Schools of Smolensk Province in the Era of NEP: 
 from Survival to Development

Abstract

The period of the new economic policy, 1921–1928, is often idealized in the public mind and presented against the background of the previous policy of «war communism» as a decade of abundance and prosperity, a significant break-
 through in the socio-economic life of Soviet Russia that has just emerged from the Civil War. A valid argument for such an assessment of NEP will be the convertible new monetary unit of Russia, viz. the gold chervonets, as well as the broad devel-
 opment of cooperation and the first concessions attracting foreign capital. However, there was another side to this apparently blessed picture of the NEP era – the state, focusing exclusively on «pulling out» the economy, completely «left» the social sphere, shifting the solution of social issues to local authorities. This included, in fact, firstly, public education. From the second half of 
 1921, the school was left without centralized state funding, if we did not consider additional charges for the food tax, which solved absolutely nothing. The introduction of tuition fees for education, the so-called contractual schools, the peasants’ self-imposition for the needs of education included a set of measures that 
 the center proposed to the regions to preserve the public education system. The period of the school survival, concerning especially the rural school, began. Gradual changes for the better began only in the 1926–1927, when the some what stronger state again «turned its face to the school» and the practice of selftaxation will actually work in the regions, when not only existing schools were repaired at peasants’ expense, but also new schools were being built, equipment and textbooks were procured. A decent salary, in comparison with the beginning of NEP, was paid to a school teacher. The school entered its developmental stage.