Agitprop PrimersAgitprop Primers

Agitprop Primers

In the July/ August Print issue, Agitprop Primers examines the role of children’s literature in Soviet Communist Russia. During this period, children’s literature became a political strategy of the communist government. In 1924, “ two years after the Central Committee of the Party announced its mission to develop a new kind of juvenile literature that rejected all of the bourgeois ornamentation and trivial fantasy that had characterized the pre-revolutionary period” (p51).
After 1917, with Russia bankrupt and about to start massive civil war, Lenin sought to inspire the people through children’s literature and illustration. Even if the children couldn’t read, they would want to learn after seeing the illustrations in the books.
Russia embraced the art world through their desire to have children grow into strong supporters of the Soviet ideals.
There were two main publishing houses during the USSR, Kryachko and Radugo. Radugo. Radugo published the two most popular children’s books of the time, The Big Cockroach and Seven Wonders. Radugo, like many of the publishing houses of the time, sought to “educate, influence, and shape a child’s personality” through modern illustration and typographic layout.