PEOPLE ‘S COMMISSARIAT FOR EDUCATION OF THE CHUVASH ASSR IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1920s: LEGAL BASIS OF ACTIVITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Abstract

The article characterizes the statutory and regulatory enactments that determined the activities of the People’s Commissariat for Education of the Chuvash ASSR in the second half of the 1920s. The most important among them were the “General Regulations on the People’s Commissariats of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” (November, 1925) and the “Regulations on the People’s Commissariat for Education of the Chuvash ASSR” (May, 1929). The functions of the People’s Commissariat for Education are shown to include not only the problems of improving the state of affairs at all levels of education in the republic, but many issues related to the population’s social welfare, the development of science and culture as well.
 The main attention in the article is focused on showing the structure of the People’s Commissariat for Education as a special body of state power, whereas previously the scientific literature mainly covered the specific results of the activities performed by the People’s Commissariat for Education, when it was mentioned mainly in connection with adoption of a certain resolution on public education. The article considers the matters of separate structural subdivisions of the People’s Commissariat for Education of the Chuvash ASSR, including the organizational and planning part, the Academic Center, the supervisors. On the basis of documents from the funds of the State Historical Archive of the Chuvash Republic which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, general trends of changes in the organizational structure of the People’s Commissariat for Education in the second half of the 1920s are traced. It is concluded that there were significant problems with personnel replacement of full-time positions in the period under review, which was mainly explained by two reasons: low wages and a general shortage of qualified workers in the necessary areas of work. The personnel problem negatively affected implementation of tasks faced by the People’s Commissariat for Education.