The establishment of moral educational guidelines in high-level strategic documents of the USSR (1918–1986): Soviet historical experience

Introduction. The research addresses the fact that Russian and international scholarly literature lacks a systematic study of the strategic state and party documents of the USSR (1918–1986) as sources for reconstructing the normative model of moral education and for analyzing the mechanisms of establishing moral educational guidelines, the target image of the individual, and the logic of their historical development. The purpose of this study is to identify and analytically reconstruct the content of moral educational guidelines, objectives, and ideals, as well as to determine the stages and invariants of their development in high-level strategic documents of the Soviet period. Materials and Methods. The methodological framework of the study is based on systemic, historical-genetic, comparative-historical, and civilizational approaches. The research employs methods of content analysis, historical contextualization, and historical reconstruction of the corpus of strategic state and party documents of the USSR (1918–1986), as well as structural-functional analysis and the periodization method. These methods made it possible to identify the substantive invariants of moral educational guidelines and to trace the stages of their development. Results. The authors identified the stages of developing moral educational guidelines in the strategic documents of the USSR (1918–1986): from the revolutionary project of creating a ‘new person’ to the institutionalization of the moral educational vertical in the 1970s–1980s. The ideological principles, anthropological models, and cultural meanings enshrined in normative acts and programmatic materials of different historical periods were summarized. A unified normative model of Soviet education was reconstructed, including target guidelines, objectives, and representations of the ideal image of the individual. The stages and substantive invariants of this model were clarified, and the interrelations between moral educational goals, pedagogical practices, and state strategy were revealed. The research novelty includes the systematic reconstruction of the normative goal-setting of moral education in the Soviet period, which has not previously been presented comprehensively in scholarly literature in the field of education. Conclusions. The main conclusion of the study is that in the strategic state and party documents of the USSR (1918–1986), a coherent model of moral education was established and normatively consolidated, ensuring the integration of moral educational goals with the managerial and cultural mechanisms of society.