Training of commercial professionals in Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

Background. The new vision of the development of the socialist economy required the state to create a coherent system of trade and economic education that would meet national interests and global development trends. The creation of commercial schools, institutes, schools, courses in the 1920s and 1930s required a great deal of effort and appropriate funding, aswell as the recruitment of professional staff who would work without fail in the style of the wishes of the party.
An analysis of recent research and publications has shown that despite the presence of some scientific achievements, the important scientific and practical problem of trade and economic education in the 1920s and 1930s and the lives of students in a planned economy remain unresolved.
The aim of the article is to systematize existing data on the social and national composition of students of commercial institutes, technical schools, schools in the 1920s and 1930s, and to analyze the "problem of personnel" of commercial establishments of Soviet Ukraine.
Materials and methods. In the course of the study the methods of comparison, tabular, economic and statistical methods were used.
Results. The situation in Ukraine with trade and economic education in the 1920-1930’s was investigated, namely the problem of the absence of trade and economic profile personnel in the field of economic planning in the 1930s was disclosed, the work of commercial institutes was considered, basic statistics on the entrants of commercial schools and institutes were given, also the main social and national composition of students of commercial establishments was shown. The attention is paid to the insufficiency of specialists of the commercial profile and the difficult financial situation of the students of those times. The author emphasizes the role of trade and economic education in the birth of a new commercial and proletarian intelligentsia.
Conclusion. In contrast to the existing publications, scientific hypotheses regarding the system of trade and economic education in 1920–1930 were formulated for the first time, and the proletarization of higher education and the involvement of the masses to the popularization of commercial institutions by the method of purification of the "old bourgeois elements" and the birth of new proletarian commercial intelligentsia were clearly demonstrated. From the above archival documents we can conclude that the lack of qualified professional staff often led to changes in curricula, concessions in the entrance exams, which negatively affected the quality of trade and economic education.