The establishment of the first higher education institution in Donbas took place under extremely unfavorable conditions. After the Civil War, mines, metallurgical, coke, and machine-building plants were idle, and railways were destroyed. The new leadership of the country attached great importance to the restoration of Donbas. This required engineering personnel. At that time, only 189 mining engineers worked in Donbas, and the mining industry had an acute need for highly qualified specialists. Taking this into account, it was decided to open a technical school in Yuzovka.
In the 1920s in Ukraine, technical schools were higher educational institutions and trained narrowly specialized professionals, while institutes trained production managers and administrators. By decision of the city authorities, the newly created educational institution—the Don Technical School—was allocated the building of the former Commercial School (now the 2nd academic building) and the adjacent semi-ruined Cossack barracks. They were repaired in a short time, and on May 30, 1921, the official opening of the Don Technical School took place. The first intake of students numbered 208 people. A major problem was recruiting teaching staff. Engineers from industrial enterprises were invited to teach specialized subjects. From 1923, professors from Kharkiv, Yekaterinoslav, Novocherkassk, and other cities began working at the technical school.
Since students had very weak general education preparation, the administration organized a workers’ faculty. It was one of the first workers’ faculties in Ukraine, where students studied general education disciplines for three years. The future head of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, also studied at the workers’ faculty. It was the Don Technical School that launched his political career.
By 1926, the technical school had achieved significant success in training qualified specialists and had become a center of scientific and technical thought in Donbas. However, the rapid pace of industrialization in Donbas required a much larger number of specialists.
On October 22, 1926, the Donetsk Mining Technical School was reorganized into the Donetsk Mining Institute.
In April 1935, a decision was made to create, on the basis of the Donetsk Mining, Metallurgical, and Coal-Chemical Institutes, a single institution—the Donetsk Industrial Institute.