Small Comrades ─ Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932

This study examines the notion that children in the new Soviet state embodied both pressing practical problems and revolutionary dreams. Kirschenbaum (history, West Chester U., Pennsylvania), in an elegantly written revision of her dissertation, details the pre-1917 roots of Bolshevik kindergartens and their role in teaching ideology; the effect on revolutionary ideas for women of the cost of socialized childcare; the links of anti-Bolshevik rhetoric of children's liberation with current Western notions of the helplessness and innocence of children; the withering away of the kindergarten policy in the 1920's and the concurrent debates to reeducate parents; and the construction of the emblematic child in the era of Stalin. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)