Communist University for Workers of the East

Communist University for Workers of the East 

(KUTV), a university established in Moscow by the Apr. 21, 1921, decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, under the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, to train workers of the Soviet eastern republics and oblasts; it later was under the jurisdiction of the Central Committee of the ACP(B).

The university was opened on Oct. 21, 1921, on the basis of the Eastern Courses of the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities. At various times, members of 73 nationalities studied at KUTV. It had divisions in Tashkent, Baku, and Irkutsk. In 1923 a three-year program was instituted. The university emphasized general education. The main divisions of KUTV were party work and political education, the trade union movement, economics, and administration and law. A. V. Lunacharskii, L. B. Krasin, M. N. Pokrovskii, A. A. Guber, I. M. Reisner, and B. Z. Shumiatskii were instructors at KUTV. Much scientific research work was conducted at the university. In 1927 a scientific research association was created for the study of the socio-economic problems of the Soviet and non-Soviet East and of national and colonial problems. The publication Revoliutsionnyi Vostok (The Revolutionary East) was issued from 1927 to 1938. Under their instructors’ guidance, students of the university engaged in much agitational and propagandistic work.

KUTV was closed in the late 1930’s in conjunction with the establishment of a number of higher educational institutions in the national republics of Middle Asia, Siberia, and the Northern Caucasus. The university and its divisions trained several thousand party, Komsomol, and trade union workers of many nationalities of the East.

G. V. ANTONOV