Basic Problems of General Pedagogics in the U.S.S.R.

In the course of the entire existence, the Soviet pedagogics has paid attention to the clarification and solution of general theoretical and methodological problems. Evidence of it are both earlier, and particularly recent, pedagogical publications, including textbooks of pedagogy which, to a varying degree, elucidate and point out these problems. The analyses of general theoretical problems of the Soviet pedagogy significantly contribute to a gradual formation of its conceptual apparatus and the theoretical system, as well as to effective pedagogical investigations and activities. The results of scientific work in this sphere are also made creative use of and applied in the Czechoslovak marxist pedagogy, helping thus to increase its theoretical and methodological level. The Soviet pedagogical publications show that general pedagogy in the U.S.S.R. concentrate on the investigation and elucidation of several basic problems. Undoubtedly belonging among them are the following: the subject of pedagogy, the conception of education, the general aim of communist education, the role of biological and social factors in the formation of personality, the system of pedagogical sciences, the relation of pedagogy to other sciences, the problems of pedagogical methodology, critical analysis of non-marxist pedagogical theories and conceptions. The present paper analyses in detail the Soviet educationalists’ views of pedagogy and conception of education, and points out the integrating function of general pedagogy in the system of pedagogical sciences.