The Institute of Red Professors: the problems of institution building (1921-1923)

The aim of this paper is to explore the formation of the Institute of Red Professors in 1921-1923. The October revolution of 1917 and the subsequent restructuring of the social sphere radically influenced the whole education system. In 1921 the Institute of Red Professors was founded. To reveal the features of this process the authors of the present article paid attention to the analysis of the difficulties which the new educational center was experiencing. The methodological principle of the paper is results of sociological studies. According to them, development of any institution (in the broadest sense) consists of several stages. The first one is the constitutional stage when a new social phenomenon appears and its functioning depends on a certain person. The next stage is institutionalization that is characterized by the reduction of the role of a certain person and the end of the formation of its functioning. This is followed by the institutional stage when an institution is legitimate and affects the society. The end of the institution development is deinstitutionalization, which means the institution loses its legitmacy. The sources of this paper are the protocols of meetings of the Institute of Red Professors administration which are stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The high level of the heuristic potential of these sources is determined by the following factors: periodicity of meetings (once in one or two weeks); issues on the agenda (from educational process organization to operational problems solution); protocols have the highest legal force in the hierarchy of the Institute's normative acts (others complement or implement them). The authors reveal related aspects of the institution building of the Institute of Red Professors: administration system formation, education process organization, operational problems solution. In the present paper the major problems were determined in each sphere. To conclude, the authors point out that the difficulties determined the features of activities of the Institute. Furthermore, the research shows that overcoming them influenced the formation of the staff, the administration and the internal rules. The authors emphasize that M.N. Pokrovsky, who was the chairman of the board, exerted influence on the institutional development of the Institute of Red Professors, contrary to the sociological theory.

Keywords

Authors

References