Yet despite such ideological and practical obstacles, Dewey's progressive ideal did take root. Yet Dewey's influence in the promotion of progressive education can not be confined to the American shores. Indeed, it is during the 1920s that Dewey moves from an American education to truly one of international stature. At the behest of the Commissar of Education, in 1928 John Dewey, along with a delegation of twenty-four other educational figures, traveled to the fledgling Soviet Union. Much of the communist ideal espoused in the heyday of 1917 had never materialized.
Progressive education is seen as the panacea of Soviet societal ills.
John Dewey, the physician on-call. What is most striking about this period in the life of both John Dewey and progressive education is the influence of John Dewey, the man, and the transience of progressive education, the movement. In the 1920s, Dewey travels to China and Turkey, with the blessings of respective heads of state, in the hopes of resuscitating ailing educational systems. Progressive education, indeed, had an international reach. What can clearly be seen in this period called the Roaring 20s is the international flavor the decade adopted.