ABSTRACT
At the January plenum too, Mikhail Gorbachev stated that the past leadership was guilty of "failing to see the need for change in time and in full," but he also indicated that the evil was rooted in "serious shortcomings in the performance of the institutions of socialist democracy". Support for reform-oriented arguments had been given by Gorbachev in a speech to a meeting of propagandists in December 1984. Gorbachev instructed the academics to train young people "to think independently and creatively". Deploring the "dogmatic" and "scholastic" way in which the social sciences were taught in the universities, he called for the preparation of new programs of study, new lectures, and new textbooks. Like Gorbachev, Egor Ligachev expressed alarm about the training of young specialists in higher education institutes. Ligachev's words implied an elitist approach of the "better fewer, but better" variety to higher education for young people.
