The Teaching of Political Economy

THE TEACHING OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN.Oparin Political economy is one of the three socio-economic sciences that is studied, on a diversified scale, in all the higher educational institutions of the U.S.S.R., the other two being the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and philosophy. Political economy is the study of the socio-productive or, in other words, economic relations between people in the process of production, distribution, and exchange of material values. This is the science of the laws of production, distribution, and exchange of material values in human society at different stages of its historical development. In explaining the processes of the economic development of society Soviet economists proceed from the fact that material production has its own inherent laws independent of the will and consciousness of people. Under the conditions in which social ownership of the means of production prevails, people can not only discover the way these economic laws operate, but also run the economy in accordance with the demands of these laws. That is why the knowledge of the economic development of society is a completely necessary and a very important link in the entire system of higher education in the U.S.S.R. Without an understanding of these laws no person, no matter in what sphere of activity he works, can be considered a fully trained specialist and an educated man in general. The time allotted for instruction in political economy depends on the type of school: in medical and art schools 90 academic hours (lectures and seminars) are devoted to this subject; in technical and agricultural colleges, 150 hours; and in economics institutes and economics faculties of universities and technical and agricultural colleges, 300 hours. The same number of hours is schednled for the study of political economy at law and philosophy faculties of universities. 48 N. OPARIN In economics institutes and the economics faculties of universities political economy is the main subject, on the basis of which the study of other economic sciences is built: the latter include the history of economic teachings, the economics of industry and agriculture, economic statistics, the history of the national economy, etc. The study of political economy at economics faculties of universities and at special economics institutes is not limited to the general school curricula. Besides the general course, an additional system of special courses of lectures and seminars for a deeper study of individual, more complex, or more topical economic problems is provided. The special courses and seminars are divided into those obligatory for all students of the given economics institute (or economics faculty) and faculty courses, which are selected by the student himself. Every special lecture course is about 30 hours and the special seminar, 100 hours. As distinct from the usual seminar (part of the general course of political economy), a student's work in the special seminars has to a considerable degree the marks of a scientific character: the student prepares beforehand reports in which he attempts to raise and solve certain problems. Thus the students receive here an initial experience of independent work. Special courses and seminars at the economics faculty of Moscow University, for example, are conducted on themes such as the following: the subject and method of political economy; Socialist reproduction; the national economic balance; commodity production and the law of value in different social formations; price and price forming under Socialism; agrarian relations in bourgeOiS society. The curricula of economics institutes and faculties are directed towards training broadly educated specialists in economics baving a good knowledge of the general theory of economics-political economy, the concrete economics of different branches of the national economy and other economic subjects; specialists capable of using their knowledge in fruitful activity after graduating from COllege. The task placed before the technical and agricultural colleges is to combine rationally the special training of students witb their economic preparation. The future engineer, no matter whether be be a metallurgist , machine builder, chemist, or mining engineer, the future agronomist or any other kind of specialist, has to be able to give a proper evaluation of the economic side of the production process, to weigh the economic effects...