Woman under socialism

An evidence of the inadequacy of the present school system – it is unable to fulfil even the moderate demands made upon it – is the fact that thousands upon thousands of children are unable to fulfil their school duties by reason of insufficient food. In the winter of 1893-94, it was ascertained in Berlin that in one school district alone 3,600 children went to school without breakfast. In such shocking conditions there are hundreds of thousands of children in Germany to-day at certain seasons of the year. With millions of others the nourishment is utterly insufficient. For all these children public alimentation and clothing also would be a godsend. A commonwealth that pursued such a policy and thus, by the systematic nourishing and clothing of the children, would bring humanity home to them, is not likely to see the sight of "penitentiaries." Bourgeois society cannot deny the existence of such misery, which itself has called forth. Hence we see compassionate souls foregathering in the establishment of breakfast and soup houses, to the end of partially filling by means of charity what it were the duty of society to fill in full. Our conditions are wretched —but still more wretched is the mental make-up of those who shut their eyes to such facts.

The system of reducing so-called home school work, and of having the same done at school under the supervision of a teacher is progressing; the inadequacy of home facilities is realized. Not only is the richer pupil at an advantage over the poorer by reason of his position, but also by reason of his having private teachers and such other assistance at his command. On the other hand, however, laziness and shiftlessness are promoted with the rich pupil by reason of the effects of wealth, luxury and superfluity; these make knowledge appear superfluous to him, and often they place before him such immoral sights that he easily slides into temptation. He who every day and every hour hears the praises sung of rank, position, money, property, and that they are all-essential, acquires abnormal conceptions regarding man and his duties, and regarding State and social institutions.

Closely looked into, bourgeois society has no reason to feel indignant at the communistic education, which Socialists aim at. Bourgeois society has itself partly introduced such a system for the privileged classes, but only as a caricature of the original. Look at the cadet and alumni establishments, at the seminaries, at the schools for clergymen, and at the homes for military orphans. In them many thousands of children, partly from the so-called upper classes, are educated in a one-sided and wrongful manner, and in strict cloister seclusion; they are trained for certain specific occupations. And again, many members of the better situated classes, who live in the country or in small places as physicians, clergymen, government employes, factory owners, landlords, large farmers, etc., send their children to boarding schools in the large cities and barely get a glimpse of them, except possibly during vacations.

There is, accordingly, an obvious contradiction between the indignation expressed by our adversaries at a communistic system of education and at "the estrangement of children from their parents," on the one hand, and their own conduct, on the other, in introducing the identical system for their own children – only in a bungling, absolutely false and inadequate style.

In equal tempo with the increased opportunities for education must the number of teachers increase. In the matter of the education of the rising generations the new social order must proceed in a way similar to that which prevails in the army, in the drilling of soldiers. There is one "under-officer" to each eight or ten men. With one teacher to every eight or ten pupils, the future may expect the results that should be aimed at.

The introduction of mechanical activities in the best equipped workshops, in garden and field work, will constitute a good part of the education of the youth. It will all be done with the proper change and without excessive exertion, to the end of reaching the most perfectly developed beings.

Education must also be equal and in common for both sexes. Their separation is justifiable only in the cases where the difference in sex makes such separation absolutely necessary. In this manner of education the United States is far ahead of us. There education of the two sexes is in common from the primary schools up to the universities. Not only is education free, but also school materials, inclusive of the instruments needed in manual training and in cooking, as also in chemistry, physics, and the articles needed for experimenting and at bench-work. To many schools are attached gymnastic halls, bath houses, swimming basins and playgrounds. In the higher schools, the female sex is trained in gymnastics, swimming, rowing and marching.218

The Socialist system of education, properly regulated and ordered and placed under the direction of a sufficient force, continues up to the age when society shall determine that its youth shall enter upon their majority. Both sexes are fully qualified to exercise all the rights and fill all the duties that society demands from its adult members. Society now enjoys the certainty of having brought up only thorough, fully developed members, human beings to whom nothing natural is strange, as familiar with their nature as with the nature and conditions of society which they join full-righted.

The daily increasing excesses of our modern youth – all of them the inevitable consequences of the present tainted and decomposing state of society – will have vanished. Impropriety of conduct, disobedience, immorality and rude pleasure-seeking, such as is especially noticeable among the youth of our higher educational institutions – the gymnasia, polytechnics, universities, etc. – vices that are incited and promoted by the existing demoralization and unrest of domestic life, by the poisonous influence of social life such as the immoral literature that wealth procures – all these will likewise have vanished. In equal measure will disappear the evil effects of the modern factory system and of improper housing, that dissoluteness and self-assurance of youths at an age when the human being is most in need of reining and education in self-control. All these evils future society will escape without the need of coercive measures. The nature of the social institutions and of the mental atmosphere, that will spring from them and that will rule society itself, rendering impossible the breaking out of such evils; as in Nature disease and the destruction of organisms can appear only when there is a state of decay that invites disease; so likewise in society.

No one will deny that our present system of instruction and of education suffers of serious defects – the higher schools and educational establishments even more so than the lower. The village school is a paragon of moral health compared with the college; common schools for the manual training of poor girls are paragons of morality compared with many leading boarding schools for girls. The reason is not far to seek. In the upper classes of society, every aspiration after higher human aims is smothered; those classes no longer have any ideal. As a consequence of the absence of ideals and of noble endeavor, an unbounded passion for physical indulgence and hankering after excesses spread their physical and moral gangrene in all directions. How else can the youth be that is brought up in such an atmosphere? Purely material indulgence, without stint and without bounds, is the only aim that it sees or knows of. Why exert themselves, if the wealth of their parents makes all effort seem superfluous? The maximum of education with a large majority of the sons of our bourgeoisie consists in passing the examinations for the one year's service in the army. Is this goal reached, then they imagine to have climbed Pelion and Ossa, and regard themselves at least as demi-gods. Have they a reserve officer's certificate in their pocket, then their pride and arrogance knows no limit. The influence exercised by this generation – a generation it has become by its numbers – weak in the character and knowledge of its members, but strong in their designs and the spirit of graft, characterizes the present period as the "Age of Reserve Officers." Its peculiarities are: Characterlessness and ignorance, but a strong will; servility upward, arrogance and brutality downward.

The daughters of our bourgeoisie are trained as show-dolls, fools of fashion and drawingroom-ladies, on the chase after one enjoyment after another, until, finally, surfeited with ennui, they fall a prey to all imaginable real and supposed diseases. Grown old, they become devotees and beads-women, who turn up their eyes at the corruption of the world and preach asceticism. As regards the lower classes, the effort is on foot to lower still more the level of their education. The proletariat might become too knowing, it might get tired of its vassalage, and might rebel against its earthly gods. The more stupid the mass, all the easier is it to control and rule.

And thus modern society stands before the question of instruction and education as bewildered as it stands before all other social questions. What does it? It calls for the rod; preaches "religion," that is, submission and contentment to those who are now but too submissive; teaches abstinence where, due to poverty, abstinence has become compulsory in the utmost necessaries of life. Those who in the rudeness of their nature rear up brutally are taken to "reformatories," that usually are controlled by pietistic influences; – and the pedagogic wisdom of modern society has about reached the end of its tether.

From the moment that the rising generation in future society shall have reached its majority, all further growth is left to the individual: society will feel sure that each will seize the opportunity to unfold the germs that have been so far developed in him. Each does according as inclination and faculties serve him. Some choose one branch of the ever more brilliant natural sciences: anthropology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geology, physics, chemistry, prehistoric sciences, etc.; others take to the science of history, philologic researches, art; others yet become musicians from special gifts, or painters, or sculptors, or actors. The future will have "guild artists" as little as "guild scientists" or "guild artisans." Thousands of brilliant talents, hitherto kept down, unfold and assert themselves and display their knowledge and ability wherever opportunity offers. No longer are there any musicians, actors, artists and scientists by profession; they will exist only by inspiration, talent and genius; and the achievements of these bid fair to excel modern achievements on these fields as vastly as the industrial, technical and agricultural achievements of future society are certain to excel those of to-day. An era of art and sciences will spring up such as the world never saw before; nor will its creations fail to correspond to such a renaissance.

What transformation and new-birth science will experience when conditions shall have become worthy of the human race, no less a man than the late Richard Wagner foresaw and expressed as early as 1850 in his work "Art and Revolution." This work is all the more significant seeing that it made its appearance immediately after a revolution that had just been beaten down, that Wagner took part in, and by reason of which he had to flee from Dresden. In this book Wagner foretells what the future will bring on. He turns directly to the working class as the one called upon to emancipate true art. Among other things he says:

"When, with the free human race of the future, the earning of a living shall no longer be the object of life; when, on the contrary, thanks to the rise of a new faith, or of higher knowledge, the gaining of a livelihood by means of compatible work shall be raised above all uncertainty; – in short, when industry shall no longer be our master but our servant, then will we place the object of life in the pleasure of life, and seek to make our children fit and worthy through education. An education that starts from the exercise of strength, from the care of the beauty of the body will, due to the undisturbed love for the child and to the joy experienced at the thriving of its charms, become purely artistic; and thus in some sense or another every being will be an artist in truth. The diversity of natural inclinations will develop the most manifold aptitudes into an unprecedented wealth of beauty!" – at all points a Socialist line of thought, and fully in keeping with the arguments herein made.

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Social life in future will be ever more public. What the trend is may be gathered from the wholly changed position of woman, compared with former times. Domestic life will be confined to what is absolutely necessary, while the widest field will be opened to the gratification of the social instincts. Large gathering places for the holding of addresses and discussions, and for conferring upon all social questions, over which the collectivity has the sovereign word; play, meal and reading rooms; libraries, concert halls and theaters; museums and gymnastic institutions; parks, promenades, public baths, educational institutions of all sorts; laboratories, etc.; – all of these, erected in the best and equipped in the fittest manner possible, will afford richest opportunity for all manner of intercourse, of art and of science to achieve the highest. Likewise will the institutions for the nursing of the sick, the weak, the infirm through old age, meet the highest demands.

How little will then our much boasted about age seem in comparison. This fawning for favor and sunshine from above; this cringing and dog-like frame of mind; this mutual struggle of enviousness, with the aid of the most hateful and vilest means, for the privileged place. All along the suppression of convictions; the veiling of good qualities, that might otherwise give offence; the emasculation of character; the affectation of opinions and feelings; – in short, all those qualities that may be summed up in words "cowardice and characterlessness" are now every day more pronounced. Whatever elevates and ennobles man – self-esteem, independence and incorruptibility of opinion and convictions, freedom of utterance – modern conditions generally turn into defects and crimes. Often do these qualities work the ruin of their owners, unless he suppresses them. Many do not even realize their degradation; they have grown accustomed thereto. The dog regards it a matter of course that he has a master, who, when out of temper, visits him with the whip.

Such altered conditions in social life will impart a radically different aspect to literary productions. Theological literature, whose entries are at present most numerous in the yearly catalogues of literary works, drops out in company with its juridic cousin, – there is no more interest in the former, and no more use for the latter. All the literary productions that refer to the struggle over political institutions will be seen no more, – their subject-matter has ceased to be. The study of all such matters will belong to the history of civilization. The vast mass of inane productions – the evidences of a spoiled taste, often possible only through sacrifices at the altar of the author's vanity – are gone. Even speaking from the view-point of present conditions, it may be said without exaggeration that four-fifths of all literary productions could disappear from the market without loss to a single interest of civilization. Such is the vastness of the mass of superficial or harmful books, palpable trash, extant to-day on the field of literature.

Belles-lettres and the press will be equally hit. There is nothing sorrier, more spiritless or superficial than the large majority of our newspaper literature. If our stage in civilization and scientific attainments were to be gauged by the contents of that set of papers, it would be low indeed. The actions of men and the condition of things are judged from a view-point that corresponds with centuries gone by, and that has been long since proved laughable and untenable by science. A considerable portion of our journalists are people who, as Bismarck once put it, "missed their calling," but whose education and standard of wages fit with bourgeois interests. Furthermore, these newspapers, as well as the majority of the belles-lettric magazines, have the mission of circulating impure advertisements; the interests of their purses are on this field the same as on the former: the material interests of their owners determine their contents.

On an average, belles-lettric literature is not much superior to newspaper literature. Its forte is to cultivate sex excesses: it renders homage either to shallow enlightenment or to stale prejudices and superstitions. Its general purpose is to represent the capitalist order of society, all its shortcomings notwithstanding, which are conceded in trifles, as the best of all possible worlds.

On this extensive and important field, future society will institute some thorough-going housecleaning. Science, truth, beauty, the contest of the intellect after the best will rule supreme. Everyone who achieves what is worthy will enjoy the opportunity to exercise his faculties. He no longer depends upon the favor of a publisher, moneyed considerations or prejudice, but only upon the impartial judgment of experts whom he himself joins in electing, and from whose unfavorable decision he can always appeal to the general vote of the whole community, – all of which is to-day against him or impossible. The childish notion that all contest of intellect would be held down in a Socialist society they alone can maintain who hold the bourgeois world to be the most perfect social system, and who, out of enmity to Socialism seek to slander and to belittle it. A society, that rests upon full democratic equality, neither knows nor tolerates oppression. Only the fullest freedom of thought makes uninterrupted progress possible, and this is the principle of life with society. Moreover, it is an act of deception to represent bourgeois society as the paladin of true freedom of thought. Parties that represent class interests will publish in the press only that which does not injure their class' own interests, and woe to him who would attempt the contrary. His social ruin would be sealed, as every one knows. In what manner publishers handle literary work that does not suit them, every writer almost could tell a tale of woe on. Finally, the German press and criminal laws betray the spirit that animates our ruling and leading classes. Actual freedom of thought is looked upon by them as the most dangerous of evils.

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The individual is to develop himself fully. That must be the law of human association. Accordingly, the individual may not remain fettered to the soil on which the accident of birth first placed him. Men and the world should be known, not from books and papers only: personal observation, practical experience are also needed. Accordingly, future society must enable everyone to do what is now done by many, although in most instances it happens to-day under the whip that want cracks. The wish for change in all the relations of life is a craving strongly stamped in man. It springs from the instinct after perfection, inherent in all organic beings. The plant that stands in a dark room, stretches and strains, as though endowed with consciousness, towards the light that falls from some crevice. Just so with man. An instinct implanted in man, consequently a natural instinct, must be rationally gratified. The conditions of future society will not balk the instinct after change; on the contrary, they promote its gratification with all: it is facilitated by the highly developed system of intercommunication; it is demanded by international relations. In future days, infinitely more people will travel through the world, and for the most varied of purposes, than happens to-day.

In order to meet all demands, society furthermore requires an ample provision of all the necessaries of life. Society regulates its hours of work accordingly. It makes them longer or shorter, according as its needs or the season of the year may suggest. It may turn its strength at one season mainly to agriculture, at another mainly to industrial and similar production. It directs its labor forces as occasion may require. Through the combination of numerous forces, equipped with the best technical provisions, it can carry through with swiftness, aye, playingly, undertakings that to-day seem impossible.

As society assumes the care of its youth, so it does of its aged, sick or invalid members. It guards whoever, by whatever circumstance, has become unable to work. There is in this no question of charity, but of duty; not of an alms morsel, but of an assistance born of every possible consideration due him, who, during the time of his strength and ability to work, fulfilled his duties to the commonwealth. The setting sun of old age is beautiful with all that society can offer: everyone being buoyed up with the confidence that he will some day himself enjoy what now he affords to others. No longer are the aged now disturbed with the thought that others are awaiting their death in order to "inherit;" likewise has the fear vanished from the mind of man that, grown old and helpless, he will be cast off like a squeezed lemon. Man now feels himself left neither to the benevolence of his children, nor to the alms of the community. What the condition is in which most parents find themselves, who depend in old age upon the support of their children, is notorious. How demoralizing is not the effect of the hope of inheriting upon the children, and, in a still greater degree, upon relatives! What vile qualities are not awakened; and how many are not the crimes that such hopes have led to! – murder, forgery, perjury, extortion, etc. Capitalist society has no reason to be proud of its laws of inheritance; to them are ascribable part of the crimes that are committed every year; and yet the large majority of people have nothing to bequeath or to inherit.219

The moral and physical condition of future society; the nature of its work, homes, food, clothing, its social life – everything will greatly contribute to avoid accidents, sickness, debility. Natural death by the decline of the vigor of life will become the rule. The conviction that "heaven" is on earth, and that to be dead means to be ended, will cause people to lead rational lives.220 He enjoys most who enjoys longest. None know how to appreciate a long life better than the very clergy who prepare people for the "after world;" a life free from care makes it possible for these gentlemen to reach the highest age average.221

Life requires, first of all, food and drink. Friends of the so-called "natural way of living" often ask why is Socialism indifferent to vegetarianism. The question causes us to take up the subject in a few lines. Vegetarianism, that is, the doctrine that prescribes an exclusive vegetal diet, found its first supporters in such circles as are in the agreeable position of being able to choose between a vegetal and an animal diet. To the large majority of people there is no such choice: they are forced to live according to their means, the meagerness of which in many instances keeps them almost exclusively to a vegetal diet, and to the least nutritive, at that. With our working class population in Silesia, Saxony, Thuringen, etc., the potato is the principal nourishment; even bread comes in only secondarily; meat, and then only of poor quality, is hardly ever seen on the table. Even the largest part of the rural population, although they are the raisers of cattle, rarely partake of meat: they must sell the cattle in order to satisfy other pressing wants with the money obtained therefor.

For the innumerable people, who are compelled to live as vegetarians, an occasional solid beefsteak, or good leg of mutton, would be a decided improvement in the diet. When vegetarianism directs itself against the overrating of the nutrition contained in meat, it is right; it is wrong, however, when it combats the partaking of meat as harmful and fatal, mainly on sentimental grounds – such as "the nature of man forbids the killing of animals and to partake of a corpse." In order to live comfortably and undisturbed, we are compelled to declare war upon and destroy a large number of living beings in the shape of all manner of vermin; in order not to be ourselves eaten up, we must undertake the killing and extirpating of wild animals. The quiet toleration of those "good friends of man," the domestic animals, would increase the number of these "good friends" in a few decades so immensely that they would "devour" us by robbing us of food. Neither is the claim true that a vegetarian diet produces mildness of temperament. The "beast" was awakened even in the mild, vegetarian Hindoo when the severity of the Englishmen drove him to mutiny.