How Russia Made 100 Million People Literate

What changes were made to improve the astonishingly low literacy rates in the USSR?

Sputnik

It was vitally important that the Communists improved the literacy rates of the Soviet Union, and to do so they had to focus not only on the children but also the adults.

It was key that people had basic numerical and literacy skills as it is the foundation upon which people are able to interact with the world, educate themselves, and thus contribute to society as well as their wellbeing.

The Literacy programs offered parents the tools they required to help their children develop early language capabilities and literacy.

Early Soviet Era

When the Bolsheviks came to power, the majority of adults lacked secondary education, so they set out to address this problem.

Short courses were offered at first to teach adults basic numeracy and literacy, including those in work often. In 1919, the Bolsheviks launched a campaign to bring about ‘the liquidation of illiteracy’.

Women attend literacy class in Soviet Union in the early 1920s during the Russian Revolution. “A radical reform of the family, and the whole order of domestic life, ” Leon Trotsky writes,“ requires a great conscious effort on the part of the whole mass of the working class.”