Soviet Higher Education: Creation to Collapse of the Union
By Micah Dewey
This essay is a review of the article, “Soviet Higher Education: an Alternative Construct to the Western University Paradigm,” which was written by Alexey Kuraev, a Doctor of Russian History and Higher Education. Foreign academics primarily operated and staffed higher education in the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, in what was an alien, western university system. Following the October Revolution, the whole education structure was withered down from twenty to only five universities and a handful of technical schools. Soviet leadership, under the direction of Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky, quickly changed the number of higher education facilities and their primary function. Soviet higher education was established for the mobilization and utilization of the largely unskilled workforce to serve the nation. The vision of the communist party was to prepare a national workforce for the requirements of the state using “human material” in the advancement of state-owned resources. Historically, there were three distinct eras of Soviet education. Social militarization beginning in the 1930s, the reshaping and research explosion under the Kruschev’s thaw in the sixties. Finally, the modernization during Perestroika in the 1980s, which was an eventual conversion of the Soviet system to a more western-style higher educational system. In his report, Kuraev explains the evolution of Soviet higher education from 1918 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the ideology and management systems behind the education programs, and compares the VUZ (высшее учебное заведение or “higher educational institution”) to western-style universities. VUZ was the acronym for the universities, military academies and other technical/vocational institutes in the Soviet Union under the Ministry of Education. Following the complete integration of the VUZ into a Soviet state-wide system, the three-pronged management ideology of the higher education system was placed into effect: uniformity, top-down administration, and one-man management.
Dr. Kuraev brilliantly contrasts the state-run Soviet VUZ education system to that of traditional western academia. His critiques of the Russian system are harsh yet seemingly fair when the reader considers the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Between 1918 and 1930 the Communist Party leadership was looking for a method to improve the literacy and productivity of its people. The man who initiated the process to establish the Soviet system of higher education was Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky. Lunacharsky was responsible for many of the programs that led to the early success of educating the masses in the pre-Stalin era. In 1918, there were only five universities, in comparison to the United States who had 200 times more people with higher education experience and hundreds of more schools than the Soviet Union. There was a dire need to expand the education system, and in doing so, train and prepare the populace for the transition to communism. Thanks to the Soviet ideology of equality, schooling or training was universal, free of charge, and came with a guaranteed placement into a job post-graduation. During the pinnacle of its success, the Soviet higher education apparatus took in up to five million students per year between 1936 and 1986. Kuraev does make a point of how despite the many downfalls of the system as a whole, it did have some redeeming qualities. However, accompanying the positives were some negatives as well.
In the VUZ system, students did not choose their specialization or academic pursuits. The purpose of higher education was not personal but communal advancement. This led to a rather baffling approach of students being enrolled not in a specific university, but rather in a specialization. This meant that it was not uncommon for a student to be moved across the country to fill a quota. Order and discipline were of the utmost importance. Students were treated as if they were soldiers, they had to follow all orders given to them and there was no room for insubordination. Party officials along with the secret police would keep a close watch on students, this was to breed compliance and also acceptance of the Soviet way of life. Pupils who graduated were forcibly placed in specific jobs in a specific location and had three weeks to report for work. Those who did not were at risk of having their “qualification diploma” revoked and the near-certainty of being prosecuted.
The professors and researchers had no academic freedom to teach or pursue what they wanted to research. Due to top-down administration along with uniformity nationwide, the classes were taught directly from pre-approved textbooks, with no variation or delineation allowed. Every academic institution had a collection of administrative offices that were known as units. These units were numbered one through three, Unit №1 would hold security supervision, Unit №2 was used for army recruitment, and Unit №3 was for achieving institutional and personal documentation. Whenever there was an important test, invaluable research or any other noteworthy occasion on campus, the NKVD/KGB from Unit №1 would be present. This is just one example of how the state had the ultimate control in the education and research processes of the Soviet Union.
Because the VUZ was born out of a need to educate, train and prepare the masses to serve the state, it served a different function than western higher education systems. The VUZ system had a massive impact on Soviet society and economic growth as a whole, especially at the beginning. This anti-capitalist education system was both equal and academically uninspired. Totalitarian control was exemplified in the Soviet higher education system, which resulted in the lack of independent theoretical research, and free thought.
Kuraev’s analysis of the implementation and utilization of the Soviet higher education system felt like an educational article rather than one seeking to compose a deep argument. He utilized numerous sources that were either directly from former Soviet Union publications or from American introspections into that system. It appears like it was lacking a personal or anecdotal statement of fact. His article does inform the reader of the progression of the higher education system, albeit with a statistical and analytical viewpoint rather than an emotional one.
Kuraev, Alex. “Soviet Higher Education: an Alternative Construct to the Western University Paradigm.” Login, Springer, Feb. 2016,
