Participation of Jewish Youth in the Schools of Factory Apprenticeship in USSR at the Аnd of the 1920s – at the Beginning of the 1930s

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to examine the policy of the USSR to attract Jewish youth in the schools of factory apprenticeship (FZU) during the first five-year plan (1928 - 1932), its causes and consequences. The research methodology is based on the analysis of little-known and unknown archival sources of the Komzet organization. Scientific novelty of the work is that this problem has not been studied in Ukrainian Judaism despite wide attention that had been paid to the investigation of Jews education. Conclusions. The author concluded that FZU in the USSR was tasked with both economic and political tasks, as they were obliged to educate not only masters and representatives of junior technical staff, but also conscious, literate, technically qualified workers. Accordingly, the number of FZU and students who studied there grew from year to year in the USSR and Ukrainian SSR. The fastest speed of growing demonstrated FZU established in the heavy industry and transport. The process of recruiting Jewish youths to FZU has been somewhat chaotic due to objective and subjective reasons, including high plans to recruit those wishing to study in apprenticeship schools, imposing students on enterprises despite their financial unwillingness to accept them, negligence of some Ukrkomzet employees and representatives of enterprises. As a result, the Soviet government's plans to involve Jewish adolescents to the education in the apprenticeship schools were not always fulfilled. A number of problems were encountered by some teenagers during their trips to these schools and training there, including the non-payment of secondment costs, non-provision of food cards, heavy physical labor, inability to live in other climatic zones for health reasons. It has been proven that technical and vocational education, including FZU schools, has not been very popular among Jewish youth, but in order to find a place in the Soviet society, to find employment and to have certain prospects, many adolescents have finished education, although their number has significantly decreased in the second half of the 1930s.