School reform during the Khrushchev period: A radical attempt to re-make Soviet social and economic structures.

Abstract

The 1958 Law on school reorganization was a crucial part of Nikita Khrushchev's ambitious goal of pushing the USSR into a new stage of history: building communism. Formulation of the new Law took more than half a year, but the real work began only after it was promulgated. This dissertation examines the complex and unpredictable process of policy implementation within the Soviet political machine, using the 1958 school Law as a case study. The results indicate that policy implementation in the USSR could be a surprisingly perilous adventure, involving competing agendas, compromise, unintended consequences, and even sabotage. That is not to say that reform is impossible, but only that it is very difficult to control from the center. The architects of the 1958 school reform sought to create an egalitarian system of universal polytechnical and vocational education. Ideally, they wanted the rising generation to be both skilled and ideologically-committed builders of communism who would contribute to the common goal in an atmosphere of true meritocracy. Communist socialization was to be accomplished through history lessons as well as a polytechnical curriculum that gave them practical knowledge and respect for all aspects of Soviet society and the workers who built it. Universal vocational training was to provide everyone with a skill and experience in manual labor, after which the most talented youths could compete on an equal basis for admission to institutions of higher education. This plan was an essential building block in Khrushchev's attempt to revitalize the USSR both economically and ideologically, thereby turning it into the world's most powerful and prosperous country. In practice, the regime's vocational, egalitarian, and socialization goals were not entirely compatible. Consequently, to varying degrees all three goals suffered during implementation.