No, this is definitely a Soviet thing. The 1897 census found 79 million peasants out of 93 million, these people basically had no chance of getting a tertiary e

No, this is definitely a Soviet thing. The 1897 census found 79 million peasants out of 93 million, these people basically had no chance of getting a tertiary education. Only the remaining 15% and not that many of those either had even a chance. Indeed, while the Stalinist rule was not a particularly popular one, the elderly certainly appreciated how their children became engineers, doctors and such. I mean, I heard my own grandmother saying this about my father often, she was a devout communist all her long life (96 years...) even after the Soviet Union fell apart.