Education

Illiteracy

Problem

• Under the Tsar, education was limited to the rich and cities

• Rurally, 88% of children didn’t finish primary education

• Literacy rate was 35%

Bolshevik Aims

• To make all Soviets (aged 8-50) literate

  • Allows modern technical skills to be taught

  • Enables spread of propaganda and ideology

  • Reduces power of religion and superstition

Techniques

• Red Army

  • All recruits had to attend classes as part of training

• Liquidation Points

  • 10,000s created in urban & rural areas

  • Between 1920-26, 5 million had taken the courses

• Rabfaki

  • Remedial schools within factories

  • Targeted industrial workers who left education without basic literacy or numeracy skills

  • Millions attended

• Zhenotel Classes

  • Organised by Zhenotel - Party’s womens organisation

  • Women were 5x more likely to be illiterate (14 mil out of 17 mil)

  • Particularly high in Muslim areas in Central Asia

• Literacy League

  • Established to promote literacy

  • It’s magazine was called “Down with Illiteracy!”

Outcomes

• 1939

  • Urban = 95%

  • Rural = 86%

• 1959

  • Urban = 99%

  • Rural = 98%

• Official stats might be exaggerated, but was still an enormous success