IS A COMPULSORY OFFICIAL LANGUAGE NEEDED? BY LENIN

 IS A COMPULSORY OFFICIAL LANGUAGE NEEDED?

  The liberals differ from the reactionaries in that they recognise the right to have instruction conducted in the native language, at least in the elementary schools. But they are completely at one with the reactionaries on the point that a compulsory official language is necessary. What does a compulsory official language mean? In practice, it means that the language of the Great Russians, who are a minority of the population of Russia, is imposed upon all the rest of the population of Russia. In every school the teaching of the official language must be obligatory. All official correspondence must be conducted in the official language, not in the language of the local population. On what grounds do the parties who advocate a compulsory official language justify its necessity? The “arguments” of the Black Hundreds are curt, of course. They say: All non-Russians should be ruled with a rod of iron to keep them from “getting out of hand”. Russia must be indivisible, and all the peoples must submit to Great Russian rule, for it was the Great Russians who built up and united the land of Russia. Hence, the language of the ruling class must be the compulsory official language. The Purishkeviches would not mind having the “local lingoes” banned altogether, although they are spoken by about 60 per cent of Russia’s total population. The attitude of the liberals is much more “cultured” and “refined”. They are for permitting the use of the native languages within certain limits (for example, in the elementary schools). At the same time they advocate an obligatory official language, which, they say, is necessary in the interests of “culture”, in the interests of a “united” and “indivisible” Russia, and so forth “Statehood is the affirmation of cultural unity.... An official language is an essential constituent of state culture.... Statehood is based on unity of authority, the official language being an instrument of that unity. The official language possesses the same compulsory and universally coercive power as all other forms of statehood.... “If Russia is to remain united and indivisible, we must firmly insist on the political expediency of the Russian literary language.” This is the typical philosophy of a liberal on the necessity of an official language. We have quoted the above passage from an article by Mr. S. Patrashkin in the liberal newspaper Dyen49 (No. 7). For quite understandable reasons, the Black-Hundred Novoye Vremya rewarded the author of these ideas with a resounding kiss. Mr. Patrashkin expresses “very sound ideas”, Menshikov’s newspaper stated (No. 13588). Another paper the Black Hundreds are constantly praising for such very “sound” ideas is the national-liberal Russkaya Mysl.50 And how can they help praising them when the liberals, with the aid of “cultured” arguments, are advocating things that please the Novoye Vremya people so much? Russian is a great and mighty language, the liberals tell us. Don’t you want everybody who lives in the border regions of Russia to know this great and mighty language? Don’t you see that the Russian language will enrich the literature of the non-Russians, put great treasures of culture within their reach, and so forth? That is all true, gentlemen, we say in reply to the liberals. We know better than you do that the language of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky is a great and mighty one. We desire more than you do that the closest possible intercourse and fraternal unity should be established between the oppressed classes of all the nations that inhabit Russia, without any discrimination. And we, of course, are in favour of every inhabitant of Russia having the opportunity to learn the great Russian language. What we do not want is the element of coercion. We do not want to have people driven into paradise with a cudgel; for no matter how many fine phrases about “culture” you may utter, a compulsory official language involves coercion, the use of the cudgel. We do not think that the great and mighty Russian language needs anyone having to study it by sheer compulsion. We are convinced that the development of capitalism in Russia, and the whole course of social life in general, are tending to bring all nations closer together. Hundreds of thousands of people are moving from one end of Russia to another; the different national populations are intermingling; exclusiveness and national conservatism must disappear. People whose conditions of life and work make it necessary for them to know the Russian language will learn it without being forced to do so. But coercion (the cudgel) will have only one result: it will hinder the great and mighty Russian language from spreading to other national groups, and, most important of all, it will sharpen antagonism, cause friction in a million new forms, increase resentment, mutual misunderstanding, and so on. Who wants that sort of thing? Not the Russian people, not the Russian democrats. They do not recognise national oppression in any form, even in “the interests of Russian culture and statehood”. That is why Russian Marxists say that there must be no compulsory official language, that the population must be provided with schools where teaching will be carried on in all the local languages, that a fundamental law must be introduced in the constitution declaring invalid all privileges of any one nation and all violations of the rights of national minorities.

 

Proletarskaya Pravda No. 14 (32), January 18, 1914 Published according to the text in Proletarskaya Pravda LCW 20 PAGES 71-73

  

LIBERALS AND DEMOCRATS ON THE LANGUAGE QUESTION

 

On several occasions the newspapers have mentioned the report of the Governor of the Caucasus, a report that is noteworthy, not for its Black-Hundred spirit but for its timid “liberalism”. Among other things, the Governor objects to artificial Russification of non-Russian national ities. Representatives of non-Russian nationalities in the Caucasus are themselves striving to teach their children Russian, as, for example, in the Armenian church schools, in which the teaching of Russian is not obligatory. Russkoye Slovo (No. 198), one of the most widely circulating liberal newspapers in Russia, points to this fact and draws the correct conclusion that the hostility towards the Russian language in Russia “stems exclusively” from the “artificial” (the right word would have been “forced”) implanting of that language. “There is no reason to worry about the fate of the Russian language. It will itself win recognition throughout Russia, “says the newspaper. This is perfectly true, because the requirements of economic exchange will always compel the nationalities living in one state (as long as they wish to live together) to study the language of the majority. The more democratic the political system in Russia becomes, the more powerfully, rapidly and extensively capitalism will develop, the more urgently will the requirements of economic exchange impel various nationalities to study the language most convenient for general commercial relations. The liberal newspaper, however, hastens to slap itself in the face and demonstrate its liberal inconsistency. “Even those who oppose Russification,” it says, “would hardly be likely to deny that in a country as huge as Russia there must be one single official language, and that this language can be only Russian.” Logic turned inside out! Tiny Switzerland has not lost anything, but has gained from having not one single official language, but three—German, French and Italian. In Switzerland 70 per cent of the population are Germans (in Russia 43 per cent are Great Russians), 22 per cent French (in Russia 17 per cent are Ukrainians) and 7 per cent Italians (in Russia 6 per cent are Poles and 4.5 per cent Byelorussians). If Italians in Switzerland often speak French in the common parliament they do not do so because they are compelled by some savage police law (there are none such in Switzerland), but because the civilised citizens of a democratic state themselves prefer a language that is under stood by a majority. The French language does not excite hatred in Italians because it is the language of a free civilised nation, a language that is not imposed by disgusting police measures. Why should “huge” Russia, a much more varied and terribly backward country, inhibit her development by the retention of any kind of privilege for any one language? Should not the contrary be true, liberal gentlemen? Should not Russia, if she wants to overtake Europe, put an end to every kind of privilege as quickly as possible, as completely as possible and as vigorously as possible? If all privileges disappear, if the imposition of any one language ceases, all Slavs will easily and rapidly learn to understand each other and will not be frightened by the “horrible” thought that speeches in different languages will be heard in the common parliament. The requirements of economic exchange will themselves decide which language of the given country it is to the advantage of the majority to know in the interests of commercial relations. This decision will be all the firmer because it will be adopted voluntarily by a population of various nationalities, and its adoption will be the more rapid and extensive the more consistent the democracy and, as a consequence of this, the more rapid will be the development of capitalism. The liberals approach the language question in the same way as they approach all political questions—like hypocritical hucksters, holding out one hand (openly) to democracy and the other (behind their backs) to the serf owners and police. We are against privileges, shout the liberals, and under cover they haggle with the serf-owners for first one, then another, privilege. Such is the nature of all liberal-bourgeois nationalism— not only Great-Russian (it is the worst of them all because of its violent character and its kinship with the Purish keviches) but Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian, Georgian and every other nationalism. Under the slogan of “national culture” the bourgeoisie of all nations, both in Austria and in Russia, are in fact pursuing the policy of splitting the workers, emasculating democracy and haggling with the serf-owners over the sale of the people’s rights and the people’s liberty. The slogan of working-class democracy is not “national culture” but the international culture of democracy and the world-wide working-class movement. Let the bourgeoisie deceive the people with various “positive” national pro grammes. The class-conscious worker will answer the bourgeoisie—there is only one solution to the national problem (insofar as it can, in general, be solved in the capitalist world, the world of profit, squabbling and exploitation), and that solution is consistent democracy. The proof—Switzerland in Western Europe, a country with an old culture, and Finland in Eastern Europe, a country with a young culture. The national programme of working-class democracy is: absolutely no privilege for any one nation or any one language; the solution of the problem of the political self determination of nations, that is, their separation as states by completely free, democratic methods; the promulgation of a law for the whole state by virtue of which any measure (Zemstvo, urban or communal, etc., etc.) introducing any privilege of any kind for one of the nations and militating against the equality of nations or the rights of a national minority, shall be declared illegal and ineffective, and any citizen of the state shall have the right to demand that such a measure be annulled as unconstitutional, and that those who attempt to put it into effect be punished. Working-class democracy counterposes to the nationalist wrangling of the various bourgeois parties over questions of language, etc., the demand for the unconditional unity and complete solidarity of workers of all nationalities in all working-class organisations—trade union, co-operative, consumers’, educational and all others—in contradistinction to any kind of bourgeois nationalism. Only this type of unity and solidarity can uphold democracy and defend the interests of the workers against capital—which is already international and is becoming more so—and promote the development of mankind towards a new way of life that is alien to all privileges and all exploitation.

 

 Severnaya Pravda No. 29, September 5, 1913; Nash Put No. 9, September 7, 1913 Signed: V. I. Published according to the Severnaya Pravda text LCW VOL.19 PAGES 354-357