The New History

Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee, On the Teaching of Civic History in Schools of the USSR. May 16, 1934

In keeping with Stalin's stress on individual responsibility, the old ultra-Marxist line of economic determinism in history and social science was sharply criticized in 1934. A much more conventional presentation of history, with emphasis on individuals and nations, was enjoined upon Soviet schools and historians. This was followed by the repudiation of anti-nationalist attacks on the past of Czarist Russia.In keeping with Stalin's stress on individual responsibility, the old ultra-Marxist line of economic determinism in history and social science was sharply criticized in 1934. A much more conventional presentation of history, with emphasis on individuals and nations, was enjoined upon Soviet schools and historians. This was followed by the repudiation of anti-nationalist attacks on the past of Czarist Russia.

Original Source: Pravda, 17 May 1934.

The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) find that the teaching of history in schools of the USSR is not conducted satisfactorily. The textbooks and the instruction have an abstract, schematic character. Instead of the teaching of civic history in a lively, engaging form with an exposition of the most important events and facts in their chronological sequence, with characterizations of historical personages, the pupils are presented with abstract definitions of socio-economic formations, which thus replace the connected exposition of civic history with abstract sociological schemes.

The decisive condition of a firm mastery of the history course by the pupils is the observance of historical and chronological sequence in the exposition of historical events, with mandatory consolidation in the pupils' memory of important historical events, historical personages, and chronological dates. Only such a history course can ensure to the pupils the necessary understanding, clarity, and concreteness of historical material, on which basis alone is it possible to have the correct analysis and correct generalizations about historical events that will lead pupils to a Marxist understanding of history...

Source: Robert V. Daniels, ed., A Documentary History of Communism (Hanover: Published for the University of Vermont by University Press of New England, 1984), p. 242.