Alexander Bogdanov

“ For them, science is not a collective experience of organized labor nor an organizational instrument of collective work; for them, knowledge is something in itself, even something opposed to practice, with a special “ideal”, "logical" nature, and if in their view it should lead to some practical outcome, they attribute this precisely to this higher nature, and not because it has arisen from any practice which may have shaped it. ”

“ It is further necessary to do everything possible to eliminate the disparate nature of science that has led to the increase of specialisation; the unity of scientific language most be the objective, matching and generalising the methods of the various branches of knowledge, not only in relation to each other, but as regards the methods of all other areas of practice, developing of a complete monism of them all. It will be embodied in the universal organizational science necessary for the proletariat, the future organizer of the whole life of mankind in all its aspects. ”

“ The nature of science is to be organized collective experience of humanity and the instrument of the organization of the life of society. The ruling science in its various branches, is bourgeois science: it has worked on all representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia, it is the concentrated material of the experience accessible to the middle classes; they have understood their bourgeois point of view and have made this generally understandable, they have organised affairs according to their own processes and habits. ”

“ This transformation produces a science vitally close to the working class: Astronomy as the science bringing together the work activity in time and space Physics as the science of the resistances encountered by the collective work of humanity Physiology as the science of the labor force, logic as a theory the social agreement of ideas. ”

“ The review of the content of science must first annul this break with collective working practices: the material of science must be understood and informed as the practical experience of humanity; the schemas, conclusions, formulas must be seen as tools for organizing all the social practice of humanity. ”

“ Also as much as science has given a unity for technical methods, the development of mechanised production has also sparked a trend in science to unify methods, to overcome the harmful aspects of specialization. Much has been done in this direction, but in the meantime, the radical rupture between the individual branches of science remains. So far, this trend to unification may only impact on the details, but it can not lead to harmonisation in a single organization of science as a whole. ”

“ Thus, in the study of relations of production, bourgeois science could not grasp or to distinguish the particular higher form, of collectivist fraternal cooperation, because this form is virtually unknown to the bourgeois classes. Even more significant is the narrowness of this fundamental perspective which is evident across the whole of bourgeois science and which is due to the same position of the bourgeois classes in the social system, including their way of life. This special feature is the split between science and its real basis: socialised labour. ”

“ Simplification has already reached a sufficient degree for a single review of science from the viewpoint of collective of work which will release science from the abstract fetishism which is a source of the pseudo-problems and unnecessary devices which were often the subject of 'evidence' in the old mathematics, mechanics or logic, etc. ”

“ All this gives to the working class specific missions concerning contemporary science: we must review it from a proletarian point of view, in content as much as form of presentation; the creation of a new organization, as much for the elaboration as for the dissemination amongst the working masses. In most branches of science, accomplishing these tasks will mean a methodical consideration of the legacy of the old world. But in some, a large and deep autonomous creation will be required. ”

“ Even as specialization grew, the bourgeois world was developing all areas of its creation, science in particular. Science is split into an ever larger number of branches, increasingly divergent, always weakening the living relationship that existed between them. ”

“ Bourgeois science is not very accessible to the working class; it is dense, its specialized corporatist language is obscure and complicated, and further, as it is of course become a product in capitalist society, it's expensive. ”

“ The dissemination of knowledge and scientific work must be organised in parallel. The two things are inextricably linked: they must be embodied in life in terms of the Workers' University and Workers' Encyclopedia. ”

“ The review of the content and of the transformation of the external form of science will constitute its basis, that is to say its "socialism", its mode of adaptation to the tasks of the struggle and socialist construction. ”

“ The unifying of principle of programmes at each level and their complementary teachings should not hinder the freedom to try to perfect the particular programs or particular teaching methods. The basic characteristic of the relationships between teachers and students should be fraternal co-operation, in which the competence of the former does not become sovereign authority nor the reliance of the latter engendering passivity and the absence of criticism. Education must primarily contain the assimilation of methods. ”

“ The individualistic separation of men sharpened this process because although the pooling of ideas is still a need for specialists working in the same industry, this necessity is relatively less compelling for specialists working in different branches. ”

“ The Workers' University shall consist of a system of cultural and educational institutions with levels which converge to a single centre for training and organization of scientific forces. At each level of the system, the general education courses must be complemented by practical, technical and scientific courses, of use to society. ”

“ That is to say, such organizational tools of work will penetrate into the consciousness of the proletariat more immediately, more easily and more deeply than those same sciences in their present form. ”

“ The development of the courses, and in conjunction with this, the work of publication of scientific workers in the Labour University, should be geared towards the creation of a Workers' Encyclopedia which should not be a mere summary of scientific findings, but above all a complete, harmoniously system which presents the methods of practice and knowledge in their vital links. ”