The Soviet Educational Project: The Eradication of Adult Illiteracy in the 1920s–1930s

Abstract

The article analyzes the constituent steps and measures of the Soviet campaign to eradicate illiteracy among adults in the 1920s–30s. A comparison of educational and ideological aspects of this campaign demonstrates how closely they were interrelated and how they facilitated the creation of new patterns of cultural behavior. The author shows that during the campaign entire groups of the population not only learned how to read and write, but also mastered (and partly helped form) a new “Soviet language” for communication with the Soviet authorities and to achieve their own goals through the manipulation of official concepts and terms. The study is based on guidelines for teachers, official Soviet decrees, the media, manuals, and alphabet books.

Notes

English translation © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text © 2015 “Voprosy obrazovaniia.” “Sovetskii prosvetitelskii proekt: likvidatsiia negramotnosti sredi vzroslykh v 1920–1930-e gody,” Voprosy obrazovaniia, 2015, no. 3, pp. 246–82.Irina Viktorovna Glushchenko, candidate of cultural studies, is an associate professor at the School of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics. E-mail: [email protected] by Kenneth Cargill. Translation reprinted from Russian Education & Society, vol. 57, no. 11. doi: 10.1080/10609393.2016.1187005

^1. V.I. Lenin. “Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika i zadachi politprosvetov. Doklad na II Vserossiiskom s”ezde politprosvetov,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970, vol. 44), p. 174.

^2. Narkompros RSFSR, Ob uchastii politiko-prosvetitel'nykh uchrezhdenii v zavershenii likvidatsii negramotnosti i obucheniia malogramotnykh (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe bibliotechno-bibliograficheskoe izdatel'stvo NKP RSFSR, 1941), p. 2.

^3. Ibid., p. 3.

^4. G.I. Broido, V ataku protiv negramotnosti i beskul'tur'ia (saratovskii opyt) (Moscow; Leningrad: Tsentral'nyi sovet obshchestva «Doloi negramotnost'»; Gos. izd-vo, 1929), pp. 108–09.

^5. Soviet researchers, in referring to the same census, provide somewhat different figures. Thus, D.Yu. Elkina notes: “According to the first All-Russian National Population Census (1897), only 24 percent of the Russian population was literate (among people aged nine years or older). At the same time there were fewer literate women (12.4 percent) than literate men (35.8 percent). There were significantly more literate city dwellers (52.3 percent) than rural inhabitants (19.6 percent). Only 8.6 percent of women in the countryside were literate (Elkina 1959, p. 5). G.G. Karpov, citing the Journal of Education [Vestnik vospitaniia] (1906, no. 1), interprets the results of the census even more negatively: of the 126 million registered residents of Russia, only 21 percent were literate (Karpov 1954, p. 11). However, all sources agree that the level of literacy among the Russian adult population at the end of the nineteenth century remained extremely low.

^6. “O mobilizatsii gramotnykh i organizatsii propagandy sovetskogo stroia (Dekret Soveta narodnykh komissarov).” Ed. A.Ya. Vyshinsky, Konstitutsiia i konstitutsionnye akty RSFSR (1918–1937): sb. Dokumentov (Moscow: Izd-vo Vedomostey Verkhovnogo soveta RSFSR, 1940), p. 52.

^7.Likvidatsiia bezgramotnosti. 1. Dekret. 2. Instruktsiia (Moscow: Gos. izd-vo, 1920).

^8. RSFSR. Narodnyi komissariat prosveshcheniia. Vneshkol'nyi otdel podotdel podgotovki personala, 2 marta 1920 g., pp. 1–2.

^9. However, a different scholar presents the essence of the second stage of the campaigns somewhat differently: “The main task of the first stage was the creation of the legislative framework and the system of organizations and institutions that was directly responsible for combating illiteracy. The main task of the second stage was to develop a broad public movement to spread literacy and to accelerate its progress by adopting more drastic methods” (Petrova 2011, p. 48).

^10.Likvidatsiia negramotnosti. Ukazatel' postanovlenii partii i pravitel'stva (1919–1939) (Leningrad, 1940).

^11. For a list of sociopolitical works from the period of the campaign to eliminate illiteracy, see Appendix I.

^12. Broido, V ataku protiv negramotnosti i beskul'tur'ia, pp. 17–18.

^13.XVIII s”ezd Vsesoiuznoy kommunisticheskoi partii (bol'shevikov). 10– 21 marta 1939 g. Stenograficheskiy otchet (Moscow: OGIZ; Gos. izd-vo politicheskoi literatury, 1939), p. 24.

^14. Narkompros RSFSR, Ob uchastii politiko-prosvetitel'nykh uchrezhdenii v zavershenii likvidatsii negramotnosti i obucheniia malogramotnykh (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe bibliotechno-bibliograficheskoe izdatel'stvo NKP RSFSR, 1941), p. 2.

^15. Some modern scholars, such as L.R. Murtazina, argue that illiteracy was not completely eliminated by 1940: “After the end of World War II the issue of universal literacy was again included on the policy agenda, since the majority of those who were subject to evacuation, forced displacement, or had failed to pass a school literacy program (i.e., who had not studied at schools for those with poor literacy skills) were illiterate” (Murtazina 2002, p. 7). According to her, universal literacy had not even been achieved by the 1959 All-Union Census. She cites the resolution “On the Completion of the Elimination of Illiteracy” [“O zavershenii likvidatsii negramotnosti”], which had been accepted at a closed meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU on 31 July 1962, which “was also not the last measure that was taken to solve this problem” (ibid). However, this resolution was intended to eliminate the last pockets of illiteracy in the national borderlands of the Soviet Union.

^16. By comparing the figures for 1914 with indicators from the Soviet 1960s, researchers have been able to demonstrate the scale of the changes that had occurred over the last half century: “In 1914, 10,588,000 people in the country were enrolled in school, and in 1968 77,826,000 people were enrolled in one type of class or another” (E.A. Vdovina, V pokhod za znaniiami. Komsomol Srednei Volgi v bor'be za vseobshchuiu gramotnost' v 1928–1932 gg. [Kuibyshev: Kuibyshevskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1971], p. 17).

^17. Ya. Petrova notes: “Two multidirectional processes are at work in modern Russia: on the one hand, the increasing number and quality of educational services, and on the other the increasing number of illiterate people among socially disadvantaged groups. Official sources have claimed that the entire adult population of Russia is literate, and therefore there is no need for special literacy measures aimed at adults” (Petrova 2011, p. 4). According to experts at the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, at the beginning of the 2000s there were about 2 million school-age children who were not attending school in Russia. The Education Development Strategy, which is focused on turning education into a service sector industry, is one of the most important sources of the described contradictions and imbalances. As part of such a strategy clearly pointless attempts have been made to somehow utilize the Soviet experience of the 1920s and 1930s. However, this campaign was based on a fundamentally different approach. The ideologists of Soviet education throughout the entirety of its history emphasized that the most important task was “the convergence of classes and social groups within Soviet society and the promotion of social homogeneity” (Filippov 1976, p. 21).

^18.Noveyshaia azbuka dlia diktanta, chtoby nauchit'sia pravil'no pisat' s tsel'iu samogo pervonachal'nogo obucheniia pis'mu i chteniiu detei i vzroslykh, I. M. Khaynovskogo (St. Petersburg, 1901), p. 33.

^19.Doloi negramotnost'! Bukvar' dlia vzroslykh, razrabotannyi D. El'kinoi, N. Bugoslavskoi i A. Kurskoi (Krasnodar, 1921).

^20. Ibid., p. 4.

^21. Ibid., p. 2.

^22. All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Elimination of Illiteracy.

^23.Pervoe komsomol'skoe soveshchanie (protokoly zasedanii) (Moscow: Doloi negramotnost', 1925), p. 45.

^24. V. Flerov, Bukvar' dlia vzroslykh dlya obucheniya chteniiu i pis'mu bez sliyaniia zvukov (St. Petersburg: Gos. izd-vo, 1920).

^25.Doloi negramotnost'! Bukvar' dlia vzroslykh.

^26. Ibid., p. 2.

^27. Ibid.

^28. A. Liberman and V. Roitman, Zavershaem piatiletku.Bukvar' dlia vzroslykh. Part I (Kharkov; Kiev: Ukrgosnatsmenizdat, 1932).

^29. Fil'm D. Vertova «Leninskaia kinopravda. Vyp. 21». See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = pkkraUAIfPs.

^30.Doloy negramotnost'! Bukvar' dlya vzroslykh…, p. 12.

^31. V. Roitman, K novoi zhizni. Gorodskoi bukvar' dlia vzroslykh (Khar'kov: Tsentrizdat, 1930).

^32.Kniga dlia chteniia i besed v shkolakh vzroslykh (eds. D.Zel'tser and D. El'kina) (Moscow: Gos. izd-vo, 1921), p. 152.

^33. Ibid., p. 158.

^34.Kliuch k znaniiu. Bukvar' dlia vzroslykh (ed. S.A. Chernovskii) (Orenburg: Kirgosizdat, 1922).

^35. L. Veller and N. Leshii (eds.), O rabote obshchestva «Doloi negramotnost'!» v derevne: instruktivnyi sbornik (Novonikolaevsk: Novonikolaevskoe obshchestvo «Doloi negramotnost'!», 1925), p. 18.

^36. Ibid.

^37.Kniga dlia chteniya i besed v shkolakh vzroslykh, p. 158.

^38. Ibid., p. 154.

^39. I.R.Palei, “Voprositel'nye frazy,” Derevenskii samouchka, 1927, no. 3, p. 15.

^40. Veller and Leshii, O rabote obshchestva «Doloi negramotnost'!» v derevne, p. 23.

^41.Pervoe komsomol'skoe soveshchanie (protokoly zasedanii), p. 42.

^42. Veller, and Leshii, O rabote obshchestva «Doloi negramotnost'!» v derevne, p. 24.

^43. V. Flerov, Kak obuchat' negramotnykh vzroslykh. S prilozheniem stat' i: Moi uroki s negramotnymi vzroslymi. 2^nd ed. (Moscow: Iasnoe utro, 1920), p. 16.

^44. Ibid.

^45. A. Guseva, V strane svobodnogo truda. Rabochaia kniga dlia gorodskikh shkol malogramotnykh (Moscow; Leningrad: Doloi negramotnost', 1927), p. 39.

^46. Ibid., p. 76.

^47. Fil'm D. Vertova Shestaia chast' mira. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 27nvYsiI52Y

^48. A. Agienko, Zhivoe slovo (Moscow: Khudozhestvennyy otdel Glavpolitprosveta; Doloy negramotnost', 1927), p. 3.

^49. Ibid., p. 5.

^50. M. Zoshchenko, “Obez'ianii iazyk,” in idem, ueta suet (Moscow: Russkaia kniga, 1993), pp. 99–100.

^51.Kul'tura i byt, 1930, no. 20, p. 15.

^52. B. Sarnov, Prishestvie kapitana Lebiadkina. Sluchai Zoshchenko (Moscow: Pik; RIK «Kul'tura», 1993), pp. 156–57.

^53.Doloi negramostnost'! Bukvar' dlia vzroslykh, p. 3.

^54. The topic of the new language that was used in communications between the government and Soviet citizens is the subject of a number of studies conducted by Western scholars. In particular, the American historian Michael Gorham analyzes discussions that unfolded after the 1917 Revolution among the Bolsheviks about the best way that Marxist ideas could be communicated to the population (Gorham 2003), and Stephen Kotkin, in his classic work on the workers of Magnitogorsk, states that “it was unavoidable [for workers to learn the official language] and, furthermore, gave meaning to people's lives” (Kotkin 1995, p. 224). This issue is partially covered by E. Dobrenko's book Shaping the Soviet Reader [Formovka sovetskogo chitatelia], which demonstrates that in creating socialist realist literature, the Soviet government sought not only to celebrate a certain artistic esthetic, but also to shape the corresponding new reader. In accordance with the new, postrevolutionary mass education policy, emphasis was given not only to the spread of libraries and reading culture as such, but also to the “problem of the politicization of the reader” (Dobrenko 1997, p. 29). The state not only sought to teach people to read. It was also very interested in the question of what people read and how they did so. All of these works, however, are mainly concerned with how the authorities communicated with the public and conveyed their ideas using the new language for the integration of the masses into their own socio-political and economic project (in the case of Kotkin). In this article we are considering another aspect of this communication between the authorities and society: how those Soviet citizens who were taught how to read and write also mastered (and partly themselves shaped) the Soviet language that was used to communicate with the authorities, to manipulate official concepts and terms, and to pursue their own goals.

^55. I.R. Paley, “Razdel «Russkii iazyk».” Derevenskii samouchka, 1927, no. 19, p. 12.

^56. Ibid., p. 14.

^57. Ibid.

^58. I.R. Palei, “Kak sostavliat' protokol-otchet.” Derevenskii samouchka, no. 8, 1926, p. 14.

^59. M. Zoshchenko, “Bania,” in Sueta suet, p. 104.

^60. I.R. Palei, “Razdel «Russkii iazyk»,” Derevenskii samouchka, 1927, no. 19, p. 15.

^61. Palei, “Razdel «Russkii iazyk»,” p. 16.