The reform of departmental schools at the Chinese Eastern Railway in the second half of the 1920s

The history of Russian education in Manchuria is an integral part of the history of the national education system of Russia. This article is devoted to the aspect of the history of Russian schools in the near abroad poorly studied in Russian historiography - the Soviet school reform at the Chinese Eastern Raailway (CER). The writing of the article is determined by two factors: creative transformation in the evaluation of the historical phenomenon of the Soviet school and the activation of Russian-Chinese integration processes at the present stage of reforms in Russia. The study of the historical experience of the Soviet education reform at the CER fits into this context, and a retrospective reflection on the outcomes of the modern education reform and discussions about the future of Russian-Chinese cooperation actualizes the appeal to the chosen research topic. New materials from departmental editions of the Chinese Eastern Railway were first introduced into the academic use in this article. The research tradition that developed in the Soviet period linked the reform of the Russian school of the 1920s exclusively with the transformation of the Soviet power and contrasted them with the pre-October period. The author made an attempt to revise the tradition of the methodological gap in the study of the history of education of the Imperial and Soviet periods. For the first time in the national historiography the relations between the reforms of the united school of Count P.N. Ignatiev launched in 1915-1916 and continued at the CER in 1917-1923 and the Soviet reform of the united working school completed at the CER in the second half of the 1920s are shown. A distinctive feature of the Soviet school reform from transformations of the previous period was the close connection of the educational process with ideology and politics. At the same time, the school reform at the CER was correlated with the reform of the united working school with the aim of integrating departmental schools in the educational space of the USSR and aimed at forming a new (Soviet) identity. The complex of measures for reforming the network of departmental schools was implemented at the CER in the shortest time possible and ended with the introduction of a single type of educational institution, a maximum growth in the number of departmental schools and students. The educational process was transformed on the new principles of training and forms of everyday practice adopted in Soviet schools that adapted students to the new socio-political reality. Due to the rivalry between the USSR and China for the possession of the CER, the system of departmental schools functioned in the conditions of increasing administrative pressure from the Chinese side and the decline in the influence of the Soviet administration, which led to the curtailment of the reform in the late 1920s. A direct consequence of the political manifestations of the Chinese government was the redistribution of material resources of school building at the CER, accompanied by the violation of rights of Russian children - citizens of the USSR - to receive education.

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