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A Turning Point in the Soviet School: The Seventeenth Party Congress and the Teaching of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Daniel Dorotich
Daniel Dorotich*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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At the Seventeenth Party Congress in January 1934, Stalin appraised the world situation optimistically. For five years, he argued, the capitalist world had been at mortal grips with an incurable economic crisis, disrupting industrial and agricultural production and destroying all national and international trade and financing. The capitalists sought salvation in preparation for a new imperialistic war. Hostility among capitalist countries was sharpening. The Sino-Japanese conflict and the occupation of Manchuria caused tensions in the Far East. In Europe the Nazi victory and rising revanchisme enhanced dangers. The Japanese and German departure from the League of Nations accelerated rearmament.

Type
Education in the East I
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Fall 1967 , pp. 295 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © 1967 by New York University 

References

Notes

1. I. V. Stalin, “Dvizhenie ekonomicheskogo krizisa v kapitalisticheskikh stranakh,” Sochineniya (Moscow, 1.955), XIII, 284-91.Google Scholar

2. Stalin, “Obostrenie politicheskogo polozheniya v kapitalisticheskikh stranakh,” ibid., 291-99.Google Scholar

3. It is possible that Stalin may have had some prior information about the general strike and demonstrations in France, February 6-12, 1934, in which over four million people took part, and about the revolt in Austria against Dolfus, February 12-16, 1934.Google Scholar

4. Cf. Stalin, XIII, 293 ff.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., p. 297. The Fourth Congress of MOPR (International Organization for Aid to Fighters of the Revolution), held in March 1934, declared that “the name of Dimitrov has become a symbol of the growing might of international proletarian solidarity.” Internatsional'nyi Mayak, VII (April 1937), 7, quoted in Mezhdunarodnaya solidarnost’ trudyashchikhsya v bor'be s fashizmom, protiv razvyazyvaniya vtoroi mirovoi voyny (1933-1937) (Moscow, 1961), p. 9.Google Scholar

6. Stalin, XIII, 348.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., p. 347 (italics mine).Google Scholar

8. History of the C.P.S.U. (Moscow, 1960), p. 481.Google Scholar

9. Stalin, XIII, 376.Google Scholar

10. I-M, II (1934), 3.Google Scholar

11. Bocharov, Yu. “Zadachi prepodavaniya istorii,” I-M, III (1934), 86.Google Scholar

12. Stalin, “Yeshche raz o sotsial-demokraticheskom uklone v nashei partii,” IX 21.Google Scholar

13. For an example of how the field of history was affected, see A. Vershinskii, “Kakim dolzhen byt’ proseminar po istoricheskim distsiplinam,” I-M, V (1934), 56.Google Scholar

14. Bushchik, L. P. Ocherk razvitiya, shkol'nogo istoricheskogo obrazovaniya v SSSR (Moscow, 1961), p. 259.Google Scholar

15. “Istoricheskuyu nauku na unroven’ velikikh zadach,” I-M, II (1934), 3.Google Scholar

16. Ibid. The study of the more distant past was formerly regarded as unimportant because of the tremendous significance attached to pure Marxist indoctrination and the explanation of current events. See D. Dorotich, “History in the Soviet School, 1917-1937” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, McGill University, 1964), p. 44.Google Scholar

17. I-M, II (1934), 318. Ibid., p. 6.Google Scholar

19. Ibid. Google Scholar

20. The use of the term “concrete” seems significant in view of the subsequent well-known attack on the “school of Pokrovsky” for its alleged and, by implication, self-styled use of “abstract socio-economic schemes.” The repeated use of the term “concrete” by Istorik-Marksist long before Stalin had used it in his condemnation of the “school of Pokrovsky” suggests that his decrees on the teaching of history might have been drafted by some historians connected with this journal.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 7.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., p. 8.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., p. 9 (italics mine).Google Scholar

24. Dorotich, pp. 103 ff., and Th. Woody, New Minds: New Men? (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1932), passim. Google Scholar

25. For a more detailed description of the struggle for “stable textbooks” see Dorotich, “History Textbooks,” pp. 89-118; and for an excellent account of the role of changing party policy in Soviet education, see R. L. Widmayer, “The Communist Party and the Soviet School, 1917-1937” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1952).Google Scholar

26. Arkhiv Ministerstva prosveshcheniya RSFSR, f. Upravleniya nachal'noi i srednei shkoly za 1932 g. op. No. 1, sv. 15, d. 112, 1. i. quoted by Bushchik, pp. 256 ff.Google Scholar

27. Cited in Bushchik, p. 257.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., p. 258.Google Scholar

29. According to testimonials of former Soviet citizens, there was a widespread popular dissatisfaction both with the former “progressive” methods of teaching and with social studies as a means of indoctrination. Desirous of knowledge, the Russian people wanted their children to be taught concrete facts and “real” knowledge. This may account for the fact that few of the letters were of the usual stereotyped form, obviously written by carefully instructed agents of agitation and propaganda, and by trustworthy party members.Google Scholar

30. “Skelety v shkole,” Pravda, April 5,1934 (italics mine).Google Scholar

31. I-M, IV (1927), 196. For more recent views on Pokrovsky see R. Szporluk, “Pokrovsky and Russian History,” The Survey (October 1964), pp. 107-18, and Dorotich, “Disgrace and Rehabilitation of M. N. Pokrovsky,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, VIII (1966), pp. 169-81.Google Scholar

32. “Za podlinnuyu istoriyu protiv skholastiki i abstraktsyi,” Za Kommunisticheskoye Prosveshcheniye, April 10, 1934 (italics mine).Google Scholar

33. Za Kommunisticheskoye Prosveshcheniye, April 24, 1934.Google Scholar

34. “O uporyadochnenii obshchestvennykh nagruzok studentov,” KPSS 0 Komsomole i molodezhi (Moscow, 1962), p. 216.Google Scholar

35. “O peregruzke shkol'nikov i pionerov obshchestvenno-politicheskimi zadaniyami,” ibid., p. 220.Google Scholar

36. On May 15, 1934, on orders from the Central Committee, the school system was reorganized. The former Seven Year and Ten Year Schools established only two years earlier were now transformed into the School of General Education consisting of:Google Scholar

1. Elementary School (grades I-IV)

2. Incomplete Secondary School (grades I-VII)

3. Secondary School (grades I-X)

“O strukture nachal'noi i srednei shkoly v SSSR,” Pravda, May 16, 1934.

37. Cf. Timashev, N. S. The Great Retreat (New York: Dutton and Co., 1946).Google Scholar

38. Cf. Mehnert, K. Stalin versus Marx (London: Allen and Unwin, 1952).Google Scholar

39. Mazour, A. G. Modern Russian Historiography (2d ed.; New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1958), pp. 197 ff. Mazour omitted the list of the authors charged with the writing of the new textbooks. This is most unfortunate since this list is invariably omitted from all current Soviet sources and even collections of documents. Cf. Sbornik rukovodyashchikh materialov o shkole (Moscow: APN RSFSR, 1952). It may be assumed that the reason for this systematic omission by Soviet sources is the fact that many of the scholars mentioned in the degree were basely disgraced a few months later.Google Scholar

40. “O prepodavanii grazhdanskoi istorii v shkolakh SSSR,” Direktivy VKP (b) i postanovleniya sovetskogo pravitel'stva o narodnom obrazovanii za 1917-1947 gg. (Moscow, 1947), I, 170 ff. & trans. in Slavonic and East European Review, XIII (July 1934), 204-5.Google Scholar

41. I-M, III (1934), 88 (italics mine).Google Scholar

42. I-M, III (1934), 88.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 89.Google Scholar

44. Direktivy VKP(b), I, 186. A prominent role among these authors was given to scholars, like N. Vanag, who were later disgraced as members of the “anti-Marxist school of Pokrovsky.” It seems, therefore, worthwhile citing the list of the authors and the areas in which each team cooperated. Ancient History: Professor S. I. Kovalev (leader), Academician N. M. Nikol'skii, A. S. Svanidze, Professor A. V. Minulin; Medieval History: Professor E. A. Kos'minskii (leader), Professor A. I. Gukovskii, O. V. Trakhtenberg, A. V. Malyshev; Modern History: Academician N. M. Lukin (leader), Professor G. S. Fridlyand, Professor V. M. Dalin, Professor G. S. Zaidel', Dotsent A. V. Efimov; History of USSR: Professor N. Vanag (leader), Professor B. D. Grekov, Professor A. M. Pankratova, Professor S. A. Piontkovskii; Modern History of Dependent and Colonial Countries: R. B. Radek (leader), K. Z. Gabidulin, Professor S. A. Konrad, A. S. Mukhardzhi, M. S. Godes, M. D. Kokin, L. I. Mad'yar, P. A. Mifi, F. A. Rotshtein. This list was omitted from Sbornik rukovodyashchikh materialov 0 shkole, published in 1952.Google Scholar

45. The other decrees being those of September 5,1931, July 25,1932, and February 12,1933.Google Scholar

46. “Prikaz po narkomprosu RSFSR,” Kommunisticheskoye Prosveshcheniye, III (1934), 15.Google Scholar

47. Regretfully, the initials could not be secured by the author.Google Scholar

48. Kommunisticheskoye Prosveshcheniye, p. 18.Google Scholar

49. Ibid. Google Scholar

50. I-M, II (1934), 9.Google Scholar

51. Direktivy VKP(b), I,167.Google Scholar

52. Struve, konspekt lektsii po istorii drevnego vostoka; Piontkovskii, Istoriya Rossii XIX-XX v.v; Preobrazhenskii, Feodalizm v Zapadnoi Yevrope; Socharov, Istoriya Rossii i SSSR v materialakh i dokumentakh; Lukin, Epokha imperializma v materialakh i documentakh; Lukin, Epokha promyshlennogo kapitalizma v materialakh i dokumentakh; Udal'tsov, Klassy i klassovaya bor'ba v antichnom i feodal'nom obshchestve; Myklin, (ed.), Ocherki po istorii revolyutsionnogo dvizheniya; Vantke, Ocherki mezhdunarodnogo revolyutsionnogo dvizheniya (epokha dovoyennogo imperializma); Knorin, Istoriya VKP (b); Yaroslavskii Istoriya VKP(b). Google Scholar

53. Beginning with No. V (1934).Google Scholar

54. Vershinskii, p. 60.Google Scholar

55. Ibid. Google Scholar

56. Mamet, L. “Istoriya i obshchestvenno-politicheskoye vospitaniye,” I-M, XIV (1929), 169.Google Scholar

57. “Za Bol'shevistskoye Prepodavanie Istorii,” Bolshevik (December 15, 1934), p. 50.Google Scholar

58. Ibid., p. 35 (italics mine). Pankratova's argument is strikingly reminiscent of Pokrovsky's in 1927 that textbooks ought to be written by three people: a scholar, a political editor, and a pedagogue. Cf. Dorotich, History, pp. 95 ff.Google Scholar

59. “O vvedenii i nachal'noi i nepolnoi srednei shkole elementarnogo kursa vseobshchei istorii i istorii SSSR,” Sbornik, p. 76.Google Scholar

60. Cf. “Na fronte istoricheskoi nauki,” ibid., p. 84.Google Scholar

61. See M. Shestakov, “Soveshchanie prepodavatelei instituta krasnoi pro-fessury,” I-M, II (1935), 123.Google Scholar