Issue ? 46. Oсtober 2014

The Policy of 'Re-education' of the Pre-revolutionary Cadres of Scientific and Technical Intelligentsia in the 1930s: Goals, Methods, Results

Graduate student, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University; senior research specialist, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: evgeniizak@mail.ru

This article is devoted to the policy of “re-education” of pre-revolutionary scientific and technical intelligentsia. Analyzing the views of the leaders of the Bolshevik Party on the interaction between the government and scientific and technical intelligentsia, the author comes to the conclusion, that there were different approaches to this interaction: from the temporary alliance, followed by the replacement of the old cadres by the new generation of specialists brought up under the Soviet authorities (Stalin), to the aspirations of close and constant interaction (Bukharin) between them. The leaders-practician, Ordzhonikidze in particular, sought to find the compromise between these two approaches. Externally, the policy of “re-education” displayed Stalin’s point of view, but Bukharin worked out its internal contents. Despite the deliberate policy of creating a negative image of the pre-revolutionary professional, the idea of compromising the perception of this social group failed.

Keywords

The Bolsheviks, Stalin, Bukharin, “re-education”, scientific and technical intelligentsia.