Negative events in the life of Soviet society were in full degree reflected in spiritual sphere, in education, science, culture. For instance while the number of those Russian youths, having secondary education, increased, the quality of education lowered.
An attempt to correct this disharmony was undertaken: more attention was given to technical and professional orientation in the secondary school, the number of vocational technical schools and technicums increased. But on the whole the problem wasn't solved. Moreover, by the end of the period it had become more acute. The crisis in the school system prompted an attempt to carry out a school reform (1983-1986), with the purpose to direct it to the needs of the country's economy. But unpreparedness, not understanding the reasons of the crisis phenomena in the sphere had led to refusal from the idea. In 1985-1986 the reform was aborted.
Together with the fall of education quality in the majority of schools in the Soviet Union, there appeared a number of creative, thinking teachers: V.Shatalov, E.Ilyin, Sh.Amonashvili and others.
The system of university education had similar problems. While the number of universities and other higher education institutions constantly increased (there were 69 universities in the USSR in 1985, let alone institutes, academies, etc.), industry and agriculture needed more and more qualified specialists. The main reasons were: irrational use of the graduates, low level of their preparedness, low prestige of specialists with higher education.
The two "stagnant" decades in the development of Russian science were not in fact so stagnant. The number of scientific employees grew considerably, many new research institutes and centres were opened. Achievements of Soviet scientists in the realm of theoretical and experimental physics, economic mathematics, chemistry and other subjects were especially significant. The results of the researches were connected with development of defence and space technology.
By early 80-s Soviet science began to loose its leading positions even in the segments where prestige had always been questionless. One of consequences of that was that even space programmes were fulfilled with difficulty and deceleration.
Development of Soviet Culture and Art in 1965-1985 reflected the state leadership turn to new-stalinist policy. In fiction prose of that period the divergence from acute modern problems was clearly visible. Many-volume epopees and long serials began to appear in fiction literature and movie industry. "Industrial" theme was actively supported.
At the same time in the sphere of fiction literature those writes who depicted village life, rural people, became popular. Among them first should be mentioned: F.Abramov, V.Belov, V.Astafiev, P.Proskurin, B.Mozhayev. In their books we can find truthful stories about country farmers' bitter destiny. The heroes, like in real life, in spite of all the troubles and misfortunes, maintained loyalty to the folk traditions. A special, prominent role in this row belonged to Vasily Shukshin, a gifted actor, producer, writer. Truthful books about the war time by Y.Bondarev, V.Bykov, B.Vasiliev should be mentioned.
Among talanted writers we can mention V.Aksenov, A.Bitov, F.Iskander, poets: I.Brodsky, A.Galich, V.Vysotsky etc.
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