The Reform of Day Nurseries in the Soviet Union. Towards a Preschool Education System (1945–1970s)

This chapter lays out the main changes that affected the Soviet system of preschool education, in particular day nurseries for very young children, from 1945 to the end of the 1970s. This period spans the last phase of Stalinism, de-Stalinization and the so-called Khrushchev Thaw (from mid-1950s to the mid-1960s). The period can be divided into two. The first phase, which concerns the years immediately after the war, was characterized by an initial increase in the number of day nurseries, which, however, were unable to offer adequate care and assistance to children due to the lack of suitable health conditions and qualified staff. This situation, accompanied by poor implementation of the construction plan for the nursery buildings, led to a quest for solutions at the local level, in the form of the merger of the day nurseries with the kindergartens. The formation of such unified institutions increased over time, with the consequent development of continuous education for children up to seven years of age, both in urban and rural areas. The second part deals with the elaboration of different psycho-pedagogical theories that, after the repression of paedology in 1936, constituted the basis for the introduction of new educational methods in the nurseries. Two trends emerged in continuity with the past, the first linked to Pavlovian psychology and the second to the research of the “historical-cultural” school founded by the well-known psychologist Lev Vygotsky. The reality is complex and very different from the propaganda of a near-universal admission of children under the age of three to these institutions. Nonetheless, the progressive creation of a preschool system contributed to the increasing transfer of these institutions into the purview of the Ministry of Education, making them educational institutions, as was happening in other European countries.