Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:33:22.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Restoring Teachers to Their Rights: Soviet Education and the 1936 Denunciation of Pedology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

E. Thomas Ewing*
Affiliation:
History Department, Virginia Tech.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In early 1937, one-third of sixth graders in a school near Leningrad were not passing their Russian-language course. Their teacher, Tomsinskaia, told the school director that the failures were due to circumstances beyond her control: children had received inadequate preparation in previous grades, textbooks were in short supply, and pupils had “weak reading habits.” Other teachers in the Krasnosel'skii district offered similar justifications for pupils' poor performance. Sakhanova claimed that low levels of achievement were due to “bad home conditions.” Velichko asserted that her seventeen failing pupils all suffered from inherited conditions such as “mental retardation,” “underdevelopment,” or “congenital laziness.” Semenovskii, who had completed higher education and considerable teaching experience, admitted he had no explanation why one-half of his pupils were failing every year.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by the History of Education Society 

References

1 “V Krasnosel'skom raoine ne vypolniaiut reshenii TsK,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu No. 3 (March 1937), 6-7.Google Scholar

2 Ibid, 5-9.Google Scholar

3 According to Dan Lortie, evaluating teaching is a process “fraught with complications.” Dan Lortie, Schoolteachers. A Sociological Study (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975), 134-136.Google Scholar

4 Stalin, I. V.On Deficiencies in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyists and Other Double-dealers,“ in Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev. Voices of Bolshevism ed. McNeal, Robert (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963), 107112.Google Scholar

5 For further discussion of authoritarian politics and Soviet life in the 1930s, see J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges. The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Robert Conquest, The Great Terror. A Reassessment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); O. V. Khlevniuk, 1937-i: Stalin, NKVD, i sovetskoe obshchestvo (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo “Respublika,” 1992); Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia. Terror, Propaganda, and Dissent, 1934-1941 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). For the specific relationship between Stalinist terror and Soviet teachers, see my The Teachers of Stalinism: Policy, Practice, and Power in Soviet Schools in the 1930s (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., forthcoming).Google Scholar

6 Narkompros was the Commissariat of Education (Narodnyi Komissariat Prosveshcheniia). For the text of the Central Committee decree, see “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh v sisteme narkomprosov,” (July 4, 1936) Narodnoe obrazovanie v SSSR. Obshcheobrazovatel'naia shkola. Sbornik dokumentov 1917-1973 gg. (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1973), 173-175. An English translation is in Joseph Wortis, Soviet Psychiatry (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1950), 242-245.Google Scholar

7 Graham, Loren R. Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 167168.Google Scholar

8 “V Krasnosel'skom raoine,” 7-8.Google Scholar

9 In April 1936, for example, the Central Committee offered teachers substantial pay increases made conditional on passing stricter requirements for certification. For further discussion of how these policy changes affected teachers, see my “Stalinism at Work: Teacher Certification (1936-1939) and Soviet Power,” Russian Review 57 (Spring 1998), 218-235.Google Scholar

10 This interpretation draws on recent scholarship on the changing nature of authority in the Stalinist context. In his discussion of “Stakhanovism” (that is, “rank-and-file” workers who achieved recognition by Party and state officials after they broke production records), Lewis Siegelbaum argues that the meanings of Stakhanovism were shaped by the interaction between the regime's objectives of raising production while controlling the labor process, managers’ concerns about authority and efficiency on the shopfloor, and workers’ aspirations and anxieties regarding the distribution of material and symbolic resources. In her study of “everyday Stalinism,” Sheila Fitzpatrick examines the ways that “ordinary” Soviet citizens’ understanding of extent and nature of political power shaped experiences and attitudes during this “extraordinary” time. In his study of Soviet education in the 1930s, Larry Holmes has demonstrated that competing agendas of educational policy-makers in different offices exerted a powerful, if at times contradictory, influence on schools at all levels. Lewis Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Larry E. Holmes, Stalin's School. Moscow's Model School No. 25, 1931-1937 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999); idem, “Power to the Party and the People: Stalinist Control over Educational Administration, 1931-1940,” (Unpublished paper, 1996).Google Scholar

11 Ravkin, Z. I.Sovetskaia shkola v period bor'by za zavershenie stroitel'stva sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva i postepennogo perekhoda ot sotsializma k kommunizmu (1935-1941 gg.),Sovetskaia pedagogika no. 6 (June 1950), 102; N. P. Kuzin, M. N. Kolmakova, and Z. I. Ravkin, Ocherki istorii shkoly i pedagogicheskoi mysli narodov SSSR 1917-1941 gg. (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1980), 363-365; F. N. Gonobolin, Kniga ob uchitele (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Prosveshcheniia, 1965), 25.Google Scholar

12 Joravsky, David Russian Psychology: A Critical History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 345354; Raymond Bauer, The New Man in Soviet Psychology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), 65, 84-85, 116-129; James Bowen, Soviet Education: Anton Makarenko and the Years of Experiment (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962), 143-144.Google Scholar

13 Fradkin, F. and Plokhova, M.Istoriia raspravy s pedologiei,Vospitanie shkol'nikov no. 6 (June 1991), 21; Piskoppel, A. A. and Shchedrovitskii, L. P. “Mificheskoe i real'noe v sud'be Sovetskoi pedologii,” Psikhologicheskii zhurnal No. 6 (December 1991), 123; Nikolenko, D. Gubko, A. and Ignatenko, P. “Zlokliucheniia nauki pedologii. Pora vernut’ imia,” Narodnoe obrazovanie No. 10 (October 1990), 117-124.Google Scholar

14 Several studies make reference to the intended effect on teachers, but none actually examine the impact on practices and attitudes. Kuzin, Kolmakova, and Ravkin, Ocherki istorii shkoly, 365; Bowen, Soviet Education, 145-146; Wortis, Soviet Psychiatry, 120; G. F. Karpova, Obrazovatel'naia situatsiia v Rossii v pervoi polovine XX veka (Rostov: Izdatel'stvo Rostovskogo Pedagogicheskogo Universiteta, 1994), 12, 103-110, 116-118; Irina Sirotkina, “The Pedological Decree and Child Studies in the Soviet Union,” (Unpublished paper, 1996), 6. Similar priorities have shaped studies of educational psychology in other countries. Adrian Wooldridge, for example, focuses on academic child psychologists, with relatively little attention to their “passive audience” of teachers and parents. Judith Raftery and Kate Rousmaniere, by contrast, examine the responses of American teachers to intelligence testing. Adrian Wooldridge, Measuring the Mind: Education and Psychology in England, ca. 1860-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Judith K. Raftery, “Missing the Mark: Intelligence Testing in Los Angeles Public Schools, 1922-1932,” History of Education Quarterly 28 (Spring 1988), 73-74; and Kate Rousmaniere, City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform in Historical Perspective (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), 64.Google Scholar

15 Holowinsky, Ivan Z.Vygotsky and the History of Pedology,“ (Unpublished paper, E.R.I.C. document 281675, 1987), 24; Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 21; Piskoppel and Shchedrovitskii, “Mificheskoe i real'noe,” 127-128; Sirotkina, “Pedological Decree,” 1-3; Karpova, Obrazovatel'naia situatsiia, 48-110.Google Scholar

16 Malyshev, M.Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,Izvestiia 11 July 1936, 3; Fomichev, A. “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh v shkole,” Nachal'naia shkola No. 8 (1936), 26; Holowinsky, “Vygotsky,” 10; Bowen, Soviet Education, 139; Karpova, Obrazovatel'naia situatsiia, 49.Google Scholar

17 “Ruka ob ruku s pedagogikoi,” Pedologiia No. 4 (1932), 1-3; Fomichev, “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh,” 26.Google Scholar

18 Graham, Loren R. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 104108; David-Fox, Michael Revolution of the Mind. Higher Learning among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 20-21, 63; Bauer, New Man, 116-129; Holowinsky, “Vygotsky,” 4-5, 8-9; Piskoppel and Shchedrovitskii, “Mificheskoe i real'noe,” 129; Sirotkina, “Pedological Decree,” 4.Google Scholar

19 Chapman, Paul D. Schools as Sorters: Lewis M. Terman, Applied Psychology and the Intelligence Testing Movement, 1890-1930 (New York: New York University Press, 1988), 22, 174-175; Wooldridge, Measuring the Mind, 23-28, 182-183; Raftery, “Missing the Mark,” 78-79, 91-92.Google Scholar

20 For pedologists’ views on reforming Soviet education, see Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse. Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917-1931 (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), 71, 75, 135; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 140.Google Scholar

21 Belousova, V.O chinovnike, svaem parne i istinnom pedagoge,Za kommunisticheskoe prosveshchenie (hereafter ZKP) 4 September 1934, 3; Chuguev, T. K. “O prozhekterskikh atakakh na pedologiiu,” Pedagogicheskoe obrazovanie No. 5 (1934), 50; Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 21-22; Piskoppel and Shchedrovitskii, “Mificheskoe i real'noe,” 127.Google Scholar

22 “Ob organizatsii pedologicheskoi raboty po linii organov narodnogo obrazovaniia,” Pedologiia No. 3 (1931), 82-83; M. P. Orakhelashvili, “Vvodnoe slovo M.P. Orakhelashvili pri otkrytii soveshchaniia pedtekhnikumov,” Pedagogicheskoe obrazovanie No. 4 (1934), p. 22; “Na novom etape,” Pedologiia No. 1-2 (1932), 3; “Ruka ob ruku,” 1.Google Scholar

23 For examples of such advice from pedologists, see Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [hereafter GARF] fond 2306, opis’ 70, delo 1765, list 41; I. Kolosov, “K pedologicheskomu analizu uroka,” Na putiakh k novoi shkole No. 1 (1932), 66-72; “Ob uchastii pedologa v vospitatel'noi rabote shkoly,” Za kommunisticheskoe vospitanie No. 6 (1935), 34-38. For discussion of the tension between the “scientific” aspirations of pedological theory and the “practical” advice offered to teachers, see my “‘A Terribly Noisy Science’: Soviet Child Study and Educational Psychology of the 1920s and 1930s,” (Unpublished paper, 2000).Google Scholar

24 “Ob organizatsii uchebnoi raboty i vnutrennem rasporiadke v nachal'noi, nepolnoi srednei i srednei shkole,” (September 3, 1935) Narodnoe obrazovanie v SSSR, 170-172. For reports on separate schools for “difficult children,” see GARF f. 2306, op. 70, d. 1765, l. 17; B. M. Volin, “Shkol'noe delo—na uroven zadach sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva,” Nachal'naia shkola No. 11 (1935), 12; S. Fridliand, “Boevaia programma deistvii,” ZKP 6 September 1935, 1; Piskoppel and Shchedrovitskii, “Mificheskoe i real'noe,” 125; Karpova, Obrazovatel'naia situatsiia, 99. Testing was adopted in England and the United States as a similar strategy for dealing with problems associated with expanding enrollment, ethnic diversification, and social transformation. Chapman, Schools as Sorters, 5-6, 32, 43-45, 89-90, 169; Wooldridge, Measuring the Mind, 3-4, 11-12, 222-227; Raftery, “Missing the Mark,” 77-78, 91-92; Rousmaniere, City Teachers, 64-67.Google Scholar

25 These recommendations were later criticized in L. Vladimirov, “Chemu uchili pedologi molodykh uchitelei,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu No. 3 (1936), 19.Google Scholar

26 Liuboshits, Uchitelia Stalingrada osuzhdaiut pedologicheskie izvrashcheniia,ZKP 22 July 1936, 2; A. Kalinovskii, “Uchitelia i pedologiia,” ZKP 20 March 1937, 2; Malyshev, “Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,” 3. For higher estimates of enrollment in special schools, see Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 23; Holmes, Stalin's School, 137.Google Scholar

27 Chizhov, K.Vnimanie umstvenno otstalym detiam,Izvestiia 27 May 1936, 2; Liuboshits, “Uchitelia Stalingrada,” 2; Malyshev, “Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,” 3.Google Scholar

28 Soviet pedologists devoted little attention to gender differences in mental development or school performance. For inequalities related to class and ethnicity, see Holmes, Kremlin and Schoolhouse, 135; Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 23; Piskoppel and Shchedrovitskii, “Mificheskoe i real'noe,” 124-125.Google Scholar

29 Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 22.Google Scholar

30 Orakhelashvili, Vvodnoe slovo,2122; P. P. Blonskii, “Kak obespechit budushchim uchiteliam znanie vozrastnykh osobennostei detei,” Pedagogickeskoe obrazovanie No. 5 (1934), 42-44.Google Scholar

31 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial'no-Politicheskoi Istorii [formerly the Central Communist Party Archive, hereafter RGASPI] f. 77, op. 1, d. 583, ll. 3-5. See discussion in Holmes, Stalin's School, 137-138.Google Scholar

32 Kamenev, S.O kommunisticheskom vospitanii detei,Pedagogicheskii zhurnal No. 3 (1935), 16.Google Scholar

33 “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh,” Narodnoe obrazovanie v SSSR, 173-174. The Russian term normal'naia shkola should be translated as “normal schools,” but should not be confused, especially by American readers, with nineteenth-century teacher training institutions.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 174-175.Google Scholar

35 For the Soviet political climate in 1936, see Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: Revolution from Above, 1929-1941 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), 313-319, 353-362; Getty, Origins, 116-128.Google Scholar

36 Borukhovich, I.Zadachi tekushchego uchebnogo goda,Pedagogicheskii zhurnal no. 9 (1936), 56; Pronin, V. “Pedagogicheskaia oshibka,” Leningradskaia pravda 17 March 1937, 4; “O zadachakh zhurnala,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 1 (1937), 12; “Moshchnaia kul'turnaia sila,” Nachal'naia shkola No. 6 (1937), 7; “Znamenatel'naia godovshchina,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 7 (July 1938), 4-7; N. K. Goncharov, “Za sovetskuiu pedagogiku,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 10 (October 1938), 10; “Po-bol'shevistski vypolniat’ direktivy partii,” Kommunisticheskoe prosveshchenie No. 5-6 (1936), 91; Malyshev, “Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,” 3; Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 22-23; Karpova, Obrazovatel'naia situatsiia, 118-120.Google Scholar

37 Malyshev, Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,3; Vladimirov, “Chemu uchili pedologi,” 18; Raskin, “Pedologicheskie izvrashcheniia,” 39.Google Scholar

38 “Piat' let raboty posle postanovleniia TsK VKP(b) ‘O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh v sisteme Narkomprosa',” Nachal'naia shkola No. 6 (June 1941), 17; “Navesti poriadok na pedagogicheskom fronte,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 1 (January 1938), 14-18; “O zadachakh zhurnala,” 10-11; “Znamenatel'naia godovshchina,” 4-5. Conflicts among educational policy makers are discussed in Holmes, “Power”; idem, Stalin's School. Google Scholar

39 For the changing images of Soviet heroes in this period, see Katerina Clark, “Utopian Anthropology as a Context for Stalinist Literature,” in Stalinism. Essays in Historical Interpretation ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1977), 185-194; Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism, 210-246; and my “Becoming a Stalinist Teacher: Ol'ga Leonova and the Politics of Soviet Education” (unpublished paper, 1996).Google Scholar

40 Goncharov, N.I Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie po pedagogicheskim naukam,Sovetskaia pedagogika no. 1 (1937), 139; “Po-bol'shevistski vypolniat’ direktivy partii,” Kommunisticheskoe prosveshchenie No. 5-6 (1936), 90-91; V. Korol'kov, “Bol'she ne budet ‘lishnikh liude’ v shkole,” ZKP 10 July 1936, 1; “Navesti poriadok,” 14-18; Fomichev, “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh,” 26; Malyshev, “Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,” 3; “Znamenatel'naia godovshchina,” 3-4; “Chto delali pedologi v shkolakh,” Dal'nevostochnyi uchitel’ No. 4 (1936), 27.Google Scholar

41 Stalin's comment was cited in E. I. Rudneva, “K voprosu o pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh v teorii obucheniia,” Pedagogicheskoe obrazovanie No. 1 (1937), 71. For the relationship between Stalinist culture and the denunciation of pedology, see Fitzpatrick, Education, p. 229; Graham, Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior, 167; Bauer, New Man, 47-48, 110-112, 124-126; Kuzin, Kolmakova, and Ravkin, Ocherki istorii shkoly, 363-364; Joravsky, Russian Psychology, 316, 353.Google Scholar

42 Even scholars who had passed away, like Vygotskii (in 1934), were denounced for “pedological distortions.” S. I. Grebenkov, “Izgnat’ do kontsa pedologicheskie isvrashcheniia iz shkoly,” Uchitel’ i shkola No. 10 (1936), 9-10; Borukhovich, “Zadachi,” 6; “Znamenatel'naia godovshchina,” 5; Rudneva, “K voprosu,” 66-70.Google Scholar

43 Smagin, G. D.Konets izdevatel'stvom,ZKP 22 July 1936, 2; L. Vasil'ev, “Uchitel’ i pedolog,” ZKP 22 July 1936, 2; L. Bogdasarova, “Vse usloviia sozdany,” Izvestiia 1 September 1936, 3; E. Vvedenskaia, “Uchit’ i uchit'sia,” Izvestiia 1 September 1936, 3; A. Ponomarev, “Po shkolam g. Khabarovsk,” Dal'nevostochnyi uchitel’ No. 2 (1937), 35; “Priv'em detiam liubov’ k nashei rodine, vysokuiu kul'turu i gramotnost’ dlia dela stroitel'stva kommunizma,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu No. 3 (1937), 1-2; R. M. Mikel'son, “Shkola v borbe za likvidatsiiu vtorogodnichestva,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 1 (1937), 80; Nina M. Sorochenko, “Pre-School Education in the U.S.S.R.,” in Soviet Education ed. George L. Kline (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 12.Google Scholar

44 GARF f. 2306, op. 69, d. 2297, ll. 5-6. For more on teacher Zavistovskii, see chapter six of my Teachers of Stalinism. Google Scholar

45 Nauchnyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii Obrazovaniia [hereafter NA RAO] f. 17, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 10, 165; Tsentral'nyi Arkhiv Obshchestvennykh Dvizhenii Moskvy f. 1934, op. 1, d. 119, l. 130; Tsentral'nyi Munitsipal'nyi Arkhiv Moskvy [hereafter TsMAM] f. 528, op. 1, d. 363, ll. 9-10; GARF f. 2306, op. 70, d. 2425, l. 46; P. S. Arshinov, “Vykorchevat’ iz soznaniia uchitelei vrednoe pedologicheskoe nasledstvo,” Uchitel’ i shkola No. 10 (1936), 5; “Na avgustovskikh soveshchaniiakh uchitelei,” Pedagogicheskii zhurnal No. 8 (1936), 51-52; “Za bol'shevistskuiu rabotu v novom uchebnom godu,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu [Leningrad] No. 5 (September 1936), 2; “V Krasnosel'skom raoine,” 5; Kalinovskii, “Uchitelia i pedologiia,” 2.Google Scholar

46 “Prikaz narodnogo komissara prosveshcheniia,” ZKP 10 July 1936, 1. For analysis of conflicts between educational policy-makers regarding these changes, see Sirotkina, “Pedological Decree,” 7; Holmes, “Power,” 13.Google Scholar

47 “O zhivuchesti pedologii v Luge,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu No. 6 (1936), 12-13; Liuboshits, “Uchitelia Stalingrada,” 2; “Za bol'shevistskuiu rabotu,” 2-3.Google Scholar

48 Liuboshits, Uchitelia Stalingrada,2; Malyshev, “Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,” 3; Fomichev, “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh,” 29; Grebenkov, “Izgnat’ do kontsa,” 8-9; Vladimirov, “Chemu uchili pedologi,” 19-20; “Piat’ let raboty,” 2. In the United States and England, advocates of intelligence testing argued that their methods would “confirm a teacher's judgement that a child's failure in school is due to inferior capacity.” Chapman, Schools as Sorters, 110-115; Wooldridge, Measuring the Mind, 3-4.Google Scholar

49 Arshinov, Vykorchevat’ iz soznaniia,56.Google Scholar

50 RGASPI f. 1-M, op. 3, d. 177, l. 115; L. Vladimirov, “V Pskove usuglubliaiut pedologicheskie izvrashcheniia,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu No. 6 (1936), 9-10; N. Kaz'min, “Za bystreishuiu likvidatsiiu posledstvii vreditel'stva v shkolakh Moskovskoi oblasti,” Metodicheskii biulleten MOONO No. 6 (1938), 8; K. Shishkova, “Nekotorye itogi po attestatsii uchitelei Moskovskoi oblasti,” Metodicheskii biulleten MOONO No. 6 (1938), 15; “Delo chesti sovetskogo uchitel'stva,” Pravda 7 January 1938, 1; Ponomarev, “Po shkolam,” 36. In New York schools, many teachers supported tracking because “a more homogenous classroom … was easier to teach than a classroom of students with diverse abilities.” Rousmaniere, City Teachers, 65, 115.Google Scholar

51 External Research Staff, The Soviet Union as Reported by Former Citizens (Washington: U.S. Department of State, 1952-1956), 4.Google Scholar

52 Pronin, Pedagogicheskaia oshibka,4. See an identical “ultimatum” in Ponomarev, “Po shkolam,” 36.Google Scholar

53 RGASPI f. 1-M, op. 3, d. 177, ll. 92-93; NA RAO f. 17, op. 1, d. 63, l. 203; TsMAM f. 528, op. 1, d. 362, ll. 16-17; A. Kh., “Bezotradnaia kartina,” V pomoshch’ uchiteliu No. 5 (1936), 43-44; A. Sharov, “Pedagogi i ucheniki,” Pravda 11 January 1938, 3.Google Scholar

54 Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, Schedule A, No. 493, 14-15, 19, 28-29; Schedule B4, No. 428, 15-16. See similar recollections by a former teacher in Abraham A. Kreusler, A Teacher's Experiences in the Soviet Union (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965), 23-24.Google Scholar

55 Project, Harvard Schedule A, No. 1495, 16-17.Google Scholar

56 Project, Harvard Schedule B5, No. 15, 2.Google Scholar

57 TsMAM f. 528, op. 1, d. 362, ll. 16-17; Mikel'son, “Preduprezhdenie otstavaniia i likvidatsiia vtorogodnichestva,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 1 (January 1938), 87; O. Kolesnikova, “Za bol'shevistskoe vypolnenie reshenii TsK VKP i pravitel'stva o shkole,” Pedagogicheskii zhurnal No. 11-12 (1936), 34; Borukhovich, “Zadachi,” 6; Grebenkov, “Izgnat’ do kontsa,” 9; Kaz'min, “Za bystreishuiu likvidatsiiu,” 12.Google Scholar

58 Bobrovnikov, N. N. “XVIII Sezd VKP i zadachi sovetskoi pedagogiki,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 6 (June 1939), 1214; “Delo chesti,” 1; Malyshev, “Tak nazyvaemaia pedologiia,” 3; Vasil'ev, “Uchitel’ i pedolog,” 2; “Piat’ let raboty,” 1-2; Fomichev, “O pedologicheskikh izvrashcheniiakh,” 26-29; “Moshchnaia kul'turnaia sila,” 6; Vladimirov, “V Pskove,” 9-10; “O zhivuchesti pedologii,” 12-13.Google Scholar

59 NA RAO f. 17, op. 1, d. 63, ll. 12-14; G. Kuprianov, “Pedagogi eshche ne ispol'zuiut svoikh prav,” ZKP 2 December 1936, 4; Vvedenskaia, “Uchit’ i uchit'sia,” 3; Borukhovich, “Zadachi,” 7; “Za bol'shevistskuiu rabotu,” 4; “V Krasnosel'skom raoine,” 7; “Piat’ let raboty,” 2; Kolesnikova, “Za bol'shevistskoe vypolnenie,” 32-33; “O zadachakh zhurnala,” 10-11.Google Scholar

60 “Nashi luchshie uchitelia. Dmitrii Artem'evich Litvinchuk,” Severo-Kavkazskii uchitel’ No. 7 (1936), 17-19; A. M. Kurtik, “Zamechatel'naia doch’ velikogo naroda,” Nachal'naia shkola No. 4 (1937), 11; “Sel'skii uchitel’ K. K. Fediukin” Nachal'naia shkola No. 4 (1937), 84-85; E. Ia. Salienko, “Iz opyta moei vospitatelnoi raboty” Nachal'naia shkola No. 3 (1941), 54.Google Scholar

61 Laiko, V. P.Kak ia podtianula ‘beznadezhnogo’ uchenika,“ in Uchitelia-komsomoltsy o svoei rabote ed. Belousov, S. N. (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1939), 6869.Google Scholar

62 Project, Harvard Schedule A, No. 1492 (NY), 6. For a similar story of how a single teacher transformed a class of “hooligans,” as told from a former pupil's perspective, see External Research Staff, Soviet Union as Reported by Former Citizens, 4.Google Scholar

63 Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, 7579.Google Scholar

64 The subsequent fate of Blonskii revealed the complexities of Stalinist repression. Even as he was subjected to vicious public attacks, forced to repudiate his ideas, dismissed from positions, and confronted with the arrest of his own son, Blonskii nevertheless continued to research, write, and even publish papers before his death, apparently from natural causes, in early 1941. Shortly thereafter, an obituary described him as “a brilliant and original” scholar and “a great loss for Soviet pedagogy and psychology.” Making no direct mention of pedology, this obituary referred only to Blonskii's capacity to overcome certain “mistakes.” “P. P. Blonskii,” Sovetskaia pedagogika No. 4 (April 1941), 126-127.Google Scholar

65 Fradkin and Plokhova, “Istoriia raspravy,” 23-24; Bauer, New Man, 128-133; Piskoppel and Shchedrovitskii, “Mificheskoe i real'noe,” 134; Karpova, Obrazovatel'naia situatsiia, 121-122; Nikolenko, Gubko, and Ignatenko, “Zlokliucheniia nauki pedologii,” 119-120; Joravsky, Russian Psychology, 353; Sirotkina, “Pedological Decree,” 8-9.Google Scholar

66 Sharov, Pedagogi i ucheniki,3; Kolesnikova, “Za bol'shevistskoe vypolnenie,” 32, 39; Ponomarev, “Po shkolam,” 36; Bogdasarova, “Vse usloviia sozdany,” 3; Kuprianov, “Pedagogi,” 4.Google Scholar

67 For discussion of the Constitution in terms of the tension between regime propaganda and popular perceptions, see J. Arch Getty, “State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s,” Slavic Review 50 (Spring 1991), 18-35; Davies, Popular Opinion, 102-108.Google Scholar

68 This interpretation draws on recent scholarship which examines the ways that the meanings of policies and practices in the 1930s were constructed through an interactive, although unequal, relationship between regime and subjects. Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 198-237; Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, 67-88.Google Scholar

69 Project, Harvard Schedule A, No. 493, 22-23.Google Scholar

70 For a different perspective, which connects the “individualization” of teaching to more subtle forms of self-regulation, see Kate Rousmaniere, “Good Teachers are Born, Not Made: Self-Regulation in the Work of Nineteenth Century American Women Teachers,” in Discipline, Moral Regulation, and Schooling: A Social History eds. idem, Kari Dehli, and Ning de Coninck-Smith, (New York: Garland, 1997), 117-134.Google Scholar