Educational System of Ekaterinburg-Sverdlovsk in 1917–1920s: Contradictions of Development

The article analyzes the process of changes in the Russian educational system that took place during the Russian revolution, Civil war and the beginning of «socialist construction». The author focuses on the contradictions that occurred during attempts to reform the spheres of primary, secondary general and secondary specialized education in Ekaterinburg (since 1924 — Sverdlovsk), which was a large industrial and administrative center of the Urals. The article notes that starting in 1917, until the end of the 1920s, the administrative structures of the city, representing first the Provisional Government, then Bolshevik Dictatorship, White Guard regime, and again the Soviet government, sought to solve the problems of education in accordance with their ideological and political views. As a result, in the context of the social upheavals experienced by the country, the formation of Ekaterinburg-Sverdlovsk educational system took place in an acute political struggle, which included persecution of teachers and students who did not share the position of the established government, and even the use of direct violence against opponents. Ultimately, the article concludes that the Bolsheviks who returned to Ekaterinburg after the expulsion of the White Guards managed, based on the decisions of higher authorities, to organize centralized management of public education, putting it under the control of the Party-Soviet bodies. This made it possible, having overcome the difficulties of the New Economic Policy related to limited funding, to create a fully capable educational system and achieve significant success in the process of eliminating illiteracy.