After graduating from the classics department in the fields of history and philosophy, he found employment in teaching positions and scientific endeavors.

Blonsky became steadily involved in the burgeoning Russian socialist movement, specifically with the Bolsheviks, which led to periods of imprisonment and repression throughout his early career.

He began to espouse the idea that education should be used as a tool to impart socialist ideals, as well as to prepare students for industrial and factory work.

Following the October Revolution, he was made a professor at Moscow University, and was heavily involved with-and became the first leader of- the Academy of Socialist Education.

In 1936, after the publication of "On Paedological Distortions in the System of People's Commissariat of Education", he was severely criticized for his adherence to psychological testing, and for studying innate capabilities between individuals, which contradicted official Soviet ideology.