Carnegie Corporation of New York Vol. Reacting to their new freedoms, Russian students, professors and universities are reinventing themselves, but in a distinctly Russian style. He was tapped for the job in 1963 as a young law graduate and loyal Communist Party member. In 1989, he was one of the first to introduce the study of political science in Russia. Today, the owlish Faroukshin, still lawyerly in a suit and tie, teaches comparative politics to political science majors planning careers in business, civil service and public relations.
Communism is just one of the systems they study.
Students decide for themselves which one they like best. KGU, in American terms the Russian equivalent of an Ivy League school, has its share of famous alumni. Leo Tolstoy enrolled in 1844. If scientific communism was meant to indoctrinate students into quoting Marx and Lenin as the answer to any dispute, new subjects like political science aim, at least in part, to instill an understanding of the open discourse encouraged in a democratic society. Faroukshin frets about a recent government decree making political science an elective.