Contradictions Linked to the Universalist Aim

Abstract

The aspiration to have all the countries of the world join, regardless of their political and ideological orientations, contained the seeds of contradictions. In the troubled 1930s, the IBE and liberal and democratic tendencies did not predominate among the affiliated countries, and the IBE Secretariat assiduously courted republican regimes. The contradictions became more acute as nationalist tensions rose and also with the Cold War and its political and economic conflicts. An insert analysing the discussion of the financing of education illustrates these contradictions.

The aspiration to have all the countries of the world join,¹ regardless of their political and ideological orientations, contained the seeds of contradictions. These became more acute as nationalist tensions rose and with the Cold War and its political and economic conflicts. How did the IBE position itself with respect to authoritarian regimes in the 1930s and then in the face of confrontations between communist and capitalist blocs?²

Authoritarian Regimes and the Call for Democracies

Invited, upon his appointment, to make the IBE the legitimate intergovernmental body for education, Piaget as Director appealed to all countries recognised as sovereign, as we have already noted. In the troubled 1930s, he courted both authoritarian and fascist countries.

His letters to countries invited to join the IBE were tailored to each one, not without some heavy flattery. Stressing the importance of making known the great pedagogical tradition of the invited country was his usual practice and is perfectly exemplified by the figure of Montessori in Mussolini’s Italy.³ And Piaget did not hesitate to use arguments that could be considered political, which is ironic given the neutrality on which he prided himself. We can take for example Hungary⁴ in 1937, which Piaget tried to draw in by evoking the “faithful” presence of its German and Italian allies:

Perhaps I might remind you, Minister, that the International Bureau of Education is the only official international institution in Geneva which has retained all its members and whose meetings continue to be attended by German and Italian delegates; those two countries are still members of the International Bureau of Education and continue to take part in its activities and work.⁵

And in 1939, Italy and Germany took the opportunity to display their solidarity at the IBE table publicly, agreeing that

In so far as everyone bases education on the genius of their own people so all peoples will come to understand and respect each other better […], for without a sense of nation there can be no true humanity.⁶ (ICPE, 1939, p. 62)

This formulation by the German ministerial delegate, Dr Südhof, seems to refer to Herder’s conception of the difference between nations and languages as a great asset for humanity as long as they communicate and interconnect.⁷ In the context of Germany’s entry into the war and Italy’s colonial depredations in Africa, these phrases, particularly that of “national genius” (ICPE, 1939, p. 88) obviously take on a special colouring which would be used to justify devastating warfare.

In his more theoretical writings, in particular in 1934, Piaget went so far as to demonstrate that any regime, even an authoritarian one, could benefit from the educational line promoted by the IBE, in particular through self-government, based on the methods of autonomy and cooperation:

Whether in the various types of liberal democracy or in the many varieties of authoritarian regimes, the self-government of schoolchildren remains a preparation for life as a citizen […it may] take parliamentary democratic form […] or insist on the principle of leaders. […] The essential thing […] is the general fact that, in the methods of self-government and cooperation, youth educates itself. (Piaget, 1934, p. 107)

Was this only a compromise? Its quest for universality—aiming at a non-judgemental reciprocal cooperation between the differing approaches of partner countries—placed the IBE in a delicate situation. Did it not risk being suspected of dubious collaboration? This was certainly a preoccupation.

Concerned that liberal and democratic tendencies did not predominate among the affiliated countries, the IBE Secretariat assiduously courted republican regimes.⁸

Although the IBE had been resisting the imperialist aspirations of the Paris-based ICIC, France had been in its sights from the start. France’s initial reluctance may have been linked to tensions between the IBE and the ICIC—due to the overlap of some of their activities, suggesting possible competition—which led its director Julien Luchaire to use his veto. In Geneva, they did not give up and campaigned with colleagues they had met in their many social circles and pedagogical or scientific networks. Piaget pleaded, with the inspector Paul Barrier in particular who was supportive of the IBE, for the affiliation of France in order to preserve “a certain political balance to help foster the objectivity of the Bureau”.⁹ In the Memorandum advocating French membership of the IBE, the concluding sentence clearly suggests the need for a rebalancing in the face of the fascist powers:

Although political influences have never been felt within the International Bureau of Education, there is no doubt that the adhesion of Italy and Germany to our institution is likely to give pause to a country that practises the policy of participating in intergovernmental organisations.¹⁰

Piaget was sending an almost subliminal message here: the IBE was not political, but the resolute presence of Italy and Germany should prompt republican France to function as a counterweight to authoritarian regimes. France was to take up membership in 1938, along with Hungary.

In the face of the rise of the fascist countries, the appeal to the United States—“the world’s largest democracy”—in its turn became more urgent. Why should the United States not join, since it systematically participated in IBE activities? Presuming an opening following the recent re-election of Franklin Roosevelt, Piaget addressed the US Commissioner for Education¹¹ in November 1936 and repeated his approaches in the following years:

We would be extremely pleased if […] you would consider again the possibility of the United States reinforcing, with the authority of the world’s largest democracy, our effort to maintain educational progress in the world in which we now live.¹²

This was to no effect. Private pleas went further: in January 1939, Secretary General Butts entreated Harold L. Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior in Washington, for America to support the IBE and thereby the whole world, which had become “mad and dangerous”:

I […] am greatly concerned in having the great Western democracies represented on the Council of our Bureau. Education holds out, more than ever before, the only hope of saving the world and education in the totalitarian countries is not taking the road that can help to save it. Therefore, it seems to me tragic that, of the great democracies, only France and the Argentine should have shown sufficient interest to join our Bureau.¹³

These anguished cries from the heart bore no fruit. It was not until 1958, as we have said, that the United States joined the IBE. In the meantime, the geopolitics of the world had been greatly reconfigured (Image 16.1).

Image 16.1

Draft for asking for correction of the intervention of the Byelorussian delegate in the minutes of the IBE Council 1965. He complained that the question of translation into Russian was not on the agenda of the IBE Council. Similar letters can be found for Spanish, German and Arabic. Such requests led to a survey by the IBE to determine which languages should be given priority, and to ask states to finance these translations. No one was willing to cover these costs. The delegate addresses also the issue of borders on the Oder and Neisse rivers, revanchist and militarist ideas being promoted in school textbooks and exhibitions of the Federal Republic of Germany which considered itself as the only German state. (© IBE)

Interference of the Cold War

Kott (2021) provides an in-depth discussion of the functioning of the Cold War in international organisations, which she approaches as “magnifying glasses through which the world’s balances and imbalances could be observed” by also viewing them as actors in the world, “structured around common causes”, which also made it possible to “move away from the Soviet-US face-off” to identify the emergence of other countries and alliances (pp. 11–13, and chapter 2). What was at stake at the IBE, which the historian does not deal with, confirms her analyses and thus makes it possible to extend them to the field of education. Insert 16.1 shows an example of the effects of Cold War on a debate in ICPE.

The Cold War manifested itself first through the question of the countries to be invited to the ICPEs.¹⁴ In 1954, once the countries of the communist bloc were again actively participating, the Polish representative “expressed its surprise to see China represented at this Conference by a delegate from Taiwan”. (p. 29)¹⁵ The delegations from Russia and Hungary expanded on this:

Only the reactionary policy of support of the Kuomintang renegades pursued by some states and the U.S.A. in the first place, made it possible that the Kuomintangites, contrary to common sense and historical justice, should still attempt in vain to pose as representatives of China in a number of international organisations, including UNESCO. (p. 29)

And again in 1956, there were protests by the USSR delegate at the exclusion of a country with “600 million inhabitants and an ancient culture where astonishing progress has been made in the field of education” (1956, p. 28).

Each year the IBE Council returned to the question of inviting the People’s Republic of China; affiliated to the Bureau since 1955, the USSR, Ukraine and Belarus spoke out in favour of the invitation, along with other supportive countries (Egypt, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia). Piaget faithfully relayed the request to the joint UNESCO-IBE Commission, which had the mandate to draw up the list of states to be invited to the ICPEs: “The IBE is interested in the development of education in all countries regardless of their political regime. Thus, when Spain was not a member of UNESCO, it always insisted that it be invited.”¹⁶ The problem seemed insoluble.¹⁷ The position of the Director of UNESCO’s Education Department remained unchanged:

China features on the list of states to be invited to the Conference; it remains to determine which China that is. As far as UNESCO is concerned, the question of China’s representation was raised at the Eighth Session of the General Conference (Montevideo), which decided in favour of the Republic of China.¹⁸

When it came to putting the admission of the Republic of China, that is, Taiwan, on the Council’s agenda, Piaget objected, explaining that this would block any possibility of inviting the People’s Republic of China to the ICPEs. South Vietnam nevertheless proposed that the inclusion of the Republic of China (Taiwan) be on the agenda and it was admitted, as countries allied with the United States were in the majority.¹⁹

Paradoxically, the argument of political neutrality was referred to Piaget to support this state of affairs: when in 1965 the Russian delegation denounced the illegality of the representation of the Republic of China on the Executive Committee, the Chinese delegate from Taiwan retorted that “the participants in this meeting are there to discuss the activities of the IBE and not to raise political problems”.²⁰ As we can see, each group attributed undue “politicisation” to the other: the presence of the Republic of China was said to be the result of political interference, from which UNESCO was not exempt, whereas for the opposing party it was its absence that would be political and the claimed neutrality of the IBE required its presence.²¹

The case of the divided Germany is likewise instructive.²² At the 30th meeting of the IBE Council in 1965, Poland and Belarus complained about West Germany’s extensive propaganda on education, because West Germany included Berlin in this, as if the city which had been split in two were an integral part of the country. More broadly, in a response to a West German missive claiming the right to assimilate Berlin, the delegations of the USSR, Belarus and Ukraine jointly criticised:

As regards the attempt of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany to be considered as the only German government legitimately constituted, it cannot but be considered as a clumsy attempt to take this desirable state of things as reality. […] The existence of the sovereign German State – German Democratic Republic – is a real fact that cannot be reckoned with.²³

However, the German delegate was adamant and pointed out:

East Germany is merely an occupied portion of German territory. The so-called German Democratic Republic in East Germany is a regime imposed upon and not chosen by the population. The freely elected Government of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only Government entitled to speak for the German people in international affairs.²⁴

Supported by several members, the President of the IBE Council, the Swiss socialist André Chavanne, once again invoked the neutrality of the IBE in 1965 to justify a decision of a political nature; he recalled that “they should avoid all questions of a political nature and eliminate anything which could give rise to such discussions”.²⁵

These problems were not resolved until after détente in the early 1970s, despite the fact that the delegations of the USSR and its allies spoke out tirelessly about them, while the FRG maintained its position.

It is evident that IBE institutions were riddled with political interference, even if the minutes remained ambiguous in this respect or deliberately avoided such contradictions in order to promote overall harmony.

While it is true that debate between opposing positions was part of the practices recommended by Piaget and Rosselló, these were pedagogical and scientific contradictions, not political ones. In fact, it is quite rare in the sources studied that we find direct interference from politics in the discussion of pedagogical issues (as we shall point out). It is certainly no coincidence that it was on the subject of the role of geography in international understanding that explicitly contrary positions emerged at the ICPE in 1949. Thus, delegates from communist countries insisted that it was necessary, in this school subject, to draw the attention of pupils to the fact that the world was divided into social classes and that this should not be hidden under the cover of a soothing discourse, which could delude them and weaken their power of resistance.²⁶ The Polish delegate took a clear stand against the dangers of capitalism and stated:

Geography was an important factor in the development of international understanding, if taught honestly, in such a way as to combat chauvinism, nationalism and racial prejudice. Geography could also develop active solidarity between workers throughout the world. It was necessary not only to draw attention to the facts which united men and nations, but also to those which separated them, facts such as exploitation and racial discrimination. (ICPE, 1949, p. 35)

To which the representative of France, speaking on behalf of the other countries, retorted, entirely in line with the supposed neutrality of the IBE:

Obviously, one could not close one’s eyes to the fact that the world was divided. The different economic systems should be explained to the pupils but they should not to be told that only one of the systems was good. […] The teaching of geography should guarantee freedom of thought. (ICPE, 1949, p. 41)

The communist countries abstained from voting on the recommendations and did not circulate the UNESCO report on which they were based,²⁷ deeming that their voices had not been heard, as the phenomena of exploitation and discrimination were not sufficiently addressed in these documents.

The Cold War, of which we have just seen some manifestations, did not cease to haunt the debates behind the scenes. But given the process of decolonisation, it took another form through the play of alliances,²⁸ notably between states which had formerly been colonised and overtly communist countries.

Insert 16.1 The Discussion of the Financing of Education in the Grip of the Cold War

How did governments manage to debate education funding in the midst of the Cold War in the 1955 ICPE? Despite a defined modus operandi to protect the ICPEs from political issues, Eastern States acted in solidarity, building a unity to face what was perceived as a Western bloc.

While a total of 146 delegates attended the assembly, reflecting the participation of sixty-five states and observers from seven organisations, only about 27% of the representatives intervened in the debate. Among them, the majority of stakeholders (60.5%) reaffirmed the initiatives and progresses made in the nation they represented, asshown by loops in Fig. 16.1. This network, produced from the references and alliances mentioned by the participants, reveals a certain staging: a number of mentions position the experience of Eastern European States centrally in this discussion, more precisely that of the Soviet Union States and members of the Warsaw Pact, signed barely two months before this Conference.

Fig. 16.1

Graphic representation of the mentions, during the general discussion of the ICPE of 1955, on the financing of education. Source: compiled from the database “presence and interventions of states and their delegates at ICPEs (1934-1958)”, design of the network produced with Cytoscape software

In the depths of the Cold War, this debate on the financing of education opened with the presentation of the rapporteur, Clayton D. Hutchins, US delegate and specialist in the field. During the discussion, representatives of Eastern Bloc states took turns highlighting how the education system was funded in their countries. The USSR proclaimed, not without pride, that “the education budget occupies the second place” and that it is “supplied by three sources [which] increase constantly, the school services are [thus] assured and guaranteed” (ICPE, 1955, p. 31). As for Vladimir Václavík, Deputy Minister of National Education of Czechoslovakia, he assured that “the increase in the education budget is in harmony with the planned development of the national economy” (p. 33).

The USSR offered technical and administrative solutions, illustrated by its own initiatives. This approach was contested by France (although the delegate described the French model), the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, who considered that a comparison was impossible to establish in this field, and that technical answers could therefore “divert attention from the problem itself” (p. 36). A certain tension crept into the discussion, to the point where Rosselló took the floor to recall the objective of this debate that aimed to expose “the opinions of Delegations on the main problems of the educational finance” (p. 37). Thus, the deputy director of the IBE took the risk of directing the content of the discussion by listing a series of questions and subjects to be broached, although it was rare for him to intervene in inter-state discussions. Despite this, the Ukrainian delegate took up the tone used by the USSR by evoking the progress made thanks to the “assured” financing (p. 37): according to her, proof of this was that in ten years, there had been an increase in the schooling of pupils in Ukraine, and “Ukrainian educators were continuing to raise the people’s levelof education in order to inculcate in the rising generation a spirit of understanding and respect for others” (p. 37). Again, a delegate from the USSR intervened to explain the prosperous situation in Estonia. On these remarks, one of his colleagues bounced back to insist on the specificity of the USSR, which would not experience any difficulty with regard to the education budget because the Ministry of Finance and that of Education would act in “unity” that “always made it possible to reach a fair solution to any possible differences of opinion and to bring about a steady increase in the educational budget” (p. 41). Romania joined in “referr[ing] to the great progress achieved by his country in the field of education” (p. 44) and aligned itself with the USSR’s statement. It was seconded in this same spirit by Bulgaria and by Hungary, which recalled “that the Hungarian constitution guaranteed workers the right to [free] education” (p. 46).

While many of them evoked the idea that “the Conference should state clearly in its Recommendation that expenditure on education should have priority over military expenditure”, this “proposal made to that effect by the Delegation of the U.S.S.R.” (p. 44) was retained in the very introduction to the recommendation. However, even if France and Italy also subscribed to this idea, their representatives attributed this point to Yugoslavia alone. Perhaps because the latter was confined to the policy of neutrality established by Tito? Would it be possible for Western states to signal agreement with an idea put forward by a country from an ideologically opposed camp? In any case, the minutes do not record it.

While the reading of the minutes seems to reflect a balanced discussion grasped by a series of states, each to promote its own model, although there was a preponderance of presentations from the Western bloc (fourteen interventions against ten made by the Soviet states), the graphic representation of the mentions demonstrates that ideas from the Soviet camp were positioned centrally in the discussion. Indeed, states which were part of—or close to—the Soviet Union formed strategic alliances to build a “bloc”; nevertheless, and despite everything, the educational initiatives in favour of a socialist-communist ideology struggled to set themselves up as an alternative model for dissemination.

Émeline Brylinski