Ascent into Darkness: Escalating Negativity in the Administration of Schools in the Kirov Region, 1931–1941

Abstract

Reporting within the administration responsible for primary and secondary schools in the Kirov region from the early 1930s to 1941 followed a script of escalating negativity in which the higher the chain of command, the more negative the assessment. School directors wrote positive quarterly and annual evaluations. District and municipal departments of education, however, composed a negative account. Their bosses at the regional level produced even harsher evaluations. This ascent into darkness had another, still bleaker, dimension. The party's district committees demanded and received from school directors and local departments of education harsh assessments. These committees then drew a still more negative picture in their reports to the party's Regional Committee, further embellished by that committee's Schools Department when composing its official accounts. All reports, therefore, had little to do with the real situation—good or bad—prevailing in schools but everything to do with the bureaucracy's scripted version of reality.