EDUCATION IN THE LITHUANIAN SSR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00810A004100550003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 5, 1954
• Content Type: REPORT

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INFORMATION REPORT
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
This material contains information affecting the-#a-
tiotlal Defense of the United States within the mean-
Ing of the liepionage Laws, Title '18. U.S.C. Secs. '793
and 794, the transmission or. revelation of which in
say manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited
COUNTRY USSR (Lithuanian SSR)
SUBJECT Education in the Lithuanian SSR
DATE OF INFO.
PLACE ACQUIRED
REPORT
5 November .954
NO. OF PAGES 5
DATE DISTR.
REQUIREMENT NO. RD
REFERENCES
25X1
G3iUi3
THE SOURCE EVALUATIONS IN THIS REPORT ARE DEFINITIVE.
THE APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
(FOR KEY SEE REVERSE)
The Soviets boast that teaching in the USSR is of a very high standard.
It is true that teaching, if not science itself, from the Soviet angle is
well done, r1-1e Communists pay great attention to the question of teaching,
from the kindergartens up to the universities. Even children from as
orphanage can receive education in one field or pother and. graduate from
the universities; in fact, orphanage children in the majority of cases
have priority. Each fall, the children of the orphanage are the first
candidates to be admitted to the School of Music and Art. This principle
means that at present everyone can get an education, except the children
of 1,-- el;iable parents, who cannot go to the universities unless the parents.
can somehow evade this category.
Se?hool.s
2, There are three creches in Kaunas. The supervision and care is good, but
parents'do not like sending their little children to the creches. On the
other hand, the kindergartens are well patronized. Any family where
there is at least one working person can send children to the kindergartens.
The payment, which is not dependent on wages, is about 270 rubles a.month
per child, to be paid in advance. Seven rubles a day of this sum is put
aside for food.. The families of ordinary officials cannot afford seven
rubles a day for each childts food. Indoctrination in the praise of St#+1i.n
begins in the kindergartens. For example, the children who receive presents
for holidays know that these. presents do not come from Santa Claus but
from Stalin.
3. High school education is received in a ten-year school or in the tekhnikum,
which also has courses in music and art. There is one to ikum in both
Kaunas a n d Vilnyus. T h e course at the tekhnikum takes eleven years.
Scholarships are given only for the to -'kuni; these schools are the leaders
of the pioneers and take charge of pioneer education in the schools.
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4, Compulsory education is for a period of seven years in the rural areas and
ten years in Kaunas and Vilnyus. From the seven-year school a child can
pass on into technical schools, craft schools, or attend one of the various
subject courses. It is also possible for him to pass on to a different
type of higher music school, which is for adult education. In all these
schools, scholarships are paid, except to unsuccessful pupils; and in the
craft schools and in the various courses full board is given. It is.from
these schools that the majority of Communist youth come. There are a large
number of technical and craft schools, and a particularly large number of,?
different subject courses.
5. Parents have to care for their children only until they reach the seven-
year school, after which they can, and do, send them to any school where
a scholarship is paid and full board given. There is, therefore, no
reason why the children should not1 be educated, and this accounts for the
increase in the number of schools.
6. There are altogether 13 institutes of higher education in Lithuania. The
number of students has doubled since the time of-Lithuanian independence.
Scholarships are available, but the students are not allowed to miss
lectures, and the faculties are very specialized, particularly in +,he
technical field. For example, engineers are trained for the use of agri-
cultural machinery, to become experts in town drainage, for the peat
industry, and so forth.
The large number of schools and their variety and the fact that scholar-
ships are paid and board given makes education accessible to everyone.
The level of teaching is good. Teachers, in comparison with othei> pro-
fessions, are paid well, and therefor:: it is possible for the authorities
to be selective. For example, in Kaunas it is difficult to get two
subjects to teach, because so many people are trying to get into the
teaching profession. There is no better paid profession for the Lithuanian
intelligentsia. At the same time, the qualifications required for teach-
ing are high. The programs of subjects to be taught are worked out in
detail, and the number of lessons are well planned. A teacher must prepare
every lesson and plan each session so that every minute is used in accord-
ance --rith the theory of teaching. Inspection of teachers is continual.
All teachers must give exhibition lessons, which are attended by other
staff members. In consequence, the level of teaching cannot drop.
Curriculum
8. The curriculum of the ten-year schools is moderately broad. It is broader
and more technical than it was under the previous twelve-year system. From
the courses one can see that information i beinrr crammed into the pupils,
For example, accountants training for the kolkhozy have to learn so much
during the three months' course that they are unable to digest it all. After
graduating from this course, they go to a kolkhoz for practical work and
then return to raise their qualifications. Accountants then study for a
further six months, and in this way some good bookkeepers are turned out.
During these courses, no attention is paid to any difficulties that may
arise, to the tempo of teaching, or to the constant pressure on the student.
9. Notwithstanding the methods applied, progress in the middl: school
is mediocre. The pupils are given too mich material and are not able to
digest the subjects of the curriculum. Parents are too occupied with
their own worries and work to be able to pay attention to the children,3
and teachers have no right to use strong disciplinary measures. The
Communists apply an unusually soft regime in the schools. The pupils
are hardly punished at all. If a pupil is not good, the fault is with
the teacher, because the principle applied in all schools is that there
are no bad pupils, only bad teachers. A teacher's work under the
Soviets is extremely difficult and a great strain.
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Political Education
10. The teachers must make every lesson a political lesson, and there is no
possibility of deviation from this requirement, whatever the subject
taught. A teacher of mathematics, when working with students, must
find an occasion to intersperse something of Soviet character. No favor-
able mention of the free world can be made; the teacher can only point
out its bad aspects. At least qne lesson a week must be devoted entirely
to political education. The subject of the lesson is prepared in detail
in advance by the higher Party organization, which sends it to the local
town organization. There is also a monthly plan of lectures for teachers,
with each teacher lecturing in succession to a common class. Every
occasion is used to get the pupils together to explain general political
events. Often on church holidays special anti-religious lectures are
given. For example, on Christmas Eve a lecture was read on "Is Christ
an historical person?". Such lectures are usually prepared and
distributed by the Party itself and given,by a Party man. Pupils are
often taken to the theater to'see political films. Later they are asked
to put in writing what they have seen and their interpretation of it.
In such a way it is easy to analyze a pupil.
11. The younger generation does not know the meaning of nationality. The
expression "a Lithuanian" is crossed out of theory and of life. The
connection of present-day life with the past of Lithuania is avoided;
former prominent Lithuanians are not mentioned. D- seems that the
next generation will be "denationalized'..
12. When the young people grow up and begin to understand the situation,
a peculiar philosophy arises in them. The elder pupils begin to grasp,
by watching their parents, the negative attitude that is displayed
towards political life, and the younger pupils learn from the older
ones. This is the situation in the middle schools. For example, a,
boy received a proposal to join the Pion^ers when he
was ten years old. He told his mother, who asked him why he had not
joined, "Oh well, none of 'us wants to join it". Pupils of this age
cannot understand why they do not want to join, but they feel they
should boycott the Pioneers. In the majority of cases, parents avoid
forbidding their children to join the Pioneers,, because a child can
always unconsciously betray his parents in school. The number of
Pioneers in the high schools remains small because the children
understand the f eglings of their parents.
Communist Youth
13. Form masters often have the task of trying to get as many candidates
as possible to enter the Communist Youth Movement. 1Vevertheless,there
are not many members in th. . is d.l.c, choo:L . , fior t:, ; ,r c e'.c
to attract the ablest pupils i,o the Goi,u,Lwi-L~t :X,.,utxi, rice who
in make ra, career for themselves, They are pushed fora%ard to become
s oniors of the class, leaders of circles, etc. There are few Communist
Youth in the tcchnica.l. schools and the universities and even less in
the Yr"..r.:i_cna.;l courses which arc ~-,raparing personnel for the kolkhoz.
o:f' 2>" to 30 kolkhoz accountants would have no limorc: than one to
i,h:rce ; icmbers of the Communist Youth. The reason for this is that the
0cnriet spi..r:it, has, not established itself in the kolkhoz. The craft
sc.,l:iools, hotia~ever, are a breeding ground for the Communist Youth, probably
because there are many Russian children in these schools, ;'Ind i.uswian
children appear to join the Communist Youth Movement in grreater numbers
than before the war.
Teachers and the Party
Among the teachers, the only Party men are those who have been sent
specially to watch the Party line, Directors of schools, in the
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majority of cases, are not Party iaen. The tarty has not sufficient
people to staff the schools, and therefore the teachers are called upon
to educate the children in the Party spirit against their own beliefs.
They must fulfill this duty in the same way as a good Communist. In
othc-:-,? wor'is, a teacher must know how to hold the balance in such a way
that n o one can fathom what he really thinks and feels; otherwise he
will perish. Therefore, there is no question but that the teachers
are boycotting the Voice of America. A teacher cannot be passive,
because a passive attitude is considered unfriendly to the regime and
would not be tolerated. The mention of the Voice of America by the
teachers would be disastrous not only to themselves, but also to the
general situation. As long as there are still old t eachexrs from the
intelligentsia, the Lithuanian spirit will continue in the schools.
Everyone knows that the Communists would use all kinds of measures
and stop at nothing. to liquidate anybody not working for regime. In
fact, they would purge the whole teaching profession and wipe out the
category to which the teachers belong. They would have no scruples in
replacing everyone by new people reliable to the regime.
15. The following episode is an example of Communist reaction to any event
in the schools. One member of the teachers' group made a report during
a meeting of the trade unions. Ile spoke in the Russian language, because
there were Russian representatives present, He-stated at one point,
"I could not do it". When the minutes of this meeting reached the Party,
a scandal arose because of this expression. The Central Board of the
Teaching Combinatin Vilnyus was alarmed, and a representative was sent
to help this teacher tos;rectify the situation. Another meeting was
called, during which the teacher was forced to declare that his knowledge
of Russian had been insufficient, he had expressed himself incorrectly,
and he had meant to say, "I was not in a position to do it".. The
representative from Vilnyus had stated that this teacher was a Soviet-
minded person and therefore could not have said he was unable to do it.
It was stressed that there was nothing that a Soviet teacher should not
be able to do,.. This example shows how sensitive the Communists are to
the question of education.
16, The teachers do not show their feelings at all. A stranger watching a
teacher at work would gain the impression that everything was being
done in the Soviet spirit, and so it is. The teachers do everything
that is imposed on them. For example, teachers who are religious
believers have to give classes on such subjects as "Religion is the
Enemy of the People", but they do so as actors playing their parts.
All, teachers do everything with'the conviction that it cannot be other-
wise and act in such a way that their true feelings are hidden from
Communist eyes, and even their own friends cannot discern their feelings.
Only in class, among his pupils, does the teacher hide his feelings less
deeply, and the pupils can notice a discord between his words and his
gestures. The pupils are the first to learn to understand the teacher.
During lessons on political subjects, when the teacher is using
Communist phrases and expressions, some of the pupils look at the teacher
and smile sincerely, indicating that they understand that the teacher
speaks in this way because he must, Often pupils will ask questions
deliberately to try to direct the teacher's attention away from a subject
that is unpleasant to him. Pupils try to avoid political lessons. In
fact, Party representatives began to visit the schools and attend the
lessons because the political lessons became only pro forma.
12, Position of Scientists
It is difficult to say what success the Soviets have achieved in science.
Scientists themselves and their scientific works are paid well, which
means that they are valued highly, For example, Justas Palekis, President
of Soviet Lithuania, is paid 9,000 to 12,000 rubles a month, while the
income of the 1.;resident of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences,
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Y. Y. Matulis, has reached 4,000 rubles. The salary of every rector of
a scientific institute is double or three times that of a State minister.
1. Comment: Tuition fees.,which must be paid in the middle schools, 25X1
and a limited number of sn?Hhlarships,which are awarded on a scholastic
and political basis,tend to limit the number of pupils.
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