Education under Lenin Flashcards
Karl Marx quote on education
“Education is free. Freedom of education shall be enjoyed under the condition fixed by law and under the supreme control of the state”
- Karl Marx, Das Kapital
Lenin quote on education
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”
Lenin believed that a high level of education was an essential part of…
building socialism
Socialism, according to Lenin and his followers, would require _____, which in turn required an _____ _____ who could understand the complex process of industry
industrialisation
educated
workforce
Education served the long-term goals of the revolution - why was this the case?
Education served the long-term goals of the revolution by helping to lay the foundation for industrialisation
Education in Tsarist Russia
No form of universal public education had yet been established leaving only those with financial means the ability to enrol in educational institutions at the secondary and university level - education was usually associated with privilege and status in Russia
Low levels of literacy before the revolution
Only around 32 per cent of the population could read and write in 1914
Educational inequalities before the revolution
Russians tended to be better educated than non-Russians, and urban education was better than rural education
In October 1918, the Soviet Government issued a decree introducing a series of reforms which…
Established unified labour schools to provide free polytechnic education to all children aged 8 to 17
Banned religious instruction in schools
Introduced co-educational schools, ending gender segregation of schooling
Abolished corporal punishment, homework and exams
Promised free breakfasts for schoolchildren and free medical examinations
Allowed church buildings to be converted into schools
Made education compulsory
Who was educational policy directed by?
Lunacharsky and Nadezhda Krupskaya - an educational theorist and Lenin’s wife
Secondary schooling was designed to be…
vocational. The government proposed the creation of factory schools or professional schools in which young people spent four hours a day in factories learning skills and four hours a day being taught in schools
What is the difference between a polytechnic and university?
Universities offer courses on academic and theoretical topics like Maths and English
Polytechnics focus solely on applied skills training
Lunacharsky favoured…
progressive teaching methods based on the theories of American educationalists such as John Dewey. These methods included learning through activities and through play rather than using textbooks or traditional lecturing
How did schooling fall short of Lunacharsky’s vision in the early years of the revolution?
Under the conditions of the Civil War there were insufficient resources to invest in education
Free compulsory education to the age of 16 was not achieved in the Soviet Union until the 1950s
Schools did not have the resources to provide free meals or medical check-ups
Teachers continued to use traditional methods as there was no reliable system for training teachers
The NEP was a period of _____. This affected _____ as well as the economy as a whole
compromise
education
What declined in the first years of the NEP?
Educational provision
Financial problems meant significant cuts in educational provision. In 1921 the government…
Forced some schools to close to save money
Introduced fees to pay for primary and secondary education for all except the poorest children and the children of those unable to work due to war injuries
Scrapped plans for opening children’s homes linked to schools for the 7 million children orphaned by the Civil War
What happened in the first 18 months of the NEP?
In the first 18 months of the NEP the number of children in education halved, as did the number of schools
As the economy stabilised…
education expanded
When were fees for primary schools abolished?
1927
By 1928 about ___ per cent of Soviet children of primary school age were in school, around ___ per cent more than prior to the revolution
60
10
There were significant inequalities in the system during the mid-1920s - give an example of this
In towns and cities children in education tended to get the full four years of primary education, whereas in the countryside children were unlikely to complete three years of education
In what ways did secondary education take a new direction during the 1920s. Under the NEP education was funded…
locally rather than by the Commissariat of Education. Therefore central government had difficulty controlling the development of education
Rather than follow the educational programme of polytechnic schools that had been outlined in 1918, local soviets…
simply took over existing gymnasia and schools that had been set up by the Tsarist regime
What per cent of students paid fees to attend and what did this mean?
97 per cent - therefore the schools tended to be dominated by the children of the wealthy
Around ___ per cent of middle-class students started secondary school and around ___ per cent finished secondary school, whereas only ___ per cent of working-class students started secondary school and only ___ per cent finished
90
25
40
3
The vast majority of teachers in the former gymnasia were trained before the revolution - what did this mean?
They continued to teach in the traditional way - their approach to subjects such as history remained traditional
What did the government want history teachers to teach vs what history teachers actually taught
The government wanted teachers to teach the history of the class struggle and of the working class. However, teachers tended to continue to teach the history of Russia, particularly the achievements of the Tsars
Lenin believed that ending ____ was crucial to building socialism
illiteracy
What was Lenin’s central educational aim?
Tackling illiteracy
When did the new government publish the Decree on Illiteracy?
1919
What did the Decree on Illiteracy require?
The Decree on Illiteracy required all illiterate people between the ages of 8 and 50 to learn to read and write
It also gave the government the right to conscript literate people into the education system to teach
Who shared Lenin’s view about the importance of literacy?
Leon Trotsky
As leader of the Red Army, what did Trotsky introduce?
Trotsky introduced education for all soldiers
Literacy rates in the Red Army increased from ___ per cent in ___ to ___ per cent in ___. The campaign continued after the war was won, and by ___ 100 per cent of soldiers in the Red Army could read and write
50
1918
86
1921
1925
Outside the Red Army the Civil War saw a decline in…
literacy
What did the Communist Government publish in an attempt to increase literacy rates? Why did this not work as intended?
The Communist Government published 6.5 million textbooks containing simple rhymes that taught the alphabet. Therefore there was a rise in the number of people who could identify letters, but this campaign did not lead to an increase in genuine literacy
The literacy campaign was set back by a series of factors…
- The majority of teachers in 1917 did not support the regime; they advocated Western-style democracy. Indeed, teachers went on strike in early 1918 in protest against the new government
- The government prioritised military victory and economic survival over education
- Many schools were requisitioned by the army and turned into stores or barracks; therefore education ceased
- The war economy did not produce or distribute educational products. By 1920 the schools that were open reported that they had one pencil for every 60 students and one pen for every 22
- The war disrupted education across the country
In the mid-1920s there was a new campaign to…
“liquidate illiteracy”
Literacy rates improved from ___ per cent in 1914 to ___ per cent in 1928
38
55
