I am thinking this is why Russian government is copying the american education system so much.
At first it was probably more of, "well, they won the cold war, so their ways are probably superior, lets watch and learn", and then it was more of "aha, we have so many people we don't need climbing the social ladder, those amerikanskis, they sure know what they're doing! Lets copy that!"
Apart from all the politico-economic dogma, I feel that Russian educational system was fine. Thing is other countries are adopting ideas from it, as we are dismantling the thing.

For any background on the public education a good place to start would be with reading about Maria Montessori.