Practically no one will dispute that the future of Russia depends on the successfulness of the multifaceted modernization of Russian society, a task that cannot be confined solely to the socioeconomic sphere. The most fundamental task is that of changing the societal system of values and institutions. If Russia is to modernize successfully, the most important task is to improve the country's human potential. To this end, education is the main instrument for the formation of individual and collective value orientations and for providing for the social, spiritual, moral, and physical development of the individual. In the new standards of general education, the chief task of the school system is formulated in a way that is fundamentally new: the task not only of mapping out a particular range of subject knowledge and ensuring that it is learned on the minimum permissible level, but of educating successful citizens. In the course of accomplishing the new ideological tasks of education, the author stresses that the main burden will rest on a number of subjects that can be provisionally called the "ideological nucleus": (1) history; (2) geography; (3) Russian language; (4) Russian literature; and (5) foreign language.