Inside Soviet Russia today

Title

Language

English

Source

Volume XV (Issue No.7) July 1963

Year

1963

Subject

Education policy -- Russia

Higher--Aims and objectives

Mass instruction

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

A group of British writers report on a new revolution, in Russia — in education

Fulltext

■ A group of British writers report on a new re. volution, in Russia — in education. INSIDE SOVIET RUSSIA TODAY The society and economy of the Soviet Union are in state of momentous flux. The visiting observer, al though forcefully reminded that this is a country where free thinking is still a very timorous beastie, cannot es cape a sense of mounting excitement as he speculates what sort of new Russia may be erratically emerging. • ♦ * The biggest single fact about the Soviet Union to day — at once old commu nism’s one real success and the most exciting seed of change within it — is the edu cational revolution. This has been dramatic, and may now be convulsive. The Soviet Union has always held out considerable oppor tunities for mass education to its people, but for those who had become set in their careers before Stalin’s death the incentive to push their education outside very nar row bounds cannot have been exactly lively .In the topmost positions eleven years ago it was better to be quiescent than dead ; among the mas ses, up to 1953 it was illegal to change one’s job without permission (to do so, or even to be more than twenty mi nutes late for work, was actually a criminal offence), while to rise in one’s career or to acquire knowledge be yond a certain point could often be pretty dangerous. By contrast, for those who have completed their edu cation or grown to intellec tual maturity since the Sta lin ice age melted (broadly speaking the one half of all Russians below the age of 30) self-improvement has been, and is, all the rage. In remoter villages com pulsory education up to the age even of 14 is hot yet fully established, but in the big towns education up to the examination equivalent of age 17 or 18 (most often by part-time study) is quite 42 Panorama quickly becoming the general rule. There is good reason to believe the official claims that 57 million Soviet citi zens, over one in four of the population, are doing some .form of part-time study to day; and that 12 per cent of all young people can now ex pect to go on to university or its equivalent. Compared with Britain (where nearly 60 per cent leave school and often all forms of learning at 15, and only 7 per cent go on to university or its equivalent) this is a pretty educated — and, within li mits, an increasingly thought ful — young Russian society that is now being created. Compared with the Russia of yesteryear, it is a metamor phosis. « « • Between 15 and 20 per cent of Russian homes now have television sets, compar ed with 80 per cent in Bri tain and nearly 50 per cent in Japan. In some recent estimates for the Rand Corp oration — which would seem to be broadly right — Janet G. Chapman has estimated that the average real indus trial wage in the United States is more than four times as large as in the Sonion, but average con sumer income per head only about three times as large. The American people buy 83 times as many motor cars per head as the Soviet peo ple, about 11 times as, many refrigerators, have about 4 times as much housing space buy three times as many eggs, twice as much meat, shoes and radio sets. But in pur chases of clothing (leaving aside questions of fashion) the volume purchases in the two countries is more nearly equal, while the Russians sur pass the Americans in cinema attendances per head; in se cond h,est durables like motor bicycles and sewing machines, in starchier foods like bread and potatoes and ^lso in some social services (al though certainly not in all: the collective farmers, who make up such a large propor tion of the population and are not counted as state em ployees, get no old age pen sions at all). # • • Even in the limited num ber of “unofficial” encount ers that our programme per mitted, it emerged that dan gerous thoughts are not con JULY 43 fined (as the official mono poly likes to insist) to a few pampered adolescents. Not all the questioning minds en countered had been through a higher education. A few were students, but more were, although young, already em barked on active working lives. It is, however, the fer ment of ideas in the universi ties that seems to worry the authorities most. Most of Moscow University has now been quite well insulated in the gigantic new buildings well out of town, with entry tightly controlled by passes. Leningrad university, with its 14,000 students, is still perilously embedded in the the centre of the city, and, despite its historical interest, it is not a. place to which the visitor’s attention is directed. We were not taken to either. There can be few countries where people read so many books — not only in the in numerable libraries, but on the underground, in buses and parks: both fiction and textbooks on medicine or nuclear physics, on economics or philosophy. Talk to youngsters who have already left school and they will usually tell you about their evening classes or correspond ence courses or, at least their plans for further education. The government has put its money on education and the young men have seized their opportnities with both hands. You may be surprised how small the purchasing power of the salary of your hotel chambermaid or driver still is. You should not be sur prised to learn that their children have gone to col-, lege. It is thus no wonder that in Russia, the old tend to talk in generalities and the young to quote facts and figures. Soviet leaders em phatically deny any antago nism between “fathers and sons.” They are right to the extent that there are except ions on each side. It is also true that — unlike, say, their Polish counterparts — the young Soviet people most eager for change take for granted the system in which they were born and want to reform it only from within. And even the most sophistied of them suffer from nuPanorama cated and impressively learnmerous blind spots about both home and foreign af fairs. Yet the difference in spirit and mental make-up between generations, and the young people’s eagerness to learn about the outside world as well as their own, are strking. They already know more than is to be found in Pravda or even the Daily Worker. Their critical spirit seems bound gradually to invade all fields. Already they are not quite content with official versions and, though still timidly, are try ing to learn what “the other side” has to say in an argu ment. — From The Econo mist June 1, 1963. HONESTLY? There has been a flood of denials from officials whose names appear in Stonehill’s “Blue Book" of any unethical relations with the ex-GI. They had nothing to do with Stonehill or whatever they did for him was entirely proper; at any rate, there was no corruption of public officials, according to the statements. Was the Stonehill economic empire founded, then, on the rock of honesty? — Teodoro M. Locsin. ¥ * * SCIENCE AND EVIL Science has powers for evil, not only physically but mentally; the hydrogen bomb can kill the mind .... it is necessary that those who control govern ment should have enlightened and intelligent ideals, since otherwise they can lead mankind to disaster. — Bertrand Russell. July 45

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