A depiction of shaking hands across the globe was Medford Educational Institute’s logo on its newsletter¹ in 1996. Though now a defunct organization, its legacy and recommendations have manifested as American and Soviet pedagogies share a common vision for the educational ‘upbringing’ of our children.

Coverage of the institute’s symposium, attended by visiting Russian teachers and various representatives from universities, didn’t make it on the front page of our small town paper. Not surprisingly, as assimilating communistic teaching methods into local American schools would not receive a warm reception by the general public. The newsletter also failed to report the true nature of resurrecting Anton Makarenko as a teacher progressive reformers could take a philosophical example from.

The symposium met to discuss common spiritual values, ideals, convictions, behavior standards, and the ‘existence of an authoritarian option’. Specifics in the agenda: “Creating an interface between business and schools . . . programming for the social, emotional, physical and academic aspects in our learning communities . . . providing a space for spirituality and the soul in the education system. . . current systems of education are unmanageable” and need changed. Overall, how might they overcome obstacles to ‘upbring’ your children.

Mikhail Krasovitskij, Dr. of Pedagogical Sciences and Professor was the featured speaker. He focused attention on vospitanie, a Ukrainian educational term, stressing a ‘unity of purpose’. Smoothing the tensions of Soviet pedagogy, he elaborated on morals education in the Ukraine, by removing the “vulgarity of Leninism”, a more humane Bolshevik revolution. He noted the “brilliant ideas of Lenin caused great harm to studies into the problem of the moral and social development of youth.” Dr. Krasovitskij, however, retained the preservation of “moral and social development in the collective and through the collective”inserting Anton Makarenko’s “brilliant maxim” of respect:
“The true essence of moral and social developmental work does not consist at all in your conversations with the child, but in the organization of the child’s life. . . make as many demands of the person as possible and respect the person as much as possible.”

After digesting the newsletter, apprehension grew, not so much due to a visit by a Russian teacher, as the realization that our schools in America reflected so much what he shared about vospitanie. Cooperative grouping had been a trend in classrooms for years. Time for academics is continually pinched by social instruction and an unfamiliar ‘common spirituality’ is knocking on classroom doors. An ‘authoritarian option’ is troublesome as American parents assume that teachers impart the various disciplines and parents organize their children’s moral development. The Russian speaker echoed Engle’s vision for praising work, but left home the true nature of Anton Makarenko’s teaching philosophy. Makarenko rose out of the ashes of Leninism like a Phoenix to spread his wings of political correctness. Those who understood the Russian language bore witness to Makarenko’s work.

Will the Real Anton Makarenko Please Stand Up?

Balint Vazsonyi, a Hungarian survivor of the Nazi invasion, followed by Bolshevism, authored America’s 30 Years War². He affirmed, “The term politically correct first came to my attention through the writings of Anton S. Makarenko, Lenin’s expert on education. Adolf Hitler preferred the version, socially correct.”(pg. 13) Vazsonyi wrote a Disturbing List of similarities between Soviet communism and recent changes in American cultural life. http://www.balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns122601.html

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago³, a 620 page indictment of Soviet corrective labor camps, witnessed by 227 survivors including himself. He noted on page 505: “Anton Makarenko (1888-1838) Educator; organized rehabilitation colonies for juvenile delinquents. . . Stalin was always partial to the thieves after all, who robbed the banks for him? Back in 1901 his comrades in the Party and in prison accused him of using common criminals against his political enemies. From the twenties on, the obliging term, ‘social ally’ came to be widely used. That was Makarenko’s contention too; these [thieves] could be reformed. According to Makarenko, the origin of crime lay solely in engineers, priests, SR’s, Mensheviks.” (pg. 506)

Makarenko’s true nature in creating a Marxist political education system was voiced by Robert S. Cohen’s essay on Marxist’s Philosophy in Education. His contribution, plus 8 other philosophers, was commissioned to “under gird the efforts of UNESCO’s democratic charter”, offering various philosophies on education and the role of religion in public schools. The irony of this lies in the fact that the ‘Yearbooks’ published by the National Society for the Study of Education⁴ were compiled for individual membership only, “not to be held by libraries, schools or other institutions, either directly or indirectly.” (Appendix i) Cohen’s essay is replete with Makarenko’s own words.

“We must teach the worker discipline. We must develop in him the sense of duty and the sense of honor.he must feel his own obligations toward his class. He must be able to subordinate himself to a comrade and he must be able to give orders to a comrade. He must know how to be courteous, severe, kind, and pitiless, depending on the circumstance of his life struggle.A good deal of the attention paid to the training of character is wrongly directed to my mind. It is usually concentrated on the unruly element. This, of course is necessary, but it by no means exhaust the problem, the timid and modest, the little, gentle Jesuses, the column dodgers, the wasters, the idlers, and the dreamers usually evade its influence. Yet these characteristics are in fact as harmful as any.” (pg. 210)

If this is Makarenko’s ‘maxim of respect’, it suits a Marxist golden rule for a gang related ethic – Do not do unto your comrades, which you would not be willing to accept the consequences yourself. Makarenko attests that children brought up in normal circumstances are the hardest to re-educate. He least respects the weak and modest little Jesuses, and clearly evokes a survival of the fittest approach to his philosophy. The children who made up the Gorky colony had little recourse or freedom, making three legged stools and performing ‘socially useful work’, “unpaid work for the common good”, as stated by G. N. Filonov⁵. Makarenko rehabilitated juveniles at Dzerjhinski and Gorky colonies who had no direction, support or education. Entry by troops (young Pioneers) are much easier to manipulate. Malleable minds in educated cultures, however, need to be nipped in the bud, so to speak, at an earlier age, to steer their thinking in ‘politically correct’ values, thus saving time and effort in unlearning patriotic, religious, or conservative axioms.

Makarenko is considered the ‘John Dewy of Soviet education’, as he too was influenced by progressive education in the West. Traditionally American students were schooled to work for themselves. Soviet styled polytechnical-based systems now train children to work for the state, vis a vis, the community. Consensus between the 2 super powers currently harbors a politically correct formula for international goodwill and environmental stewardship. International compacts, conventions, and treaties have been signed, stamped and delivered to our local communities, which begs a question. Who is ‘upbringing’ your children?


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1 – Newsletter of The Medford Education Institute, Inc.: Vol. 2, No. 5, May-June 1996. Attendees to the symposium numbered Roger Benjamin from Rand Corporation, A. Benoit Edlof, Indiana University, Stephen Kerr, University of Washington, Dmitri Margulis, former editor of Ridna Shkola, Sherman Rosenfeld, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, Ford Stevenson, Brigham Young University and Stephen Thorpe, Southern Oregon University, Peter Vinten-Johansen and Michigan State University. The newsletter touched on notable Russian educators and writers, other than Makarenko: Vasilij A. Sukhomlinsky, Eric Fromm, Medinkov, Aleksandr Kron, Oleg Gazman and Nata Krylova

2 – America’s Thirty Years War: Who is Winning, Balint Vazsonyi; Regnery Publishing, Inc. Wash. D. C., 1998.

3 – Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; Westview Press, Boulder, Co., 1998

4 – Passages culled from references listed, pg. 208-9, The Road to Life, A. S. Makarenko: Russian Teacher and Makarenko: Pioneer of Communist Education, footnoted by R. S. Cohen, The Marxist Philosophy of Education: Modern Philosophies in Education, University of Chicago Press, Part 1, 1955 Yearbook.

5 – Filonov, G. N., Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education; Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, vol. XXIV, no. 1/2, 1994, p. 77-91 (free to reproduce)