During Stalin’s time as head of the Soviet Union he embarked upon an enterprise to reshape a large part of soviet work life. This reshaping was based around the education of communists for the purpose of “mastering technology” and replacing the remnants of the bourgeoisie as technical advisor and industrial expert. The majority of these positions were still filled by members of the Russian bourgeoisie, in some instances the previous owners of a factory still helped run the plant as an advisor to the communist in charge. Many people in the Bolshevik party were satisfied with this arrangement for the time being, Lenin himself believed it was necessary in order to kick start soviet industry, but Stalin and his allies believed that this must be done away with and sought to remedy the problem as they saw fit.
The results were large efforts to get working class communists into higher education for several purposes. These efforts brought thousands of students into higher education and produced large amounts of educated communists. While these efforts were underway another great change was occurring. First the Shakty trial, which targeted the bourgeoisie experts the newly educated cadres were supposed to replace, and then the great purges in which the old leadership of the Bolsheviks, and anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the way, were gotten rid of. Both of these groups were replaced by the newly educated communist cadres. As Fitzpatrick mentions in the end of the reading for today the timing of this is slightly suspect.
My question is were Stalin’s efforts to build up a class of educated workers who would go on to fill the cadres a genuine movement for both Stalin and its participants? The memoir of Pasha Angelina provides a positive view of this revolution as a glorious and uplifting one that portrays Stalin as a true believer in what is being accomplished. Is this a genuine portrayal of the creation of the “new Russian elite”?
I would disagree with characterizing Stalin as simply believing in education for its own sake. Considering the timing of the Great Purge and the Shakty trial coincided with the growth of higher education, I would strongly argue that Stalin was trying to replace the people he didn’t trust with people who would be loyal to him. The idea of an educated worker was used as an effective front for this reorganization.
As best as I can see it, Stalin’s efforts were genuine in that he wanted an intelligentsia for Russia that came from the proletariat. We can’t know what his own personal motivations were (at least from our readings), but we can deduce that as the leader of the USSR, bettering Russia by giving it a class of people who would propel it forward economically and technologically, would be a genuine manifestation of his efforts to do his job well.
Uncertainty creeps in, then, when we examine the representation of this new elite. Pasha Angelina writes that it was an uplifting process, but it wasn’t uplifting for the former administrators and “bourgeoisie elite” that got purged to make way for the “new Russian elite.” In my opinion, Stalin’s goals of creating an intelligentsia were genuine, but the fact that he wanted a group of people who would be indebted to him for putting them in those positions, and the fact that he effectively killed their predecessors to put said new Russian elite in its place, was not genuine.
Creating a new intelligentsia out of proletarians was a great idea- one, it gave legitimacy to the party, and two, educating the underclass is always good. On the other hand, replacing the victims of the purges was a real motive, so its not like it was a morally clean system. Honestly I think the biggest issue is trying to implement this huge turnover in the population of the academy very fast, when many of the old timers who could have helped ease the process have been purged. A lot of elements of the process were pretty slapdash.
I believe that Stalin did believe in a goal and wanted to achieve a specialized work force even if it was not for the better good of the country as a whole, but instead for the betterment of his own goals. The people did not seem to mind as an education was part of their goals. Both parties did not have the same goal, but shared the same requirements to reach their goals.
This debate regarding the use of bourgeois technical experts did not only exist in this period of history, but additionally, during the Civil War, there was a debate surrounding the use of former generals of the Tsarists government in the Red Army. Trotsky (who eventually had his way) advocated for the use of formerly Tsarist generals while Stalin was bitterly opposed. It seems this moment of replacing bourgeois technical experts with proletarian ones is not only a method of social engineering, but a way for Stalin to spread his specific ideology of who gets to manage a socialist state.
Just like Ian, I don’t think Stalin wanted education for the sake of education but rather to build an elite workforce and if that came with education, then it was a benefit for the people and Stalin just knocked two birds dow with one stone.