There is considered the work of A.S. Makarenko as a unique pedagogical phenomenon, which allows viewing the ideas of the great pedagogue from the new point of view in pedagogy - in the context of the theory of modernization - and seeing new sides in the heritage of A.S. Makarenko.

There is shown the process of establishment and development, revealed the essential characteristics of community schools in the end of the XIX - first third of the XX centuries in Russia and West European countries.