The cultural revolution in the USSR took place during the years of the first and second five-year plans. Its most important and very first task was to eliminate illiteracy among the population. Literate for 1926 among residents of nine years and older was about 51.1%. In some nationalities, the educated population was a very small percentage. So, among Kazakhs they were about 9.1%, among Kyrgyz people - 5.8%, Yakuts - 7.2%, Turkmen - 2.7%, Tajiks - 3%.
The cultural revolution in Russia began with the call of the Communist Party to eradicate illiteracy. The movement to eliminate ignorance unfolded in the country quite widely. The party's slogan called for literate educate the illiterate. Thus, the total number of people who took part in the movement throughout the country by 1930 was about a million. The cultural revolution in the USSR by 1932 captured more than thirty million people.
To eliminate illiteracy once and for all, it was necessary to suspend the flow of younger generation uneducated from the environment. Thus, compulsory universal education was introduced in the country.
In addition to eliminating illiteracy, innovation played an important economic and political role. Lenin pointed out that an uneducated person is beyond politics. Illiterates, in his opinion, are not able to master technology and take a conscious part in the formation of the socialist system.
The cultural revolution in the USSR in 1930-1931 was marked by the introduction of four-year free primary education for children from eight to eleven years old. In the working villages, factory districts, industrial cities for children who graduated from a four-year school, they introduced the subsequent seven-year free education.
Thus, by the end of the first five-year plan, compulsory universal education was carried out practically throughout the country.
The cultural revolution in the USSR during the first two five-year periods was marked by large-scale universal school construction. So, in the years 1929-32, about thirteen thousand schools were built, designed for 3.8 million students, in the period from 1933 to 1937 - more than eighteen thousand schools. The number of people who received secondary and higher education was increased by the 37th year to 29.6 million.
In addition to the huge successes in the formation of school education, hundreds of new technical schools and institutes of pedagogical profile were created in the RSFSR and other republics. During the first five-year plan, the rapidly expanding network of secondary and higher educational institutions made it possible to prepare more than four hundred, and during the second five-year plan, more than a million specialists and teachers of the middle and top echelons.
During the first two five-year periods, significant successes were noted in the development of Soviet science. The tasks of agricultural significance set out in the plans required the formation of the closest ties with the production and practice of building socialism. At that time, the works of such figures as I.V. Michurin, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, I.P. Pavlov, A.E. Fersman, V.A. Obruchev, A.P. Karpinsky, N. received the fame and recognition. D. Zelinsky and other scientists.
During the first and second five-year plans, branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences were opened and began to develop in the Far East, the Urals, in the Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazakh, Tajik, Armenian, Azerbaijan, and Georgian Union republics.
The cultural revolution of the USSR brought up a new intelligentsia emerging from the peasant and working environment. This new class was closely connected and devoted to the people, faithfully served him. The intelligentsia of that time provided significant assistance to the Communist Party and the entire state in the formation of a socialist society.