Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Soviet education of the 1920s has attracted much attention from both historians and educators. (1) Until 1931 Soviet educational authorities sponsored a flurry of measures many of which were initially advanced in the writings of such western educators as John Dewey, Helen Parkhurst, and Maria Montessori. Study of this “romantic and experimental period” (2) in the history of Soviet education is therefore understandable.
1. There are available in the English language a number of informative studies. These include: Harper, Samuel Northrup, Civic Training in Soviet Russian (Chicago, 1929), pp. 242–298; Hans, Nicholas and Hessen, Sergius, Educational Policy in Soviet Russia (London, 1930); Counts, George S., “Education in Soviet Russia,” Soviet Russia in the Second Decade, ed. Chase, Stuart, Dunn, Robert, and Tugwell, Rexford Guy (New York, 1928), pp. 268–303 (also printed in an abberviated version under the title “The Educational Program of Soviet Russia,” National Education Association of the United States, Addresses and Procedures. 1928., pp. 593–602); Counts, George S., The Soviet Challenge to America (New York, 1931); Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Commissariat of Education: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917–1921 (Cambridge, 1970); Widmayer, Ruth, “The Communist Party and the Soviet Schools—1917–1937,” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University 1952; Dorotich, Daniel, “History in the Soviet School, 1917–1937,” Diss. McGill University 1964. Important Soviet studies include: Konstantinov, N. A. and Medynskii, E. N., Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly RSFSR za 30 let (Moscow, 1948); Istoriia Moskovskogo universiteta (Moscow, 1955), II; V. V. Ukraintsev, , KPSS—organizator revoliutsionnogo preobrazovaniia vysshei shkoly (Moscow, 1963); Korolev, F. F., Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly i pedagogiki, 1917–1920 (Moscow, 1958); Korolev, F. F., Korneichik, T. D., and Rabkin, Z. I., Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly i pedagogiki, 1921–1931 (Moscow, 1961); Bushchik, L. P., Ocherk razvitiia shkol'nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v SSSR (Moscow, 1961).Google Scholar
2. Counts, George S., The Challenge of Soviet Education (New York, 1957), pp. 60–61.Google Scholar
3. Shimoniak, Although Wasyl in his Communist Education: Its History, Philosophy and Politics (New York, 1970) stresses the party's efforts to politicize education generally, he neglects to discuss party attitudes and educational practice in the 1920s.Google Scholar
4. See Dewey, John, Impressions of Soviet Russia (New York, 1929); Strong, Anna Louise, “Education in Modern Russia,” Progressive Education, I (1924): 157–159; Nearing, Scott, Education of Soviet Russia (New York, 1926); Wilson, Lucy L. W., The New Schools of New Russia (New York, 1928).Google Scholar
5. Dewey, , Impressions of Soviet Russia, pp. 128–129.Google Scholar
6. Counts, George S., “Education in Soviet Russia,” Soviet Russia in the Second Decade, ed. Chase, Stuart, Dunn, Robert, and Tugwell, Rexford Guy (New York, 1928), p. 268.Google Scholar
7. Excellent studies of institutions for political education and of party schools are available in the English language: Katz, Zev, “Party-Political Education in Soviet Russia,” Soviet Studies, VII (1956):237–247; Harper, Samuel Northrup, Civic Training in Soviet Russia (Chicago, 1929), pp. 271–298. In the Russian language, see essays by Ivanova, L. V. in Ocherki istorii istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR, ed. Nechkina, M. V. (Moscow, 1966), IV, pp. 117–145, 226–232 and Ivanova's U istokov sovetskoi istoricheskoi nauki (Podgotovka kadrov istorikov-marksistov 1917–1929) (Moscow, 1968), pp. 50–82, 122–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. These policies were soon revised. By 1920 some entrance examinations were required and admission quotas set. A well-researched study of party objectives for university education from 1917 to 1921 is McClelland, James C., “Bolshevik Approaches to Higher Education,” Slavic Review, 30 (December, 1971):818–831.Google Scholar
9. Valuable discussions of the intriguing complex and project methods are contained in Zepper, John T., “N. K. Krupskaya on Complex Themes in Soviet Education,” Comparative Education Review, 9 (February, 1965) 33–37; Nearing, Scott, Education of Soviet Russia (New York, 1926), pp. 40–42, 98–105; Bushchik, L. P., Ocherk razvitiia shkol'nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniia v SSSR (Moscow, 1961), pp. 191–208, 226–228; F. F. Korolev and others, Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly i pedagogiki, 1921–1931 (Moscow, 1961), pp. 69–100, 450–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. Kommunisticheskaia partiia sovetskogo soiuza v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s'ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK (Henceforth KPSS v rez.), 8th ed. (Moscow, 1970), II, pp. 48–49, 81.Google Scholar
11. Lenin, V. I., “Proekt programmy RKP (b),” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed. (Moscow, 1958–1965) 38, 117.Google Scholar
12. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), p. 120.Google Scholar
13. Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva o narodnom obrazovanii; sbornik dokumentov za 1917–1947gg. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), II, p. 9.Google Scholar
14. KPSS v rez., III, p. 287.Google Scholar
15. KPSS v rez., IV, p. 473.Google Scholar
16. KPSS v rez., IV, p. 475.Google Scholar
17. McNeal, Robert H., Bride of the Revolution: Krupskaya and Lenin (Ann Arbor, 1972), pp. 200–202. Many of Krupskaya's comments on education to this effect are available in English: Krupskaya, N. K., On Education: Selected Articles and Speeches (Moscow, 1957).Google Scholar
18. Russell, Sylvia, “The Philosophy of Anatoli Vasil'evich Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education, 1917–1929,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University 1970, pp. 69–144.Google Scholar
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20. For these statements by Lenin on education, see his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 36, pp. 420–421; 37, pp. 76–77, 420–421, 431–432; 41, pp. 298–318, 336. See also Lenin o narodnom obrazovanii: Stat'i i rechi (Moscow, 1957) and Lilge, Frederic, “Lenin and the Politics of Education,” Slavic Review, 27 (June, 1968):230–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21. For decrees on these institutions of political eduation, see Direktivy VKP po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 179–236.Google Scholar
22. For official resolutions on party schools, see Direktivy VKP po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 198–209; see also syllabi for courses of study at party schools in Spravochnik partiinogo rabotnika (Moscow, 1921).Google Scholar
23. Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, I, p. 134.Google Scholar
24. Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, II, p. 10; KPSS v rez., III, pp. 104, 111.Google Scholar
25. KPSS v rez., II, pp. 456, 509–511, 513; III, p. 461.Google Scholar
26. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 116–117, 120.Google Scholar
27. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 284–285, 304–305, 333–334.Google Scholar
28. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 131–143, 146–147,209–218,342–344.Google Scholar
29. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 146, 148, 343–345.Google Scholar
30. KPSS v rez., III, p. 64.Google Scholar
31. Istoriia Moskovskogo universiteta (Moscow, 1955), II, pp. 81, 102.Google Scholar
32. “Sovnarkom RSFSR ob akademicheskoi proverke,” Pravda, 22 August 1924, p. 4; “TsK RKP o vysshei shkole,” Pravda, 22 August 1924, p. 5.Google Scholar
33. Karlgren, Anton, Bolshevist Russia, trans. by Barwell, Anna (New York, 1927), p. 291.Google Scholar
34. Istoriia Moskovskogo universiteta, II, p. 43; Ukraintsev, V. V., KPSS-organizator revoliutsionnogo preobrazovaniia vysshei shkoly (Moscow, 1963), p. 55.Google Scholar
35. A discussion of these changes in school management may be found in Korolev, , Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly i pedagogiki, 1921–1931, pp. 327–330, 336–341; Hans, Nicholas and Hessen, Sergius, Educational Policy in Soviet Russia (London, 1930), pp. 116–117, 123.Google Scholar
36. Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii, 1921, no. 65, st. 486.Google Scholar
37. Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, II, pp. 70–71. 70–71.Google Scholar
38. Hans, and Hessen, , Educational Policy, p. 107.Google Scholar
39. Harper, , Civic Training, p. 267.Google Scholar
40. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, p. 320; Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, II, p. 10. In 1920 and 1921, the Council of Peoples Commissars reached identical conclusions on the universities: Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii, 1920, no. 93, st. 503 and 1921, no. 19, st. 119.Google Scholar
41. Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, II, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar
42. KPSS v rez., III, pp. 95, 106, 119; Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, II, p. 10; Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, p. 321.Google Scholar
43. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, p. 321.Google Scholar
44. Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, I, p. 27.Google Scholar
45. See Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, I, p. 138; Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 283–285, 330, 344.Google Scholar
46. Moskovskii universitet za piat'desiat let sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow, 1967), p. 61; Istoriia Moskovskogo universiteta, II, p. 92.Google Scholar
47. Istoriia Moskovskogo universiteta, II, pp. 87–88.Google Scholar
48. See the discussion of the application of the complex in Bushchik's Ocherk, pp. 196–200. For an example of a highly politicized treatment of the complex theme “October revolution,” see Zhavoronkov, B., Kak rabotat' po obshchestvovedeniiu (na I stupeni) (Moscow, 1925), pp. 100–101.Google Scholar
49. Karlgren, , Bolshevist Russia, p. 282.Google Scholar
50. See syllabi for historical projects in the soviet party schools, Spravochnik partiinogo rabotnika (Moscow, 1921), pp. 59–63.Google Scholar
51. KPSS v rez., II, p. 513; III, pp. 57, 104, 109, 114.Google Scholar
52. KPSS v rez., II, pp. 509–511, 513; III, pp. 52, 57, 94.Google Scholar
53. See, for example, Krivtsov, S. S., “Mesto istorii v programmakh ob-shchestvenno-ekonomicheskikh vuzov,” Istorik-Marksist, 2 (1926):231; Mamet, L. P., “Programmo-metodicheskie voprosy prepodavaniia istorii na rabochikh fakultetakh,” Istorik-Marksist, 4 (1927): 188; “Vsesoiuznaia konferentsiia istorikov-marksistov,” Istorik-Marksist, 12 (1929):316.Google Scholar
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55. For important party and state directives issued from 1924 to 1980 on professional education, see Direktivy VKP(b) i postanovleniia sovetskogo pravitel'stva, I, pp. 38, 50–51, 55, 57 and II, pp. 32, 55–60; Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 153–157, 239, 244. The two most important decrees, both of which were issued by the Central Committee, one on July 12, 1928 and the other on November 17, 1929, may be found in complete form in KPSS v rez., IV, pp. 111–118, 334–345.Google Scholar
56. The dispute over vocational training in the secondary schools is best discussed in Fitzpatrick, , The Commissariat of Education, pp. 59–68, 210–220; Hayashida, Ronald Hideo, “Lenin and the Third Front,” Slavic Review, 28 (June, 1969): 314–324.Google Scholar
57. Lenin, , Polnoe sobranie, 52, pp. 87, 228–230.Google Scholar
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