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The Soviet Boarding School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Effie Ambler
Effie Ambler*
Affiliation:
Russian Institute and Department of History, Indiana University
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Extract

Boarding schools of various types have long existed within the framework of the Soviet Russian educational system; homes for orphans, delinquents, handicapped or artistically gifted children, and the military and naval academies, to cite just a few examples, are an integral and accepted part of life in the USSR. Nevertheless, when Nikita S. Khrushchev, speaking at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, called for the immediate establishment of a wide system of boarding schools for Soviet children, foreign observers realized at once that this was an entirely new and far more important type of school—one that represented a reversal of many of the educational theories, methods, and even purposes of the preceding two decades. The actual nature and goals of the new boarding schools, however, were not understood immediately.

Type
Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1961 , pp. 237 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1961

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References

1 See, for instance, S. V. Utechin, who regards the introduction of the boarding schools as one of a series of“piecemeal adjustments and experimentation without a clear aim,” p. 67 of his“Khrushchev's Educational Reform,” Soviet Survey, April-June, 1959, pp. 66–72. Peter Wiles,“Die Macht im Vordergrund,” Soviet Survey, April-June, 1959, pp. 73–80, interprets it as a persistence of“Zhdanovism,” the educational philosophy of the Stalin era.

2 N. S. Khrushchev,“Control Figures for Development of the USSR National Economy in 1959-1965,” Pravda and Izvestia, November 14, 1958, trans. in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, X, No.49, p.9. I

3 A. N. Kosygin,“On the Plan for Development of the USSR National Economy in I960,” Pravda and Izvestia, October 28, 1959, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 43, p. 11.

4 Khrushchev,“Control Figures,” trans, in Current Digest, X, No. 49, p. 9. The Russian Republic reported 82,000 boarding school pupils in 1959 and plans to have 1,350,000–54 per cent of the total plan with 50 per cent of the projected school population—in 1965-66: Ye. I. Afanasenko,“On Reorganization of General Secondary Education,” Izvestia, April 15, 1959, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 15, p. 10.

5 Khrushchev,“Control Figures,” trans, in Current Digest, X, No. 49, p. 9.

6 Khrushchev,“The Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Twentieth Party Congress,” Pravda, February 15, 1956, trans, in Current Digest, VIII, No. 5, p. 10. At present many boarding schools are still operating in old buildings in less desirable spots.

7 Ibid.

8 Wiles,“Die Macht,” p. 78.

9 The chronological development of the educational reform may be outlined as follows: Spring, 1958—Numerous articles in newspapers and periodicals, written mainly by pedagogues, urge the introduction of polytechnical education and a re-examination of the seven and ten year system.

April—The Central Committee of the Party announces that it is considering problems of Soviet education.

April 19—Khrushchev, addressing the Thirteenth Congress of the Komsomol, proposes making basic changes in the structure and curriculum of the general schools.

September 21—Khrushchev's memorandum to the Presidium of the Party Central Committee“On strengthening ties between school and life and on further developing the system of public education in the country” is published.

November 16—A greatly expanded and clarified version of Khrushchev's memorandum, under the same name, is published as the“theses” of the Central Committee of the Party and Council of Ministers of the USSR.

November-December—By official invitation, meetings are held all over the country, at which large numbers discuss the reforms proposed in the“theses.”

December 25—The“theses,” with some modifications, are approved by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and become law under the name“Law on strengthening ties between school and life and on further developing the public educational system in the USSR.” higher educations.

10 David Burg feels that the entire principle of socially useful work for youth has been“foredoomed” by this opposition and that much of the new law is a dead letter already;“Classes for the New Class,” The Reporter, XX (February 19, 1959), 16–17. This is an extreme position, the more so since university students might well perform their labor in their own field.

11 11“Law on Strengthening Ties Between School and Life and on Further Developing the Public Education System in the USSR,” Pravda and Izvestia, December 25, 1958, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 4, p. 12.

12 To ensure continuity o£ instruction, students now in the upper grades will be permitted to finish school under the old curriculum; the new law will be effected gradually over several years, beginning with the lower grades.

13 “Raise Public Education of Children to a New Level,” Sovetskaja Pedagogika, August, 1959, trans, in Soviet Education I, No. 3, p. 8.

14 N. Kazmin,“Two Years of the Boarding Schools,” Pravda, October 9, 1958, trans, in Current Digest, X, No. 41, p. 6.

15 V. Derbinov,“Initial Results—On the Work of the Boarding Schools,” Sovetskaja Rossija, June 5, 1957, trans, in Current Digest, IX, No. 24, p. 40.

16 Shore, Maurice J., Soviet Education: Its Psychology and Philosophy (New York, 1947), p. 190.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 193.

18 Ju. V. Sharov,“On Production Training in Labor Polytechnical School,” Sovetskaja Pedagogika, August, 1959, trans, in Soviet Education, I, No. 12, p.

19 Todor D. Pavlov,“Labor and Upbringing of the New Man,” Pravda, August 7, 1959, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 32, p. 27.

20 School Reorganization Law in Action,” Pravda, August 30, 1959, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 35, p. 21.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 M. Kolmakova,“School on New Path—Concerning Draft Study Plans and Programs of Public Schools,” Pravda, May 20, 1959, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 20, p. 17.

24 “School Reorganization Law in Action,” trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 35, p. 21.

25 Ibid.

26 M. I. Podpletnev,“Labor Training Experience in a Boarding School,” Sovetskaja Pedagogika, April, 1959, trans, in Soviet Education, I, No. 8, p. 41.

27 Soviet Commitment to Education: Report of the First Official United States Education Mission to the USSR, U.S. Office of Education, Bulletin 1959, No. 16 (Washington, D. C, 1959), p. 56.

28 A. I. Kochtov,“Productive Labor in the Boarding Schools,” Sovetskaja Pedagogika, November, 1958, trans, in Soviet Education, I, No. 3.

29 G. V. Vorobyev and I. M. Slepenkov,“Experience in Organizing Production Practice at Industrial Enterprises and Boarding Schools,” Sovetskaja Pedagogika, January, 1959, trans, in Soviet Education, I, No. 5.

30 N. S. Khrushchev,“Speech to 21st Party Congress,” Pravda, January 28, 1959, pp. 2-10, trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 3, p. 9.

31 DeWitt, Nicholas, “Upheaval In Education,” Problems Of Communism, VIII, No. 1 (January-February, 1959), 29.Google Scholar

32 A. Barkalov,“Changes Are Necessary,” Izvestia, August 23, 1958, trans, in Current Digest, X, No. 34, p. 29.

33 Article 14 of Lenin's proposed educational program of May, 1917, as quoted by Shore, Soviet Education, p. 131.

34 Khrushchev,“Speech to 21st Party Congress,” trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 3, p. 9.

35 Wiles,“Die Macht,” sees the educational reform as a drastic answer to the disaffection of some youth—the intentional“liquidation of the students as a class,” p. 78.

36 Leopold Labedz,“Ideology: The Fourth Stage,” Problems Of Communism, VIII, No. 6 (November-December, 1959), p. 4.

37 “On Strengthening Ties Between School and Life and on Further Developing the. Country's System of Public Education,” Pravda and Ixvestia, November 16,1958, trans, in Current Digest, X, No. 46, p. 15.

38 “In Presidium of Party Central Committee,” Pravda and Hvestia, September 21,1958, trans, in Current Digest, X, No. 38, p. 3.

39 Khrushchev,“Speech to 21st Party Congress,” trans, in Current Digest, XI, No. 3, p. l.

40 Soviet Commitment to Education, p. 56.

41 Sharov,“On Production Training,” trans, in Soviet Education, I, No. 12, p. 22.