The effectiveness of funding legal science in the early Soviet period

The transformation of academic science and higher education during the political and socio-economic changes caused by the revolutions of 1917 is analyzed. The wide range of problems faced by the academic community during the specified period is being researched. Special attention is given to the role of the state in the reorganization of the scientific and educational spheres, specifically in the creation of specialized commissions and plans for the development of science and education in the new political realities. Radical transformations in the legal education system during the establishment of Soviet power are noted, specifically: the adoption of new normative legal acts regulating admission to higher educational institutions, the abolition of academic degrees and titles, and the liquidation of law faculties in universities. Special attention is given to the ideological aspects of educational policy, as well as the class-based approach to selecting students for universities and the emergence of a new Soviet intelligentsia. The aim of the study is to analyze the financial support for science and higher education, as well as to identify the main stages, trends, and features of the development of the legal education system in the early Soviet period. To achieve the stated goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: to define the main directions of the reorganization of science and legal education in 1917–1930; to identify and analyze the normative legal acts regulating scientific research and admission to higher educational institutions; to assess the consequences of the transformations in science and legal education; to analyze the ideological aspects of educational policy: the influence of the class approach, the emergence of a new Soviet intelligentsia, and the role of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Analysis methods, historical-comparative, logical, and historical, were used. It is concluded that political and economic instability in the country in the period after the February Revolution had a highly negative impact on the development of science and its funding, although the Provisional Government welcomed the new authorities quite positively, and the scientific community gained autonomy, initiating the reorganization of the education system in terms of funding and modernization, which cannot be said about the scientific community’s attitude toward the October Revolution. Disagreements with the new authorities presented the Academy with a choice: financial isolation or subordination of scientific activity to political goals. The Academy of Sciences expressed its willingness to cooperate with the new government, which initiated the process of science reorganization aimed at reorienting it toward practical needs and subordinating it to centralized control. The Academy became a state institution focused on practical tasks. New institutions were being created and personnel were being trained to meet the needs of the state. Despite ideological control, repressions, and priority funding for certain areas, there was significant growth in fundamental and applied scientific research.