Rabfak (from Russian: рабфак, a syllabic abbreviation of Pабочий факультет, Rabochiy fakul′tet, "workers' faculty") was a type of educational institution in the Soviet Union[1] which prepared Soviet workers and peasants to enter institutions of higher education. Such institutions were present in every faculty and institute for higher learning and tended to contain a density of members of either the Komsomol or the VKP(B). The rabfaki were created by Mikhail Pokrovskii in March 1919 and were active until the 1940s.[2] They were intended for adults who had received little formal schooling and were intended as a fulfilment of the promises of the Revolution for upwards social mobility for workers and peasants.[3]