The 'Great Retreat' - Education in Stalin's Russia

Education under Lenin and the Early Bolsheviks

They wanted to reject bourgeois standards

In Education this led to attack on book learning and traditional acedemic subjects

Textbooks were thrown away, exams abolished, schools opened on limited days

Young People encouraged to learn trades and engage in activities of a practical value

Eduacation under Stalin

Stalin believed this had gone too far

In order to modernise Russia the population, especially the young, needed to be literate

Young people were entering the workplace without vasic skills in reading and writing

Evidence that Education encourged children to be loyal to the soviet state

Discipline essential for young people 

Soviet youth organisations - Komosomol (Communist Union of Youth) reinforced message in publications

Komosomolskaia Pavada instructed children to 'respect and love your parents even if they are old-fashioned and do not like the Komosomol

Pavlik Morozov- became the soviet government example, supposedly killed by Kulaks at the age of 14 but was a perfect child, hard-working, obiedient, went to school. An example to follow

Parents were expected to teach their children to respect the government and euthasiastically embrace their…