Activities of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (1932-1936)

ACTIVITIES OF THE ALL-UNION COMMITTEE FOR HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION UNDER THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS OF THE USSR

(1932–1936)

E. A. SHULEPOVA

(Institute of History of the USSR, Academy of Sciences of the USSR)

At all stages in the development of the Soviet state, the matter of training and educating highly qualified personnel for the needs of the national economy received the closest attention. And this is understandable. The presence of well-trained cadres devoted to the cause of communism is one of the most important indicators of the strength and might of the country, and the direction of personnel training is one of the responsible areas in the activity of the Soviet state.

To build a communist society, highly educated, politically literate, comprehensively developed people are needed—people capable of successfully solving the tasks facing the country and of taking an active part in various spheres of social, state, and economic life. And without knowledge this cannot be done. V. I. Lenin emphasized: “It is impossible to build communism without a store of knowledge, technology, and culture.”¹

The history of the formation and development of higher education in our country has been the subject of consideration in many works.² However, there are no studies specifically devoted to the problems of the organization and activity of state bodies for the leadership of public education. This applies fully to the history of the first all-Union state body for the leadership of higher education in the USSR—the Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, whose activity is the subject of the present article. The first major successes in the formation of the Soviet system of higher education were connected with the work of this Committee.

The study of questions concerning the history of state bodies in the field of public education, in particular the Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, is of great importance for studying the history of cultural construction in our country and for illuminating the history of the construction and improvement of the Soviet state apparatus as a whole.

¹ V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 39, p. 314.
² Vysshaya shkola za 50 let [Higher Education over 50 Years]. Moscow, 1967; K. T. Galkin, Vysshee obrazovanie i podgotovka nauchnykh kadrov v SSSR [Higher Education and the Training of Scientific Personnel in the USSR]. Moscow, 1956; M. P. Kim, 40 let sovetskoi kul’tury [Forty Years of Soviet Culture]. Moscow, 1957; A. M. Ternigoev, O vysshem tekhnicheskom obrazovanii v SSSR [On Higher Technical Education in the USSR]. Moscow, 1961; E. V. Chutkerashvili, Razvitie vysshego obrazovaniya v SSSR [The Development of Higher Education in the USSR]. Moscow, 1961.

The building of socialism and the implementation of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR required the training of new proletarian cadres of specialists in accordance with the pace of industrialization and the socialist reorganization of agriculture in the country. Without this it was impossible to build advanced industrial production and to create new socialist relations in the country. Therefore higher education was confronted with new tasks arising from the general national-economic tasks of socialist construction.

However, the republican People’s Commissariats of Education, which in those years had under their direction almost all branches of culture, including higher technical education, and which were practically detached from concrete production, could not, on the necessary scale and taking into account the new requirements of the socialist industry then under construction, take charge of the training of highly qualified technical cadres. In order to bring the training of specialist cadres into conformity with the needs of socialist construction, it was necessary to make a decisive break in the pace and methods of personnel training, to link instruction with production, and to improve the material base of higher technical educational institutions.

In accordance with these requirements, new forms of organizing the administration of higher technical education were defined. According to the decisions of the July (1928) and November (1929) Plenums of the Central Committee of the VKP(b), higher technical educational institutions were transferred from the jurisdiction of the republican People’s Commissariats of Education to the direct administration of the industrial People’s Commissariats and departments.^3

The transfer of higher technical educational institutions to the jurisdiction of the corresponding industrial People’s Commissariats and departments “facilitated the establishment of concrete leadership over personnel training, the bringing of educational work closer to production, and the establishment of its direct connection with the practical tasks of various branches of the national economy.”^4 Higher education, not formally but in substance, became an organic part of the country’s national economy, subordinating itself to its needs and requirements.

During the years of the first five-year plan, in the process of reorganizing higher technical education in connection with the enormous demand for engineering cadres, the many-year duration of study in higher educational institutions was eliminated. The restructuring of higher educational institutions developed broadly, expressed in the replacement of the polytechnical higher educational institution by sectoral ones, which trained specialists for a definite branch of production in accordance with its concrete requirements. As a result of this restructuring, the network of higher educational institutions in the country had grown by the 1932–1933 academic year to the record number of 832 institutions, as against 148 operating in the 1927–1928 academic year.^5 The contingent of students in higher educational institutions also increased sharply.

Altogether, during the years of the first five-year plan, higher education provided the country with 170 thousand new specialists.^6 G. K. Ordzhonikidze, at the XVII Party Congress, emphasized in his speeches that engineers who had graduated from higher educational institutions during the first five-year plan would, in the years of the second five-year plan, constitute the main part of the command staff of Soviet industry and would play a fundamental role in creating advanced technology.

Thus, in quantitative terms, the problem of training engineering and technical specialists during the years of the first five-year plan was essentially solved.

^3 Directives of the VKP(b) and Decrees of the Soviet Government on Public Education for 1917–1947. Issue 2. Moscow–Leningrad, 1947, pp. 59, 70.
^4 Directives of the VKP(b) and Decrees of the Soviet Government on Public Education for 1917–1947. Issue 2. Moscow–Leningrad, 1947, p. 78.
^5 Cultural Construction in the USSR. Statistical Collection. Moscow, 1956, p. 201.
^6 Cultural Construction in the USSR. Statistical Collection. Moscow, 1956, p. 216.

The grandiose program for the development of the national economy planned for the years of the Second Five-Year Plan at the same time required a further increase in the pace of training young qualified specialists. According to the Second Five-Year Plan, the problem of the rates of development of personnel training was also to be resolved in a new way. In terms of rates of development, pedagogical and medical education was put in first place. Such planning followed from the broad measures envisaged for raising the cultural level of the working people and improving their medical care.

For all the correctness of the proportions established by the Second Five-Year Plan in the development of personnel training by individual branches, the technical re-equipment of the national economy and the mastery of new technology, ensuring a radical rise in the material situation of the working people and the strengthening of the defense capability of the USSR, required the further development and training of industrial personnel. It was necessary to increase the pace of training specialists for the most important branches of the national economy, which determined the economic might of the country.

In industry, construction, and transport in those years there were acutely scarce specialties. This was, above all, in such branches of industry as coal, iron ore, nonferrous metallurgy, machine-tool building, and a number of others. The newest energy base being created in the country, the tasks of the chemical industry, the broad program for the further development of domestic machine building, especially tractor and automobile building, as well as the work that had unfolded to complete the construction of the metallurgical base in the south of the country and in the regions of Kuzbass and the Urals, required the training of new, highly qualified contingents of technical specialists.

It was precisely for this reason that the XVII Party Congress determined that “the decisive condition for carrying out technical reconstruction, mastering technology, and fulfilling the tasks for labor productivity is the training of qualified technicians and engineers, the solution of the problem of creating our own proletarian production-technical intelligentsia.”^7

The XVII Party Congress established the following concrete task in the matter of providing specialists for the entire national economy. The number of qualified specialists in all branches of the national economy was to be raised from 2.7 million persons to 4 million persons, or by 46.5%, including increasing the number of specialists in industry by 57%, in transport and communications by 60%, and doubling it in agriculture.^8

The intensified growth in personnel training was accompanied by a significant increase in the total amount of capital investment in higher educational institutions. If in 1933 expenditures from the state budget on higher educational institutions amounted to 1,060 million rubles, then in 1937 they amounted to 2,276 million rubles.^9

“Examining the questions of higher technical education,” said G. M. Krzhizhanovsky in his report “The Higher Technical School at a New Stage,” delivered in December 1932, “we are, in essence, approaching the interpretation of the tasks of the cultural revolution at its most responsible stage. There is no doubt that this cultural revolution is most closely connected with the stages of our economic

^7 “The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences, and Plenums of the Central Committee.” Vol. 5, Moscow, 1971, p. 139.

^8 G. Shvarts. Personnel of Specialists of the National Economy in the Second Five-Year Plan. Higher Technical School, 1934, No. 2, p. 91.

^9 Cultural Construction of the USSR. Collection of articles. Moscow, 1956, p. 73.

construction.”^10 The distinctive feature of this new stage in the development of the higher technical school was not only, and not so much, the pace of development as its qualitative shifts, the struggle to establish the most rational system for training highly qualified personnel, so necessary for the comprehensive development of the national economy and culture.

The solution of the new tasks facing the higher technical school depended in many respects on the organization of its administration, which was substantially changed at the very end of the First Five-Year Plan. It was precisely then, by the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of September 19, 1932, “On curricula and the regime in higher schools and technicums,” that an all-Union body appeared in the system of state leadership of the cultural front—the Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.^11 At the end of 1935 the Committee was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR.^12

The decree “On curricula and the regime in higher schools and technicums” marked the beginning of a new stage in the organization of educational, scientific, and methodological work in higher technical educational institutions and in the improvement of leadership over higher technical education in the country.

The Committee for Higher Technical Education was called upon to exercise supervisory and methodological functions with respect to all higher technical educational institutions, both of all-Union and republican subordination, that were within the system of industrial people’s commissariats and departments. The direct administration of all aspects of the life of higher technical institutions remained with the people’s commissariats and departments. Accordingly, the Committee was, in essence, to serve as a coordinating center regulating the affairs of higher vocational education in the country.

The creation of such a two-tier system of leadership over the higher technical school on the eve of the Second Five-Year Plan contributed, on the one hand, to the further resolution of the problem of directly training technical personnel and leaders of the socialist economy by the people’s commissariats and departments themselves in accordance with their needs, and ensured the strengthening of the material and technical base of higher educational institutions; on the other hand, it was intended in practice to preserve the unity of educational and methodological leadership in the training of technical specialist personnel and to strengthen leadership of the higher technical school as a whole.

The Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR began its activity in December 1932 under the leadership of the prominent statesman of our country, the faithful Leninist G. M. Krzhizhanovsky. The Statute on the Committee, approved in 1933, broadly defined its tasks: to establish, in accordance with the requirements of the national economy, the list of specialties; to examine and approve textbooks, curricula, programs, and teaching aids; to approve the network of higher educational institutions; and to exercise systematic state supervision over their activity.

According to the Statute, the Committee was directed by a Presidium, whose members were personally approved by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. During the period of the Committee’s activity, the largest Soviet scholars and figures of science and technology worked as members of its Presidium. Among them, first of all, it is necessary to note A. D. Arkhangelsky, M. I. Aster-

^10 G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, Works, vol. 3, p. 317.
^11 “Collection of Laws and Orders of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of the Union of SSR,” 1932, No. 68, art. 418.
^12 “Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR,” No. 23, p. 2.

man, A. A. Baikov, B. T. Galerkin, I. M. Gubkin, I. A. Likhachev, A. P. Pinkevich, D. I. Pryanishnikov, V. I. Razdobreev, S. G. Strumilin, A. E. Fersman.

The Committee’s working apparatus during the period of its activity included the following structural subdivisions: the Educational-Methodological Administration, the Administration of the Higher Inspectorate (State Inspectorate), the Higher Educational-Methodological Council, the Higher Editorial Council for Educational Literature (later the Council for Educational Literature), the Accounting-and-Planning Administration, and the Administrative-Organizational Administration (later the Administration of Affairs)¹³.

In the apparatuses of the people’s commissariats and departments, the functions of managing higher technical schools were carried out by special subdivisions. In some People’s Commissariats and departments these were Main Administrations (departments) of educational institutions; in others—Administrations (departments) for personnel training; and in still others—special inspectors. Thus, for example, in the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR there operated a Main Administration of Educational Institutions, in which an industrial sector worked for each branch; it carried out all day-to-day operational management of the educational institutions of that branch of industry. Under each such sector there was a branch program-methodological commission. The work of all the commissions was coordinated by the Educational-Methodological Council of the people’s commissariat¹⁴.

The mass movement for higher education, which began after the October Revolution and intensified especially during the years of the First Five-Year Plan, introduced a considerable element of spontaneity into the organization of higher educational institutions. Many educational institutions were organized in the years of the First Five-Year Plan by economic agencies even without government sanction. Pursuing a course toward the development of higher technical educational institutions in accordance with the growing needs of the national economy, the Committee, with the participation of the people’s commissariats and departments, first of all undertook measures to bring order to the network of higher technical educational institutions. Another important task, the solution of which proceeded in parallel, was the consolidation and deepening of specialties.

A rational nomenclature of specialties and a properly placed network of higher technical educational institutions—these were the two levers by which the leadership of higher education turned the technical school onto a new path.

At the beginning of its activity, the Committee had under its jurisdiction the overwhelming majority of the country’s higher educational institutions—535 out of 832¹⁵, with 320 thousand students¹⁶. The colossal quantitative growth of higher education outstripped the possibilities of providing it with a material base. Alongside powerful educational institutions, there also existed in the country dwarf higher educational institutions that had no buildings of their own, no laboratories, and no qualified scientific-pedagogical personnel. The number of students in some of these educational institutions barely exceeded two hundred people.

From the standpoint of material expenditure, the training of personnel in such dwarf higher educational institutions was completely inexpedient. These circumstances confronted the newly organized Committee with the need to review the entire network of higher technical educational institutions, to liquidate weak, unpromising higher technical institutions that had not been materially strengthened, while paying attention to the creation of higher technical educational institutions in national regions and in areas of major construction.

¹³ TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, storage unit 46, fols. 49–50, storage unit 116, fol. 1.
¹⁴ Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 1933, no. 3, p. 17.
¹⁵ G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, Works, vol. 3, p. 322.
¹⁶ K. N. Bukhman, “Higher Technical Educational Institutions of the USSR at the Beginning of the 1935/1936 Academic Year,” Higher Technical School, 1936, no. 2, p. 132.

In accordance with the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR “On curricula and the regime in higher education and technical schools,” this work was initially begun by the People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate (NKRKI). The Committee for Higher Technical Education was also brought into the inspection of higher educational institutions carried out by the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate; its Educational-Planning Administration began studying the question of the territorial distribution of higher technical educational institutions in connection with the distribution of the country’s productive forces and acquainting itself with their material and financial base. The commission of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate inspected 362 higher educational institutions under twenty people’s commissariats, with a student body of 277,488 persons.^17 As a result, precise data were obtained on each inspected institution, its material base, and the availability of professorial and teaching staff.

Having also obtained information, the NKRKI, at special meetings with the participation of representatives of the Committee for Higher Technical Education and the people’s commissariats, decided the question of the further existence of each of the 362 higher educational institutions. As a result of this work, 280 higher educational institutions were retained, with a student body of 265,459 persons.^18 The remaining institutions were merged or liquidated. This review affected only part of the country’s higher educational institutions, the total number of which by the beginning of 1933 already amounted to more than 700 educational establishments, with 500,000 students.^19

In working on the network of higher technical educational institutions in its quantitative aspect, the Committee proceeded along two paths. First, it promoted the organization of new higher technical educational institutions. Second, it liquidated certain higher technical institutions—chiefly weak and undersized ones that had no prospects for development—and merged parallel and related institutions. Thus, for example, the merger carried out in December 1932 of three economic higher educational institutions of the Belorussian SSR—the financial, planning, and cooperative institutes—into a single Belorussian Institute of National Economy had a decisive influence on improving the quality of training of specialists of this qualification for that republic.

The Committee adopted a course toward creating strong, multi-faculty institutes by combining several higher technical educational institutions into a single industrial or polytechnical institute. The latter was to produce a highly competent engineer for socialist construction. Industrial and polytechnical higher technical institutions were created mainly in large industrial centers and were under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. The first of them, the Transcaucasian Industrial Institute, was created in November 1933. It united three sectoral institutes—construction, power engineering, and mining-chemical. From that moment onward, the process of merging higher technical institutions proceeded under the Committee’s direction at all times.

The leading principles underlying the review of the network of higher technical institutions were the following: the size of the institution and the tendencies of its development, the place of the institution in the entire system of higher technical institutions of the given branch of industry, the quality of the institution’s work, the availability of professorial and teaching staff, and the state of the material and production base.

The process of consolidating higher technical institutions in 1933–1934 and the first half of 1935 affected all people’s commissariats and departments that had technical and agricultural institutes under their jurisdiction. Thus, for example, the number of higher educational institutions of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR, which accounted for the greater part of them, decreased at the beginning of 1933 from 145 to 115, and by the start of the 1935–1936 academic year amounted to only 84. The strongest changes—

^17 “On the Results of the Review of the Network of Higher Educational Institutions” — Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 1933, no. 2, p. 28.
^18 Ibid.
^19 Ibid.

…took place within the system of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, under whose jurisdiction there proved to be higher educational institutions of an extremely specialized orientation. Instead of 122 higher educational institutions at the beginning of 1933, by the autumn of 1935 there remained 72 higher educational institutions^20.

As a result of the work carried out by the Committee, and also by the People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, to review the network of higher technical educational institutions, their number was markedly reduced. If at the time the Committee was organized there were 535 higher technical educational institutions, then at the beginning of 1933 there were 481, at the beginning of 1934—357, and at the beginning of the 1935–1936 academic year—282^21.

Thus, the concentration of the network took place through the liquidation of low-capacity higher technical educational institutions and the creation of industrial and polytechnical ones. This process was accompanied by only a slight reduction in the contingent of students in higher technical educational institutions, from 320 thousand to 300 thousand.^22

As a result, the network of educational institutions in the country for the 1935–1936 academic year amounted to 688 higher educational institutions^23.

The Committee, while strengthening the network of higher technical educational institutions, carried out extensive work to review the nomenclature of specialties in them. In 1932, in the country’s technical higher educational institutions, future cadres were being trained in 900 specialties^24. Such a number of specialties was caused by the colossal demand for specialists needed by the national economy, which had embarked on the path of full-scale socialist construction. The prospects for its further development required the enlargement of specialization as the basis on which high-quality training of engineers, agronomists, and economists could be established. Socialist industry increasingly demanded from higher education not narrow specialists, but specialists with a broad scientific outlook. Hence followed the need for a new approach by the Committee to the nomenclature of specialties; its radical restructuring in accordance with the prospects of the national economy was called for.

In solving this problem, the Committee first of all concentrated its attention on drawing up a comprehensive plan for cadres of the highest qualification. This work was carried out with the active participation of all people’s commissariats and departments, which were asked, in a preliminary manner, to develop the basic indicators for the higher technical school (the nomenclature of specialties, admissions, graduations, and student contingent). These indicators were carefully examined by the Committee with the participation of Gosplan of the USSR.

Already in 1933 the Committee reduced the number of specialties in higher educational institutions by more than half. In industrial-technical higher educational institutions alone, up to September 1932 students had been trained in 583 specialties, while in 1933 only 275 of them remained^25. In agriculture, instead of the 91 specialties that had existed in 1932, 11 were left^26.

At the first stage, the review of specialties was carried out by individual people’s commissariats and departments. Therefore parallel specialties were left in place, which wholly or partly duplicated one another. In 1935 the Committee again reviewed the nomenclature of specialties, but this time it set the task of creating an interdepartmental nomenclature of specialties. Throughout 1935 the Committee was engaged in this—

^20 G. Vesman, “The Network of Higher Educational Institutions of the USSR and Its Distribution,” Vysshaya tekhnicheskaya shkola, 1935, no. 9, p. 10.
^21 TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, storage unit 37, sheet 21.
^22 K. N. Bukhanin, “Higher Educational Institutions of the USSR at the Beginning of the 1935–1936 Academic Year,” Vysshaya tekhnicheskaya shkola, 1936, no. 2, p. 132.
^23 Cultural Construction of the USSR. Statistical collection. Moscow, 1956, p. 201.
^24 TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, storage unit 37, sheet 18.
^25 TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, storage unit 37, sheet 19.
^26 A. P. Pankevich, “Two Years,” Vysshaya tekhnicheskaya shkola, 1934, no. 2, p. 6.

painstaking work in this direction, the draft of such a nomenclature is discussed and refined. In November 1935 it is approved¹.

The nature of the work carried out by the Committee becomes evident if one takes the figures for certain individual groups of specialties approved as early as the first half of 1935. Thus, in machine building there remained 28 specialty profiles instead of 49; in power engineering—15 instead of 30; in construction—9 instead of 19; in transport—29 instead of 37; in economics—5 instead of 10, and so on².

As a result of the revision of specialties, their number by the beginning of the 1935–1936 academic year amounted to 109 types³.

It is quite natural that work on the nomenclature of specialties entailed significant changes in the structure of textbooks and teaching aids, and changed the relative weight of general-scientific and special disciplines in higher technical educational institutions. It confronted the Committee with the need to substantially reorganize curricula and programs.

Despite the existence of a certain turning point in the regime of higher education, which resulted from the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of September 19, 1932, the quality of instruction itself had improved only slightly. It was precisely for this reason that the Committee took up in earnest the questions of preparing educational institutions for the new academic year, compiling textbooks, syllabi, and curricula, organizing its work on the basis of close ties with the people’s commissariats and publishing houses.

In revising curricula and programs, the first problem that the Committee began to solve was the elimination of excessive multiplicity of subjects in higher educational institutions and the unification of artificially fragmented disciplines. On May 8, 1933, the Presidium of the Committee adopted a special resolution “On the principles and procedure for drawing up curricula”⁴. According to this resolution, the role of curricula was not limited to planning the academic life of higher technical educational institutions. The new curricula were to establish the teaching methodology, provide a basis for the operational work of higher education, and thus determine the entire system of training specialists.

Within the Committee’s system this work was carried out by the branch sectors of the Educational-Methodological Administration and by the Higher Educational-Methodological Council. The fruitful activity of the latter, especially beginning in the summer of 1933, contributed to the organization of methodological work in higher educational institutions. The Higher Educational-Methodological Council, supervising the methodological activity of higher educational institutions, held special conferences and organized reports on questions of methodological work. The Moscow professorial community, in particular, highly valued this activity of the Higher Educational-Methodological Council, for it effectively exposed shortcomings in the teaching of various disciplines, revealed methodological inconsistencies, and promoted the exchange of experience in methodological work among higher educational institutions.

To solve particular problems in the organization of teaching and scientific-research work in higher technical educational institutions, and in the review of curricula, programs, and textbooks, the Committee designated a special group of key higher educational institutions. They served as the scientific-research base for the system of higher technical education, which was entrusted with the theoretical and experimental development of methodological questions of the higher technical school. Periodically the Committee approved such a list of key higher educational institutions. Thus, for example, by a resolution of the Presidium of the Com—

of the Committee of January 2, 1934, the following core higher educational institutions were designated: the Bauman Moscow Mechanical-Machine-Building Institute, the Mendeleev Moscow Chemical-Technological Institute, the Leningrad Electromechanical Institute, the Kharkov Electrotechnical Institute, the Sverdlovsk Mining Institute, the Kazan Veterinary Institute, and others.^31

In contact with the Committee, a number of public technical organizations of that period reviewed the principal questions of teaching methodology, assisting in the compilation and testing of programs, plans, and textbooks. Among them one may note the work of the All-Union Scientific Engineering-Technical Society of Machine Specialists and Designers, the All-Union Scientific Engineering-Technical Society of Concrete Workers, and a number of others. The Committee attached great importance to the practical participation of such organizations in the methodological work of the higher technical school.

During the first two years of the Committee’s work, hundreds of curricula and programs were approved. These were stable curricula and programs, which did not suffer from excessive detail. On the contrary, in drawing them up the principal aim was to give the teacher the possibility of free, creative initiative, limited by only one condition: to give students the maximum of knowledge, to introduce them to the latest achievements of science and technology.

The curricula and programs for the corresponding specialties approved by the Committee, in turn, linked theory with practice into a single educational-methodological process, subordinating students’ industrial practice to the corresponding theoretical courses.

The foundations of this practice were also developed within the Committee’s system; clear organizational instructions for its conduct were formulated in the corresponding resolutions of the Presidium of the Committee of May 23 and December 8, 1933.^32 In accordance with these resolutions, higher technical educational institutions concluded agreements with enterprises, under which both sides assumed practical obligations to improve industrial practice and diploma design work.

The Committee also deserves great credit for developing special curricula and programs for students studying without leaving production. The training of specialists by correspondence education was the newest and at the same time the most disordered and backward sector of higher education. The mass expansion of the network of correspondence technical institutes, which began in the country during the first five-year plan, led to the formation of an entire network of correspondence higher educational institutions and their departments. It was planned by the end of the five-year plan to train 80,000 specialists by correspondence instruction and to cover 20% of the need for industrial personnel.^33 However, the system of correspondence education did not cope with the task that had been set.

The main obstacle to the implementation of this plan was the absence of curricula, programs, and teaching aids for this category of students. The young state had no experience whatsoever in training personnel in this way. As a result, correspondence education had a substantial dropout rate among students.

Seeking to correct the situation that had arisen, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR on October 27, 1933, adopted a special resolution “On the Training

^31 TsGAOR, f. 8060, op. 1, st. chr. 15, l. 5.
^32 A. M. Ershov, “Weak Link of the Educational Process,” Higher Technical School, 1935, No. 6, pp. 16–17.
^33 G. Kirillov, “Correspondence Training,” Higher Technical School, 1934, No. 2, p. 172.

specialists without interrupting production.”^34 By this resolution the Committee was charged with developing the nomenclature of specialties for correspondence education, as well as with creating educational-methodological literature.

The Committee, exercising control over the quality of the training of technical personnel without interrupting production, managed to take the first and very successful steps. Thanks to the Committee’s activity, only viable correspondence institutes were left under the jurisdiction of the people’s commissariats. Special commissions of the Higher Educational-Methodological Council conducted inspections of this network of technical higher educational institutions, and helped to change the form of correspondence instruction, which was moving from self-education to subject-cycle instruction. Correspondence higher technical educational institutions received their first stable teaching aids, plans, and programs.

As a result, by 1935, out of the total mass of students (300 thousand) studying without interrupting production, there were already 19,000 persons, i.e., about 7%.^35 This achievement was to a great extent due to the Committee.

In the second five-year plan period, the question of renewing almost the entire stock of textbooks and teaching aids also became acute. This work was complicated by a number of circumstances. Until 1933, educational literature for higher educational institutions was created without any plan, by drift. As a result, some disciplines proved to be oversaturated with parallel textbooks, while in other areas a vacuum arose. In most cases textbooks were created as scholarly treatises and corresponded little to methodological requirements.

Questions of educational literature in the Committee were handled by the Textbook Sector, which operated within the Educational-Methodological Administration, and from June 1934 by a special collegial body attached to the Presidium of the Committee—the Higher Editorial Council for Educational Literature, which was later replaced by the Council for Educational Literature.

A practice was introduced whereby literature in the general sciences and general technical subjects was studied and approved by the Committee, while specialized literature was studied and approved by the people’s commissariats and departments. Control functions in this matter remained with the Committee, which attempted to coordinate this sphere of its activity with the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR and the People’s Commissariat of Health of the USSR, which also had higher educational institutions under their jurisdiction. The Committee enlisted qualified specialists and prominent representatives of science and technology in the publication of educational literature.

The first step that introduced a certain order into the publication of textbooks for higher technical schools was the work carried out in the spring of 1933 by the Committee together with the people’s commissariats. As a result, the most suitable educational literature was identified, both from what had been issued earlier and from what was in the “portfolios” of publishing houses.

Subsequently, the Committee began to plan the output of literature, defining the specific responsibilities of the people’s commissariats and publishing houses in this matter. The transition to a system of planning (including thematic and long-term planning) in the field of textbook publication raised the question of their authorship. It was necessary, alongside the old qualified authors, to identify and make use of new and young forces. Therefore, in 1934 the Committee for the first time organized and announced a competition for stable textbooks.

All these measures of the Committee contributed to putting the publication of textbooks for higher educational institutions in order. It very quickly proved possible to move away from disorderly—

^34 Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 1933, No. 11, p. 5.
^35 TsGAOR, fond 8060, op. 1, archival unit 56, fol. 1.

the planned nature and diversity that had existed in the preparation of educational literature for higher educational institutions before the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of November 19, 1933, to a certain unity and to establish its planned publication. For example, the plan for publishing educational literature for 1934 was almost fully carried out (227 textbooks and 249 teaching aids)³⁶.

However, the Committee’s experience in this area during its first two years showed that the participation of several different organizations in directing the supply of educational literature to higher technical educational institutions did not justify itself. The People’s Commissariats took only a very weak part in this work, leaving both the concern and the responsibility for it, on the one hand, to the Committee and, on the other, to the publishing houses. Complete helplessness in this matter was displayed, for example, by the People’s Commissariat of Land Affairs of the USSR and the People’s Commissariat of Communications of the USSR; and in the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR even the subdivision that had previously been responsible for preparing and reviewing textbooks in special disciplines was abolished. All work on issuing educational literature was transferred to the publishing houses.

In turn, the work of a number of publishing houses issuing educational literature was complicated by the fact that they did not have their own printing plants, or printing plants wholly assigned to them. This was one of the main reasons for delays in the publication of textbooks.

The situation was most favorable with general scientific and general technical literature, work on which was carried out by the Committee itself; therefore, by the beginning of the 1935–1936 academic year, for students in the lower years of higher educational institutions, essentially high-quality and, most importantly, stable textbooks had been created—something that cannot be said of the creation of educational literature in special technical disciplines.

Overall, by this period textbooks had been provided for 36% of all higher-education disciplines³⁷.

The Committee’s activity helped improve the provision of higher technical educational institutions with educational literature. At the same time, this problem required further resolution. It was necessary to raise the responsibility of the People’s Commissariats and to organize work in this area more clearly.

For the Committee, as a new all-Union organization called upon to exercise systematic control over the training of technical personnel, it was important to establish a living connection with educational institutions so that, through direct observation and not merely through reports from People’s Commissariats and departments, it could monitor the activity of educational institutions. In the existing system of administration of higher technical education, the body charged with carrying out this task was the Administration of Higher Inspection (State Inspectorate), consisting of state inspectors appointed by the Presidium of the Committee. The Committee set the task, through the inspectorate, of bringing the administration of higher technical schools closer to specific educational institutions.

The Administration of Higher Inspection, in accordance with the approved Statute concerning it, exercised systematic control over the organization of all educational and scientific activity in higher technical educational institutions and over the guidance of them by the industrial People’s Commissariats and departments, by means of periodic inspections. In only two and a half years of the work of this administration, 100 such inspections were conducted in the center and in the localities³⁸. The main types of inspections were thematic and comprehensive. They enabled the Committee, in each specific case, to signal negative phenomena in the life of the higher technical school and to issue the corresponding instructions, obligatory both for the People’s Commissariats and departments and for the educational institutions.

³⁶ TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, file 116, sheet 1.
³⁷ TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, file 128, sheet 135.
³⁸ TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, file 63, sheet 46.

It was not uncommon that, in carrying out control functions, other subdivisions of the Committee also worked together with the State Inspectorate, depending on precisely which questions were subject to inspection.

The guiding line in the work of the Committee’s inspectorate was inspections of a single higher educational institution or of a small group of higher educational institutions, which helped to study questions of a general nature on the basis of particular experience. Such an in-depth study of the activity of higher educational institutions entailed a detailed discussion of the questions under investigation at meetings, in the Presidium of the Committee, after which instructions were issued and resolutions of the Committee were published.

Already the first steps of the State Inspectorate popularized the Committee, strengthening its ties with the higher technical educational institutions. Much credit for the work of the inspectorate belonged to its head, the prominent statesman N. I. Podvoisky.

In the initial period of its work, the inspectorate concentrated its investigations exclusively on Moscow technical institutes. They helped to reveal the true situation in a number of the country’s leading institutes and provided extensive material for resolving such then-current questions in the work of higher educational institutions as preparation for the academic year and the drawing up of curricula and programs, the study of the list of specialties, the course of examination sessions, the work of postgraduate studies, and so on. At the same time, these investigations made it possible to establish, through direct and lively communication with the workers of the higher technical educational institutions themselves, the validity and expediency of the Committee’s first measures concerning the higher technical school.

The questions of the work of higher technical educational institutions listed above continued to attract the close attention of the inspectorate thereafter as well; their state was checked not only at the center but also locally. The numerous decisions of the Presidium of the Committee adopted on the basis of investigations of the country’s higher technical educational institutions testified to the measures by which the Committee strove to introduce qualitative changes into the work of the higher technical school. Primary attention was paid to the organization of the educational process, the state of the material and technical base, the provision of higher technical educational institutions with qualified teaching personnel, and the work of the bodies of people’s commissariats and departments that exercised direct supervision over higher technical educational institutions.

Thanks to the painstaking work of the Committee’s State Inspectorate, for example, the educational process stabilized and research work revived at the Moscow Bauman Mechanical-Machine-Building Institute; the scientific laboratories of the Moscow Textile Institute were improved; academic performance rose at the Rostov Institute of Railway Transport; the entire activity of the Dnepropetrovsk Mining Institute, the Forestry Technical Institute in the Volga region, the Michurinsk Fruit-and-Vegetable Institute, and a number of others changed fundamentally.

The method of comprehensive and in-depth investigation of higher technical educational institutions enabled the Committee’s State Inspectorate also to check the quality of the supervision of higher technical educational institutions by people’s commissariats and departments. At the same time, special inspections were also practiced of the work of the Main Administrations (departments) of educational institutions and of the Administrations (departments) for personnel training in people’s commissariats and departments.

They revealed the general picture of the state of affairs in the training of technical personnel in individual branches of the national economy, characterized the level and degree of participation of economic bodies in resolving current questions of the higher technical school, and contributed in practice to the coordination of higher professional education in the country. On the basis of the materials of investigations, the Committee, within the limits of its competence, gave the corresponding people’s commissariats and departments instructions on questions of improving the supervision of higher technical educational institutions and the training of technical specialists.

Thus, for example, an inspection of the Personnel Training Department of the Central Road Transport Administration revealed shortcomings in the planning of personnel training for motor transport. In this agency, the training of future road-transport specialists proceeded only with its own needs in mind, while the needs of other branches of the national economy were ignored. Under the Committee’s leadership this practice in the Central Road Transport Administration was revised, the Personnel Training Department was reorganized, and the material base of the higher educational institutions of this agency was improved.

The inspection of the Personnel Training Administration of the People’s Commissariat of Communal Economy contributed to eliminating shortcomings in the training of specialists for the communal economy of the RSFSR. As a result of the inspection, an order was issued in this people’s commissariat, in accordance with which regulations on the Personnel Training Administration were drafted, the staff of its employees was strengthened, the long-term plans for training specialists were revised, and methodological work in the higher educational institutions of the people’s commissariat was improved.

It may be regarded as entirely indisputable that, thanks to the Committee’s activity, the leadership of the higher technical school drew significantly closer to the technical higher educational institutions. The Committee, by coordinating and stimulating the work of the people’s commissariats and agencies in directing the higher technical school, helped to resolve, with their assistance, many issues of higher technical education. The economic bodies became better acquainted with their higher technical educational institutions and their needs.

If in such people’s commissariats as the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR and the People’s Commissariat of Railways of the USSR the leadership of higher educational institutions stood at a relatively high level, then in a number of others—the People’s Commissariat of Light Industry, the People’s Commissariat of the Timber Industry, Centrosoyuz, Aeroflot, and so on—there were serious shortcomings. As a result of inspections, the Committee was repeatedly forced to state that there was disorder, lack of administrative discipline, and an inability to organize the work. This was the case with questions of preparation for the academic year, the creation of stable textbooks, capital construction, the equipping of laboratories, and a number of other tasks of the higher technical school.

A distinctive feature of the two-tier system of leadership over higher technical education was that, while receiving funds for personnel training from the state budget, higher technical educational institutions also had substantial financial assistance from the economic bodies under whose jurisdiction they were placed. This situation contributed to a very considerable strengthening of the material and technical base of higher technical educational institutions, whose condition in many respects predetermined the level and quality of the training of technical personnel. The State Inspectorate therefore devoted the closest attention to this question throughout the entire period of its activity.

By the beginning of the 1934–1935 academic year, for example, the Inspectorate carried out a broad inspection of the state of capital construction, which made it possible to trace the state of affairs with the equipping of higher educational institutions as well. It covered thirty-eight higher technical educational institutions under fourteen people’s commissariats and was conducted in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Gorky, Kazan, Dnepropetrovsk, Sverdlovsk, Omsk, Irkutsk, Tbilisi, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, and a number of other cities.

The inspections carried out enabled the Committee to conclude that the expenditures of industrial people’s commissariats and agencies on the construction and equipping of higher technical educational institutions were generally increasing. This was especially characteristic of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry and the People’s Commissariat of Railways, under whose jurisdiction the country’s leading industrial-technical higher educational institutions were concentrated. For the period from 1930 to 1935, appropriations for higher technical educational institutions under the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry amounted to 230 million rubles, and under the People’s Commissariat of Railways—

81 million rubles.^39 Allocations for capital construction and equipment for individual higher technical educational institutions were increasing. Thus, for example, in 1934 the Moscow Institute of Chemical Machine Building received from the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR more than one million rubles for construction and equipment;^40 the Leningrad Forestry Engineering Academy received 950 thousand rubles from the People’s Commissariat of the Timber Industry of the USSR.^41

Thus, for this period in the development of the higher technical school, qualitative growth and improvement of its material equipment were characteristic. Newly constructed buildings for instructional facilities and dormitories were being put into operation, and the laboratory base was being strengthened. This, in turn, significantly increased the cost of educating students and, naturally, improved the quality of specialist training. If in 1932, in the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry, 1,218 rubles were spent on the education of one student, then in 1935 the figure was 3,210 rubles.^42

At the same time, surveys showed that there were substantial shortcomings in the organization of capital construction and the equipping of higher technical educational institutions. Often the people’s commissariats, having transferred funds to the higher technical educational institutions, limited themselves to that. As a result, there was a gap between the plan for training personnel and the design of new instructional and residential buildings for the higher technical educational institutions. Frequently there were no general plans or general cost estimates for a number of construction projects; funds were dispersed among a large number of building sites and were used very unevenly; cases of construction projects being mothballed were not uncommon.

Surveys of capital construction, as well as a series of comprehensive inspections of higher technical educational institutions, shed light on the condition of their equipment. Higher technical educational institutions of such people’s commissariats as, for example, the People’s Commissariat of the Food Industry of the RSFSR, the People’s Commissariat of Local Industry of the RSFSR, the People’s Commissariat of Finance of the USSR, and also individual higher technical educational institutions of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR, were still insufficiently provided with laboratories, scientific study rooms, and educational auxiliary workshops.

The work carried out by the State Inspectorate made it possible to study the condition of the material and technical base of the higher technical educational institutions, to identify “bottlenecks,” to analyze the reasons for their emergence, and ultimately to inform the people’s commissariats and agencies, as well as the government, on urgent questions of the development of the higher technical school.

Thus, for example, information on questions of the organization of capital construction was sent to the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR. A number of people’s commissariats received summary reports on the condition of the laboratory base. In a memorandum by N. I. Podvoisky addressed to the People’s Commissar of Heavy Industry, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, it was noted, in particular, that there was an absence in the country of “specialized production facilities for the manufacture of scientific, research, and instructional apparatus for higher educational institutions.” N. I. Podvoisky further wrote that “the existing production facilities are extremely reluctant to undertake orders from educational institutions for the construction of various instruments, machine tools, or machines, which is why higher educational institutions are forced to produce them by handicraft methods.”^43

As a result of the work of the State Inspectorate, the situation with the laboratory base was changed to a certain extent. According to the reg—

^39 A. N. Pronin, “Capital Construction,” Vysshaya tekhnicheskaya shkola, 1935, no. 1, pp. 17–18.
^40 E. Markhaev, “Checking Readiness,” Vysshaya tekhnicheskaya shkola, 1934, no. 2, p. 157.
^41 Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 1935, no. 15, p. 14.
^42 V. V. Ukraintsev, The CPSU—the Organizer of the Revolutionary Transformation of Higher Education. Moscow, 1963, p. 220.
^43 TsGAOR, fond 8060, inventory 1, storage unit 83, fol. 17.

By order of G. K. Ordzhonikidze, new models of equipment prepared by domestic plants were transferred to the laboratories of higher technical educational institutions.

In order to resolve issues of the development of higher technical educational institutions as promptly and fully as possible, the Committee repeatedly addressed its requests and proposals to Party and state bodies and demanded timely and effective measures on the part of people’s commissariats and departments to improve the work of higher technical educational institutions.

As a result of repeated inspections of the Polytechnic Institute and the Institute of National Economy of the Byelorussian SSR, in particular, the material position of these institutes was strengthened. The budget of the Polytechnic Institute alone grew from 3,837,808 rubles in 1934 to 5,643,030 rubles in 1935.^44 In these institutes, instructional and methodological leadership improved; they were reinforced with qualified professorial and teaching staff; and the training of young specialists was successfully carried out in accordance with the prospects for the development of the republic’s national economy. The timely practical resolution of these questions was also a consequence of the fact that the Committee placed them before the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Byelorussia and the Council of People’s Commissars of Byelorussia and received corresponding assistance. At the same time, the Committee coordinated questions concerning the development of the above-mentioned institutes with the State Planning Committee of the BSSR and the People’s Commissariat of Local Industry, and appealed for assistance to the Union people’s commissariats.

On more than one occasion, when inspecting higher technical educational institutions, the State Inspectorate found support from Party bodies. Thus, during the inspection of the Ural Industrial-Technical Institute, the inspectorate worked in close contact with the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee. Noting the satisfactory work of this institute and the successful training of cadres of young specialists, the Committee set the task of further developing this promising higher technical educational institution. In its resolution on the inspectorate’s report, the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee defined the task of further developing the institute as follows: “The rise of UII (the Ural Industrial-Technical Institute) in the second five-year plan to the level of the Leningrad Industrial Institute must become the work of the hands of the entire Sverdlovsk Party organization and of economic managers.”^45

Such a formulation of the question fully corresponded to the requirements presented to Party organizations by the Central Committee of the VKP(b) and expressed in the resolution “On the Novocherkassk Institute.”^46 In this resolution the Central Committee of the VKP(b) set before Party committees, regional committees, and the Central Committees of the national Communist parties the task of decisively increasing attention to questions of higher education.

Thus, in its practical work the Committee sought to resolve the basic problems of the development of higher technical educational institutions with the assistance of Party and state bodies and with the active participation of people’s commissariats and departments. Such joint resolution of many questions of higher technical education led to their successful implementation in practice.

The gigantic scale of socialist construction and the deepening of the cultural revolution at the end of the second five-year plan led to the need to coordinate the work of all higher educational institutions in the country. There arose a need for further improvement and organization of leadership over higher technical education, which had certain shortcomings. First of all, it was necessary to overcome the lag of theory behind practice that became evident during the period of the Stakhanovite movement—

^44 “Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR,” 1935, No. 12, p. 6.
^45 I. Podvoisky. “Higher Technical Educational Institutions of the Urals under Inspection,” Higher Technical School, 1934, No. 4, p. 117.
^46 Higher Technical School, 1934, No. 2, p. 3.

...in the country, to organize the publication of stable textbooks for higher technical educational institutions, and to raise the level of leadership of higher technical educational institutions on the part of the people’s commissariats and departments.

Since the transfer of higher educational institutions to economic bodies, organizational unity had not been fully maintained in the system of leadership of the higher technical school. In some people’s commissariats and departments, as indicated above, management functions were carried out by Administrations (Departments) for Personnel Training; in others, by Main Administrations (Departments) of Educational Institutions; in still others, simply by inspectors. This circumstance introduced a certain lack of uniformity in resolving issues of higher technical education, especially since the capabilities of the well-organized apparatus of the Main Administration of Educational Institutions were significantly greater than those of individual inspectors. Moreover, people’s commissars and their deputies often entirely and without control delegated the leadership of these administrations and inspectors. There were also cases when the Committee, in examining and verifying the work of the people’s commissariats and departments from the standpoint of fulfilling the directives of the Party and the government on questions of higher technical education, substituted itself for the operational work of the economic bodies.

In May 1935, in order to develop measures for the further improvement of the entire system of training young qualified specialists, a special commission on higher-school questions was organized under the Central Committee of the VKP(b). By assignment of the Party, this commission was headed by A. A. Zhdanov. The commission carried out a thorough inspection of a significant part of Soviet higher educational institutions in the center and in the periphery. As a result, a large body of factual material was collected, characterizing the state of personnel training in the country. According to the conclusion of the commission of the Central Committee of the VKP(b), the network of higher educational institutions in the country was recognized as stable and, in its structure and in the condition of its material and instructional base, approaching the requirements of a normal higher school.

The materials of the commission then formed the basis of the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the VKP(b) of June 23, 1936, “On the Work of Higher Educational Institutions and the Leadership of the Higher School.”⁵ Somewhat earlier, in accordance with the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR of May 21, 1936, for the purpose of unifying and directing the entire work of higher education in the country, instead of the Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, a new all-Union body was established—the Committee for Higher Education under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR.⁶

The activity of the Committee for Higher Technical Education contributed to significant changes in the work of the higher technical school. As a result of the ordering of the nomenclature of specialties, the improvement of curricula and programs, and the enhancement of industrial practice, the training of young specialists was raised to the level required by the tasks of socialist construction. During the years of the second five-year plan, higher technical educational institutions supplied the country with 134.4 thousand engineers, whereas during the years of the first five-year plan 67.7 thousand had been trained.⁷ In terms of the rate of training engineering personnel, the Soviet higher technical school reached first place in the world; the composition of the technical intelligentsia was fundamentally changed.

The Committee for Higher Technical Education accumulated extensive and valuable experience in practical work, so necessary for the further improvement of the training of highly qualified—

various cadres of specialists. The foundations of the higher technical school and of its educational system were laid.

The activity of the Committee for Higher Technical Education during the years of the Second Five-Year Plan demonstrated the necessity, expediency, and vitality of centralized leadership in the sphere of culture in its separate branches. The work of this Committee was a significant step in the final formation of the Soviet system of administration of higher education.

1. TsGAOR, fond 8060, op. 1, storage unit 59, sheet 1. ↩

2. V. I. Razdobreev, “Prospects for Forthcoming Work,” Vysshaya tekhnicheskaya shkola, 1935, no. 3, p. 9. ↩

3. TsGAOR, fond 8060, op. 1, storage unit 59, sheet 1. ↩

4. Bulletin of the All-Union Committee for Higher Technical Education under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 1933, no. 4, p. 8. ↩

5. Collection of Laws of the USSR, 1936, No. 34, p. 368. ↩

6. Collection of Laws of the USSR, 1936, No. 27, p. 250. ↩

7. Cultural Construction of the USSR. Statistical collection, Moscow, 1956, p. 216. ↩