Independent Working Class Education

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Independent working class education is an approach to education, particularly adult education, developed by labour activists, whereby the education of working-class people is seen as a specifically political process linked to other aspects of class struggle. The term, abbreviated to (IWCE), is particularly linked to the Plebs' League. [1]

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Ruskin College

When Ruskin College was founded in 1899 the founders Walter Vrooman and Charles A. Beard declared "We shall take men who have been merely condemning our social institution, and we will teach them how, instead, to transform those institutions, so that instead of talking against the world, they will begin methodically and scientifically to possess the world."

Proletcult

Having outlined the "fundamental requirement of the modern working class" as the use of "the economic power of the workers for the overthrow of the capitalist system, the abolition of wagery and the inauguration of a classless commonwealth" Cedar and Eden Paul wrote in 1921 that the events of the previous decade had clearly shown that the political efforts to achieve such a goal would be misguided unless based on knowledge:

"The workers' demand for education is no longer a demand for graduated doses of bourgeois culture. It is a demand for an education which shall make the workers understand their place in the economic and social system, and shall help them in the successful waging of the class war. It is a demand for Independent Working-Class Education" [2]

The Pauls' went on to identify the Plebs League as "the most effective exponent of the demand for a distinctively proletarian culture", whereas they described the Workers Educational Association, as making a "parade of impartiality" which masked "an unconscious bias in favour of the institutions of the bourgeois state". [2] The Pauls' drew inspiration from Proletkult, an organisation set up in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Envisioning an imminent revolution spreading to Great Britain, they saw the development of a fighting proletarian culture as being requisite for social revolution. "Proletcult is practically synonymous with what is generally known in this country by the cumbrous name of Independent Working-Class Education" [2]

Institutions founded on the basis of IWCE

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Cedar Paul, néeGertrude Mary Davenport was a singer, author, translator and journalist.

Maurice Eden Paul was a British socialist physician, writer and translator.

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The National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC) was an organisation set up in the United Kingdom to foster independent working class education.

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In the context of the theory of Leninist revolutionary struggle, vanguardism involves a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organizations in order to draw larger sections of the working class towards revolutionary politics and serve as manifestations of proletarian political power opposed to the bourgeois.

The proletariat is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power. A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philosophy considers the proletariat to be exploited under capitalism, forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie.

Permanent revolution Concept in Marxist theory

Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as early as 1850, but since then it has been used to refer to different concepts by different theorists, most notably Leon Trotsky.

References

  1. Waugh, Colin (20 May 2014). "Rediscovering Independent Working Class Education by Colin Waugh". Ragged University. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 Paul, Eden; Paul, Cedar (1921). Proletcult (proletarian culture). New York: T. Seltzer, inc.