Dewey: Stalin's Propagandist, the World's Teacher

American Thinker ^ | 5/22/2013 | Daren Jonescu

[VR-21]

Joseph Stalin had been General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party for six years in 1928, when John Dewey, "the father of modern education," toured Russia with a group of educators. Later that year, The New Republic published Dewey's Impressions of Soviet Russia and the revolutionary world. This polemic stands as a remarkable testament to progressivism's disdain for mankind, reason, and truth. It is also Dewey's most honest and concise primer on the principles of his progressive education method. Anyone prepared to defend the idea of government-controlled schooling after reading this work is perhaps beyond reach of rational argument.

Dewey's general assessment of the Stalinist Russia he claims to have encountered is unabashedly positive, not to say romantic. Here is a very typical example:

But since the clamor of economic emphasis, coming... from both defenders and enemies of the Bolshevik scheme, may have confused others as it certainly confused me, I can hardly do better than record the impression, as overwhelming as it was unexpected, that the outstanding fact in Russia is a revolution, involving the release of human powers on such an unprecedented scale that it is of incalculable significance not only for that country, but for the world. [p. 15]

Note the peculiar effect of combining the most understated, non-judgmental language to describe a murderous dictatorship ("the Bolshevik scheme") with the most unobjective hyperbole ("overwhelming," "unprecedented," "incalculable") to describe something as abstract and speculative as "the release of human powers" under communism. This passage, and indeed the entire document, written by a sixty-nine year old eminent intellectual, reads like the silly postcard effusions of a ten-year-old girl on her first trip to Disneyland.

[KC_Lion]

Big Bookmark for the Future!

[DuncanWaring]

Ping.

[Army Air Corps]

The Audacity of Hopeful Change that takes a Village.

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Wildbill22]

“The Audacity of Hopeful Change that takes a Village.”

...and the IRS.

[massgopguy]

No mention of this on his Wikipedia page. How convenient.

[Army Air Corps]

How abouth this, then:

The Audacity of Hopeful Change that takes a Village to Audit You.

[Slyfox]

Dewey's main goal was to slowly slip incompetence into our then excellent schools. He began with the teaching of reading, and he succeeded at replacing our excellent methods with "look-say" which is very inadequate and creates students who sadly become stunted in their ability to learn. This was by design.

By the 1960s, time was ripe for social experimentation, because all of the major teaching colleges had become "dewey-ized," the stage was set for full bore socialization. They all thought that 1980 was going to be their year to embark on "it all," however, Ronald Reagan got elected and put a huge damper in their plans.

Now they have their vaunted leader where everything is to be accomplished.

It has been planned for 100 years. Every once in a while God interferes with the building of their paradise.

"When you see these things come to pass look up and know that your salvation is at hand."

[celmak]

ping

[Forgotten Amendments]

Don’t be fooled by “school choice”! As this confirms, the very concept of warehousing children is totalitarian. There have never been “good” schools. No school for children is about education.

Thank goodness, the home schoolers and unschoolers have made incredible strides in just a generation. Soon, people who dump their kids in prisons will be looked down upon.

[kearnyirish2]

This afternoon TCM had a Soviet propaganda movie (for Americans) filmed in 1943; it shows happy Russian villagers defending their well-stocked farms from Nazis. The fact that our government would try to convince us of the benevolence of “Uncle Joe” Stalin is disgusting.

[VR-21]

I agree with you that what we see in education and society as a whole is the culmination of a century long project. One of the things that struck me in the article was the highlighting of Dewey's belief, consistent with other Progs of the time, that public education needed to supersede the influence of children's families. Again you see that totalitarian mindset, be it Fascist, Communist or National Socialist where all facets of human existence are subordinate to The State. One can also see the ideological underpinning of the likes of Barack Obama, when he expresses his contempt for the Constitution and its "Negative Liberties."

[VR-21]

What was the title of the movie? Propaganda films that put our then ally, the USSR (and Stalin) in a favorable light were not uncommon. There was even one made at the urging of FDR titled Mission to Moscow that was based on a book written by then US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph Davies. That film even puts the Show Trials of the old Bolsheviks in a favorable light.

[Fiji Hill]

There's more to the story. In the 1930's, Dewey joined the anti-Stalinist Left and became a sharp critic of Stalin. Read here for more information.

[kearnyirish2]

I believe it was “North Star”; an absolute discrace to the memory of the millions slaughter by “Uncle Joe” before he then proceeded to sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler.

[Slyfox]

One can also see the ideological underpinning of the likes of Barack Obama, when he expresses his contempt for the Constitution and its "Negative Liberties."

With Obama they will have their last ditch effort.

[x]

True. Look up the Dewey Commission, which investigated the Moscow Trials and Stalin's charges against Trotsky.

Some of the members of the commission who had been pretty far left along with Dewey in the Thirties ended up writing for National Review in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies.