The formation of the system of higher and secondary technical education in the Middle Volga, 1928-1932

This article analyzes Stalin’s policy on higher technical education during the Great Break in the Middle Volga — a new industrial region. The goal of the educational reform of 1928—1929 was not only to cover the massive deficit of qualified technicians and managers in quickly growing Soviet industry, but also to transform the social and political structure of that professional group. This policy opened the possibilities to make managerial career for many undereducated but politically loyal workers. The total absence of higher technical schools in the Middle Volga before the 1930s and frantic activities of the regional powers in this sphere were responsible for radicalizing the mechanisms of the reform. During two years (1930-1931) in the Middle Volga eleven higher and thirty one secondary technical schools were founded without any scientific, pedagogical and material resources. The number of the students skyrocketed. The situation was complicated by minimizing admission requirements and reducing the education period. As in the whole country, in the Middle Volga technical schools the radical simplification of the learning process was observed. The traditional lectures were replaced by the brigade-laboratory method without any real individual control of education quality and quality theoretical education. The huge deficit of scientists and professors was compensated by engaging the engineers from local industrial enterprises and even school teachers. The great downgrading of professional skills of engineers in the 1930s was the main result of this educational experiment. It was so obvious that the Soviet government began a counter-reform of the higher education system four years after the start of the reform. It was the return to the traditional principles of higher education. But the main social result of that radical experiment was that in the Soviet Russia a new generation of engineers with working-class roots, great political loyalty to Stalin’s régime, and new specific technical culture appeared. A great political future was reserved for them.