The Rescue Tractor: The Propaganda of Technological Progress in Soviet Publications for Children before the Second World War

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2022.2.687

Keywords:

USSR, childhood, propaganda, fiction, Murzilka, hunger, industrialisation in the Soviet Union, first five-year plan

Abstract

Childhood in the USSR is a topic of considerable interest for both Russian and non-Russian researchers: it is driven by a constant demand for Soviet children’s literature, the use of related images in modern advertising, and Russians’ nostalgia for their childhood. Contemporary researchers mostly focus on the methods the Soviet government used to construct images of a happy childhood. In the Soviet Union, where the cult of childhood appeared early enough, Soviet propaganda formed the idea of the so-called “paradisiacal places” of Soviet childhood: pioneer camps, recreation parks, etc. The article’s author considers the first five-year plan in the USSR as being the main event of the turn of the 1930s that was explained and promoted to children by Soviet propaganda. The study specifically focuses on the propaganda of industrial development, and not on the topics of the friendship of peoples, class struggle, and the miserable life of workers and their children in other countries. Another feature of the article is the chosen time frame, which makes it possible to take a “screenshot” of the transitional stage of the existence of the Soviet state and the sharp turn in the early 1930s from ideas of internationalism to postulates of “all-Soviet national superiority”. Referring to the popularisation of the achievements of the first five-year plan, the study traces the ideological transition to national patriotic propaganda. The author refers to popular children’s magazines (Murzilka, Yozh, and Chizh) and books, some of which were created by avant-garde artists. The author considers the combination of text and image in children’s periodicals. Promoting industrial development, they presented the young reader with a whole arsenal of machines, putting forward a recognised “king” among them. There were a lot of applicants for wearing the “crown”, including military vehicles, which were extremely popular in the USSR. However, the Soviet country had a more terrible enemy than imperialists and counterrevolutionaries: malnutrition and hunger. It was this fact that made the tractor the main character of technical agitation at the turn of the 1930s in the USSR.

Author Biography

Anna Vyrupaeva

PhD (History), Associate Professor, International Institute of Design and Service.

12, Voroshilov Str., 454014, Chelyabinsk, Russia.

ORCID 0000-0002-9332-2206

annavyrupaeva@yandex.ru

References

Agnivtsev, N. (1926). O shesterykh vot etikh [About These Six Here]. Moscow, Kniga. 14 p.

Aleksandrova, E. (1932). Kolkhoznaya vesna [Kolkhoz Spring]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 14 p.

Chaldini, R. (2018). Psikhologiya vliyaniya [The Psychology of Influence] / transl. by E. Bugaeva, E. Volkov, O. Puzyreva. St Petersburg, Piter. 480 p.

Deineko, O., Troshin, N. (1931). Khlebozavod № 3 [Bread Factory No. 3]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 14 p.

Demin, F. (1929). Staryi drug [Old Friend]. In Murzilka. No. 12, pp. 20–21.

Fede, A. (1929). Khlebnyi chelovechek [Bread Man]. In Murzilka. No. 6, pp. 1–3.

Fitzpatrick, Sh. (2008). Povsednevnyi stalinizm. Sotsial’naya istoriya sovetskoi Rossii v 30-e gody: gorod [Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s] / transl. by L. Pantin. Moscow, ROSSPEN. 336 p.

Il’in M. (1930b). Novyi pomoshchnik [New Assistant]. In Ezh. No. 8, pp. 8–14.

Il’in, M. (1929). Tsifry-kartinki [Numbers-Pictures]. In Ezh. No. 10, pp. 18–23.

Il’in, M. (1930a). Po ognennym sledam [Following the Fire Trails]. In Ezh. No. 1, pp. 12–17.

Kalinina, Z. (1929). Pis’ma iz sanatoriya. Murzilkina pochta [Letters from the Sanatorium. Murzilka Mail]. In Murzilka. No. 12, p. 30.

Karmen, R. (1931). Aerosani [Aero-Sleigh]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 32 p.

Kassil’, L. (1933). Lodka-vezdekhodka [The Boat that Goes Everywhere]. Moscow, Ob”edinenie gosudarstvennykh knizhno-zhurnal’nykh izdatel’stv. 32 p.

Kazanskii, A., Klimenko, P. (1930). Pyatiletka v massovoi metodicheskoi rabote [The Five-Year Plan in Mass Methodical Work]. In Shimbirev, P. K. (Ed.). Pyatiletka v massovoi shkole v svyazi s metodom proektov. Moscow, Rabotnik prosveshcheniya, рр. 4–11.

Klokova, M. (1929). Volch’ya pesnya [Wolf Song]. In Murzilka. No. 12, p. 4.

Makhnaeva, Yu. (1929). Pro zaem. Murzilkina pochta. [About the Loan. Murzilka Mail]. In Murzilka. No. 12, p. 30.

Neusikhin, D. (1930). Traktory v “strane Sovetov” [Tractors in “the Land of the Soviets”]. In Ezh. No. 8, pp. 5–7.

Orlov, I. (2019). Stalinskaya modernizatsiya. Interv’yu s doktorom istoricheskikh nauk I. B. Orlovym [Stalinist Modernisation. Interview with Dr. Hab. I. B. Orlov (History)]. In Istorik. No. 10, pp. 6–16.

Sakonskaya, N. (1931). Pesn’ o dirizhable [The Song of the Dirigible]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 15 p.

Savel’ev, L. (1930). Chto my stroim? Tetrad’ s kartinkami [What Are We Building? A Workbook with Pictures]. Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo. 20 p.

Shimbireva, E. (1930). Kak my rabotaem nad pyatiletkoi [How We Are Working on the Five-Year Plan]. In Shimbirev, P. K. (Ed.). Pyatiletka v massovoi shkole v svyazi s metodom proektov. Moscow, Rabotnik prosveshcheniya, рр. 12–24.

Smirnova, T. M. (2015). Deti strany Sovetov. Ot gosudarstvennoi politiki k realiyam povsednevnoi zhizni [Children of the Land of the Soviets. From State Policy to the Realities of Everyday Life]. Moscow, St Petersburg, Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ. 384 p.

Stalin, I. V. (1931). O zadachakh khozyaistvennikov: rech’ na Pervoi Vsesoyuznoi konferentsii rabotnikov sotsialisticheskoi promyshlennosti, 4 fevralya 1931 goda [Speech at the First All-Union Conference of Workers of Socialist Industry, 4 February 1931]. In Istoricheskie materialy [website]. URL: https://istmat.org/node/20360 (accessed: 20.06.2021).

Stuchinskaya, I. (1930). Kryl’ya Sovetov [Wings of the Soviets]. Moscow, Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo. 16 p.

Sweder, E. (1929). Zimnii naryad [Winter Dress]. In Murzilka. No. 12, pp. 24–25.

Ulrich, E. (1931). Detskii sad v berezovoi roshche [The Kindergarten in the Birch Grove]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 20 p.

Voinov, V. (1925). 80 000 loshadei [80,000 Horses]. Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo. 12 p.

Zayavlenie Glavlita po povodu vstrechayushchikhsya protivorechii v otsenke detskoi literatury so storony komissii po knige pri Glavsotsvose i detkomissii pri GUSe, v chastnosti v otnoshenii skazok “Kurochka Ryaba” i “Belochka”. Postanovlenie prezidiuma Kollegii Narodnogo komissariata prosveshcheniya, 22 fevralya 1927 g. [Statement of the Glavlit Concerning the Contradictions Encountered in the Evaluation of Children’s Literature by the Book Commission at Glavsotsvos and the Children’s Commission at GUS, with Particular Regard to the Ryaba the Hen and Little Squirrel Fairy Tales. Resolution of the Presidium of the Board of the People’s Commissariat for Education, 22 February 1927]. (1927). In Otkrytyi tekst. Elektronnoe periodicheskoe izdanie [website]. URL: http://opentextnn.ru/censorship/russia-after-1917/laws/narkompros/6-ijunja-1922-5-ijunja-1931-narkompros/1927-22-fevralja-postanovlenie-prezidiuma-kollegii-nkp-zajavlenie-glavlitapo-povodu-vstrechajushhihsja-protivorechij-v-ocenke-detskoj-literatury-so-storonykomissii-po-knige-pri-glavsocvose-i-detkom (accessed: 15.07.2021).

Zhitkov, B. (1931). Chudaki [Eccentrics]. Moscow, Leningrad, Ob”edinenie gosudarstvennykh knizhno-zhurnal’nykh izdatel’stv. 16 p.

Published

2022-06-21

How to Cite

Vyrupaeva, A. (2022). The Rescue Tractor: The Propaganda of Technological Progress in Soviet Publications for Children before the Second World War. Quaestio Rossica, 10(2), 545–557. https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2022.2.687

Issue

Section

Problema voluminis