Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Education of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), formed on 3 August 1966, was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Education, or Narkompros, until 1946. Narkompros was a Soviet agency founded by the State Commission on Education and charged with the administration of public education and most of other issues related to culture. Its first head was Anatoly Lunacharsky. However he described Nadezhda Krupskaya as the "soul of Narkompros". Mikhail Pokrovsky and Evgraf Litkens also played important roles. Despite Lunacharsky's efforts to protect most of the avant-garde artists such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and Vsevolod Meyerhold, the official policy after Joseph Stalin put him in disgrace. Narkompros had a number of sections, in addition to the main ones related to general education, e.g., Likbez, a section for liquidation of illiteracy, "Profobr", a section for professional education, Glavlit a section for literature and publishing (also in charge of censorship in publishing), "Glavrepertkom" (Главрепертком), a commission for approval of performers' repertoires. Department of the Mobilisation of Scientific Forces, to which the Russian Academy of Sciences reported to after 1918. A Theatre Department which published Vestnik Teatra Vneshkol'nyi Otdel, the adult Education Department run by Krupskaya Some of these evolved into separate entities, others discontinued.