Russia

Technical Education.

Technical education is available at trade schools, factory workshops, and training workshops for juveniles. There are also numerous technical and agricultural institutes for adults, some providing whole-time and others eve ning or part-time instruction. The loss of skilled workers during the war has created a shortage and much attention is devoted to this branch of the work. An interesting change of attitude to peasant industries, at first considered an unnecessary part of the ideal state, which was to be divided between large scale pro duction and agriculture, has set in and training schools for peasant crafts are springing up rapidly. Provision for adults desiring to educate themselves is widespread and includes guidance in home studies, evening and holiday classes, political schools, cot tage reading classes, clubs, travelling libraries, special itinerant bookstalls with cheap rates for peasants, etc. An interesting fea ture is the "wall" newspaper, consisting of handwritten matter and drawings, which is pasted in prominent positions in factories and clubs. Special peasant newspapers are now issued containing simple matter expressed in a way likely to be understood by semi-literates; these peasant newspapers publish letters from peasant contributors. A special development for illiterates is the teaching poster, consisting of pictures designed to illustrate simple rules of health.

Universities.

Institutes of university standing are divided into two groups : (I) Workers' faculties, (2) Universities. The organisation of workers' faculties began in 192o with the co-opera tion of the trade unions ; most of them are in Moscow and Lenin grad. Those attached to the science side usually send on their students to technical institutes, those on the agricultural side train agronomic instructors. In 1926-7 there were 109 workers' faculties with 45,702 students and 124 universities with 160,000 students. Thus the total number of students receiving education of a university standing is small. The universities suffered severely from the changed conditions after 1917 and from the low stand ard of preparation achieved by the students during the disastrous years up to 1923. Even now many students have had much interrupted pre-university preparation, and it will be some time before a generation which has had uninterrupted school prep aration reaches the universities.

Scientific work in Russia was of a very high standard in pre war times and in spite of all difficulties the famous Academy of Sciences has maintained its reputation. Regional research has developed rapidly and a series of monographs on the new re publics and on the economic division of the country according to the State plan has been published. These all suffer from inade quate maps, but contain much new and useful material. A new geological map of the Asiatic part of Russia has been issued, incorporating recent traverses and Obruchev has worked out on the spot the relations of mountains in the Verkhoyansk arc, previ ously unknown. (See S. Obruchev, "Discovery of a Great Range in North East Siberia," Geographical Journal, November 1927.) A remarkable soil map of Asiatic Russia has been published in several sheets by the Dokuchaiev Institute under the direction of Glinka and Prasolov. The work of the Physiological Labora tories under the direction of I. P. Pavlov (q.v.) is world famous. (See Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes, 1927.) Numerous State Re search Institutes have been established and have achieved striking results, e.g., the utilisation of peat, shale and brown coal for the production of electricity. All visitors to Russia note the great interest which the Soviet government takes in the artistic and archaeological treasures of the nation and the importance attached to their display in museums open to the public. Museum visits play a large part in education. Meyerhold's experiments in theatrical presentation and the work of the Moscow Art Theatre are well known. An interesting development in Russia is the

theatre for the national minorities where encouragement is given to production in the mother tongue and to the development of native culture. The national minorities also have their own press. Rigid press censorship, as in the old regime, is still the order of the day, but there has been a widening of the scope of publication and the limitation of publication merely to communist literature is giving place to wide publication of scientific and other edu cational works. The press, the newspapers, wireless and education are, however, all used by the dictatorship as instruments of propaganda. (See GOVERNMENT and ADMINISTRATION, infra.) Religion.—In 1917 the former Orthodox Greek State Church was disestablished, and many of its treasures were subsequently confiscated and arranged in museums. Many monasteries and churches were taken over as state property. The former more or less open persecution of non-conformists, who numbered many millions and the repeated massacres of Jews have therefore ceased. This persecution was a curious feature, since it existed alongside of great tolerance for the Islamic faith. At first active campaigns against every form of religion, including the Islamic, were carried out by the Soviets, but milder measures have supervened and, in some cases, Islamic schools are permitted. The general law, however, is that class instruction for children and young people in religion is forbidden. Religious services, including those of the Islamic faith may be openly held and churches may be leased from the state by not less than 20 citizens constituting part of the congregation. Priests and clergy have no electoral rights and are liable to the death penalty if they attempt to use religion as a political instrument. In view of their former terrible persecu tion, the Jews are regarded as an oppressed nationality by the Soviets; grants of land in the Crimea and the North Caucasian Area have been made to them and they are encouraged to take up communal farming. (R. M. F.) The essential feature of the present government of Russia may best be realized from the following quotation from the Guide book to tile Soviet Union, 1928. "The undisguised and deliberate use of the State Institutions as an instrument in the class strug gle is fully in accord with the Marxian doctrine of the State, namely, that it is a class organisation ; in this case it is the or ganisation of the ruling proletarian class. This conception of the State permeates all forms of social and economic life in the Union." In accordance with this theory no attempt is made to encourage popular representation, but every attempt is made to preserve the present Communist oligarchy. At present the Russian Communist party is the only authorized and organized party in the U.S.S.R. and controls the whole governmental machinery for the exercise of its dictatorship. The Communist party is con trolled by a Central Committee of 71 members. This committee chooses an executive body, known as the Political Bureau (Polit buro), of nine members who largely determine party policy. Joseph Stalin, as the General Secretary, has, since the death of Lenin, been in effect in general control of Soviet policy. While the Russian Communist party stands alone, within the party in 1926 and 1927 there arose an important radical opposition group led by Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other leaders. In November and December, 1927, the Central Committee of the party, domi nated by Stalin, succeeded in expelling them from the party and later about 30 of these opposition leaders were banished. The Communist party thus retains control even though its member ship in January, 1927, was only 774,571 out of the whole 146, 000,000 of the people in the U.S.S.R.