History exams target for next year

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 13

History exams target for next year

IN MOSCOW

Patricia Legras

History examinations abandoned last year at Soviet schools and universities when it became obvious that teaching materials about the period after the Revolution were too inaccurate, will be brought back again this year. New textbooks are being prepared and printed, and, meanwhile, students are encouraged to read the newspapers and weeklies to fill in the “blank spots” of their knowledge. During a recent interview with the chairman of the education committee, Gennady Yagodin produced a hard-backed book, “History of our Party,” for the guidance of university teachers, which has just been brought out at 100,000 copies. It is not actually a textbook but basically a series of reproductions from the Soviet press of last year, treating the new material obtained from Soviet archives. It includes Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech to the party conference, but also articles on Stalin’s repressions, the recent rehabilitations of those who perished, and Lenin’s “secret testament” in which he made it clear he did not approve of Stalin taking over after his death. “Examinations will take place in the summer,” said Mr Yagodin. “But I gave special orders that not just one teacher but a special commission of not less than three should be present. The student has the right to disagree with the textbook or the examiner if he has his own opinion.” Even at the level of the schools this form of examination is to be respected. Although complete new textbooks have yet to be written, an 80-page booklet is just printed, which is to replace chapters 12 and 13 of the present history book for 16-year-olds. That is those in their final year but one. A copy of this, just off the presses, has a grey cover with brightly coloured pictures of the Kremlin’s Spassky Tower and Lenin in dynamic pose. It deals with the 1920 s and 30s, vital postrevolutionary years. It will not be issued to schools until September. As yet, there is no supplement prepared for the final classes (tenth grade) covering the 1940 s and later. The way the period from 192141 is treated could not have been dreamt of two years ago. The author, Professor Yuri Stepanovich Borissov, writes in his introduction that “History is the memory of the people, our people, including all that was great or terrible, radiant or repugnant ... contradictory but indivisible. Whoever we may be, our roots are in our history, including the events we are living through now Like the university manual, this booklet for 16-year-olds also prints the “Lenin testament,” with its doubts over the human and intellectual abilities of Stalin to continue the task the "Father of the Revolution” had begun.

It goes further, criticising Stalin’s failure to “consolidate peace” before the Second World War, his "imposition of personal power,” his “adventurism and subjectivism,” and his use of the “command administrative system.” The dictator is accused of carrying out “forced collectivisation” in order to provide “cheap labour for industry.” The author writes that the “forced implantation of collective farms ... ended logically In violence. The principle of free consent was violated.” He then describes the ‘“koulaks” as “those who refused to belong to the collective farms ...” The punishment was “dekoulakisation,” or the seizure of belongings and imprisonment. “This involved millions of people,” continues Professor Borissov. In a reference to the purges, he also accuses Stalin of deliberately trying to get rid of the intellectuals in the ruling circles. “At the end of the 1920 s Soviet life and society was split. On the one hand, the tragic fate of millions of people unjustly accused — and eliminated one after the other — and on the other hand, the obstinate efforts of some, full of great hopes, trying to transform the country.” Touching the political trials of 1937, the new school booklet calls them "falsified” and refers to the “suicides of several leading members of the party ...” However, the author points out that the Constitution itself, prepared the year before by Bukharin (himself eliminated and now rehabilitated) “declared the inviolability of the person, and the impossibility of punishment without judgement by the law courts.” There is no intention of putting into question the heritage of the October Revolution. Emphasis is on the way Josef Stalin distorted the thinking of Lenin. But the very printing of almost 3.5 million of these booklets for the coming generation is perhaps one of the most serious attempts of the Kremlin to ensure that there can be no turning back to dictatorship.