Youth in Revolutionary Russia

In Bolshevik Russia, the successful transformation of young people into communists was crucial for the future of the Soviet state. Soviet youth needed to be shaped into communists in every aspect of their daily lives – work, leisure, gender relations, and family life. But how could the Bolsheviks accomplish this enormous project? What did it mean to be "made communist"? What were the consequences if pre-revolutionary and "bourgeois" culture and social relations could not be transformed into new socialist forms of behaviour and belief? Drawing from a wide range of sources – diaries, party speeches, propagandistic writings, scientific studies, and literature – Anne E. Gorsuch reveals the rich diversity of youth cultures in Soviet Russia during the 1920s and explores the relationship between representation and reality, between official ideology and popular culture, and the meaning of these relationships for the making of a Soviet state and society. From the clash between ultra-communist visions of what Russian young people should be and the flamboyant style of flappers and foxtrotters so prominently imported from the capitalist West, emerges a vivid picture of the construction of Soviet youth. Thoughtful and appealing, Youth, Politics, and Culture in Revolutionary Russia will become essential reading for those interested in youth, popular culture, Soviet history, and Soviet state building.