On One Significant Fragment of N. I. Bukharin’s Report at the XIII Congress of the RCP(b): Talgenism pro et contra

Abstract

Talgenism, as a new teaching method, was discussed at the XIII Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in N. I. Bukharin’s report “On work among young people” in 1924. This article analyzes details and presumed possible consequences of that critical speech against Talgenism. Bukharin’s criticism became well-known among the pedagogical community more than thirty years ago after half a century of oblivion. Then, in the late 1980s, the study of the history of the discovery and spread of the unique method of collective mutual learning of A. G. Rivin (Talgenism) began. Materials of followers and supporters, and also of opponents of A. G. Rivin, were found in archives, magazines, newspapers, and books. Bukharin’s critical speech was also discovered. However, at the same time, an opinion formed among teachers that the result of such a crushing “rout” (at the party congress) was immediate: the criticized material was seized and extirpated. The author argues that this position is erroneous, as he discovered an article by A. Vyshnepolskaya on Talgenism, which Bukharin criticized at the congress, in the archival collection of the Russian National Library. In addition, it became possible to find important details about the author of the text and the publication itself and put it into circulation. The analysis of the relationship between power and education in 1920–1930 is carried out and reveals assumptions about the reasons for criticism of the new teaching method, and the virtues of Talgenism are analyzed. The article is provided with information about the fate of the Moscow Committee of party personnel, whose work was criticized at the congress.