Natalia Nikolaevna Ablazhey,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Anatoly Mikhailovich Ablazhey,
Candidate of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
“The Agencies of Proletarian Power Must have Complete and Unconditional Control over Everything That is Done within the Walls of Higher Education”: The Struggle for the Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions in 1921−1922
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-1-17
This documentary publication describes the events of 1921−1922 that led to the actual rejection of the principle of university autonomy in Soviet Russia. It is shown that the Soviet and party leadership initially had no consensus on how to manage higher education. As a result, it quickly split into pragmatists, ready for a reasonable tactical compromise for the sake of achieving strategic goals, and radicals, calling for a decisive “sovietization” of universities, which threatened a long-term crisis in higher education. A number of collective appeals and letters to the highest authorities are used to prove that the professors also were not politically homogeneous, generally trying to find legitimate forms of cooperation with the new government in the interests of science and higher education, and to ensure the basic conditions for professional activity. The majority of the professors considered the preservation of the principle of autonomy of higher education to be the most optimal form of cooperation. However, the adoption of the updated charter of higher education in the summer of 1922 and the victory of the radical wing of the Bolshevik Party marked the rejection of this principle and the transition to repressive measures in relations with the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia.
Publishing: 24/02/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 16/01/2025
How to cite: Ablazhey N.N., Ablazhey A.M. “The Agencies of Proletarian Power Must have Complete and Unconditional Control over Everything That is Done within the Walls of Higher Education”: The Struggle for the Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions in 1921−1922 // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 1 (39), pp. 25–267. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-1-17.pdf]
The article was published within the framework of the topics of state assignments of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “Socio-Economic Potential of the Eeastern Regions of Russia in the 20th − Early 21st Centuries: Management Strategies and Practices, Dynamics, Geopolitical Context” (FWZM-2024-0005); “Institutes and Practices of Intellectual Production in Modern Russia: Trends and Development Prospects (National and Local Levels)” (FWZW-2024-0013).
Links: Issue 1 2025
Keywords: higher education; professors; university autonomy; management; “sovietization”