Ever-Advancing to World Revolution: Soviet Children's Literature from 1925 to 1927

Authors

Amy Daniel, Brigham Young University

Keywords

Lenin Youth Education, Communist Ethics, Ideological Indoctrination, Internationalism

Abstract

During the third all-Russia congress of the Russian Young Communist League in 1920, speaking to revolutionary youth, Vladimir Lenin laid out what he saw as the mission of the youth leagues and described his new vision of children's education: "The entire purpose of training, educating and teaching the youth of today should be to imbue them with communist ethics . . . [which] stems from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat." Even before the end of the Russian Civil War, Lenin was conscious that to build communism, he first had to teach it to the youth. In this speech, Lenin recognized that ideology had to be a part of children's education and that children had to "learn communism" if they were to one day build a communist world. Central to that education, was the need to imbue children with the Marxist principle of internationalism and class-consciousness. One way that the Communist Party taught these central principles was by encouraging ideological books for its young comrades.

Recommended Citation

Daniel, Amy (2016) "Ever-Advancing to World Revolution: Soviet Children's Literature from 1925 to 1927," The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 45: Iss. 1, Article 13.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol45/iss1/13