The Impact of Revolution: The Case of Selection of Students for Higher Education in Soviet Russia, 1917-1928

Abstract

Little attention has been given to the impact as opposed to the causes of revolution. After considering the social background of students in Tsarist Russia, we examine the effects of the Bolshevik Revolution on the recruitment of students by analysing their social origin, sex and Party affiliation in various institutions of higher education in the first eleven years after 1917. Four main points are made. (i) While radical changes in the class composition of the student body occurred, it is shown that a social gradation of institutions and differential chances of selection persisted, though in more subtle forms; (ii) The placement of workers and peasants in higher educational institutions through special workers' courses was more successful in institutions related to production than in others; (iii) The pre-revolutionary social background considerably influenced aspirations and expectations and helps to explain the post-revolutionary amelioration of the educational opportunities available for women; (iv) Allegiance to the Party was correlated to social background and to type of educational institution. It is concluded that the institutionalization of the values which are held by revolutionaries when in power meets with resistance, particularly from traditional cultural orientations. The definition of revolutionary transformation, therefore, must include in Kornhauser's terms not only wide scope, rapid, developmental and purposive change but must also take into account the persistence of some pre-revolutionary aspirations and tendencies in a period of transition from one social order to the next.