The Soviet School System
KULSKI, W. W.
The Soviet School System The Challenge of Soviet Education. Reviewed by W W. Kulski By George S. Counts. Author, “The Soviet Regime”, professor McGraw-Hill. 330 pp. $6.00. of political science,...
...Moreover, mathematics and science, which play such a prominent role in the Soviet curriculum, are politically neutral, while civic training is completely totalitarian in outlook...
...Not only is it an exhaustive monograph on Soviet education, but it provides excellent background for a better understanding of the Soviet regime and the Communist outlook, and supplies a careful and well-balanced evaluation of the future prospects...
...The steady annual increase of the Soviet army of skilled workers and well-qualified specialists will also contribute to a greater productivity of labor...
...But just as wisely he does not jump to the conclusion that such thoughts might not be successfully restrained by the post-Stalinist leaders or that the total result of persistent Soviet indoctrination is failure...
...We are apt to forget that Athenian liberty was followed by the despotic Hellenistic monarchies, that the Roman Republic was succeeded by the Empire, that most of the present world is undemocratic, that, in short, liberty is a precious plant that grows slowly but may be quickly destroyed...
...The author is wisely cautious in believing that a totalitarian regime cannot succeed in absolutely controlling all human minds and that nonconformist thoughts may dwell in many Soviet souls...
...It would be unwise to close our eyes to this particular Soviet challenge in an era of technological and scientific competition...
...Professor Counts does not allow the reader to relax and indulge in pleasant dreaming, but invites him to accept the existence of Soviet political, economic and intellectual competition as a long-term problem...
...He provides a history of Soviet educational trends and methods and a thorough analysis of the content of the school curricula...
...This fallacy was exploded in highly literate Germany, where the Nazi regime came to be destroyed only by foreign troops...
...Recently some people have been inclined to discount too easily the challenge of Soviet industrial growth because of the fall in the annual rate of increase during the last two years...
...Can one be sure that this rate will not increase again after the present immense reorganization of economic management, the decentralization aiming not only at a strategic dispersal but also at more efficient management...
...Professor Counts covers practically all the types of Soviet schools, with special stress on the high school, which, within five to ten years, is to become universal...
...His book cannot be ignored by anyone interested in Soviet education, one of the most important keys to Communist society...
...of political science, Syracuse University One reads Professor Counts's excellent book with an immense intellectual satisfaction...
...Professor Counts is not one of those who take for granted that the rise in education must necessarily bring with it a greater urge for political freedom...
...Professor Counts challenges another "pleasing illusion that liberty is destined by the nature of man and the laws of the universe to be victorious...
...He rightly stresses the Soviet high school's emphasis on mathematics, the sciences, foreign languages and practical technological training...
...He also points to the several stabilizing factors of the regime, like the vested interests of the upper and middle layers of the Soviet intelligentsia, and the Russian nationalism which finds many a source of pride in the power and influence of the Soviet state...
Vol. 40 • April 1957 • No. 15
