Abstract Drawing on social theory on the stages which social movements tend to go through, an examination is made of early Soviet Education policy. The paper analyses the early expression of Marxist humanist values, popular participation, and the value of productive work for general education. The ‘routinisation’ into a Stalinist pattern of bureaucratically controlled austere utilitarianism which followed is seen as part of a wider policy trend, transcending political and economic systems, of education for social control and economic mobilisation purposes. Recent indications of change in the Soviet Union are briefly commented on. 1I first became interested in this topic two decades ago as a student under the guidance of C. Arnold Anderson, at the University of Chicago. My return to it now is occasioned both by recent Soviet events whose implications for educational policy are at the time of writing yet to be identified, and by an invitation to contribute to a Festschrift for Janusz Tomiak who is a valued ...