Nikolai Ognev, Diary of a Communist Schoolboy. 1924

Ognev's novel depicts a school shaped by early Bolshevik educational reforms, where bureaucratic abbreviations replace traditional authority. Teachers become "skworkers," pupils' councils supplant faculty, and ponderous names collapse into jargon. The rampant word-contraction satirizes the Soviet tendency toward "Americanized" efficiency and the transformation of everyday language by industrial and political propaganda.

Translator's Note: A few words in this book will sound strange to English readers. Pu-council stands for the "Council of Pupils" ; skworker stands for " school worker," i.e. teacher, and is the nearest equivalent of the Russian shkrab, a contraction of shkolnyi rabotnik. On the same principle, the boys also abbreviate the ponderous names of their teachers; Elena Nikitichna Kaurova is called Elnikilka for short; Alexey Maksimitch Fisher, Almakfish Nikolay Petrovitch Ozhegov, Nikpetozh Zinaida Pavlovna, Zin-Palna.The contraction of words and the wide use of a semi-technical jargon illustrate the new Russian tendency towards "Americanised" efficiency in the one case and the powerful influence on the spoken language of technical and industrial propaganda in the other.

Original Source: Dnevnik Kosti Riabtseva (Paris, 1927).

September 27th

The Dalton Plan is being introduced at our school. It's a system under which the skworkers do nothing and the pupils have to find everything out for themselves. At least, that's what it looks like to me. There will be no more classes, and the pupils will merely be given " tasks." These will be handed out a month in advance, and may be prepared either at home or in school, and when your " task " is finished you get examined at the lab. There will be labs instead of classrooms, and in each there will be a spesh, in that particular subject. Almakfish, for instance, will be hanging round the math lab; Nikpetozh will be in the sociology lab; and so on. They'll be the spiders and we'll be the flies.

We have decided to shorten the names of all the skworkers. Aleksei Maksimich Fisher will be Almakfish; Nikolai Petrovich Ozhegov will be Nikpetozh.

I don't talk to Lina nowadays, and she wants to move to another desk.

October 1

The Dalton Plan has begun. All the desks have been crammed into one room, which will be the lecture hall. Instead of desks we'll have long benches and tables. Vanka Petukhov and I loafed all day about these labs, and I felt silly. Even the skworkers don't seem very clear how to go about this Dalton business. As usual, Nikpetozh turned out to be the most sensible among them. He simply walked in and gave the usual class, except that we had benches instead of desks. Sylphida Dubinin sat next to me, but Lina sat, at the opposite end. Well, she can go to the devil.

To-day Zoya Travnikova gave us all a laugh. She started preaching to the girls about dead people, and how they rise at night and appear to the living. Some of the boys went up and listened, and then Vanka Petukhov asked: " Have you seen any dead people yourself? " " Of course I have." " And what do they look like ? " " They are sort of blue and pale, and look as if they hadn't eaten for a long time; and they howl." And at this point Zoya made a terrible face, and moved her arms back and forth in the weirdest fashion. Then Vanka said: That's all lies; I think dead people are spotted gray and brown and pink, and they grunt hwee! hwee! hwee!" And he squealed like a piglet. Zoya got cross and puffed away as usual, and all the boys laughed.

October 3rd

The Dalton thing is a wash-out. No one can understand a thing, not even the skworkers. The skworkers discuss it every evening amongst themselves. The only novelty so far is that we have to sit on benches and have no place to put our books. Nikpetozh says there's no need for it, as there'll be special bookcases in the labs, with books on every subject, so that everybody can get whatever he needs. But what is to happen until we get the bookcases ?

The boys say that this plan was invented by some Lord Dalton, of bourgeois stock. Now I wonder what the devil we need this bourgeois plan for ? And they also say that while that lord was busy inventing he was being fed on goose's liver and jelly. I'd just like to see him do it on nothing but an eighth of bread, or going through the villages begging as we did in our colony. Anyone could do it on goose's liver.

Sylphida is always fidgeting, and it's uncomfortable sitting on the same bench. Several times I told her to go to hell, and she turned round and called me a skunk. I inquired about her social origin, and found that her father was a compositor. It's a nuisance, for, if she were a bourgeois, I would just show her.

October 4

To-day there was a general meeting about self-government. They discussed last year's defects and the best ways to get rid of them. The greatest mistake is the penalty book. All the pu-councillors, even the best of them, threaten you with it on every occasion. And it doesn't do much good, anyway. In the end it was decided to suppress the book for a month, and to see how that would work. Everybody was very pleased, and shouted hurrah. Zoya Travnikova, as usual, made a nuisance of herself. She got up and said in a funereal tone: " For my own part, I think that the boys, especially, ought to be locked up in a dark cell. Otherwise there's no way of managing them." How they all booed and whistled! At first there was a general shout of indignation, and then she apologized and said she had meant it as a joke. Some joke, I must say! She's all black from head to foot, and now they call her Black Zoya.

After the general meeting there was a meeting of the new pu-council. It's been elected for a month.

October 5th

Our group was in a rage to-day. This is how it happened. Our new nat-history skworker, Elena Nikitichna Kaurova, known as Elnikitka, arrived. She began handing out tasks, and then said to the whole group "Children-"

I then got up and said "We're not children."

She answered "Of course you are children, and I shan't call you anything else."

Then I answered: "Be good enough to be more polite, or else we may send you to the devil."

That was all. The whole group supported me, and Elnikitka grew quite red and said

In that case, leave the classroom."

In the first place," I answered, " This isn't a classroom, but a lab, and, in any case, you can't chase anyone out.

Then she said You're a rude fellow," and I replied: " You're more like a teacher of the old school, and only they were allowed to behave the way you do."

That was all. Elnikitka jumped out of the room as if she'd been burnt. There'll be some fuss now! The pu-council will chip in, and then the skworkers' meeting, and finally the school board. It seems perfect nonsense to me. Elnikitka is simply a damn fool.

In the old school the skworkers used to torment the boys any way they liked: but we shan't allow that now. I remember Nikpetozh reading us passages from Stories of the Seminary, in which even grown-up fellows were flogged right in the classroom at the door; and I have also read how boys were made to swat, and how they were given all kinds of nicknames. But in those days the boys had no idea of the times through which we have had to live. For we've known famine and cold and anarchy; we've had to feed the whole family, and have traveled a thousand miles in search of bread, and some of us have been through the civil war. It isn't three years yet since the war ended. After the row with Elnikitka I thought about it all, and, to get my ideas straight, I tried to talk to Nikpetozh, but the lab was crowded and he was busy, so I went to the maths lab and told Almakfish what I thought of our life. He said that all we had lived through proved quantitatively, the abundance of the epoch, and that, qualitatively, it stood beyond good and evil.

I hadn't been thinking of that at all, and had only meant to show him that no one had any right to treat us as children or dummies; but we hadn't time to thrash it out, because some boys came in and began asking him questions about maths. But for some reason Almakfish again started about " good and evil."' Now, it seems to me that there isn't any such thing as good or evil; what is good for one may be evil for another, and vice versa. If a tradesman makes a hundred per cent. profit on his goods, it's good for him and evil for the purchaser. At any rate, that's what it says in the Politgrammar.

October 6th

Well, we've got to do some work! In a month, or rather less-before November 1st -I'll have to read right through a whole pile of books, write ten reports, and sketch eight diagrams, and, in addition to all this, know how to answer questions in an oral; in fact, not merely answer, but talk about the things I've learned. And, besides, there arc practical tasks in physics, chemistry, and electricity, and I'll have to stick in the phys lab for a whole week. To-day Sylphida and I were called before the pu-council. Serezhka Blinov and the others were sitting there. It appears that she had reported to them that

I swear at her like people in a queue. I had done nothing of the kind. When we went out I pulled her bow; she howled and dashed off. No, to sit next to girls is intellectualism. To-morrow I'm going to change my seat.

October 7th

The skworkers' meeting decided to hand over the Elnikitka business to the school board, and proposed to have it discussed at the general meeting. This meeting takes place to-morrow. I don't know how it'll end, but we certainly shan't allow ourselves to be called children.

To-day the first number of a wall-sheet called the Red Scholar appeared. At first everybody was interested, but it all turned out to be bunk. The articles are stupid, all about studying and good behavior. Serezhka Blinov and some others are on the editorial committee.

I received a note: " It is no use your trying to look interesting; none of the girls want to have anything to do with you." I don't know what to " look interesting " means. I'm sure it's Lina. She has made friends with that new girl, Black Zoya, and they are constantly sitting together beside the stove and whispering to each other. They stay there even when everybody else is out playing games. I'm sure they're awfully anxious that someone should go up to them, but the boys never even look at them. Quite right, too! Black Zoya has been named " Fascist," because the Fascists always wear black clothes. It makes her cross, although she doesn't see the point. The girls all know much less about politics than the boys.

October 8th

I'm just back from school. The general council, at which they discussed my business with Elnikitka, has just ended. Nikpetozh was the most intelligent talker. He said it was all nonsense, and that every schoolteacher ought to know the correct way of approach, and that Elena Nikitichna had not yet developed it, but that she would in time. The skworkers described me as an ill-bred fellow, and thought I should be influenced by moral pressure. Big Zinaida (or Zin-Palna), our inspectress, said that I was a very thoughtful boy who simply didn't know how to control his instincts. Surely it's difficult to control them when she calls me a " boy "; I can't stand it. But it's difficult to argue with her; for she just calls you into the teachers' room and gives you hell. You feel queer after it for the rest of the day. But to go back to the general council: for no reason whatsoever the Fascist, Zoya Travnikova, suddenly got up and said there was no way of keeping me in order, that I molested the girls and what not. Here I got furious. I said, first, that I never spoke to her, and, secondly, that she couldn't produce any evidence. All our group booed her, for it's against all group ethics to denounce one's own comrade at the general meeting. In the end it was voted that I should apologize to Elnikitka, and I said she ought to apologize first for having called us " children." Now the matter will go before the school board. I suppose Elnikitka will plough me now in nat-history. That'll be all she can do.

I went home with Vanka Petukhov, and he said it was a bad thing to give way, and that I should be firm. Vanka sells cigarettes though he has no license. The chief milton used to chase him away from the street corners, but finally he got tired, and Vanka can trade now as much as he likes. He can't do without it, for he has an invalid aunt and sister, and he's the only worker in the house and has to attend school as well. I am glad my father. is a tailor, and that I'm the only one in the family, or else I should have to sell cigarettes too.

October 10th

In the lecture-room to-day Elnikitka explained our " task," and Sylva, who sat next to me, kept on fidgeting. I happened to touch her with my elbow, and she squealed. Elnikitka asked what was wrong, and Sylva, of course, complained. Elnikitka called me a hooligan, and I asked what a "'hooligan " was and what the word implied, but she couldn't explain it properly. Later on I asked Nikpetozh what a " hooligan " was. It seems that a hooligan is a person who hurts other people without getting any benefit for himself. Now, how did I hurt Sylva ? I didn't spit into her porridge, did I ?

October 11th

A new wall-sheet, EX, appeared to-day-- don't know from where. In this EX everybody gets it in the neck-the skworkers, Dalton, the girls who dance on the quiet, and above all, the Red Scholar. Ever since the beginning of term the labs have been empty. In the sociology lab alone all the books on politgrammar have been taken out, and the aquarium and collections have been taken into the nat-history lab. Each lab ought to contain a full collection of books and manuals on its particular subject if it's to be of any use. The pupils could then get on with their work and really prepare their tasks.

October 12th

During the lunch interval we played bast shoe in the hall. Bast shoe is a winter game, something like football. We keep a shoe, underneath the staircase, and get it out when we want to play. Everybody stands round in a circle, and kicks the shoe as hard as he can to get it out of the corner. Somebody stands in the middle and catches it. If he catches it, the shoe is put back to where the last one kicked it from. We played along, and the shoe flew about like an airplane, when suddenly I kicked it so hard that it flew right out of the circle and hit Zinaida straight in the face; she was coming into the hall at the time. Wasn't she wild! She stamped her foot-it's a habit of hers-and shouted: " Stop this! Who did this ? " No one said anything. And off she went in a stream of miserable words: " I thought our school still believed in the rule that the guilty one must admit his fault; for if he doesn't admit it he's a coward," etc., etc.

I couldn't keep myself from saying: "Of course the guilty one must confess. Only what is there to confess ?"

It is wrong," Zinaida said, " to be so violent in your movements and to disregard the possibility of all sorts of bodily injuries.

Then I said it was me. Zinaida came close to me, seized my hand; and said: " Come along." Here I felt a kind of spell come over me, and I followed her to the teachers' room. How she lectured me! It's what I hate most. So I said to her: " What's the good of self-government if the skworkers go on interfering everywhere, and make rows all day long ? Refer this to the pu-council, and they'll put this right." To which she replied: " First of all you must remember that you aren't a man, but only a little worm. You aren't responsible for your actions." And again she started giving me hell.

When I got away, the shoe game had already stopped and the lunch interval was over. If I had been as friendly with Serezhka Blinov as before, I would have talked to him about self-government and the skworkers. But now there's no one. What about Vanka Petukhov ? I've meant to join a Communist Party cell for a long time, only ours is a very futile one; it could easily tone down the skworkers, but it won't interfere in anything concerning the school; the meetings of the unit are open to everyone, but they are so dull that no one outside the party ever attends them. Nothing but politics and production; too much like a dreary lesson. And if any of the fellows start lecturing, you just fall asleep.

October 13th

There has been a meeting of the school board about my business with Elnikitka, and at it Big Zinaida also brought up the bast shoe incident. It was resolved to exert moral pressure upon me. Nikpetozh took me aside to an empty lab and started talking, only he didn't say anything about my character, but merely discussed Dalton. He said that teachers didn't regard teaching the way they used to in the old days. They thought then that it was enough to stuff a boy's head with all kinds of things, and no sooner was the pupil out of school than all the learning evaporated. Briefly, they had to fill an empty vessel somehow, but they didn't care a goddam what they filled it up with. Nowadays a pupil is supposed to be like a bonfire; you only have to light it and it'll continue burning. That's why the Dalton Plan is being introduced, so that the pupils might work with their own brains.

I said this was very difficult, and that probably no one would finish the tasks by November 1st. Nikpetozh said that this didn't really matter, because in the end everybody would realize the usefulness of the Dalton method. Then I asked him whether he thought me a hooligan or not.

He said that, frankly, he didn't think so, but that I was certainly rather abrupt, although I would probably get over it in time. I felt quite cheerful after I left Nikpetozh and went off to apologize to Elnikitka. But, when I got to the nat-history lab, she suddenly jumped at me and started lecturing me, saying that I wouldn't work, and wouldn't let others work, and what not. I was furious, and put out my tongue at her and came away. It'll probably go before the school board again, and they'll send for father. Oh, well, the devil take them! In my opinion, Elnikitka tries to put out the bonfire instead of lighting it.

I've received another note Even though a certain g. is in love with you, don't imagine you are very interesting. And stop swearing, or else no one will talk to you."

I'm sure it's Lina again.

Source: Nikolai Ognev, Diary of a Communist Schoolboy (New York: Payson and Clarke, Ltd., 1928), pp. 12-26.