The fight against illiteracy in the 20s. How they fought against illiteracy in Soviet Russia. Party control over spiritual life
In the spring of 1918, after the conclusion of peace with the Germans, the German ambassador Count Mirbach arrived in Moscow. As expected, he arrived at the Kremlin to introduce himself to the head of government. The sentry near Vladimir Ilyich's office was sitting and reading something, but with such enthusiasm that he not only did not get up, but did not even raise his eyes to the ambassador. Leaving, the diplomat saw the same picture. This time he stopped near the sentry, took the book from him and asked the interpreter to name it. It was Bebel's work Woman and Socialism. Mirbach silently returned the book.
Of course, there is nothing commendable in the behavior of the sentry, and some foreigners did not miss the opportunity to mock at such scenes. But the critics, Mirbach in particular, did not understand one thing: the thirst for knowledge that gripped the people who first gained access to the book, education.
Illiteracy of the population of tsarist Russia
Yes, our country gave humanity Lomonosov and Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Mendeleev and Pavlov, Glinka and Tchaikovsky, Repin and Chaliapin... But whose genius was their property, who knew them in their homeland? A tiny minority. High achievements of the spirit and mind side by side with the blatant lack of culture of the masses
On the eve of the revolution in Russia there were only 91 universities. But 78,790 churches and monasteries flourished. There are 112 thousand people with higher education throughout the country - and 211,540 priests and monks. One library book - for fifteen people. One out of forty received the newspaper.
And who was to read? In the last population census before October, the question "Where did you get your education?" contained eloquent subparagraphs: "a) at home, b) at the clerk's, c) at the parochial school, d) at the soldier's". Three-quarters of Russia was painted with a cross.
The political turn to led to not only an economic, but also a cultural revolution. Lenin proclaimed: all the conquests of the human mind - education, science, technology, art - to the working people! Everything for them, everything in which they have been robbed for centuries!
This was also the program of the party and government. Here, as in no other case, the common expression is literally applicable: “we started with the basics.”
Decree on the Elimination of Illiteracy
At the end of the nineteenth year of the front, the government issues the famous decree on the eradication of illiteracy, declaring a political task of paramount importance: to teach the entire population aged 8 to 50 to read and write.
To carry out the decree, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Elimination of Illiteracy and its local branches - from provinces to volosts - are being established as a sign of the times. Later, a mass society “Down with illiteracy” appeared, headed by M.I. Kalinin.
Fight for literacy
The People's Commissariat of Education was granted the right, in the manner of labor service, to recruit the more or less educated population for the education of the illiterate. All organizations of workers joined the movement “for educational program”: party cells, trade unions, Komsomol, women's commissions, wide circles of the people's intelligentsia, prominent figures of socialist culture, starting with Gorky, joined; The army of many thousands of cult soldiers consisted of high school students and schoolchildren, teachers, doctors and engineers, employees and workers of various enterprises and institutions, army political staff - all the literate considered themselves mobilized to fight for literacy.
There are teachers; the people are pouring in droves to the points of educational program. But there are no primers, visual aids, and all improvised, home-made means are used, especially in the countryside. Cut out letters, numbers from newspapers, old books, make up the alphabet. Mayakovsky writes the “Soviet alphabet”, for each letter - a couplet of this kind: “Voronezh was taken. Uncle, drop it, otherwise you'll drop it! There are no notebooks - they write on old wallpaper, on wrapping paper, on a wooden board. Instead of ink - oven soot diluted in water, beetroot broth, berry infusion ... Feathers - goose, pointed splinter, a piece of charcoal.
A literacy school was also created for junior service personnel of government auxiliary services. Vladimir Ilyich expressed the wish that illiteracy be eliminated first of all on the territory of the Kremlin. All those who needed it unanimously enrolled in the school: workers of the commandant's office and household units, canteen attendants, hospital nurses, laundresses, couriers. Lenin came to the opening of the classes.
In 1906, the journal "Bulletin of Education" calculated that it was possible to completely get rid of illiteracy in Russia in the following terms: among men - in 180 years, among women - in 300 years, among the peoples of the national outskirts - in 4600 years. The Soviet government corrected this. Already in 1920, educational programs covered 3 million people, and in just the next twenty years, 50 million illiterate and 30 million semi-literate men and women, Russians and many other nationalities, were trained. By 1940, it had become practically a country of continuous literacy.
At first, when a sheet of paper and a pen were of universal value - from the point of educational program to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - it was not easy for an ordinary, children's school. In 1921, one student had an average of 6 sheets of paper per year, one pen for 10 students, one pencil and one notebook for 20 students. However, not only the meager educational base worried both students and teachers.
The school as a social institution was at a great turning point. Whom to teach - it is clear: everyone must be taught! But what and how to teach - here opinions clashed. Vladimir Ilyich also thought a lot about this.
Komsomol worker E. Loginova tells how in 1919 she was invited by Nadezhda Konstantinovna. They sat in the warmest room of the apartment - in the kitchen and drank tea from dried carrots. she asked to see the work plan of the Moscow Committee of the Youth Union and noted that one should not limit oneself to the working environment, it was time to more actively help educate school youth.
We’ll fix things with the school,” Loginova replied, “after all, labor education has gone livelier at school, students, under the influence of the Komsomol members, undertake to clean the premises themselves, wash the floors, and began to take care of the repair of benefits. Of course, there are a lot of barchuks at school, they greatly interfere with work.
Then came Lenin. He sat down at the table, listened at first, and then intervened in the conversation.
Education at school, - he said, addressing the guest, - is a paramount issue, and you are doing the right thing by starting to deal with it, although you are waving something for a long time. Of course, the nobility and barchuks who irritate you should declare a merciless war at school. But the main thing is still not at school. The schoolchild is not given an understanding of the role of electricity in modern advanced industry, and this is our tomorrow! And the factory process as a whole? Ignorance is equal to technical illiteracy. But today's schoolboy is in its mass tomorrow a worker, technician, engineer.
Vladimir Ilyich did not agree with the opinion of those Komsomol members who believed that the factory school of working youth should be made the center of attention, since it gives a good vocational training.
Think, - he said, - can everything be reduced to vocational training? Abandon the general education of all young people, or what? But do you know that this is suspiciously close to bourgeois practice: the working people are given only minimal vocational training and are only “smeared on the lips” with a general education?
As if in the development of this conversation in the twentieth year, he formulated the decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party:
“To recognize as a matter of principle the merging of secondary schools (or their upper classes) with vocational education under two indispensable conditions:
1) mandatory expansion of subjects in vocational schools general education and communism;
2) ensuring immediately and in practice the transition to polytechnic education, using for this purpose any electric station and any suitable plant.
Higher education in the USSR
Simultaneously with the establishment high school general education, the republic needs to start training highly qualified specialists for the socialist national economy, to create its own, people's intelligentsia.
In August of the eighteenth year, the Council of People's Commissars approved the rules for admission to higher educational institutions. They canceled all reactionary obstacles and slingshots to the working people. Now everyone who has reached the age of 16, without distinction of nationality, class and gender, had the right to enter any university and study for free; persons from the environment of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry must be taken in the first place and provided with stipends.
However, radical democratization high school was not enough. The implementation of the decree ran into a serious obstacle. Immediately, at the next autumn admission to universities, it turned out that relatively few applications were received from workers, and even more so from residents of the village - for a simple reason.
Young proletarians were wholeheartedly devoted to ideas, distinguished by courage and self-sacrifice in the war and in the home front, but rarely anyone had an education above the initial one.
Filling out the questionnaire of a delegate to the III Congress of the Komsomol, 20-year-old Pyotr Smorodin answered: member of the Komsomol - since August 1917; main occupation - studied at the factory and worked as a mechanic; military training - 2.5 years at the front, 2 years as a regimental commissar. And in the column "education" he wrote: "rural parochial university."
It was these cursed "universities" that kept most of the boys and girls. And those who dared to sit on the student bench began to drop out, drop out of school, as they were not ready for lectures really at the university level.
And here, in addition to the words “literacy program”, “cultural culture”, “universal education”, “fabzavuch”, which were widely used, a new one was added - a working faculty, a workers' faculty. It turned out to be a remarkable discovery prompted by life itself. At universities, special student faculties began to operate, consisting entirely of the children of the proletariat, who, according to a special program, made up for what they lacked for a successful transition to the main course.
The organization of workers' faculties quickly acquired a mass character. In February 1919, Moscow hosted Grand opening the first workers' faculty at the current Plekhanov Institute of National Economy, and by the end of the year there were already 14; in the twenty-first - 59 in 33 cities, in two-thirds of the country's higher educational institutions.
About a million factory and rural youth went "the way up" for 8-10 years of energetic study at the workers' faculty - the institute. Engineers, economists, agronomists, doctors, teachers, artists, scientists, cadres of the party and governing bodies, they became the beginning, the backbone of the glorious thirty-million-strong Soviet intelligentsia.
The population census conducted in 1920 revealed 54 million illiterates in the country, so the task of eradicating illiteracy was one of the main ones in state policy. public education. In 1923, the All-Russian Voluntary Society "Down with Illiteracy" was organized, headed by M. I. Kalinin. Thousands of points or schools for the elimination of illiteracy (literacy programs) were maintained at the expense of the society.
Along with the elimination of illiteracy, the propaganda tasks of consolidating the communist ideology among the masses were also solved. This work was supervised by Glavpolitprosvet. Since 1923, the network of workers' clubs, reading huts, and libraries has been growing. A special series of popular brochures on anti-religious, political, economic, everyday, historical and revolutionary topics are being issued, which set out the official point of view. Since 1924 propaganda of the "foundations of Leninism" has been widely developed.
An acute shortage of financial resources forced the state to reduce budget allocations to schools in the early 1920s and transfer them to funding from local budgets. In 1921-1922. Subbotniks and "weeks" of assistance to the school were periodically held, the population voluntarily collected funds for the needs of education. In 1921, tuition fees were even introduced as a temporary measure.
By the mid 20s school education represented the following system: an initial 4-year school (1st stage), a 7-year school in cities, a school for peasant youth (ShKM), a factory apprenticeship school (FZU) based on elementary school, a secondary school (grades 5-9) with professional grades 8-9 in a number of schools. Separate schools for boys and girls also continued to exist in some regions and republics (Dagestan, middle Asia), religious schools (mektebe, madrasah), the terms of education also differed, boarding schools began to be created. Vocational education was under the jurisdiction of the Glavprofobr.
Mass form of training workers in 1921-1925. schools became FZU. At least 3/4 of the students in these schools were the children of workers. Cadres of lower and middle technical and administrative personnel (foremen, foremen, mechanics) were trained in technical schools, special vocational schools, and in short courses. The main type of professional educational institution there were industrial-technical, pedagogical, agricultural, medical, economic, legal, art colleges with a three-year term of study.
In the 1920s, a special form arose higher education workers - workers' faculties (workers' faculties).
In the field of higher education, the government pursued a class policy, creating favorable conditions for workers and peasants to enter universities. In the early 1920s, historical materialism, the history of the proletarian revolution, the history of the Soviet state and law, and the economic policy of the dictatorship of the proletariat were introduced as compulsory subjects.
The contradictions between economics and politics, the complexity of the social processes of the NEP period were vividly reflected in the works of literature, art, architecture and theatre.
One of the influential literary groups, the Serapion Brothers (1921), united mainly prose writers (K. Fedin, Vs. Ivanov, M. Zoshchenko, V. Kaverin, and others).
The literary group "Pass" (1923) was created under the journal "Krasnaya Nov". It included the writers M. Prishvin, V. Kataev, Apr. Vesely, P. Pavlenko and others. A. Voronsky was the theorist of the group. Its members advocated the preservation of continuity with the traditions of Russian and world literature against rationalism and constructivism.
In the early 1920s, a group of writers emerged from Proletkult and created the association "Forge" (N. Poletaev, F. Gladkov, and others). In 1923, the Moscow Association of Proletarian Writers arose, and since 1924, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP).
Representatives of the "Constructivist Literary Center" (I. Selvinsky, V. Inber, N. Aduev) preached "Soviet Westernism."
Another literary group, the Left Front of the Arts (LEF, 1922), included the poets V. Mayakovsky, N. Aseev, S. Kirsanov and others, who denied fiction and psychologism. Some prominent writers and poets did not belong to any groups and associations.
In the early 1920s, poetry was in the lead in literature (literary evenings, concerts, disputes). In 1921-1923. new stories and novels by major masters of pre-revolutionary realistic prose appear.
Against the backdrop of the revolutionary era, the works of the symbolist and formalist trends (A. Bely, E. Zamyatin, A. Remizov) became widespread.
By the mid-20s, the genre of the novel again became a leader in literature: M. Gorky wrote "The Artamonov Case" (1925), A. Serafimovich "The Iron Stream" (1924), Dm. Furmanov "Chapaev" (1923), A. Fadeev "Defeat" (1926) and others.
In the first half of the 1920s, satirical novels based on adventurous and socially utopian plots became widespread.
In the field of art, there was also big number groups and trends that fought each other: "Association of Artists of the Revolution" (AHR, 1922), "Society of Easel Artists" (OST, 1925), Society of Artists "4 Arts" (1924), "Society of Moscow Painters" ( 1927), "Masters of Analytical Art" (1927) and others. Similar processes unfolded in the field of architecture, sculpture, theater.
Speaking of emigration, it is worth noting the departure of a number of talented scientists, musicians, poets and writers. Among them were: aircraft designer Sikorsky, composer Rachmaninov and many others. In the 1920s, emigration was massive. Many people who did not accept the new government left the country.
Question 01. What importance did the Soviet government attach to the eradication of illiteracy?
Answer. The Soviet government attached great importance to the eradication of illiteracy. Firstly, it was initially focused on the growth of the number of the proletariat, and the development of technology at that time had long reached a stage where at least a minimum level of education was required to work in an enterprise. Secondly, education was organized absolutely differently from pre-revolutionary standards, and through it the communist party rooted its ideals among the masses.
Question 02. What were the negative and positive sides of the new Soviet school?
Answer. Positive sides:
1) access to education was given to groups of the population that previously, due to property and national characteristics, had almost no access to it;
2) education became completely free;
3) elements of self-government were introduced into education;
4) new pedagogical techniques have been introduced, including more time for independent work students in groups
5) a large-scale and rather effective system of work with homeless children has emerged;
6) an effective system for the elimination of adult illiteracy has appeared.
Negative sides:
1) many received places in universities not on the basis of knowledge, but on the basis of class affiliation and loyalty to the party;
2) many teachers died or immigrated, new ones were also recruited on the principle of loyalty to the new regime, because of which the level of education fell.
Question 03. Why did a significant part of the Russian intelligentsia not accept the Bolshevik regime? What are the motives of those who recognized Soviet power?
Answer. Firstly, before the revolution, a significant part of the intelligentsia occupied an active political position, it was not monarchist, but the majority of the intelligentsia did not have communist views either. Most importantly, during the Civil War, the power of the communists showed its face. The intellectuals did not belong to the proletariat, whose dictatorship was proclaimed by the authorities, many went through prisons and concentration camps, where they got only because of their class affiliation. Many were shocked by the rejection by the new government of any alternative opinion. It is not surprising that such a number of intellectuals did not accept Soviet power, it is more surprising that part of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia accepted it. The latter really believed that the new government would be able to create a new person and build a real paradise on earth.
Question 04. What role did the collection "Change of milestones" play?
Answer. The “change of milestones” convinced many intellectuals both inside the country and in immigration that by serving the Soviet government, they are serving the cause of the restoration and revival of Russia, and the Soviet government is not as “red” as it wants to seem. This collection articles influenced many famous cultural figures who later returned from immigration to the USSR.
Question 05: What are the reasons for the persecution against Orthodox Church and her servants?
Answer. socialist revolutionary movement was originally atheistic (this applied to representatives of all parties, not only the Bolsheviks). But it was not only that. After the seizure of power, the Bolsheviks wanted to remain the only ones who determine the spiritual life of the country.
Question 06. What are the main features of the "new Soviet art"?
Answer. Main features:
1) the new art "thrown into the dustbin" the achievements of the old;
2) it was required to evaluate the works in terms of not their artistic merit, but the class affiliation and political preferences of the author;
3) art has not only new ideas, but also new expressive forms;
4) art was supposed to serve the construction of a new society, therefore, for example, serious artists and poets began to create posters.
Date: 2011-03-29
On December 26, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a truly historic Decree "On the elimination of illiteracy among the population of the RSFSR." At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia occupied one of the last places in Europe in terms of education. According to the 1897 census, there were only 24% of literate people in Russia. The illiteracy of almost three-quarters of the country's population hindered its economic and cultural development. The decree ensured the equality of all peoples of Russia in the elimination of illiteracy. The entire population of the republic aged from 8 to 50 years old, who could not read or write, was obliged to learn to read and write in their native or Russian language at will. The decree provided for the complete elimination of illiteracy.
For those studying to read and write, the working day was reduced by two hours for the entire period of study with the preservation of wages. The organs of public education were given the right to use people's houses, churches, clubs, private houses, suitable premises in factories and factories and in Soviet institutions to organize classes for the education of the illiterate. Narkompros and its local bodies were given the right to involve in the training of the illiterate in the order of labor service the entire literate population of the country with payment for their work according to the norms of educators. People's Commissariat education attracted all public organizations to participate in the work to eliminate illiteracy.
The implementation of the eradication of illiteracy took place in difficult economic conditions. The population experienced great deprivation and need, there was not enough bread and other necessities. The devastation was caused by a four-year imperialist war, foreign intervention and civil war. The restoration of the national economy persistently demanded the elimination of illiteracy and the improvement of the culture of the entire people. Soviet government allocated huge funds for the fight against illiteracy. All supplying organizations were obliged to meet the needs of the educational program in the first place.
The idea of creating a society to combat illiteracy was born spontaneously and initially embodied in the creation of cells and groups to assist the state in eliminating illiteracy. All-Russian Voluntary Society "Down with illiteracy!" (ODN) was established at the end of 1923. Among the first members of the Society were V.I. Lenin, N.K. Krupskaya, M.I. Ulyanova, A.V. Lunacharsky and others. M.I. Kalinin.
In general, the system public organizations 1920s consisted of numerous and heterogeneous associations, the number of which was constantly increasing. The emergence of new public organizations in the early 1920s. It was connected, first of all, with the need to solve the national problems of this time. Priority actions were caused by the almost universal illiteracy of the population and child homelessness, which had assumed enormous proportions.
In the 1920s Society "Down with illiteracy!" became one of the most massive and popular. All over the country, local branches of this society were created, which appealed to the population with an appeal: "Everyone to fight against illiteracy." Without fear of exaggeration, we can say that the whole country sat down for books. Everyone learned from young to old. Society "Down with illiteracy!" simultaneously performed the role of coordinator of the work of various organizations and institutions, and conducted independent practical work.
The material base of the Society consisted of voluntary contributions from enterprises, institutions, newspaper editorial offices, deductions from patents for the right to sell certain goods and products, replenished with membership fees and funds from the sale of badges, tickets to various cultural events. State subsidies to society were also high. The work was carried out in the city and the countryside. It consisted in the creation of liquidation points, the distribution of textbooks, the recruitment of personnel for the education of the illiterate, to account for their number.
By the beginning of 1925, the Society united about half a million enthusiasts, and by the end of the year - 1.6 million. contained 12 thousand lik.points. At the same time, more than 4 million primers were sent to the village. Most of the members of the Society were city dwellers. One of the largest organizations was the Leningrad branch of the Society: by the end of 1925 there were 407 cells and 67,867 members. They were engaged in recounting the illiterate, led group lessons, individual training. The main forces of the Society were sent to work in the countryside: likpunkts, huts-reading rooms, huts-schools were created here, in which literate peasants taught illiterate fellow villagers.
Lenin's call to educate the entire adult illiterate population of the country by the 10th anniversary of October was practically unrealistic. The work of the society continued until the mid-1930s. In 1930, the ODN had about 3 million members with 200,000 cells. During its existence (1923-36), members of the society taught about 5 million illiterate and semi-literate people. The society published magazines: "Kultpokhod" (1930-32), "Let's increase literacy" (1933-36) and "Bulletin of the central Council of the society "Down with illiteracy"" (1930-35). In subsequent years, the activities of the Society took other forms and merged with the work government organizations. The 1939 census showed that literacy among the population aged 8 and over had reached 81%. The concept of "literacy" has, in essence, already receded into the realm of history, a great miracle has happened, illiteracy has been put an end to in the shortest possible time. For 20 years, in the course of the educational program (1919 - 1940), over 60 million people were taught to read and write in the USSR.
Badges of the Society "Down with illiteracy"
At the 10th All-Russian Congress of Soviets (December 1922), Lenin put forward the idea of eliminating illiteracy in the country by the 10th anniversary of October. This task was legally fixed by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of August 14, 1923. In November 1923, under the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Education, the Down with Illiteracy Society was established, which aimed to assist the state in eliminating illiteracy. ODN lasted until February 1936. Similar societies functioned in Ukraine (“Get non-writing”), in Georgia (“Tsera Kithva”), in Uzbekistan and other union republics. The Society issued about 30 signs, most of which were issued in 1924 and 1927. The mass production of ODN badges was also carried out at the end of 1928 - the beginning of 1929, during the period of the unfolding All-Union cultural campaign (movement) for the elimination of illiteracy.
(200-250)
2. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s
a) Silver. Enamel. Screw (1000-1200)
b) brass. Needle (150-200)
3. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s Bronze. Enamel. Needle (300-400)
4. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s
a) Silver. Screw (500-700)
b) brass. Screw (150-200)
5. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s Silver. Screw (400-500)
6. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s Aluminum. Screw (150-200)
7. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s Bronze. Enamel. Screw (600-800)
8. "Down with illiteracy by the 10th anniversary of October." 20s Bronze. Enamel. Pin (400-600)
9. "To the leading fighter of the cultural revolution." 20s Silver. Screw (1000-1200)
10. ODN. "Literate, teach the illiterate." 20s Bronze. Enamel. Screw (500-700)
11. Award badge ODN of the Ukrainian SSR "Get out of non-writing". 20s Silver. Enamel. Screw (1200-1500)
12. ODN of the Uzbek SSR. "Down with illiteracy." 20s Bronze. Needle (300-400)
(400-500)
14. ODN of the Uzbek SSR. 20s Bronze. Screw (300-400)
15. Sign "Art for proletarian children." 1928
a) Early type. Caption: "Art for proletarian children." Brass. Enamel. Screw (300-400)
b) Late type. Caption: "Art for the children of working people." Brass. Enamel. Screw (250-300)
16. ODN. "Cult campaign against illiteracy". 1928 Badge of a participant in the work to eliminate illiteracy. Bronze. Enamel. Screw (150-200)
17. "Culturalist of industrial cooperation." 1928 Badge of a participant in cultural propaganda among the population. Bronze. Enamel. Screw (600-700)
18. "The book to the masses." 20s Tin. Dye. Needle (70-100)
The campaign to eradicate illiteracy (from 1919 to the early 1940s) - mass literacy education for adults and adolescents who did not attend school - was a unique and largest social and educational project in the entire history of Russia.
Illiteracy, especially among the rural population, was rampant. The 1897 census showed that out of 126 million men and women registered during the survey, only 21.1% of them were literate. For almost 20 years after the first census, the literacy rate remained almost unchanged: 73% of the population (over 9 years old) were elementary illiterate. In this aspect, Russia was the last in the list of European powers.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the issue of universal education was not only actively discussed in society and the press, but also became an obligatory item on the programs of almost all political parties.
The Bolshevik Party, which won in October 1917, soon began to implement this program: already in December of the same year, an out-of-school department was created in the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR (A.V. Lunacharsky became the first People's Commissar of Education) under the leadership of N.K. Krupskaya (since 1920 - Glavpolitprosvet).
Actually, the literacy campaign itself began later: on December 26, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) adopted a decree "On the elimination of illiteracy among the population of the RSFSR." The first paragraph of the decree declared compulsory literacy education in their native or Russian language (optional) for citizens aged 8 to 50 years old, in order to provide them with the opportunity to “consciously participate” in the political life of the country.
The concern for the elementary education of the people and the priority of this task are easily explained - first of all, literacy was not a goal, but a means: "mass illiteracy was in blatant contradiction with the political awakening of citizens and made it difficult to carry out the historical tasks of transforming the country on socialist principles." The new government needed a new person who fully understood and supported the political and economic slogans, decisions and tasks set by this government. In addition to the peasantry, the main “target” audience of the educational program were workers (however, the situation here was relatively good: the occupational census of 1918 showed that 63% of urban workers (over 12 years old) were literate).
In a decree signed by the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin) declared the following: each locality, where the number of illiterates was more than 15, he was supposed to open a literacy school, it is also a point for the elimination of illiteracy - "likpunkt", the training went on for 3-4 months. It was recommended to adapt all kinds of premises for likpunkts: factory, private houses and churches. Students were given two hours off their work day.
The People's Commissariat of Education and its departments could recruit for work in the educational program "in the order of labor service the entire literate population of the country" (not drafted into the army) "with payment for their work according to the norms of educational workers." Those who evaded the execution of decree orders were threatened with criminal liability and other troubles.
Apparently, in the year after the adoption of the decree, no noticeable actions were taken to implement it, and a year later, on July 19, 1920, a new decree appeared - on the establishment of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Elimination of Illiteracy (VChK l / b), as well as its departments "in the field" (they were called "gramcheka") - now the commission was engaged in the general management of work. At the Cheka l / b there was a staff of traveling instructors who helped their districts in their work and monitored its implementation.
What exactly was meant by "illiteracy" in the system of educational programs?
First and foremost, it was the narrowest understanding - alphabetic illiteracy: at the initial stage of liquidation, the goal was to teach people the technique of reading, writing and simple counting. A graduate of the likpunkt (now such a person was called not illiterate, but semi-literate) could read "a clear printed and written font, make brief notes necessary in everyday life and in official affairs", could "write down whole and fractional numbers, percentages, understand the diagrams”, as well as “the main issues of building the Soviet state”, that is, he was guided in modern socio-political life at the level of learned slogans.
True, often the illiterate, returning to his usual life (it was harder for women), forgot the knowledge and skills received in the educational center. “If you don’t read books, you will soon forget your diploma!” - menacingly, but rightly warned the propaganda poster: up to 40% of those who graduated from the likpunkt returned there again.
Schools for the semi-literate became the second step in the system of education for workers and peasants. The learning objectives were more extensive: the basics of social science, economic geography and history (from the ideologically "correct" position of the Marxist-Leninist theory). In addition, in the countryside, it was supposed to teach the principles of agro- and zootechnics, and in the city - polytechnical sciences.
In November 1920, approximately 12 thousand literacy schools were operating in 41 provinces of Soviet Russia, but their work was not fully established, there were not enough textbooks or methods: the old alphabets (mostly for children) were categorically unsuitable for new people and new needs . The liquidators themselves were also lacking: they were required not only to teach the basics of science, but also to explain the goals and objectives of building the Soviet economy and culture, to conduct conversations on anti-religious topics and to propagate - and explain - the elementary rules of personal hygiene and the rules of social behavior.
The eradication of illiteracy often met with resistance from the population, especially the rural population. Peasants, especially on the outskirts and "national regions", remained "darkness" (curious reasons for refusing to study were attributed to the peoples of the North: they believed that it was worth teaching a deer and a dog, and a person would figure it out himself).
In addition, in addition to all sorts of incentives for students: gala evenings, the issuance of scarce goods, there were many punitive measures with "excesses on the ground" - show trials - "agitation courts", fines for absenteeism, arrests. Nevertheless, the work went on.
New primers began to be created already in the first years Soviet power. According to the first textbooks, the main goal of the educational program is especially noticeable - the creation of a person with a new consciousness. Primers were the most powerful means of political and social propaganda: they taught to read and write according to slogans and manifestos. Among them were: “Our factories”, “We were slaves of capital ... We are building factories”, “The Soviets set 7 hours of work”, “Misha has a supply of firewood. Misha bought them at the cooperative”, “Kids need smallpox vaccination”, “Among the workers there are many consumptives. The Soviets gave the workers free treatment.” Thus, the first thing that the former “dark” person learned was that he owed everything to the new government: political rights, health care and everyday joys.
In 1920–1924, two editions of the first Soviet mass primer for adults (authored by D. Elkina and others) were published. The primer was called "Down with illiteracy" and opened with the famous slogan "We are not slaves, slaves are not us."
Mass newspapers and magazines began to publish special supplements for the semi-literate. In such a leaflet-application in the first issue of the magazine "Peasant Woman" (in 1922), the content of the decree on educational program of 1919 was stated in a popular form.
An educational campaign was also actively carried out in the Red Army: its ranks were largely replenished at the expense of the peasants, and those for the most part were illiterate. The army also created schools for the illiterate, held numerous rallies, talks, read aloud newspapers and books. Apparently, sometimes the Red Army soldiers had no choice: often a sentry was placed at the door of the training room, and according to the memoirs of S.M. Budyonny, on the backs of cavalrymen going to the front line, the commissar pinned sheets of paper with letters and slogans. Those who walked behind involuntarily learned letters and words according to the slogans "Give Wrangel!" and "Beat the bastard!". The results of the educational program campaign in the Red Army look rosy, but not very reliable: "from January to autumn 1920, more than 107.5 thousand soldiers became literate."
The first year of the campaign brought no serious victories. According to the 1920 census, 33% of the population (58 million people) were literate (the only criterion for literacy was the ability to read), while the census was not universal and did not include areas where hostilities took place.
In 1922, the First All-Union Congress for the Elimination of Illiteracy was held: it was decided there, first of all, to teach literacy to workers of industrial enterprises and state farms aged 18-30 years (the training period was increased to 7-8 months). Two years later, in January 1924, on January 29, 1924, the XI All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted a resolution “On the elimination of illiteracy among the adult population of the RSFSR”, and set the tenth anniversary of October as the date for the complete elimination of illiteracy.
In 1923, on the initiative of the Cheka l / b, a voluntary society “Down with illiteracy” (ODN) was created, which was headed by the chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR and the USSR M.I. Kalinin. The society published newspapers and magazines, primers, propaganda literature. According to official data, the ODN grew rapidly: from 100 thousand members by the end of 1923 to more than half a million in 11 thousand likpunkts in 1924, and about three million people in 200 thousand points in 1930. But according to the memoirs, no one else like N.K. Krupskaya, the true successes of society were far from these figures. Neither by the 10th anniversary nor by the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution (by 1932) the undertaken obligations to eradicate illiteracy were fulfilled.
Throughout the entire period of the educational campaign, official propaganda provided predominantly optimistic information about the progress of the process. However, there were many difficulties, especially "on the ground". The same N.K. Krupskaya, recalling her work during the campaign, often mentioned the help of V.I. Lenin: "Feeling his strong hand, we somehow did not notice the difficulties in conducting a grandiose campaign ...". It is unlikely that local leaders felt this strong hand: there were not enough premises, furniture, textbooks and manuals for both students and teachers, and writing materials. The villages were especially poor: they had to show great ingenuity - they made alphabets from newspaper clippings and magazine illustrations, instead of pencils and pens they used charcoal, lead sticks, ink from beets, soot, cranberries and cones. The scale of the problem is also indicated by a special section in the methodological manuals of the early 1920s "How to do without paper, without pens and without pencils."
The 1926 census showed moderate progress in the literacy campaign. Literate was 40.7%, i.e. less than half, while in the cities - 60%, and in the village - 35.4%. The difference between the sexes was significant: 52.3% of men were literate, and 30.1% of women.
From the end of the 1920s. The campaign to eliminate illiteracy has reached a new level: the forms and methods of work are changing, the scope is increasing. In 1928, on the initiative of the Komsomol, an all-Union cultural campaign was launched: it was necessary to pour fresh forces into the movement, its propaganda and the search for new material means for work. There were others unusual shapes propaganda: for example, exhibitions, as well as mobile propaganda cars and propaganda trains: they created new educational centers, organized courses and conferences, brought textbooks.
At the same time, the methods and principles of work are becoming tougher: “emergency measures” are increasingly mentioned in order to achieve results, and the already militaristic rhetoric of the educational program is becoming more and more aggressive and “military”. The work was referred to only as "struggle", to the "offensive" and "storming" were added "cultural assault", "cultural alarm", "cultists". By the middle of 1930, there were a million of these cultural soldiers, and the official number of students in literacy schools reached 10 million.
A serious event was the introduction in 1930 of universal primary education: this meant that the "army" of the illiterate would cease to be replenished with teenagers.
By the mid 1930s. the official press claimed that the USSR had become a country of complete literacy - partly for this reason, one hundred percent indicators in this area were expected from the next census in 1937. There was no continuous literacy, but the data were not bad: in the population older than 9 years, there were 86% of literate men, and 66.2% of literate women. However, at the same time, there was not a single age group without illiterates - and this despite the fact that the literacy criterion in this census (as in the previous one) was low: one who could read at least syllable by syllable and write his surname was considered literate. Compared to the previous census, the progress was colossal: most of the population nevertheless became literate, children and youth went to schools, technical schools and universities, all types and levels of education became available to women.
However, the results of this census were classified, and some of the organizers and performers were repressed. The data of the next, 1939, census were initially corrected: according to them, the literacy of persons aged 16 to 50 was almost 90%, thus it turned out that by the end of the 1930s, about 50 million people were literate during the campaign.
Even taking into account the well-known "additives", this testified to the clear success of the grandiose project. The illiteracy of the adult population, although not being completely eliminated, lost the character of an acute social problem, and the educational campaign in the USSR was officially completed.
Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky
Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky (1875-1933) - the first People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR (from October 1917 to September 1929), revolutionary (he has been in Social Democratic circles since 1895), one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks, statesman, since 1930 -s. - Director of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, writer, translator, fiery speaker, carrier and propagandist of conflicting views. Man, even in years civil war who dreamed of the imminent embodiment of the ideal of the Renaissance - "a physical handsome man, harmoniously developing, widely educated person who is familiar with the basics and the most important conclusions in various fields: technology, medicine, civil law, literature ... ". In many ways, he himself tried to live up to this ideal, engaging in all sorts of large-scale projects: the eradication of illiteracy, political education, the construction of the principles of advanced proletarian art, the theory and foundations of public education and the Soviet school, as well as the upbringing of children.
The cultural heritage of the past, according to Lunacharsky, should belong to the proletariat. He analyzed the history of both Russian and European literature from the point of view of the class struggle. In his emotional, vivid and imaginative articles, he argued that the new literature would be the crown of this struggle, and waited for the appearance of brilliant proletarian writers.
It was Lunacharsky who was one of the initiators of the attempt to translate the Russian alphabet into the Latin alphabet, for which in 1929 a special commission was formed in the People's Commissariat for Education. Apart from this exotic attempt at integration with Western cultural world, he directly personally maintained communication with famous foreign writers: R. Rolland, A. Barbusse, B. Shaw, B. Brecht, G. Wells, etc.
After leaving the post of People's Commissar of Education, Lunacharsky continued to write articles, as well as fiction (dramas). In September 1933, he was appointed the Plenipotentiary of the USSR in Spain, but died on the way there.
