APPENDICES 283
speak with disdain and contempt whenever the talk turned on any
nationality not Russian, whether it was Tatar, Polish, or Jewish.
Great Russian chauvinism was obvious in every criticism. ... It
would, however, be absurd to say that because a nationality was
repressed we must take over the whole of its culture. It is necessary
to analyse the elements of each national culture and use what is best,
transforming it into Soviet culture. But the road to international
culture does not lie through the extinction of national cultures. Only
the negative, harmful side of national culture—such, for example, as
the oppression of women in the East—is to be destroyed. It is im-
portant to find the right way for each national type. An inspector
reports of a Grade 2 school in Ingoushetia that the children persist
in sitting in families on separate forms. How do we approach a
problem like this ? We must realise that in these children's lives
family exclusiveness was the way to an inner discipline which has
educated them in the past. Whilst we try to train them for a larger
social life by bringing them together in all work and play, we must
be careful to retain the habit of inner discipline, which will form the
basis of children's self-government, though working for a wholly new
aim."
I have quoted at this length because Krupskaya epitomises all that
is best and wisest in the U.S.S.R,, and because she has so powerfully
influenced education in the Soviet Union.
The U.S.S.R. was finally divided into three types of national States:
(1) Union Republics, seven in number.
(2) Autonomous Republics, sixteen in number.
(3) National Regions, seventeen in number.
The numbers in group one are fixed permanently. In groups two
and three they are subject to change. The latest addition was the
Autonomous Jewish Republic in Biro-Bidjan, in the Far East. By
the time this is in print there may be other changes. Each of these
units has National District, National Area, and National Village
Soviets. The Transcaucasian Federative Republic includes the three
republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaidjan. The diagram facing
page 296 should help to make the structure of the U.S.S.R. clearer.
All the twenty-five different Republics1 have Commissariats of
Education, Health, Justice, Social Welfare, and Municipal Economy.
The Union Republics have Commissariats of Agriculture, Labour and
Finance, and Light Industry, and State Planning Commissions. The
distinction between Union Republics and Autonomous Republics lies
1 These include the three Transcaucasian Republics,