It is natural for us to know how to read and write, though many people have learned that skill without ever learning to feel Life and think about its sense independently. For 1917 Russia it was natural that 85 % of the population could not read or write for which reason they were entirely denied access to written culture. As a consequence, they were limited in acquiring any new knowledge or skill to taking them over by way of demonstration and oral explanation of those who possessed that knowledge or skill. Under such circumstances the society was incapable either of a moral and ethic or spiritual development or scientific and technological progress. To be more precise, the speed at which the society could master and process information was so low that it was doomed to perish under the burden of various problems it itself created and could not resolve in time.
In the very first decade after the end of the Civil War illiteracy among the adult population was eliminated[256]. Also, homeless children who lost their parents during the revolution and the Civil War were provided for. At the same time, the system of popular schooling was being developed. Every year more students were taken in, and the quality of universal compulsory education was gradually improved reaching a standard that allowed people to enter universities and technical schools. At that time many young people had no opportunity to get an education while being fully provided for by their family or society and had to start working while still in their teens. But many of them dreamed of getting a job, which required a specialized secondary or higher education. The Soviet government helped them make that dream come true, creating a system of «rabfaks» (workers’ faculties, many of which were established at universities), where young workers and country people could prepare themselves for entering a college. At some of rabfaks students were freed from work and received state scholarships. At other rabfaks students continued to work and used their spare time for studying. Also, a system of evening schools, technical schools, night and correspondence education at universities was developed for those who had started to work before acquiring the education desired.
Thanks to the opportunities of getting a specialized secondary (a technical school) or higher professional education created by the Soviet government, a large number of young people entered the field of science, technology and art. Prior to 1917 they were denied this opportunity[257] due to the order of castes and classes where the hierarchy of unrighteously made fortunes prevailed. On this basis new schools of science, design and engineering started to spring up and old ones began developing in the USSR as early as the 1920-s. It was the support of scientific and RD schools that outstanding Russian scientists and inventors lacked in the pre-revolutionary years, because starting from the middle of the 19th century science and engineering were becoming the field for collective activity where a man of genius having no support of highly qualified and educated associates was going to accomplish nothing on his own.
As a result of this policy, as far back as the early 1950-s the educational level of the USSR’s population (i.e. of workers and farmers — the most numerous classes of that era) came to be the highest in the world. The USSR was also leading in the number of university students per one thousand of population, by far exceeding advanced capitalist countries in terms of this characteristic. One should also keep in mind, that in the early 1950-s our secondary education (which became compulsory at the end of the USSR’s existence) and higher education conformed to the highest standards on the world scale when educational system of different states were compared.[258]
Owing to the accomplishments of scientific and engineering design schools developing on the basis of the immense personnel resource encompassing the entire people, by the early 1950s the Soviet Union became independent from foreign science and technology in the sense that our science and industry became capable of developing and producing on their own everything that was necessary for the state which in many aspects worked for the interests of the majority of workers. One has to admit though that the share of pioneering developments (ones which are first in the world) was small in that period, because in the 1920-s — 1940-s the Soviet Union was mostly assimilating foreign accomplishments in order to bridge the educational gap between Russia and advanced countries and to break free from the dependence of almost all the branches of industry and science on them inherited from the Russian empire.
All these factors combined created objective prerequisites for the USSR to continue developing culturally, scientifically and technically at a faster pace than advanced capitalist states. Yet the educational system created at the time had one fundamental flaw:
The Marxist cult existing in the society perverted the entire complex of philosophic and social sciences and psychology, impeded the proper development of biology and medicine which is based on general biology.[259]
Owing to the perverted nature of the complex of sciences on man and society, a discord between sciences, first of all philosophy and social science, and creative work in all arts was unavoidable in the USSR.[260] Yet given the dominant position of Marxism within the educational system this discord was beneficial for the society and its future perspective, because in a crowd-“elitist” society arts and creative work in most cases surpass philosophy and social science in revealing the society’s current problems and future life and development prospects.[261] Of course, this statement holds true in respect of not every work of art and not every scientific work. It holds true in respect of heterogeneous creative work on the whole as a type of activity and of science as a type of activity.
Therefore, without understanding that there existed a discord between artistic work and philosophy and social science it is impossible to understand the essence of that artistic style which was later termed «socialist realism». And it is equally impossible to understand the essence and role of the so-called «avant-gardism and modernism» in all of its manifestations, which were inherited by the transition period era from the pre-revolutionary times.
First of all, after the Soviet state was established, a revision of the Empire’s artistic heritage was begun. The works of pre-revolutionary conservative and reactionary movements were no longer being published (literature, art) or reproduced (music, plays). Some were banned, part of them destroyed, part hidden in the depositories of museums, archives and libraries. In our era the works of the pre-revolutionary nihilistic movement are known as works of «critical realism» [262] and the works of all sorts of «avant-gardism» in literature, theatre, art and music.
One should also keep in mind, that in every era «avant-gardism and modernism» is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Along with pursuit of new forms and ways to express a meaning in works of art, there is the morally and psychically unhealthy constituent in it which either reflects the delirium of mentally ill people, or the demonically unhealthy ambition of a person who has nothing to say or show people yet is awfully keen on asserting him or herself by becoming known as a great artist, actor, poet or musician. And in the times of social crisis «avant-gardism» is represented mostly by works of art reflecting moral and psychic morbidity or aggressive striving for self-assertion or the demonic ambition of fame. This applies to the overwhelming majority of «avant-garde» “masterpieces” of the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary times.