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The Workers’ Faculty in Soviet Model Universities

Ingrid Miethe 1

1독일 기센대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article presents the Workers’ Faculty as an example contributing to the proletarization and hence the Sovietization of universities. The institution of the Workers’ Faculty, originally founded in the Soviet Union in 1919, was transferred in the decades that followed to other socialist countries and countries with a “socialist development path” located on almost all continents. Four case studies from the GDR, Cuba, Vietnam, and Mozambique allow us to show that elements of a Soviet university were adopted in all four countries. At the same time, however, quite autonomous variations on the original concept developed under local conditions and on the basis of diverging political premises. The worldwide dissemination of the idea of the Workers’ Faculty is also found to be independent of any direct influence of the Soviet Union. Thus it is argued that the term Sovietization, which assumes a more or less strong influence by the Soviet Union is insufficient to characterize the complexities of this process.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.