The Russian revolution of 1917 changed the whole system of higher education. On the one hand, it became [b][color=]more democratic, in the sense that students did not have to pay tuition fees and all of them received grants. In 1919 a preparatory department for young people from the working class was opened at Moscow University. Since 1919 the University was fully financed by the state. Quite a number of well-known scientists worked at the University; at the same time, many others found it difficult to accept the new situation and left. A destructive effect was produced by the attempts to reorganize the University, making some faculties or departments into separate educational institutions for the sake of training more students. There were no lectures and students were to study in teams, 3 to 5 people each, then taking their examinations in teams too. Studying in teams did not prove a success and since 1932 it has never been used again; the University curriculum was changed again, as well as the system of higher education as a whole. University professors compiled new secondary school textbooks and manuals for university students. In 1934 doctoral dissertations were defended at Moscow University for the first time after 1917. By 1941 the total number of full-time students at Moscow University had grown to 5000. Over 30 professors became full members of the Academy of Sciences of USSR.

The political repressions of the 1930s and 1950s negatively affected the development of scientific ideas, as Soviet scientists had virtually no contacts with their colleagues abroad, while certain branches of science were condemned as based on the ideology alien to Communist ideas, and a number of scientists and scholars were sentenced for life imprisonment.