Theoretical framework Fullan embraced reform process in education as a policy or a set of policies following orderly stages from initiation to implementation and later on institutionalization (Fullan, 2001). What this conception had apparently taken for granted was an implying level of common ideas (Waks, 2007, p. 285). No fundamental change in Waks's terms could happen since there is no any common set of shared norms. It is precisely this subversion of common norms and ideals that happened after the collapse of the USSR. My research question is what was the impact of this historical event on teachers’ movement in Russia. Methodology From January 2015 to April 2016 37 in-depth semi-structured interviews of approximately an hour and a half length each were conducted by the author and graduate students Ksenia Sidorova and Artyom Kulakov to whom I am very thankful for their participation and assistance. The sample was constructed via snowball technique (Babbie, 2001). We also reached a number of school teachers who were professionally active at the given period yet had not been involved in any close cooperation with innovators movement. After transcription all interviews were coded and 12 most common categories were extracted to apply them in the analysis of 1980s and 1990s periodicals and archival materials. Research outcomes By far the most influential theory of innovation - Roger's conception of the innovation diffusion process- is heavily framed with the linear understanding of the whole diffusion process. Other popular approaches to innovations studies share a similar linear time frame (Christensen, 1997; Fenn & Ruskino, 2008). That seem barely true as the Soviet case is considered. The history of Russian teachers innovative movement provides a clear evidence of what might happen when only ‘subjective’ part of innovations is at stake while further issues of making new structures of decision-making are neglected. No system of instutional incentives was built as well as almost no channels of diffusion were set in motion while the situation was extremely favorable to grassroots innovative initiatives. Excessive personal branding was detrimental for subsequent perception of innovations in professional teachers community in Russia on the one hand and effectively blocked the coming on neoliberalism on the other.

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