Russia 5 Years After Stalin·ll

...A diamond-shaped lapel badge (znuchak) sets off graduates of universities, teachers colleges and certain engineering schools from other Soviet citizens...

...He has written on Russian philosophy and edited a symposium on Soviet Education...

...In addition to stipends and bonuses, outstanding students receive free vacation trips and, upon graduation, actual choice of job assignments...

...At present, only one-fourth of newly admitted university students actually have the two years' work experience, but the percentage may be expected to increase sharply...

...In the United States the ratio is about 2.5 to 1.) And dot-sents, the counterparts of American assistant or associate professors, earn between 3,000 and 6,000 rubles...

...Some 200 Hungarian students were suddenly told to prepare for their examinations two weeks ahead of schedule and were then shipped hack to Budapest en masse...

...Those with less brilliant records must spend at least three years at whatever job the authorities assign them...

...The Soviet situation is radically different...

...A dramatic illustration of student restlessness is provided by what happened at Moscow University in December 1956...

...There have been repeated complaints in the Soviet educational press concerning the quality (and even availability) of textbooks...

...Khrushchev also admitted what has long been common knowledge in the Soviet academic community: "Sometimes it is not the best prepared student who gets into an institution of higher education, but the one who has an influential Papa or Mama, who are able to facilitate their children's admission...

...To a considerable extent, this historically-rooted interest persists among Soviet students...

...In some provincial school systems, textbooks are "easier," physical plant and teaching aids less adequate, preparation and performance of teachers inferior, and, in consequence, quality of graduates distinctly lower than in the "centers...

...And this seriousness is widely shared by Soviet students and teachers, at every level of the school system...

...In the school year 1956-57 occupational training was included in the program of only 500 schools in the RSFSR...

...It should be noted that "production'' is construed broadly enough to include work in a newspaper office, research laboratory or library...

...This creates delicate problems: Teachers hesitate to fail students, since failure will deprive them of needed funds, as well as the opportunity for higher education...

...Women account for about four-fifths of Soviet primary- and secondary-school teachers, more than two-thirds of all medical doctors, and more than one-third of engineers and of university teachers...

...Many painters, poets, critics and scholars have continued through the years to produce works unacceptable to the regime, and have found a limited but devoted audience for their paintings, poems, articles and books (the latter in typescript or mimeographed form) among a close circle of friends, acquaintances and admirers...

...Khrushchev made clear in his address to the Komsomols what the Soviet press had been muttering under its breath for months: that recent ten-year school graduates have a strong antipathy, not to say contempt, for "work in field or factory...

...It was laid down as a formal requirement early in 1957 that ten-year-school graduates should work for two years before attempting to continue their formal education...

...University capacity is not being increased, partly because of difficulties of financing and staffing...

...Universities and engineering schools have a five-year program, medical schools a six-year program, teachers' colleges a four-year fin some cases two-year) program...

...Setting aside the question of the part played by German scientists and technicians, it must be emphasized that the guiding scientific-technical imagination and inventiveness has come from older men like Kapitsa (trained in England) and Blagonravov (trained before 1917...

...The cultural clamp-down since Hungary has stifled open expression of discontent, but the restlessness boils on beneath the surface...

...It is doubtful that any society has ever poured such a high proportion of its energies and resources into educational activities, in the broadest sense of the term, as the Soviet Union is doing today...

...Of the roughly 15 million youngsters in the age group 15-17 (grades 8-10), only about 5 million are enrolled in such schools...

...On the other hand, many Soviet secondary-school teachers are paid as little as 1,000 or 1,200 rubles a month...

...And there is strong pressure upon young graduates to go directly to farm or factory jobs...

...Science and scholarship enjoy high social prestige and economic reward in the Soviet Union...

...In a speech to the Thirteenth Congress of the Komsomol on April 18, 1958, Khrushchev stated that all farm and factory workers should have ten years of formal schooling, but that "polytechnical education...

...He also ventured the obviously informed, but perhaps overly severe, judgment that mathematics and science instruction in Soviet secondary schools left much to be desired...

...This discrepancy is primarily due to the Government's policy of encouragement and solicitation of students for technical-scientific training...

...The latter figure represents twenty years' wages for a Soviet unskilled worker...

...A similar requirement had been set up earlier for university graduates planning to pursue graduate studies...

...Except for such personal "pull," admissions seem to be based upon academic merit...

...most of them have never met anyone to whom the language is native...

...The series began March 24 with an article on foreign policy by David J. Dallin...

...There is, of course, no such thing as a liberal arts program or degree in Soviet universities...

...Of course, national and anti-Russian feeling operated strongly among Hungarians and Poles...

...there are certainly no visible signs of open revolt...

...However, Soviet students and intellectuals had a strong whiff of cultural and intellectual freedom during the summer and early fall of 1956...

...Traditionally, graduation from ten-year school has been taken as a natural stepping-stone to higher education...

...Foreign-language instruction appears quite comparable to that in American high schools, except for the relative lack of oral practice in Soviet schools and a resulting inability to speak the language even when reading fluency has been attained...

...In the recent past, intellectuals generally and students in particular have stood quite apart from the working masses in the Soviet Union...

...the system of honorifics, incentives and deterrents is highly developed...

...Soviet education at all levels is intensely competitive...

...Attendance at all lectures and seminars is compulsory and strictly controlled...

...Soviet institutions of higher education also operate on a six-day week...

...This is particularly the case in Soviet Asia...

...Soviet leaders, from the beginning, have treated organized education with greater seriousness than political leaders in any other country...

...In addition, informal educational, scholarly and scientific activities, in a broad sense—including public lectures and motion pictures, guided tours through museums, galleries, scientific and technical exhibits—are followed with intense interest by the Soviet public...

...Scholarship holders have their photographs prominently posted on bulletin boards and in the local press...

...There is no need to discuss here the well-publicized quanti tative superiority (3 to 1) of Soviet to American output of engineers and natural scientists, or the 10 to 1 superiority in the output of technicians...

...2) much of the technical knowledge and skill which American youngsters absorb almost automatically from our "do-it-yourself" and highly mechanized culture must be formally taught to Soviet young people...

...This is involved with the question of the extent to which the rapid expansion of Soviet education in recent years may have had consequences dangerous to the regime—introducing habits of independent and critical thought, opening up ideas and values otherwise closed to Soviet citizens, and generally exercising at least some of the "liberating" effects of Western-style liberal education...

...Two million are in semi-professional "technicums," one million in trade schools, an unknown number in military and boarding schools...

...To the surprise of many observers, the most outspoken critics and the most spirited opponents of the Communist regimes in Hungary and Poland turned up among students and young intellectuals who had been subjected to nearly a decade of massive Soviet-style education and indoctrination...

...Some of the poetry is highly lyrical and personal, some of it meditative and even religious in tone...

...3. The underlying restlessness and heterodoxy of Soviet intellectuals, especially university students, is evidenced by the active Soviet "cultural underground" in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and perhaps other cities...

...Soviet students are permitted to apply to one institution only in a given year (in marked contrast to American practice...

...Royalties for scholarly publication are high: The standard rate is 1,000 to 1,500 rubles for a book review, 4,000 to 5,000 rubles for a journal article, up to 15,000 rubles for a longer article in a symposium volume, and up to 150,000 rubles for a textbook or major monograph...

...many of them have been openly critical of aspects of the Soviet system...

...It should be noted that the degree of "Doctor of Sciences," like the title of "professor," is reserved in the Soviet Union for mature scholars and scientists of proven ability and established reputation...

...Academic people also enjoy certain housing preferences and tax privileges...

...The basic program of studies in the ten-year school, fixed for all, is solid and traditional, laying central emphasis upon mathematics and the natural sciences...

...Within the past two years the dissertation requirement for the Candidate's degree and the academic residence requirement for the doctorate have both been abolished...

...As a result of central planning and the comprehensive system of incentives and pressures, only 5 per cent of Soviet university-level students graduate in humanities, compared to 95 per cent in mathematics, natural sciences, medicine, engineering, etc...

...The corresponding figure in the U. S. is 165,000—representing only 10 per cent of the high-school graduating class of about 1.65 million...

...To what extent this seriousness is a Soviet phenomenon and to what extent it derives from historical or even psychological peculiarities of Russian experience and character is a question that cannot be explored here...

...As an example, Kisilev's Algebra, first published in 1888 and reprinted with negligible revisions, is still the standard Soviet textbook...

...The percentage of Soviet university graduates who will enter secondary-school teaching is stipulated by the authorities...

...In conversations with physicists, engineers and mathematicians in the Soviet Lnion in 1956 and 1957, I was repeatedly struck by their knowledge of, and interest in, music, the plastic arts and literature...

...Very few Soviet professors or doctors of science are under 45 or 50 years of age...

...One out of every four Soviet citizens is currently enrolled in some kind of educational institution...

...Nevertheless, the two-year interruption can hardly fail to discourage many students with scholarly ambitions...

...One hundred schools are now experimenting with 11th and 12th grade programs which include intensive vocational training and intervals of work in industry or agriculture...

...However, textbooks, supplies and uniforms must be paid for by the individual student...

...A final question may be raised concerning the success of Soviet ideological indoctrination and the depth and firmness of students' loyalty to the Soviet system...

...Such courses are treated either as a joke or as a necessary and superficial evil by a majority of university, engineering and medical students...

...Failing students are deprived of their stipends altogether...

...Polytechnical education," Izvestia asserted in October 1957, "has passed beyond the experimental stage...

...Liberal education in the Western sense is acquired mostly outside of the university classroom...

...But the Polish Vice-Minister of Culture is reported to have flown to Moscow to plead personally with defiant Polish students...

...In the tenth grade, there are 230 school days per year, considerably more than in most American and West European school systems...

...In a six-day week, the number of class hours ranges from 24 (grades 1-3) to 33 (grades 9 and 10...

...The role of Tsiolkovski's seminal ideas of half a century ago should not be underestimated...

...A concerted drive was launched in 1956 to universalize compulsory ten...

...Tuition fees in all Soviet institutions of higher learning (and in the last three grades of secondary school), introduced in 1940, were abolished in the fall of 1956...

...Then Boris I. Nicolaevsky discussed the Communist party, Gleb Struve literature, Richard Pipes nationalities, Simon Wolin the secret police, Vladimir Gsovski law, Myron Rush the economic managers, Lazar Volin agriculture, Oleg Hoeffding industry, and Leon Goure the Army...

...There are as many as 20 or 25 applicants for each opening in the humanistic faculties of the leading universities—as few as 3 or 5 for each opening in many technical institutes...

...Soviet advances in rocketry and guided missiles—concretely symbolized by the pioneering Sputnik I, placed in orbit on October 4, 1957 and its mammoth successor, Sputnik III, launched on May 15, 1958—are often attributed to the success of Soviet technical and scientific training...

...The content of high-school algebra may not have changed in the last 80 years, but methods of presenting it certainly have...

...more importantly, because of the anticipated population deficit in the age group which will he graduating from secondary schools between 1959 and 1963...

...The connection is actually much less clearcut...

...There are no electives, although in those schools where more than one foreign language is taught, pupils have a choice between English and German or English and French...

...In Moscow all secondary schools now have "vocational workshops...

...Even this minute figure is considered excessive by Soviet authorities, who have taken steps to reduce it...

...Khrushchev's most recent pronouncements suggest that the pace of technical and vocational training at the secondary-school level is being sharply increased, at the expense of the "college-preparatory" ten-year school...

...During a typical five-year course, Soviet university students have to pass about 50 separate examinations...

...2. There is a definite restlessness and critical attitude among Soviet intellectuals in their early twenties —those recently graduated from or currently studying in Soviet institutions of higher education...

...But, with graduating classes well past the million mark, and higher institutions able to absorb only 450,000 new students a year (half of these in evening or correspondence courses), a grave crisis has developed...

...The German or American PhD or DSci stands somewhere between the Soviet Candidate's and Doctor's degree...

...All students take six years of a foreign language, five of physics, four of chemistry, three of biology, and six of mathematics (beyond arithmetic...

...At present, 8 out of 10 students in higher educational institutions hold scholarships, which range from pocket-money to more than the wage of a skilled worker...

...There are relatively few women graduate students or holders of the degree of "Doctor of Sciences," and even fewer women academicians and professors...

...Its closest approximation is a major in one of the social sciences (economics, history, law...

...the number for 1957-58 is set at nearly 10,000...

...It should be borne in mind that, as a result of the war and the great purges, women outnumber men by nearly 3 to 2 in the adult Soviet population...

...year schooling—but not the ten-year school — by 1960...

...It is thus inevitable that a certain number of people without special interest in, or talent for, teaching are pressed into the field...

...And such measures as Khrushchev's current drive to deflect large numbers of ten-year school graduates, thirsting for higher education, back to the plow and the workbench, can scarcely fail to swell the reservoir of deep-lying disillusionment, dissent and disaffection...

...Ubiquitous signs of "earned status" include school uniforms, badges, medals, ribbons and prizes for scholarly achievement...

...A brilliant young Soviet physicist, who had seen recent American high-school textbooks in mathematics and physics, told me that he found them markedly superior to their Soviet counterparts...

...There is little racial discrimination, except against Jews who seek academic or scholarly careers in such politically sensitive areas as philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, history—and (to a degree) medicine...

...On the average, Soviet school teachers receive only about three times the pay of unskilled workers...

...Stalin Prizes—now called Lenin Prizes— are tax-exempt...

...Posters were much in evidence in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev in 1956 and 1957 which bore the exhortation: "With the maturity certificate [i.e., high-school diploma] — directly into production...

...At this time, pencilled translations of BBC newscasts were posted on dormitory bulletin boards early each morning—to be torn down by authorities an hour or two later...

...Only about one-third of Soviet young people graduate from it...

...Soviet students and their parents persist in this attitude...

...some of them are enrolled in evening or correspondence courses...

...Russian students — including engineers, medical students, and natural scientists—have always exhibited a special interest in literature and philosophy...

...Doubtless this is not universally true...

...But, adjusting for differences of "coverage" and intensity, Alex Korol estimates that Soviet ten-year-school graduates are given the equivalent of 5.9 "high-school years" of science and 4.4 years of mathematics...

...George L. Kline, assistant professor of philosophy at Columbia University, visited the Soviet Union in 1956 and 1957...

...These figures should not be compared directly to U. S. high-school figures...

...Few Soviet language teachers can speak the language they teach...

...This "surplus'' is being variously absorbed...

...The science-oriented ten-year school is by no means universal...

...This anti-Semitism is a serious problem...

...At least in the major cities—Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, etc.—most Soviet secondary-school teachers appear to be competent and devoted, and most students zealous and enthusiastic...

...25 to 50 hours of weekly outside preparation is expected...

...This policy is clearly part of the systematic Soviet discouragement of university education for the masses...

...He castigated this attitude as an "aristocratic" prejudice and assailed parents and teachers who used the "threat" of manual employment as a "bogeyman" to intimidate uneager students...

...The first graduate degree, that of "Candidate of Sciences," corresponds more closely to the British MA than to the American MA or MS...

...These will be young people born between 1942 and 1946, when the Soviet birth rate was sharply depressed...

...Of course, a substantial number of students whose chief interests lie in philosophy, literature and the arts are channeled into engineering or other technical schools...

...For example, all graduates of Soviet ten-year schools (1.3 million in 1956) can in theory meet U. S. College Board Advanced Mathematics standards...

...Every intellectual discipline except theology is classed as a "science" in Soviet parlance...

...This does not seem to be the case with secondary-school students, most of whom are loyal and even enthusiastic in their support of the regime...

...Compared to the monthly wage of a Soviet skilled worker or even a medical doctor in general practice—about 1,200-1,500 rubles per month—Soviet professors receive between 6,000 and 15,000 rubles (in purchasing power, roughly $600 to $1,500...

...Not only have such works violated the formal canons of "socialist realism...

...Though the position of departmental chairman is supposed to require the doctorate, in fact Soviet sources continue to complain that only 25 per cent of such positions are filled by people with doctor's degrees...

...Total earnings of Soviet professors are impressive...

...This, of course, is the measure of "exposure...

...The figure for foreign languages would probably be approximately the same (4.5 years...

...Only 5 per cent of university professors are women...

...A student preparing for ten-year-school mathematics teaching gets nearly as much mathematics as does the university student who intends to become a professional mathematician...

...For example, in 1955 the quota was set at 80 per cent of graduates in humanities, geography and biology and 60 per cent of those in the physical sciences and mathematics...

...However, Izvestia, at the beginning of the current academic year, also noted that the quality of instruction in physics, chemistry and biology needed to be "further improved...

...Thus, rejection means at least a year's delay...

...They had become an intolerable focus of information, speculation and critical commentary upon the events in Hungary during November and December...

...but has recently been reduced to 36 for the first four years and 30 for the fifth—still roughly twice the American figure...

...Steps also were taken to limit the "spreading infection" of criticism and adverse comment emanating from Polish students at Moscow University, although Polish and Soviet authorities were apparently able to control the situation without recourse to comparably drastic measures...

...The titles "academician" and "professor" inspire universal respect, bordering almost on reverence...

...More than half of Soviet university graduates are women...

...including that in "factory schools" and evening schools for workers, must be expanded...

...The overall result appears to be that, to a much greater degree than in the United States, outstandingly gifted young people are drawn into academic, scholarly and scientific careers rather than into Government or industry...

...Soviet seriousness about education is concretely evident in the secondary-school calendar and curriculum...

...Khrushchev himself, in his Komsomol speech of April 18, declared that 700,000 secondary-school graduates of the class of 1957 were unable to enter higher institutions, and that the total backlog of such students for the period 1953-56 was 2.2 million...

...Marxism-Leninism) or humanities I Russian, foreign or comparative literature, philosophy, classics...

...Graduates are being channeled into experimental 11th and 12th grade classes, as noted above...

...But achievement appears to stand at a comparable level...

...The best students receive gold or silver medals upon graduation from Soviet secondary schools...

...But graduates in all of these fields taken together, as we have seen, amount to only 5 per cent of Soviet graduates of institutions of higher education...

...In general, Soviet teacher-training stresses subject matter rather than pedagogical methods...

...But two qualifying circumstances should be noted: (1) Every licensed motorvehicle operator in the Soviet Union is classified as a "technician"—with some justification, since he must pass a rigorous automobile mechanic's test to qualify as a driver, demonstrating his ability to carry out most of the repairs on the vehicle which he drives...

...Rules governing failure and re-examination are strict, although they have been relaxed somewhat in the last two or three years...

...One possible consequence of forcing students into "production"—a consequence presumably unanticipated by and surely unwelcome to the Soviet Government—may be that students will come to appreciate the problems of ordinary workers and will in turn infect workers with their own discontents...

...Thus, their situation is not radically different from that of their American counterparts...

...The shift in attitude of many Soviet students between ages 18 and 23 would seem to indicate that the process of acquiring a higher education had precipitated doubts and a critical spirit which had existed only potentially before...

...Outstanding students" (ollich-niki) receive an automatic 25 per cent increase in stipend for the following semester...

...Scholarly and scientific work is regarded with utmost seriousness, both by Government officials and by the scholars and scientists who perform it—whether in physics, botany, history or philosophy...

...In mass ceremonies, accompanied by a glare of publicity, medals and orders are given to outstanding Soviet teachers...

...Three related facts bear upon the answers to these questions: 1. Formal indoctrination—through courses in Marxism-Leninism and Party history—seems to be entrusted largely to faithful but unsubtle Party hacks ("diamatchiki", as they are rather contemptuously called, from "diamai" — dialectical materialism...

...The remaining 6 to 7 million work full time, a majority of them in agriculture...

...In fact, the average Soviet professor receives 16 times the pay of the average unskilled worker...

...But it is acquired, to a quite amazing degree...

...The number of weekly class hours was stable for many years at 40 to 42...