Citizens educated in the USSR knew from school that the majority of the population of tsarist Russia was illiterate, and the Bolsheviks who came to power after the Great October Socialist Revolution developed and implemented a program of general education.
However, after "perestroika" and the victory of "democracy" they stopped talking about it and began to tell children about the "bloody red commissars" and "Russia, which we have lost." Among these stories is the myth of the high level of education in pre-revolutionary Russia.
What was the situation with education in tsarist Russia
In general, it should be noted that the level of education of the population was consistently raised in tsarist Russia. The empire needed officers, engineers, architects, scientists, doctors and skilled workers. Higher education in the Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas II, in general, was the best in Europe (in terms of the number of students and quality). However, it is worth noting that higher education was received mainly by representatives of the upper social strata - children of nobles, military men, officials, the bourgeoisie, and the intelligentsia. That is, those who received primary and secondary education and could continue their education.
The budget of the Ministry of Public Education grew rapidly. In addition, the schools were financed by the military, the Synod, the zemstvos and the city. The successes in education were obvious: there were 78 thousand primary schools in 1896, and in 1914 there were already more than 119 thousand; the number of gymnasiums (secondary educational institutions) in 1892 was 239, and in 1914 - 2300; the number of students in 1896 was 3.8 million, in 1914 - 9.7 million; the number of teachers in 1896 was 114 thousand, in 1914 - 280 thousand; the number of students in 1890 was 12.5 thousand, in 1914 - 127 thousand.
According to the first complete census of the population of Russia in 1897, 22.7% of the literate were identified in the country (together with Finland). By 1914, about a third of the population was literate to one degree or another. But this is on average. There were more literate people in Russian Poland, Finland, the European part of Russia, and in cities. In Turkestan and the Caucasus, the number of illiterates could be up to 90%, the low level was in rural areas. A person who could write his last name could also be literate. Women had a low level of education. A significant part of the children did not study anywhere at all.
Thus, education in tsarist Russia developed, and during the reign of Nicholas II at a very rapid pace. This was due to the need to modernize the country, general global trends. There were objective difficulties: a huge territory, a large population (then we were second only to China and India), underdeveloped national outskirts, where slavery existed until recently, tribal traditions dominated, etc. The myth of the "hopelessly backward", "dark" Russian empire and the "prison of peoples" was created by the enemies of Russia, the Westernizers, among whom there were also internationalist revolutionaries.
The myth of literate tsarist Russia
Obviously, if not for the world war, revolution and Civil War, the level of education of the population of the Russian Empire also increased significantly. However, the new monarchists and supporters of "Russia We Lost" go further and argue that Russia was literate before 1917.
For example, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk during the lecture "The February Revolution: What Was It?" of September 3, 2017 in Yekaterinburg reported:
“In 1920, the newly minted Ministry of Education, which was then called the People's Commissariat for Education, decided to study what literacy was in the Soviets, the then new Soviet Russia. And a census of the literate population was carried out in this very backward, illiterate, dark Russia. 1920 is the third year of the Civil War. We understand that most schools do not work, devastation, paying teachers are always huge problems, and so on. So, it turned out that teenagers from 12 to 16 years old are 86% literate."
Accordingly, the conclusion is drawn: these children were educated back in tsarist Russia.
What does the 1920 census really show?
In the preliminary results of the census, there was no age division at all. It provides the state of education: the number of educational institutions, students (5, 9 million). Also, the total number of citizens of the RSFSR and Ukraine (excluding the regions where the Civil War continues), it was 131.5 million people. In later documents of the Central Statistical Office of 1922-1923, the literacy of the population according to the results of the 1920 census is indicated - more than 37%. There is a breakdown by age, but not marked by Bishop Tikhon from 12 to 16 years old, but from 8 to 15 years old. 49% of literate children aged 8-15 years. It should be remembered that during the 1920 census, the criteria for assessing literacy were broadened as much as possible - those who could read syllables and write their surname in their native or Russian language were considered literate.
How many children were there at the time?
The average values of the modern period are more than a third of the population. Then the birth rate was much higher, the population was much younger. In a more accurate 1926 census of the USSR, in which there are age groups, from 147 million people under 19 years old - 71, 3 million. The census presents age groups from 10 to 14 and from 15 to 19 years. That is, it is impossible to calculate how many children there were at the age of 12-16. Summing up the two groups, we get 33.9 million people, of which 20.3 million were literate. This is two-thirds, and this is a broader age category, not 86%. Moreover, this is data from 1926, not 1920.
Thus, the Bolsheviks got a heavy legacy. They had not only to create first a universal 4-year education (then 7 and 10 years), but also to conduct an educational program among adults and at an accelerated pace. So, about 40 million illiterates passed through the educational program, and by the beginning of the 40s, literacy among the population under the age of 50 was over 90%. The problem of illiteracy in the country was practically solved. The Bolsheviks were able to do what the tsars had not done before them: they made a qualitative leap, not only caught up with, but also overtook all the advanced countries of the West. The Russian school became the best in the world, hence all the subsequent successes of the USSR in science, technology, space, atom, military affairs, etc. It is worth remembering that the best traditions of the Russian classical (pre-revolutionary) school were fully inherited by the Soviet school as well.
Russia We Lost
Why did they create and support the myth of the high level of education in the Russian Empire?
Up to 80% educated. The fact is that a caste-estate society has been formed in the Russian Federation for three decades. Where there are the successful and the rich, for whom Russia is a country of opportunities, and everyone else is the poor, the poor and the losers, who supposedly do not want to develop and do business. A caste of "new nobles" who are completely satisfied with such a state of affairs when 90% of all the wealth of the country belongs to 2-3% of the population. It is for this caste that the myth of "Russia we have lost" is being formed. Like, everything was fine, beautiful, decorous and noble. But the "bloody Bolsheviks" came and destroyed this paradise.
They prefer not to voice the facts that the Romanovs themselves led Russia to the catastrophe of 1917. As well as the fact that the February Revolution and the destruction of Tsarist Russia were not the work of the Red Commissars and Red Guards, but of the then Russian elite, including representatives of the Romanov dynasty, the aristocracy, the generals, the highest bureaucracy, the Duma, and leading political parties. They also keep silent about the fact that the Bolsheviks saved historical Russia from complete destruction and the seizure of its lands by other powers. That the Bolsheviks recreated the Russian statehood (in the form of the Soviet one) and this was a stage in the qualitative historical ascent of Russia, and not a dead-end path of development.
Therefore, all the "reformers" from the 90s to the present so consistently destroyed and optimized the Soviet-Russian school.
You don't need a knife for a fool, You will lie to him with three boxes -
And do with him what you like!"
After all, we are witnessing a gradual return to the past. Nizam will be enough to be able to use digital devices (to be digital idiots), and classical and high-quality education will remain only for the "elite".
