ON EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS IN TRAINING COMMAND MILITARY PERSONNEL IN THE 12th ULYANOVSK RED BANNER INFANTRY SCHOOL DURING THE MILITARY REFORM OF 1925 (based on the local press)

Abstract

The author’s research focus is on the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (Red Army) of the mid-1920s. After completion of the Civil War in 1922, the Soviet Union began a series of major transformations of the military sphere of the society, caused not only by defense, but also by socio-economic reasons. The supporters of building a new socialist society in Russia, who won the long-term armed confrontation, resolutely refused to maintain a large and expensive conscription army and gradually, from 1923, began to move towards creating an army based on a territorial militia system of recruiting troops. The military organization formed in this way made it possible to spend significantly less financial and material resources on its maintenance than earlier. In January 1925, the outstanding Soviet military commander M.V. Frunze was appointed the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs; continuing the reform initiated by his predecessor L.D. Trotsky, M.V. Frunze paid special attention, in particular, to making changes to the system of training the command personnel of the Red Army. The purpose of the study is to analyze the features of training and educating the command personnel for the Red Army in 1925 on the example of the 12th Ulyanovsk Infantry school of command staff (hereinafter – the 12th Ulyanovsk twice Red Banner Infantry school named after V.I. Lenin). Materials and methods. The author uses problem-analytical and chronological research methods; the source base of the work is primarily Ulyanovsk newspapers of 1925. Study results. The author points out that by the mid-1920s, the system of training command personnel did not meet modern requirements of the Red Army command at that time. With the beginning of the military reform in 1925, the military educational institution under study was actively involved in the updated military pedagogical process and very often became a place for the introduction of new solutions and the implementation of pedagogical innovations. Conclusions. During the reform, the 12th Ulyanovsk Infantry School was a military educational institution where educational, military-scientific and party-political work was actively carried out. At this, the school sought to improve the academic performance of military students, and also paid attention to the pedagogical training of the command staff. In 1925, in the practice of its activities, educational innovations that were original for their time appeared; new forms and methods of training and educating the command personnel were formed.