The First Visit of Teachers to the Soviet Union

The foundation of the Society for Economic and Cultural Relations with the New Russia in the bourgeois republic of Czechoslovakia is followed by a period of intensive study of the Soviet school and pedagogy. Teachers in primary schools and secondary schools of all types showed a genuine interest in Soviet education and never missed an opportunity to gain a thorough knowledge of it.
In 1930 Communist and leftist teachers from the School of Higher Pedagogical Studies in Prague succeeded in organizing the first visit to the Soviet Union, which became a decisive turning point in the development of Czechoslovak-Soviet relations in education.
This study traces the important stages in educational contacts from the 1930 visit till the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1934. It deals with concrete manifestations of friendship and affection of Czechoslovak teachers for the Soviet Union. At the same time it describes the process by which the progressive pedagogical and ideologico-poUtical orientation completed its formation. In this period the Czechoslovak teaching profession realized its position in the society which was strongly hit by the Great Depression. The knowledge of the Soviet school and pedagogy made itself felt in the profession’s unequivocal attitudes on the side of the working people.
On the basis of the experience thus gained the Czechoslovak teachers launched a campaign for the recognition of the Soviet Union de jure and for establishing all-round relations. The share of the teaching profession in the development of the Czechoslovak-Soviet relations is described in a broader framework of struggles for progress and a just social order.