Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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1. 3
Aspect of the Cultural Revolution.
2. Education was a means through which Bolsheviks could create loyal followers- the new
elite.
3. It was also an integral means to creating a new society.
4. Society of morally superior citizens.
5. Superior in every way possible- physically, mentally.
6. In the SU- function of education was quite different- it was used not maintain the status
quo but to facilate a social change.
7. Not preserve it.
1. October 1917- Bolsheviks claimed power for the proletariat from the opposition of
educated elite.
2. Education was perceived by the Bolsheviks as a traditional prerogative of the privileged
classes.
3. Class enemies; majority of educated.
4. Dilemma- they would have to hire this class to work for them as clerks and professionals5. Had to educate the workers and peasants- provide a basic education.
6. Other notion was they had to create their own proletarian intelligentsia.
7. An administrative and specialist group drawn from the lower classes of society with
whole hearted allegiance to the soviet power.
8. Tsarist Russia education was reserved for the higher-ups, while the masses remained
impoverished and untaught. Russian peasants, who made up the bulk of the population,
were inert, indifferent, uninformed.
9. Tsarist schools, pallid, anaemic, rigidly limited, largely under the influence of the state
church, enrolled about 7 million pupils.
10. Soviet schools, public or state controlled, and without religious interference or
intervention, enrol some 35 million pupils, under 1.8 million teachers. In addition to the
regular schools, classes, courses, special schools and apprenticeships enroll another 15
million persons.
11. The Revolution of 1917 tore the old social system up by the roots.
12. The Civil War cleared away much of the debris. Since 1921 and 1922, therefore the
educational authorities of the Soviet Union have had a relatively free field in which to
solve their. educational problems in a way that would meet the peculiar needs of the new
social order ...
Timosheff
1. From the very beginning education was not seen as separate from the rest of society
but integral to it. Education was not to be restricted to the early years of your life
but a continuous process truly lifelong learning.
2. Access to art and culture was also part of education for all.
3. It was a school system deeply ingrained in the "bourgeois" type of civilization, and
the Communists could not be satisfied with submitting it merely to partial reform.
4. It was necessary to destroy the old school system altogether and to create a new one
which would serve the main ends of the Revolution.
5. When they gained power- more pressing issues to deal with and war communism
had take a lot of funds so It was only in 1923 that the real school experiment could
begin, and it lasted up to 1931,.
6. Complete retreat however began in 1934- course of 10 years of experimentation
what they ended up with was arguably the same as the imperial era.
Destruction of the old system
1. Educational act October 1918- replaced the school system of old Russia with a unified
polytechnical school- nine grades.
2. No homework, no exams, no punishment.
3. Co-education was introduced at all levels.
4. Labor principle was stressed- schools became preparation places for the productive work
that lay ahead.
5. The schools became revolutionary clubs for young people- primary function was to
educate- but that was almost completely neglected.
6. Material conditions of the time were awful- school attendance decreased a lot.
7. Teachers were shitely paid.
8. Labour principle ended up being them imposing purely mechanical tasks on the kidscarrying fuel from the yard to the stoves.
9. University reform also came.
10. August 1918. Every boy and girl over 16 permitted to enrol. Despite their academic
background.
11. October 1918- another decree- aimed at blowing up the structures.
12. Abolished grades, introduced faculty instructors to councils. carry out communist
reforms.
13. 1920- Academic curriculum was revised.
14. Liberal phase of education was neglected. Emphasis was on strict specialization- mainly
on technical sciences.
15. Result- was the same as the unified schools- teaching in the true sense almost stopped1923
1. NEP
- allowed the great experiment to begin in education.
2. Quantitative achievements were made.
2
3.
Cultural Revolution: Class war in education, emphasis on technical education
4.
Vocational schools
5.
Social mobilization: vydvizhentsy
6.
Breakneck speed: lowering of educational standards
7. Mid 1930s was when it changed back to the imperial ways- did so to preserve Stalins
society.
8. Used it to fight the backwardness of society- main aim to rid that.
9. Cultural revolution could mobilization from the education system.
Stalin used youth organizations to facilitate his creation of the new elite.
1.
2.
3.
Children in the Soviet Union held a special place in the hearts of citizens and the Party.
They represented not only the innocence of youth, but also the promise of the socialist future;
in order for the international Marxist Revolution to succeed, the youth had to be treated well and
educated politically.
4. Communist authorities took many routes to achieve this goal.
5. Primarily, the Communist Party fostered a cult of childhood, much like Stalins cult of personality,
which idealized Soviet childhood.
6. The Communist Party formalized this cult through youth organizations such as the Komsomol, Young
Pioneers, and Little Octobrists.
7. The effect these groups had is undeniable; the Communists created secondary communities for children
to align themselves with.
8. Rather than attach themselves most strongly to their families, Soviet children were taught to prioritize
Communism above all, and these youth organizations provided the very first encounters with socialism.
9. This had the significant effect of diminishing the role of the family structure, and these groups became
the primary outlet for self-expression among Soviet children.
10. To carry the identity card of the Komsomol was to declare oneself a loyal
Communist
East
1.
Similar trends
2.
Educational institutions ruined during WWII
3.
Democratisation: principles of education changed, 8-year primary schools, new
textbooks
4.
Sovietization of education is part of the struggle with organized religion: nationalisation
of schools
5.
New curricula, vocational training, compulsory Russian
6.
Universities: new textbooks, Marxism-Leninism departments, sociology, psychology
8.
little drummers, pioneers, youth organisations