In 2012 soon after his election to a third presidential term as president following a
four-year stint as prime minister (to avoid modifying the constitution) and in the wake of an
unprecedented wave of popular protests Vladimir Putin issued his ¿May Decrees.¿ Notable among
them was the government¿s commitment to increase the salaries of doctors scientific
researchers and university teachers to double the average in their respective regions by 2018.
But then on December 30 of that year the government issued a ¿road map¿ for education
revealing that the salary increases in higher education would be paid for not by significant
new government funding but by ¿optimization ¿ which would eliminate 44% of the current
teaching positions in higher education. This was justified in part by a forecasted drop in
student enrollment. Thus opened a new accelerated period of reform of higher education. David
Mandel examines the impact of these reforms on the condition of Russiäs university teachers and
the collective efforts of some teachers a small minority to organize themselves in an
independent trade union to defend their professional interests and their vision of higher
education. Apart from the subject¿s intrinsic interest an in-depth examination of this
specific aspect of social policy provides valuable insight into the nature of the Russian state
as well as into the condition of ¿civil society ¿ in particular the popular classes to which
Russian university teachers belong according to their socio-economic situation if not
necessarily their self-image.
