
The Russian Empire was weeks away from universal education in 1917. Then the revolution happened, and set it back by a decade. You were never told this. Here's what the numbers actually show. 🧵👇 By 1914, literacy was rising quickly. In cities it reached 60–70%, and among army recruits it exceeded 70–80%. Recruits were not an elite group, they came largely from the peasantry. If the army was receiving literate young men, it meant that education had already penetrated rural Russia.


















