Document 49

Memorandum frm A. Stetsky on social and economic sciences faculty, 9 March 1935

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 695, ll. 15-21. Typed original.

To the Secretaries of TsK VKP(b):

I. V. Stalin

Comrade L. M. Kaganovich

Comrade A. A. Andreev

Comrade A. A. Zhdanov

Comrade N. I. Yezhov

Recently, numerous facts have demonstrated that social and economic sciences faculties are infested with former members of the opposition, double dealers, people who once belonged to other parties, and so forth. This points to a lack of proper leadership and to the slipshod way in which faculty members are appointed both on the part of the central administrative bodies responsible for educational institutions in various Commissariats and Narkomproses and on the part of krai and oblast party committees.

As a rule issues related to the appointment of faculty have not been of great concern to central administrative bodies until recently. These bodies do not have an accurate picture of who is teaching the social and economic sciences. Glaring testimony to this is contained in a report submitted by them regarding 98 departmental heads at higher educational institutions. In more than sixty percent (57 of 98) of the cases,"No information was available" about who had belonged to other parties, had been in the opposition, or had received a reprimand from the party. But even the statistics that were compiled signal the fact that a pressing and unresolved problem exists among the institutions' administrators: twenty departmental heads (out of the forty one about whom the central administrative bodies have information) have been subjected to party penalties, were expelled by the party, or belonged to other parties. Among 21 instructors who seemed from available information to be politically irreproachable were such persons as Zagorulko who was twice expelled from the party, Algasov, an ex-SR, Aleksandrov, an ex-Menshevik who was expelled from VKP(b), and others like them.

In the RSFSR's Narkompros, appointment of departmental heads is given more attention, but the matter is very badly organized. Comrade Orakhelashvili, the Narkompros Administrative Chief, approved departmental heads for twenty six of the sixty four teacher training colleges. But the actual result of this "approval" was as follows: (1) departmental heads not approved by Narkompros continued to hold their posts for a year or more, and (2) half of those recently approved by Narkompros have been dismissed for sneaking anti-party views into their teaching.

This is how matters stand with the selection and "approval" of departmental heads by Narkompros.

The following information from Moscow shows how badly departmental heads as a group are tainted: out of 126 heads verified by a commission of the Division of Culture and Propaganda of Leninism of MGK (Moskovsky Gorodskoi Komitet [Moscow City Committee]) VKP(b), less than a third were deemed fit to remain in their posts.

Things are even worse regarding the appointment and assessment of faculty proper. Information provided by the Narkompros central administrative bodies concerning the 433 faculty members at fifty fourt higher educational institutions under their charge shows that up till now the Commissariats' central administrative bodies have not studied the party profile of faculty members in the social and economic sciences. Recently information was collected about the social makeup, education, and number of party members (79.4%), but there is little information about what these party members represent. . . . We provide several illustrations that characterize the nature of the Commissariats' leadership in this matter.

1. On 22 September 1934 Comrade Novikov, the Chief of the Division of Higher Institutions of Technical Education in Narkomtiazhprom (Narodnyi Komissariat Tiazheloi Promyshlennosti [People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry], sent the director of the Energy Institute, Comrade Dudkin, the following memo:

"Dear Ivan Ivanovich, I've known Professor Zagorulko, professor at the Kiev Polytechnical Institute, since >21. I recommend that you not lose this valuable teacher and scholar." Thus, Zagorulko, once an active Trotskyite, twice expelled from the party, happened to become head of the Department of Leninism.

2. In response to an inquiry by the All-Union Higher Technical Education Committee an official letter was sent by Narkomzem (signed by Vitievsky, the deputy chief of the Special Higher Educational Institutions Administration, and Mladentsev, a teaching methods specialist and an inspector):

"According to available information received by NKZ RSFSR, both from personal, first-hand inspection and reports by the leaders of higher educational institutions, there have been no instances of misinterpretations in the teaching of the social and economic sciences. However, this does not mean that . . . ." etc.

Meanwhile, all one needs to do is glance at one Narkomzem institute (the Institute of Agricultural Mechanization) to discover serious political deviations in teaching. Evidence of the bad state of affairs in the appointment of faculty is provided also in information available about professors at fifty seven agricultural higher educational institutions. In these institutions fourteen departments in the economic disciplines (political economy, economic policy, and others) are headed by non-party members. Subjects such as agricultural production methods are primarily in the hands of non-party members, which include such "non-party" people as the saboteur Chaianov [quite possibly Aleksandr Chaianov (1888-1937) who in the 1920's directed the Timiriazev Academy of Agricultural Economics and was the leading exponent of the "organization and production school" of agrarian economists.]. Even among the heads of departments of Leninism and dialectical materialism there are five non-party members.

3. In Narkompros there are pro forma personal files for departmental heads, but one can judge how credible these "personal files" by a single example: In one document it is recorded that Professor Singalevich has been a Party member since 1926, in another since 1928, and in a third since 1931.

Such is the style and organization of the Commissariat's files and faculty hiring practices. [Omitted are descriptions of similar deficiencies at the Bauman Institute of Mechanical Engineering, the Institute of Nonferrous Metals, and in Tashkent's higher educational institutions.]

During recent years an enormous number of comrades received positions who had studied at the Institute of Red Professors [IKP], Ranion (Rossiiskaia assotsiatsiia nauchnogo issledovaniia obshchestvennykh nauk [Russian Association of Scientific Research in the Social Sciences]), or done graduate work in social and economic science institutions, and so forth. But these comrades are not being utilized as they should be. From information available about 315 who graduated from IKP it is evident that three quarters of them are to be found doing party, trade union, governmental, and every other type of work except teaching. More often than not, the worse--not the best people in terms of party consciousness--are left to do the teaching.

Voronozh Oblast serves as a striking illustration. Here out of forty persons who studied at IKP, only two are teaching. The other thirty eight occupy governmental and party posts and, as a rule, do not teach even when they hold joint appointments.

This is how matters stand with regard to engaging a qualified party work force as faculty.

The current state of affairs with regard to how faculty are appointed in the social and economic sciences and the current practice of leaving the teaching to those who cannot be used for other work must come to an end.

It is imperative to:

1. Oblige krai committees, oblast committees, and the Republic TsKs' Party Committees, on the one hand, and the Narkomproses and Central Administrations in charge of Higher Educational Institutions of the People's Commissariats, on the other, to conduct a review and issue verification on the basis of an investigation of higher educational institution faculty in the social and economic sciences.

2. Establish the following procedure for appointing and approving faculty in the social and economic sciences in higher educational institutions:

Department heads in the social and economic sciences should be approved according to Party recommendations: by a decision of the krai committee bureau, the oblast committee bureau, and the Republic TsKs' Party Committees, and according to governmental recommendations made personally by the heads of the Commissariats' Central Administrations in charge of Higher Educational Institutions, and in institutions of the Narkompros system made personally by the Deputy Commissar.

Faculty in the social and economic sciences should be approved personally by the institution's director in agreement with the director of the department of culture and propaganda of Leninism of the krai committee, oblast committee, and Republic TsKs' Party Committees.

3. Propose to oblast committees, krai committees, and the Republic TsKs' Party Committee that they establish a procedure to attract qualified and verified officials from party and government organizations and from industry and business to teach social and economic sciences (Leninism, history, economics, and economic policy) in higher educational institutions.

4. Not permit comrades sent by TsK VKP(b) to teach in educational institutions to transfer to other work without permission from TsK VKP(b).

Director of the Department of Culture and Propaganda of Leninism, LENINISM, TsK VKP(b), A. Stetsky

9 March 1935