Based on the history of the oldest Siberian institution of higher education, the Tomsk Medical Institute, the article analyzes changes in medical schools in the context of the general reforms of Soviet society in the 1920s and 30s. Authorities often created unviable institutions by splitting classical universities and reorganizing them into professional colleges . The new students, who came from the working class and peasantry, were unprepared for the new methods of education. Many hasty innovations were subsequently abolished, having been proved unpractical.