# Ministry of Education (Soviet Union)

The Ministry of Education of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: Министерство просвещения СССР), formed on 3 August 1966, was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Education (Russian: Народный комиссариат просвещения), or Narkompros, until 1946. Narkompros was a Soviet agency founded by the State Commission on Education (Russian: Государственная комиссия по просвещению) and charged with the administration of public education and most of other issues related to culture.
Its first head was Anatoly Lunacharsky. However he described Nadezhda Krupskaya as the "soul of Narkompros". Mikhail Pokrovsky and Evgraf Litkens also played important roles.
Despite Lunacharsky's efforts to protect most of the avant-garde artists such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and Vsevolod Meyerhold, the official policy after Joseph Stalin put him in disgrace.
Narkompros had a number of sections, in addition to the main ones related to general education, e.g.,
* Likbez, a section for liquidation of illiteracy,
* "Profobr", a section for professional education,
* Glavlit a section for literature and publishing (also in charge of censorship in publishing),
* "Glavrepertkom" (Главрепертком), a commission for approval of performers' repertoires.
* Department of the Mobilisation of Scientific Forces, to which the Russian Academy of Sciences reported to after 1918.
* A Theatre Department which published Vestnik Teatra
* Vneshkol'nyi Otdel, the adult Education Department run by Krupskaya
Some of these evolved into separate entities, others discontinued.

## History

The Ministry's predecessor, the People's Commissariat for Education of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), was established by a decree of the second convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 8 November [O.S. 26 October] 1917 and was part of the Sovnarkom. The first Commissar was Anatoly Lunacharsky appointed in 1917.
The Ministry of Education, at the all-Union level, was established on 3 August 1966. It was merged, on 5 March 1988, with the Ministry of Higher and Middle Special Education and the State Committee for Vocational and Technical Education to form the State Committee for People's Education of the Soviet Union headed by Gennady Yagodin [ru] from 11 March 1988 to 10 December 1991.

## Commissars and ministers

The following persons headed the Commissariat/Ministry as commissars (narkoms) and ministers:
| Name | Took office | Left office | Duration |
| People's Commissar for Education of the RSFSR ||||
| Anatoly Lunacharsky | 26 October 1917 | 12 September 1929 | 11 years, 321 days |
| Andrei Bubnov | 12 September 1929 | 12 October 1937 | 8 years, 30 days |
| Pyotr Tyurkin | 12 October 1937 | 29 March 1940 | 2 years, 169 days |
| Vladimir Potemkin | 29 March 1940 | 23 February 1946 | 5 years, 331 days |
| Minister of Education of the RSFSR ||||
| Aleksei Kalashnikov | 9 April 1946 | 24 January 1948 | 1 year, 290 days |
| Aleksandr Voznesensky | 24 January 1948 | 15 July 1949 | 1 year, 172 days |
| Ivan Kairov | 15 July 1949 | 28 March 1956 | 6 years, 257 days |
| Yevgeniy Afanasenko | 28 March 1956 | 4 May 1966 | 10 years, 37 days |
| Mikhail Prokofiev | 4 May 1966 | 24 December 1966 | 234 days |
| Alexander Danilov | 13 February 1967 | 27 November 1980 | 13 years, 288 days |
| Georgiy Veselov | 15 January 1981 | 26 July 1988 | 7 years, 193 days |
| Minister of Education of the USSR ||||
| Mikhail Prokofiev | 24 December 1966 | 20 December 1984 | 17 years, 362 days |
| Sergei Shcherbakov | 20 December 1984 | 5 March 1988 | 3 years, 76 days |

## Note

The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education of the Russian Empire, which was formed by combining:
* Ministry of National Education (Russian Empire);
* The Chief Directorate of Religious Affairs of the Orthodox Faith of the Most Holy Synod;
* The Chief Directorate of Religious Affairs of Foreign (i.e. non-Orthodox) Faiths,
and directed the spiritual affairs of all faiths in Russia and the institutions of public education and science, trying to restore rights in East Slavic culture of Russian Federation.