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Bolshevik Approaches to Higher Education, 1917-1921

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

James C. Mc Clelland
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The period 1917-21 in Russia found the fledgling Bolshevik government engaged in desperate military struggles with imperial Germany, with several White Russian armies assisted in varying degrees by foreign troops and supplies, with national movements for independence, and with a newly restored Poland. Yet despite an ever-present military threat to the very existence of the new government, many Bolshevik leaders remained constantly aware that theirs was a revolutionary regime, with the goal of achieving a radical trans? formation of the social, economic, political, and cultural institutions they had inherited. Consequently this same period witnessed, in addition to the crucial military conflicts, several experimental efforts to achieve thoroughgoing institutional change.

Higher education was one such target of reform, and this paper will describe succeeding attempts undertaken during 1917-21 to implement three radically different blueprints for reform of the higher educational system.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 818 - 831
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1971

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References

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in December 1969 and at a Stanford University faculty colloquium. The author would like to express his appreciation to the former Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants for making possible an academic year in Moscow, and to the Hoover Institution for grants which facilitated the later stages of research and writing.

1. The most important Soviet secondary accounts of higher education during this period are F. F. Korolev, “Iz istorii narodnogo obrazovaniia v Sovetskoi Rossii: Nizhnie i srednie professional'nye shkoly i vysshee obrazovanie v 1917-1920 gg.,” Izvestiia Akademii pedagogicheskikh nauk RSFSR, 1959, vol. 102, pp. 3-156; Ukraintsev, V. V., KPSS— Organizator revoliutsionnogo preobrazovaniia vysshei shkoly (Moscow, 1963), pp. 17–137;Google Scholar Istoriia Moskovskogo universiteta (Moscow, 1955), 2: 7-79; Moskovskii universitet za 50 let vlasti, Sovetskoi (Moscow, 1967), pp. 27–52 Google Scholar; Shilov, L. A., “Leninskie dekrety i sozdanie organov rukovodstva vysshei shkoloi (1917-1921),” Izvestiia vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii: Pravovedenie, 1964, no. 1, pp. 3–15 Google Scholar; Shilov, L. A., “Leninskie dekrety- zakonodatel'naia osnova organizatsii vysshei shkoly v SSSR,” Vestnik Leningradskogo universiteta: Seriia ekonomiki, filosofii, i prava, 1964, vypusk 1, no. 5, pp. 94–108 Google Scholar; L. A. Shilov, “Deiatel'nost' kommunisticheskoi partii po perestroike vysshei shkoly v pervye gody sovetskoi vlasti (1917-1921 gg.),” unpublished dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences, Leningrad State University, 1965. For a recent Western work which touches on Bolshevik higher educational policies during this period see Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921 (Cambridge, 1970).Google Scholar

2. One explanation for the conflicting educational policies during this period is that for education as for most other areas the Bolsheviks had few systematized plans before the Revolution. Lenin’s writings that touched upon educational matters were more concerned with promoting a revolution than with outlining the structure of a postrevolutionary educational system. Krupskaia is a partial exception to this rule, since she made a study of educational theory while in emigration that culminated in the publication of her major treatise, Narodnoe obrazovanie i demokratiia, in 1917. It has been reprinted in Krupskaia, N. K., Pedagogicheskie sochineniia v desiati tomakh (Moscow, 1957-63), 1: 249–350.Google Scholar Lunacharsky also had a more than passing acquaintance with pedagogical theory before the Revolution. But neither Krupskaia nor Lunacharsky had given much thought to the problem of how their pedagogical concepts could be applied under Russian conditions. Furthermore, their ideas were much more relevant to primary and secondary education than to higher education. For a discussion of the educational ideas of Lenin and Krupskaia before the Revolution see Anweiler, Oskar, Geschichte der Schule und Pädagogik in Russland vom Ende des Zarenreiches bis zum Beginn der Stalin-Ära (Berlin, 1964), pp. 75–89.Google Scholar

3. The most concise statement of the liberal position can be found in the theses for higher educational reform drawn up by Petrograd Professor L. A. Chugaev in 1918 and located in Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi Revoliutsii (TsGAOR), fond 2306, opis' 2, ed. khran. 12, listy 213-26. See also E. D. Grimm, “Organizatsiia universitetskago prepodavaniia po proektu novago ustava,” Russkaia mysl', April 1916, pp. 109-22, and continued in the issue of May 1916, pp. 52-67; Kizevetter, A. A., Na rubezhe dvukh stoletii (vospominaniia, 1881-1914) (Prague, 1929)Google Scholar; Novikov, M. M., Ot Moskvy do N'iu-Iorka: Moia zhizn' v nauke i politike (New York, 1952)Google Scholar.

4. See in particular the party resolution on higher education reform found in Direktivy VKP(B) po voprosam prosveshcheniia: Voprosy narodnogo prosveshcheniia v osnovnykh direktivakh s”ezdov, konferentsii, sovesltchanii TsK i TsKK VKP(B), 2nd ed. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1930), pp. 319-20.

5. Lenin, V. I., Lenin o narodnom obrazovanii (Moscow, 1957), pp. 354–55.Google Scholar

6. There are no adequate studies devoted to the educational thought and activities of Lunacharsky, Krupskaia, or Pokrovsky, although the standard works on pedagogy and primary-secondary educational policy during this period contain relevant material concerning the first two. See F. F. Korolev, Ocherki po istorii sovetskoi shkoly i pedagogiki, 1917-1920 (Moscow, 1958)Google Scholar, and Anweiler, Geschichte. Reference should also be made to the valuable but unpublished dissertation by Widmayer, Ruth C., “The Communist Party and the Soviet Schools, 1917-1937” (Radcliffe College, 1953).Google Scholar The most convenient sources of the major educational writings of each of the leading Narkompros officials are the following collections: A. V. Lunacharskii o narodnom obrazovanii (Moscow, 1958); Krupskaia, Ped. soch.; Pokrovsky, M. N., Izbrannye proizvcdeniia, 4 vols. (Moscow, 1965-67), 4: 9–21, 457-553.Google Scholar For additional articles by Pokrovsky on education see the bibliography of all his works in Istorik-marksist, 1932, no. 1-2 (23-24), pp. 216-48.

7. Krupskaia, , Ped. soch., 7: 12.Google Scholar

8. From a proclamation issued by Lunacharsky, Oct. 29-Nov. 11, 1917, and reprinted in Boldyrev, N. I., ed., Direktivy VKP(B) i postanovleniia Sovetskogo pravitel'stva o narodnom obrazovanii za 1917-1947 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1947), 1: 11.Google Scholar

9. The most important source materials for a study of the Proletkult are its journal, Proletarskaia kul'tura (Moscow, 1918-21), the protocols of its first conference, Protokoly pervoi Vserossiiskoi konferentsii proletarskikh kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organisatsii, 15-20 sent., 1918 (Moscow, 1918), and the writings of its chief theoretician, Bogdanov, A. A., especially the collection entitled O proletarskoi kul'ture, 1904-1924 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1924)Google Scholar. For opposition to Proletkult and Lunacharsky’s defense of it see Izvestiia TsIK, no. 172, Aug. 13, 1918; no. 62, Mar. 22, 1919; and no. 80, Apr. 13, 1919. For Krupskaia’s attitude see Ped. soch., 7: 10-12, 58-62, and 139-44. For Lenin's opposition see Lenin o nar. obr., pp. 351-53. Brief secondary accounts include Polonsky, V, “Literaturnye dvizheniia oktiabr'skogo desiatiletiia,” Pechaf i revoliutsiia, 1927, no. 7, pp. 15–80 Google Scholar; Gorbunov, V. V., “Bor'ba V. I. Lenina s separatistskimi ustremleniiami Proletkul'ta, “ Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1958, no. 1, pp. 29–39 Google Scholar; Zavalishin, V., Early Soviet Writers (New York, 1958), pp. 141–56Google Scholar; Ermolaev, Herman, Soviet Literary Theories, 1917-1934: The Genesis of Socialist Realism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), pp. 9–19 Google Scholar; Brown, Edward J., The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928-1932 (New York, 1953), pp. 6–10 Google Scholar. The Workers’ Control movement has received a more extensive treatment in the secondary literature. See Kaplan, Frederick I., Bolshevik Ideology and the Ethics of Soviet Labor, 1917-1920: The Formative Years (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Daniels, Robert V., The Conscience of the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1960)Google Scholar; Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923 (Baltimore, 1966), vol. 2, esp. pp. 64–80, 392-99Google Scholar; Avrich, Paul H., “The Bolshevik Revolution and Workers’ Control in Russian Industry,” Slavic Review, 22, no. 1 (March 1963): 47–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the references to primary sources included therein.

10. Actually, there were two decrees, one announcing the abolition of admission requirements, the other stipulating that preference was to be given to proletarians and poor peasants. Lenin himself drafted the latter decree, whereas the former was apparently drafted by Pokrovsky. They were both approved by the Sovnarkom on August 2, and first published (in Izvestiia) on August 6. Some sources refer to them as the decree (or decrees) of August 6. The most accessible text of the decrees is Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti, 4 vols, to date (Moscow, 1957-68), 3: 137-41.

11. For data on the number of higher educational institutions and students for selected years, 1914-15 to 1938-39, and on the founding of new universities during this period see appendixes A and B of my doctoral dissertation, “Bolsheviks, Professors, and the Reform of Higher Education in Soviet Russia, 1917-1921” (Princeton University, 1970). For decrees on the founding of new higher educational institutions see Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krest'ianskogo pravitel'stva RSFSR, 1917-18, no. 47, art. 557; 1919, no. 2, art. 21; and Sbornik dekretov i postanovlenii rabochego i krest'ianskogo pravitel'stva po narodnomu obrazovaniiu, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1919-20), 2: 21-22. (The Sobranie uzakonenii will be cited hereafter as SU, the Sbornik dekretov i postanovlenii as SDP-NO.)

12. Narkompros’s plans for reform of university administration are most clearly expressed in a draft university charter which was drawn up by Pokrovsky and P. K. Shternberg during the spring of 1918. This draft formed the basis of discussion at two conferences in July and September 1918, attended by professors and Narkompros officials. Because the two groups failed to reach an agreement the charter was never implemented as a whole, although Narkompros did enact several of its provisions on a piecemeal basis. The draft charter is in TsGAOR, fond 2306, opis' 18, ed. khran. 28, listy 13-17 obratno. The best source for the opinions of Narkompros and the professors at this time are the speeches, debates, and resolutions of the July Conference on higher education. See TsGAOR, fond 2306, opis' 18, ed. khran. 28 (for an explanation of the Narkompros concept of “social control” see esp. list 77), and fond 2306, opis' 2, ed. khran. 12.Google Scholar

13. SDP-NO, 2: 8-9; SU, 1918, no. 72, art. 789; SU, 1918, no. 80, art. 836.

14. A Moscow University professor who subsequently emigrated states that after the initial flood in 1918 the student body soon began to fall back to its “normal” size. V. B. El'iashevich et al., Moskovskii universitet, 1755-1930: Iutbileinyi sbonik (Paris, 1930), p. 158 Google Scholar. It would seem that, if anything, the number of students actually studying at this time was less than usual. A Narkompros source estimates that in 1918-19 there were 55, 000 students actually studying in all institutions of higher education in the RSFSR. See Narodnoe prosveshchenie: Ezhemesiachnyi sotsialisticheskii organ obshchestvenno-politicheskii, pedagogicheskii i nauchnyi (Nov.-Dec. 1919), 16-17: 109. (This journal will hereafter be cited as NP, monthly.) This number compares with a figure of 85, 000 students over a roughly comparable area in the more normal year of 1914-15. See Kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo RSFSR: Statisticheskii sbonik (Moscow, 1958), p. 352. In any event, it is clear that the discrepancy between the number who formally enrolled in 1918 and the number who persisted in carrying out their academic work was immense. Narkompros states that of 3, 568 registered students at Moscow University’s historical-philological faculty only 177 were actually studying in 1918-19. There were many more students, however, studying in the medical faculty. See NP, monthly (1920), 18-20: 89. See also the table in Korolev, “Iz istorii narodnogo obrazovaniia v Sovetskoi Rossii,” p. 127, which compares the number of students formally enrolled in fourteen selected higher schools, as of January 1920, with those actually studying. In most cases the latter number was only 10 to 25 percent of the former number.

15. For Narkompros admissions that there were very few workers in the student body see NP, monthly, 16-17: 107, and 18-20: 92-93.

16. NP, monthly, 18-20: 7.

17. Ibid., p. 91; 1917-'-Oktiabr'-1920: Kratkii otchet Narodnogo komissariata po prosveshcheniiu (Moscow, 1920), p. 56 Google Scholar; El'iashevich, Moskovskii universitet, p. 159.

18. Definitive policy statements concerning the Workers’ Faculties are found in Lunacharsky, “Rol’ rabochikh fakul'tetov,” Lunacharskii o nar. obr., pp. 164-71; and Pokrovsky, “Kak u nas nachalas’ proletarizatsiia vysshei shkoly?” Pravda, Sept. 28, 1922. The basic decrees are in SU, 1919, no. 45, art. 443, and 1920, no. 80, art. 381. Perceptive observers of Workers’ Faculties (and of many other elements of university life at this time) were Sergei Zhaba, a student leader who subsequently emigrated, and Paul Scheffer, correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt. See Zhaba, , Petrogradskoe studenchestvo v bor'be za svobodnuiu vysshuiu shkolu (Paris, 1922), esp. pp. 24–29 Google Scholar; and Scheffer, , “University Life and the Press in Revolutionary Russia,” Manchester Guardian Commercial: Reconstruction in Europe, July 6, 1922.Google Scholar The best secondary account of the Workers’ Faculties is Tandler, Frederika M., “The Workers’ Faculty System in the USSR,” unpublished doctoral dissertation (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1955)Google Scholar.

19. For a discussion of a set of theses presented by Communist students accusing Narkompros of an insufficiently radical attack on the educational system see NP, monthly, 18-20: 3-9. For a discussion of the inadequacies of the early Narkompros program of vocational education, and the opposition this program aroused within the government, see Anikst, O. G., Professional'no-tckhnicheskoc obrazovanie v Rossii za 1917-1921: Iubileinyi sbornik (Moscow, 1922)Google Scholar.

20. For descriptions of the economic crisis of this time and of Trotsky’s program to overcome it see Deutscher, Isaac, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921 (New York, 1965), pp. 486 ff.Google Scholar; and Carr, , Bolshevik Revolution, 2: 194–200, 213-21.Google Scholar

21. SU, 1920, no. 6, arts. 41-42. Narkompros sharply protested the formation of Glavprofobr, and defended its 01own educational policy in an angry appeal for more funds that was dispatched to VTsIK, Sovnarkom, and the Party Central Committee. TsGAOR, fond 2306, opis' 1, ed. khran. 320, listy 5-6, 50-51.

22. Vestnik prof-tekhnicheskogo obrazovaniia (1920), 3-4: 3.

23. Pokrovsky had become immediately converted to most aspects of the Glavprofobr program, and it was he who spelled out the most comprehensive rationale for the militarization of students. See Narodnoe prosveshchenie: Ezhenedel'nik Narodnogo komissariata po prosveshcheniiu (1920), 59—61: 1-3. (This journal will hereafter be cited as NP, weekly.) For student militarization decrees see SU, 1920, no. 20, art. I l l; no. 34, art. 164; no 67, art. 304; and no. 72, art. 333.

24. The major decree concerning reform of higher technical education is in SU, 1920, no. 54, art. 234. A longer explanation of the principles behind the reform is in Anikst, Professional'no-tekhnicheskoe obrasovanie, pp. 62-66.

25. Lunacharskii o nar. obr., p. 135.

26. Anikst, , Professional'no-tekhnicheskoe obrazovanie, p. 23.Google Scholar See also Shilov, , “Leninskie dekrety,” Vestnik Leningradskogo universiteta, p. 97.Google Scholar

27. There are three major collections of Lenin’s educational writings: Lenin o nar. obr.; Lenin, V. I., 0 vospitanii i obrazovanii (Moscow, 1963)Google Scholar; and Lenin, V. I., O nauke i vysshem obrazovanii (Moscow, 1967)Google Scholar. For secondary accounts of Lenin’s role in the formulation of Soviet educational policy see the articles in Goncharov, N. K. and Korolev, F. F., eds., V. I. Lenin i problemy narodnogo obrazovaniia (Moscow, 1961).Google Scholar

28. A recent article and ensuing debate in the Slavic Review, although devoted to primary and secondary education rather than higher education, have nonetheless raised many of the general issues dealt with here. See Lilge, Frederic, “Lenin and the Politics of Education,” Slavic Review, 27, no. 2 (June 1968): 230–58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hayashida, R. H., “Lenin and the Third Front” (with reply by Frederic. Lilge), Slavic Review, 28, no. 2 (June 1969): 314–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although I agree with many of the conclusions of both authors, I am led to dissent on two points. First, the tendency of Lilge and Hayashida to group together various aspects of a state-oriented (as opposed to an individual-oriented) educational policy under the single rubric “political” is misleading. My analysis suggests that various components of state-oriented educational programs can be mutually exclusive, or at best in conflict, and that clarification results from categorizing them separately in terms of social, cultural, economic, and political functions. Second, the periodization of early Soviet educational policy presented by Hayashida (as well as by most other writers on the subject, both Soviet and Western) is at odds with the periodization offered here. By grouping the years from 1917 to the end of 1920 into one period rather than dividing them into two periods with nearly opposite tendencies, the standard periodization, in my view, erroneously ignores the importance of the establishment of Glavprofobr in early 1920.,

29. The 1884 charter is in “Svod ustavov uchenykh uchrezhdenii i uchebnykh zavedenii vedomstva Ministerstva Narodnago Prosveshcheniia,” Svod zakonov rossiiskoi imperii, vol. 11, part 1, arts. 400-559. The 1921 charter is in SU, 1921, no. 65, art. 486. For emphasis on the political appointment of administrative officers, see Direktivy VKP(B) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, pp. 320-21.

30. SU, 1921, no. 19, art. 119.

31. Pokrovsky, , Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 4: 12 Google Scholar; Lenin, V. I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 55 vols. (Moscow, 1958-65), 52: 155.Google Scholar Lenin’s tolerance did not extend to Mensheviks (see 52: 90, 374).

32. SU, 1921, no. 65, art. 486, provision 1.

33. This trend, strongly advocated by Preobrazhensky, was unsuccessfully resisted by Lunacharsky. See Preobrazhensky, E, “To, o chem nado skazat',” Pravda, no. 154, July 16, 1921 Google Scholar, and “O professional'no-tekhnicheskom obrazovanii,” Pravda, no. 201, Sept. 10, 1921; Lunacharsky, “Ekonomiia i kul'tura,” NP, weekly, no. 84, Aug. 10, 1921, p. 2. For figures comparing the number of students in higher as opposed to secondary vocational education for the years 1914-15 to 1938-39, see the graph in Kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo SSSR: Statisticheskii sbornik (Moscow and Leningrad, 1940), p. 102. In 1914-15 there were more than twice as many students in higher education. By 1924-25 the numbers were equal, and from then on the number of secondary vocational school pupils exceeded the number of higher school students. The total number of secondary vocational school pupils increased throughout the entire period, whereas the number of higher school students decreased between 1922 and 1924, and began to increase again only in 1928-29.

34. For the planned quotas for the academic year 1922-23, see Vestnik proftekhnicheskogo obrazovaniia (1922), 1-3: 53-57. For the actual enrollment in each category see Vysshaia shkola v RSFSR i novoc studenchestvo (Moscow, 1923), pp. 46-47. Students unable to secure recommendations (who were required to pay tuition) constituted as much as 41 percent of the entering classes that year instead of the planned 16 percent.