层根源在于民众的思想文化落后。基于这一深刻认识，列宁将马克思、恩格斯关于无产阶级文化建设的理论同俄国具体实际相结合，实现了对马克思主义理论的创新发展以及对自身文化思想的体系化建构，科学回答了“什么是社会主义文化、怎样建设社会主义文化”等重大理论和现实问题，彰显了思想的真理魅力和实践伟力。

Securing Leadership over Russia’s Cultural Construction

掌握俄国文化建设领导权

Combining Lenin’s analysis with Russia’s national conditions, he emphasized that in a society with a backward economy and culture, deeply entrenched habits of small-scale production, and the profound influence of bourgeois culture, the proletariat, in order to win victory in revolution and socialist construction, must firmly secure leadership over cultural construction.

列宁结合俄国国情，强调在经济文化落后、小生产习惯势力根深蒂固、资产阶级文化有深刻影响的社会里，无产阶级要取得革命和社会主义建设的胜利，必须牢牢掌握文化建设领导权。

During the course of the Russian revolution, various non-Marxist and even anti-Marxist erroneous trends emerged, such as the Populists’ advocacy of vulgar evolutionism and subjective sociology, Economism’s exaltation of spontaneity, Bernstein’s propagation of the obsolescence of Marxism, Menshevism’s abandonment of proletarian leadership, and Kautsky’s theory of ultra-imperialism. These opportunist factions often deviated from and attacked Marxism under the banner of developing and perfecting it. Lenin waged a resolute and thorough struggle against these erroneous trends, eliminating the harm of false theories to the revolution and clarifying the correct direction of the revolution. During the period of socialist construction in Russia, in response to the widespread remnants of feudal traditional thought such as “Oblomovism” [1]1 “Oblomovism” refers to the lethargic, inert, and procrastinating attitude toward life and work, derived from the protagonist of Ivan Goncharov’s novel *Oblomov*. and “Great Russian chauvinism,” as well as the actions of a number of old intellectuals who engaged in anti-Marxist propaganda without scruple and openly attacked the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, Lenin emphasized the need to enhance the cohesion and appeal of socialist ideology, to arm the entire Party and educate the people with it, and to unify will and action. During this period, the Proletarian Cultural Group, relying on the Proletarian Cultural Association, vigorously proclaimed its “independence,” denying the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party over cultural construction. In response, Lenin sternly pointed out that all organizations subordinate to the Proletarian Cultural Association must unconditionally regard themselves as auxiliary organs within the system of the Council of People’s Commissars, emphasizing the importance of adhering to the Party’s leadership and the guiding principle of Marxism in the process of cultural construction.

在俄国革命进程中，曾出现各种各样的非马克思主义甚至反马克思主义错误思潮，如民粹派倡导庸俗进化论、主观社会学，经济主义推崇自发性，伯恩斯坦宣扬马克思主义过时论，孟什维克主义放弃无产阶级领导权，考茨基主义主张超帝国主义论等。这些机会主义派别常常打着发展、完善马克思主义的旗号背离、攻击马克思主义。列宁同这些错误思潮展开坚决而彻底的斗争，清除错误理论对革命的危害，明确了革命的正确方向。在俄国社会主义建设时期，针对普遍存在的“奥勃洛摩夫习气”“大俄罗斯沙文主义”等封建传统思想遗毒，以及一批旧知识分子毫无顾忌地进行反马克思主义宣传、公开攻击布尔什维克党的领导等行径，列宁强调应增强社会主义意识形态的凝聚力和吸引力，并用其武装全党和教育人民，统一意志和行动。这一时期，无产阶级文化派依托无产阶级文化协会竭力宣扬自己的“独立性”，否认苏联共产党对文化建设的领导权。对此，列宁严肃指出，所有隶属于无产阶级文化协会的组织都必须无条件地将自己视为人民委员会机关系统中的辅助机构，强调了文化建设过程中坚持党的领导、遵循马克思主义指导原则的重要性。

Lenin believed that to secure leadership over cultural construction, it was necessary to continuously instill Marxist theory into the working class and the masses, enabling them to break through the narrow horizons of daily small-scale production methods and lifestyles, transcend spontaneity, avoid blindly following or imitating the bourgeoisie, overcome various petty-bourgeois bad habits, and enhance the proletariat’s conscious identification with Marxism and socialism. Furthermore, in consolidating the proletariat’s cultural leadership, Lenin also proposed that literature and Party publications must accept the Party’s leadership and supervision; education must not be “apolitical” or “ignore politics”; educational personnel must always remain consistent with the Party and meticulously implement the Party’s spirit; and religious reform should be carried out to free education from the influence of the church.

列宁认为，要掌握文化建设的领导权，必须对工人阶级和人民群众进行持续不断的马克思主义理论灌输，使其能突破日常小生产方式和生活方式的狭隘视野，超越自发性，避免盲目追随或模仿资产阶级，克服小资产阶级种种恶习，增进无产阶级对马克思主义和社会主义的自觉认同。此外，在巩固无产阶级文化领导权方面，列宁还提出文学和党的出版物必须接受党的领导和监督；教育不能“不问政治”“不讲政治”；教育人员要始终与党保持一致，一丝不苟地贯彻党的精神；进行宗教改革，使教育摆脱教会影响等主张。

Creating a New Type of Communist Person

造就共产主义新人

The core of culture is the cultivation of people. On the basis of inheriting and developing Marx and Engels’ theory of the all-round development of human beings, Lenin proposed cultivating and shaping a new generation of communists who possess both communist convictions and noble moral character, are versed in construction and management, and master knowledge and technology. To this end, Lenin put forward a series of measures and methods, including vigorously popularizing and developing national education, carrying out proletarian ideological and political education, and strengthening communist labor education.

文化的核心是育人，列宁在继承和发展马克思、恩格斯关于人的全面发展理论的基础上，提出培育、塑造兼具共产主义信念和高尚品德、通晓建设和管理、掌握知识和技术的共产主义新一代人。为此，列宁提出了一系列举措和方法，包括大力普及和发展国民教育、开展无产阶级思想教育和政治教育、加强共产主义劳动教育。

First, vigorously popularizing and developing national education. Lenin attached great importance to eliminating illiteracy and popularizing education. However, to create a new type of communist person, literacy alone was far from sufficient; it was also necessary to raise the nation’s scientific and technological level through science and technology education. Faced with the technological development situation marked by electrification at the time, Lenin regarded the electrification plan as the Party’s “most important task” and proposed conducting electrification education among the masses. He advocated that every power station built should become an educational base, emphasized that knowledge of electrification should become part of the curriculum in all Soviet schools, called for every county and township library to have several reference books on electricity, and promoted popular lectures on electric power and the electrification of the federation. Through this education, the masses would understand what electricity is and its applications, thereby advancing socialist cultural construction. For state management cadres, Lenin demanded that they receive education to learn and master modern scientific and cultural knowledge and become proficient in production management skills. For people’s teachers, Lenin placed great emphasis on raising their status and improving their treatment, and stressed the need to arm teachers with communist ideology. In terms of the allocation of educational resources, Lenin advocated a substantial increase in state financial investment, ensuring every citizen’s opportunity for further education, and focusing on recruiting those from proletarian and poor peasant backgrounds.

第一，大力普及和发展国民教育。列宁非常重视扫除文盲和普及教育工作，但培育共产主义新人，仅仅靠识字远远不够，还必须通过科学技术教育提升国民的科技水平。面对当时以电气化为标志的科技发展形势，列宁将电气化计划作为党“最重要的任务”，提出对群众开展电气化教育。他主张应使建成的每一座电站成为教育据点，强调应使电气化知识成为苏俄所有学校的讲授内容，呼吁每个县乡图书馆都有几本电气方面的参考书，举办关于电力、联邦电气化的大众通俗讲座等，群众在受教育中懂得什么是电以及电的应用，以此推进社会主义文化建设。对于国家管理干部，列宁要求他们通过接受教育，学习、掌握现代化的科学文化知识、精通生产管理技能；对于人民教师，列宁十分注重提高他们的地位，改善他们的待遇，并且强调要以共产主义思想武装教师。在教育资源配置上，列宁主张大幅度提高国家财政投入，确保每个公民的升学机会，注重招收无产阶级和贫苦农民出身的人。

Second, carrying out proletarian ideological and political education. In response to the erroneous bourgeois views prevalent at the time that “schools can be separated from politics and serve society as a whole” and that education could be “apolitical,” Lenin clearly pointed out that the essence of capitalist education was an ideological domestication activity carried out by the bourgeoisie by virtue of its dominant material and spiritual forces, using bourgeois ideology to fetter the minds of workers, and was highly hypocritical and self-serving. Therefore, in the process of cultivating a new type of socialist person, it was necessary to strengthen proletarian ideological and political education, enhance the sense of ownership and collectivist consciousness, and continuously cultivate socialist builders and successors with high consciousness, strict discipline, and unwavering loyalty in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. As for bourgeois intellectuals, Lenin advocated transforming their ideology and shifting their stance through a cultural revolution, so that they would consciously devote themselves to the great cause of Soviet socialist construction.

第二，开展无产阶级思想教育和政治教育。列宁针对当时资产阶级散布的“学校可以脱离政治而为整个社会服务”、教育可以“不问政治”的错误观点，明确指出资本主义教育的实质，是资产阶级凭借占统治地位的物质和精神力量开展的意识形态驯化活动，以资产阶级精神禁锢工人头脑，极具虚伪性和利己性。因此，在培育社会主义新人的过程中，必须强化无产阶级思想教育和政治教育，增强主人翁意识和集体主义意识，不断培养出具有高度觉悟、严格纪律以及在对抗资产阶级时展现出无比忠诚的社会主义建设者和接班人。而对资产阶级的知识分子，列宁主张通过文化革命改造其思想、转变其立场，使其自觉投身于苏维埃社会主义建设伟业。

Third, strengthening communist labor education. Lenin believed that communist labor education helped enhance the abilities of the broad masses, especially youth, and cultivate habits of communist moral practice. He pointed out that to become a true communist, youth could not merely study communist theoretical knowledge but must personally participate in the labor practice of workers and peasants. Only by turning memorized communist “ready-made formulas, opinions, plans, instructions, and programs” into “living things” combined with direct work could the Communist Youth League fulfill its mission of educating youth. To better promote communist labor education, Lenin advocated a form of voluntary, unpaid labor, especially the form represented by Saturday voluntary labor. [2]2 Saturday voluntary labor (subbotniks) were unpaid workdays organized by workers on their days off, initiated by communist volunteers in 1919 and praised by Lenin as a manifestation of communist consciousness. Through this labor, the advanced elements of the proletariat played an exemplary role, enabling the broad masses to more intuitively and comprehensively experience the value and superiority of communist labor, achieving a good educational effect.

第三，加强共产主义劳动教育。列宁认为，共产主义劳动教育有助于提升广大群众特别是青年的能力、养成共产主义道德实践习惯。他指出，要成为真正的共产主义者，青年就不能仅仅学习共产主义理论知识，而是要亲身参与工农的劳动实践，共青团也只有把背得烂熟的共产主义“现成公式、意见、方案、指示和纲领”变成同直接工作相结合的“活生生的东西”，方能完成教育青年的使命。为了更好地推进共产主义劳动教育，列宁倡导一种自觉自愿、不计报酬的劳动形式，尤其是以星期六义务劳动为代表的劳动形式。无产阶级先进分子通过该劳动发挥榜样示范作用，使广大民众更直观、全面地感受共产主义劳动的价值和优越性，达到良好的育人效果。

Critically Absorbing the Entire Cultural Heritage of Humanity

批判地吸收人类全部文化遗产

In Lenin’s view, carrying out socialist cultural construction did not mean adopting a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Instead, it should follow the laws of cultural inheritance and development, forming and developing a new socialist culture on the basis of drawing on and promoting “the excellent models, traditions, and achievements of existing culture.”

在列宁看来，开展社会主义文化建设并不意味着搞“一刀切”，而是应遵循文化传承和发展规律，在借鉴、发扬“现有文化的优秀的典范、传统和成果”的基础上形成和发展社会主义新文化。

Lenin advocated a discriminating sublation of Russia’s traditional national culture. On the one hand, in dealing with traditional culture, one must oppose leftist cultural nihilism. Lenin pointed out that the traditional revolutionary spirit and Enlightenment ideas contained in the cultural heritage of Russia in the 1860s had a positive impact on economic and social development and should be inherited, while the decadent elements such as petty-bourgeois psychology and romanticism that populism imposed on this part of the heritage should be discarded. In response to the erroneous views of the Proletarian Cultural Association [Proletkult], Lenin stated: “Proletarian culture does not fall from the sky, nor is it fabricated by those who call themselves experts in proletarian culture. To claim that it is would be sheer nonsense. Proletarian culture must be the lawful development of all the knowledge that humanity has created under the oppression of capitalist society, landlord society, and bureaucratic society.” [3]3 V. I. Lenin, “The Tasks of the Youth Leagues,” *Collected Works*, vol. 31, p. 287. The view of the Proletarian Cultural Association that severed proletarian culture from all old cultural traditions was in essence nihilism. On the other hand, in dealing with traditional culture, one must neither blindly copy it nor slide into rightist cultural conservatism, but rather sort it into categories, selectively inherit, transform, and bring forth the new from the old, so that it serves the proletariat.

列宁主张有鉴别地扬弃俄罗斯民族传统文化。一方面，对待传统文化要反对左倾的文化虚无主义。列宁指出，俄国19世纪60年代文化遗产中富含的传统革命精神和启蒙思想，对经济社会发展具有积极影响，应当被继承，而民粹主义强加于这部分遗产之上的小资产阶级心理、浪漫主义等腐朽成分，则应予以剔除。针对无产阶级文化派的错误观点，列宁指出：“无产阶级文化并不是从天上掉下来的，也不是那些自命为无产阶级文化专家的人杜撰出来的。如果硬说是这样，那完全是一派胡言。无产阶级文化应当是人类在资本主义社会、地主社会和官僚社会压迫下创造出来的全部知识合乎规律的发展。”无产阶级文化派将无产阶级文化与所有旧文化传统割断的观点，实质上是虚无主义。另一方面，对待传统文化不能盲目复制，更不能滑向右倾文化保守主义，而要分门别类，有选择地继承、改造和推陈出新，为无产阶级所用。

Lenin also advocated critically absorbing capitalist culture. Applying the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, Lenin analyzed the historical progressiveness and historical limitations of capitalist culture, pointing out that capitalist culture is historically progressive relative to feudal autocratic culture and backward small-producer culture, but backward and reactionary relative to socialist and communist culture. Lenin believed that the bourgeoisie had once used talents of feudal class origin to promote the development of capitalism, and that if the proletariat was to achieve victory, it must likewise, on the basis of criticizing capitalist culture, absorb and utilize the scientific and cultural knowledge of the bourgeoisie to serve the proletariat. At the same time, Lenin also placed great importance on cultivating a new generation of intellectuals through various forms such as school education and training courses, emphasizing that the working class must expand its own management ranks. The dual-track talent cultivation strategy adopted by Lenin was a necessary path for building the Soviet socialist intellectual contingent and was of great significance for promoting Soviet socialist construction.

列宁还主张批判地汲取资本主义文化。列宁运用辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义的立场、观点和方法，分析了资本主义文化的历史进步性和历史局限性，指出资本主义文化相对于封建专制主义文化和落后的小生产文化具有历史进步性，而相对于社会主义和共产主义文化具有落后性和反动性。列宁认为，资产阶级曾利用封建阶级出身的人才推动了资本主义的发展，而无产阶级欲取得胜利，同样必须在批判资本主义文化的基础上吸取和利用资产阶级的科学文化知识为无产阶级服务。同时，列宁也极其重视通过学校教育、训练班等多种形式培养新一代知识分子，强调工人阶级必须壮大自身管理层队伍。列宁采取的双轨制人才培养策略，是构建苏维埃社会主义知识分子队伍的必经途径，对促进苏维埃社会主义建设具有重要意义。

(The authors are, respectively, an associate professor at the School of Marxism, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, and a professor at the School of Marxism, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.)

（作者系江西科技师范大学马克思主义学院副教授；华中科技大学马克思主义学院教授）