ECONOMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN THE 1930S, AS EXEMPLIFIED BY RAILWAY TRANSPORT INSTITUTES IN SIBERIA

The purpose of this article is to identify and analyse the characteristics of the development of the material and technical resources of technical universities in the process of their creation and development in the 1930s. The research was conducted within the context of industrialisation and higher education reforms in the USSR, with a focus on identifying common trends and specific features characteristic of railway-profile universities in Siberia. Two railway transport educational institutions were selected as the subject of the study: Tomsk Electromechanical Institute of Railway Transport Engineers (TEIRTE) and Novosibirsk Institute of Military Transport Engineers (NIMTE), which were under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat for Railways. For the purpose of comparative analysis, several other educational institutions in the USSR under the jurisdiction of various departments were also considered. The research was based on the following methods: domain-specific/chronological, historical/descriptive, legal/technical, analogy-based, and generalisation. The research focused on the key areas of economic and administrative activity of the aforementioned educational institutions from the moment of their foundation in 1932 until the early 1940s. Given the quantitative growth of institutions after the reform of higher technical education, the primary problem was the formation of their material and technical facilities. The problems associated with the period of organisation were quite tangible throughout the first decade: there was a shortage of premises, classrooms, laboratories, and necessary equipment. The institutes also faced the problem of a shortage of dormitories and their poor domestic arrangements. Funding for technical universities was provided by the departments to which they were transferred. At the same time, all educational institutions faced a shortage of allocated funds. The analysis draws on the materials from the general-circulation newspapers published by TEIRTE and NIMTE, entitled «Quality Orientation» and «Transport Servicemen», periodicals, the works by scholars exploring the history of universities and their economic activities, as well as the documents from the State Archive of the Tomsk Region, Tomsk Regional Centre for Documentation of Contemporary History, and Central State Archive of Historical-Political Documents of St. Petersburg.