THE CHALLENGE OF SOVIET EDUCATION

by George S. Counts ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Two former books, ""I Want to be Like Stalin"" and The Country of the Blind, qualify Mr. Counts as a thorough student of the Soviet system of thought suppression and control. The first was a translation of Russian school texts for moral behaviour and the second an analysis of censorship in realms outside education- art, politics and so forth. Now tackling the deep subject of education itself, the author has plunged in all the way to take a long and serious look at the whole Soviet schooling system and to indicate its implications for the West. Topics for discussion are its roots- in Platonic and Marxist theory; its goals of the socialist re-education of society; elementary, secondary and college education and their injection with political and moral ideals; the extremely difficult and partially successful task of transforming the doubting intellectual; the training of specialists; military and civil political indoctrination; and the methods of re-educating offenders. Within each of these there is a full accounting of methods and results, from the very advanced scientific training given to qualified students to the odd official policy changes which have, for example, rejected and then admitted religion as part of an established order. In the results, so frighteningly successful, lies the challenge to the West and a warning that we take more heed of this all important aspect of Soviet Russia and of our own inadequate steps towards education for freedom and democracy. Not a book for general readers though many of its points have already seeped through to the popular market.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1957

Categories: NONFICTION