David Mandel

“Optimizing” Higher Education in Russia


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its ideological justifications, is, in reality, the policy of the bourgeoisie when it does not encounter serious popular resistance.3 There is resistance in Russia, but for both historical and contemporary reasons it is very weak. The Russian case can, therefore, be read as a cautionary tale by anyone who holds a humanistic conception of higher education.

      This research was conducted over several years. It included lengthy stays in Russia, during which I was conducted interviews and held informal discussions with university teachers and union activists. I also participated in union educational activities, meetings, conferences, and protests. The study also makes use of government and union documents, as well as published scholarly studies and articles from the press and the social media.

      Since I do not believe that neutrality is possible in the study of study significant aspects of society, I will make clear my social and ideological commitments. I have long been active in my own university’s trade union, the first accredited professors’ union in Canada, and in its efforts to resist neo-liberal pressures. I have also long been involved in trade-union educational activities in Russia. Notwithstanding those commitments, I have tried my best to make honest use of all the materials that were available to me and did not select or distort facts in order to support a parti pris.

      A note on terminology. The Russian term professor is not usually used generically to denote “university teacher”, as is often the case in North America for tenured or tenure-track teachers. In this text, the term professor will be reserved for holders of the Russian title (roughly equivalent to “full professor”). “University teacher” will be used as the generic term. Other titles for teaching positions in Russia and their rough North-American equivalents are: assistent (teaching assistant), prepodavatel’ (lecturer), starshii prepodavatel’ (senior lecturer), dotsent (associate professor)—the most numerous category.

      a. The Soviet Period

      There was no concept of tenure in the Soviet Union, but once hired, university teachers could expect to keep their jobs for life, as long as they conformed politically. Party membership, not easy to obtain for intellectuals in the later Soviet period (unlike workers, who sometimes resisted insistent invitations to join), was obligatory in politically sensitive disciplines, such as economics, history, or philosophy, which were under strict ideological control. Sociology, banned under Stalin, was resurrected after his death, but mainly as an applied (fact-gathering and analysis), rather than theoretical discipline. Courses in Soviet Marxism and party history were obligatory for students in all disciplines.

      Teaching personnel in institutions of higher learning, unless they were members of the party committee or held administrative positions, did not participate in important decisions. The most significant decisions were taken centrally beyond the university, including the disciplines and subjects to be taught, admission quotas, educational standards, workloads and remuneration.

      Soviet parents often invested considerable energy and financial resources in their offspring’s accession to higher education, which was a prestigious and widely-shared goal. Evening and extramural higher education was also widely developed, the law providing special conditions for working students enrolled in these programmes. Students in higher education were generally motivated to learn, since at least equally well-paid jobs not requiring