Education under Lenin

Question 1

Karl Marx quote on education

Answer 1

“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

Question 2

Lenin quote on education

Answer 2

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”

Question 3

Lenin believed that a high level of education was an essential part of…

Answer 3

building socialism

Question 4

Socialism, according to Lenin and his followers, would require _____, which in turn required an _____ _____ who could understand the complex process of industry

Answer 4

industrialisation
educated
workforce

Question 5

Education served the long-term goals of the revolution - why was this the case?

Answer 5

Education served the long-term goals of the revolution by helping to lay the foundation for industrialisation

Question 6

Education in Tsarist Russia

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Low levels of literacy before the revolution

Answer 7

Only around 32 per cent of the population could read and write in 1914

Question 8

Educational inequalities before the revolution

Answer 8

Russians tended to be better educated than non-Russians, and urban education was better than rural education

Question 9

In October 1918, the Soviet Government issued a decree introducing a series of reforms which…

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Who was educational policy directed by?

Answer 10

Lunacharsky and Nadezhda Krupskaya - an educational theorist and Lenin’s wife

Question 11

Secondary schooling was designed to be…

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What is the difference between a polytechnic and university?

Answer 12

Universities offer courses on academic and theoretical topics like Maths and English
Polytechnics focus solely on applied skills training

Question 13

Lunacharsky favoured…

Answer 13

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

Question 14

How did schooling fall short of Lunacharsky’s vision in the early years of the revolution?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

The NEP was a period of _____. This affected _____ as well as the economy as a whole

Answer 15

compromise
education

Question 16

What declined in the first years of the NEP?

Answer 16

Educational provision

Question 17

Financial problems meant significant cuts in educational provision. In 1921 the government…

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What happened in the first 18 months of the NEP?

Answer 18

In the first 18 months of the NEP the number of children in education halved, as did the number of schools

Question 19

As the economy stabilised…

Answer 19

education expanded

Question 20

When were fees for primary schools abolished?

Answer 20

1927

Question 21

By 1928 about ___ per cent of Soviet children of primary school age were in school, around ___ per cent more than prior to the revolution

Answer 21

60
10

Question 22

There were significant inequalities in the system during the mid-1920s - give an example of this

Answer 22

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

Question 23

In what ways did secondary education take a new direction during the 1920s. Under the NEP education was funded…

Answer 23

locally rather than by the Commissariat of Education. Therefore central government had difficulty controlling the development of education

Question 24

Rather than follow the educational programme of polytechnic schools that had been outlined in 1918, local soviets…

Answer 24

simply took over existing gymnasia and schools that had been set up by the Tsarist regime

Question 25

What per cent of students paid fees to attend and what did this mean?

Answer 25

97 per cent - therefore the schools tended to be dominated by the children of the wealthy

Question 26

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

Answer 26

90
25
40
3

Question 27

The vast majority of teachers in the former gymnasia were trained before the revolution - what did this mean?

Answer 27

They continued to teach in the traditional way - their approach to subjects such as history remained traditional

Question 28

What did the government want history teachers to teach vs what history teachers actually taught

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Lenin believed that ending ____ was crucial to building socialism

Answer 29

illiteracy

Question 30

What was Lenin’s central educational aim?

Answer 30

Tackling illiteracy

Question 31

When did the new government publish the Decree on Illiteracy?

Answer 31

1919

Question 32

What did the Decree on Illiteracy require?

Answer 32

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

Question 33

Who shared Lenin’s view about the importance of literacy?

Answer 33

Leon Trotsky

Question 34

As leader of the Red Army, what did Trotsky introduce?

Answer 34

Trotsky introduced education for all soldiers

Question 35

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

Answer 35

50
1918
86
1921
1925

Question 36

Outside the Red Army the Civil War saw a decline in…

Answer 36

literacy

Question 37

What did the Communist Government publish in an attempt to increase literacy rates? Why did this not work as intended?

Answer 37

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

Question 38

The literacy campaign was set back by a series of factors…

Answer 38

• 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

Question 39

In the mid-1920s there was a new campaign to…

Answer 39

“liquidate illiteracy”

Question 40

Literacy rates improved from ___ per cent in 1914 to ___ per cent in 1928

Answer 40

38
55