Small Comrades: Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932 (Routledgefalmer Studies in the History of Education)

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Small Comrades is a fascinating examination of Soviet conceptions of childhood and the resulting policies directed toward young children. Working on the assumption that cultural representations are not entirely separable, this study probes how the Soviet regime's representations structured teachers' observations of their pupils and often adults' recollections of their childhood. It offers some tentative answers to the questions, 'What did children make of the Revolution?' and 'What did the Revolution make of them?' Although our studies have looked at families and children in the Soviet Union, most have focused on abandoned and homeless children, or on children in the context of other gender and family issues. This project emphasises young children as the subjects of policies and politics in their own right. The book draws on work that has been done on Soviet schooling, and focuses specifically on the development of curricula and institutions, but it also examines the wider context of the relationship between the family and the state, and to the Bolshevik vision of the 'children of October.' The examination of Bolshevik approaches to the first socialist generation suggests new perspectives on the 'retreat' from the premises, plans and the vision of October that will interest students and scholars of Soviet history and culture.