The Artful Propaganda of Soviet Children’s Literature

I wouldn't say a lot of Russian kids' stories were propaganda. Neznayka series by Nikolai Nosov was definitely overt Communist moralizing, though.

The article doesn't call Barmalei propaganda, nor does it claim everything Raduga published was propaganda. Although as a case in point, Chukovsky himself ran into some trouble at the time for the inadequate ideological soundness of some of his earlier children's poetry (like Barmalei) and had to publicly renounce it.

Two factor identification is dangerous, yes.

> I like how western people label propaganda anything that was made outside of the US

I grew up during the days of GI Joe cartoons. A while back, we watched the GI Joe tv movie for a laugh. My gf and I couldn't finish it because it was essentially Cold War propaganda for kids. A lot of the primary villains were foreign, the heroes were as stereotypical American as they could get, and the plot revolved around an energy crisis or something along those lines. It was offensive, considering that it was targeting children. It was political indoctrination.

Also, I remember an episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks that was anchored around the Berlin Wall. Again, the cartoon was instructing young viewers about the dangers of a foreign government. Not what I would consider appropriate for a seven year old kid's entertainment.

As a Soviet kid, I can assure you that there was tons of propaganda in the books that I've read as a child.

Some was pretty blatant, like the various short stories about Lenin (all adding up to how awesome he was in various respects). Some was more subtle, like the Neznaika books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunno) - the second one in the series was basically a communist utopia for kids, and the third one was a capitalist dystopia (that ends up with a communist revolution).

For another example, the Russian adaptation of the Wizard of Oz, which basically diverged entirely after the first book, ended the series with an invasion and occupation of Oz by mind-controlling slavery-practicing aliens (yep, the kind that come on spaceships), which ends up in a slave uprising with strong socialist overtones in the messaging.

As someone born during a transition from "democracy where communist party gets all the seats every time because everybody loves their glorious leader Tito" to real democracy, I can tell you from personal experience that there was shitloads of propaganda in everything my parents and grandparents had access to.

I've read books and comics from the 50s and 60s in Yugoslavia and I can tell you that the Communist Party can do no wrong, the Partisans were all heroes built like Superman and who never ever commited any war crimes, and Tito himself was a poor lad who rose from nothing to ultimate power just because of how awesome he is. And of course we all are equal in everything, if someone feels unequal or god forbid better then they are stealing and robbing and doing bad things.

The history books I was taught from in the 90s and 00s painted a very different picture.

I was born in late 1980 in North Vietnam, at that time the society and education system was still under the heavy influence of the Soviet-era propaganda. Other than the USSR, Vietnam at the time was also under some influence from the communist China as well.

For fictional novels, we had Russian books such as Nought the Seafarer, Dr. Aibolit, The Copper Jar of Old Khottabych, The Adventures of Dunno and his Friends, and many other books translated to Vietnamese. They were printed in the USSR in beautiful, high-quality paper hardcovers, and were a joy to read and was the inspiration for my destitute childhood. Even Vietnamese children literature were also quite enjoyable. For instance, De Men Phieu Luu Ky (Diary of a cricket) were about adventures of a cricket that found the traditional life boring, broke through and went exploring new places. I mostly find them inspiring and non-offensive even now (I am currently living in the US and had a liberal college and post-graduate education in the US). Adult literature was much more blatantly brainwashing.

I don't know about what happened in China and Russia, but I don't feel that western children literature books were under scrutiny in Vietnam, I still remember vividly my dad has a stash full of children's books such as Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, Robinson Crusoe, 1001 Arabian nights,... they were all available in Vietnamese under the mainstream publication, although the books looked awful cosmetically, because they were printed and bound domestically.

For non-fictional books, I can recall several excellent children books that were published in Russian that were my inspiration when I was young. In the Russian side, Physics for Entertainment by Yakov Perelman was the one book that I would read and read again. On the Chinese side, One Hundred Thousand Whys is another series of books that were surprisingly well written. They have many of those on different topics such as Maths, Physics, Literature, Biology, Medicine, Astrology,... each book has several hundreds of answers to basic and advanced topics written in an accessible manner. It was kinda my childhood Wikipedia.

That was my anecdotal experience. Maybe it wasn't offensive, maybe I was used to it, or maybe I was romanticizing my uneventful, brainwashed childhood.

Propaganda in the Soviet Union didn't have negative connotation, just like it doesn't have a negative connotation in china today. It is like blaming the west for calling the "Chinese communist party" communists even though communist is in their name. Many accusations of western media bias follow that pattern.

"Western" is too big of a category to be meaningful here. In several large European countries US material is viewed with mistrust.

As a Canadian who grew up watching American cartoons, I can say with complete certainty Soviet Union wasn't alone in using media to indoctrinate their children.

Most things made outside of the US are propaganda. Most things made inside the US are propaganda too. Basically it's all propaganda.

Or maybe because this just is actual propaganda. No where here is anyone saying the Western world did not produce propaganda. That's a straw man all in your puny brain.

The difference is that these books were produced by the Soviet government. Meanwhile, stuff like G.I. Joe and Captain America were made through free enterprise.

Any government trying so hard to influence the public's opinion of it is suspect in my eyes.

Uhhm, Russia is part of the "west" unless you think they are not --but even Japan is considered "western" in economic contexts, but regardless, most Russians consider themselves western (as would most Europeans consider them). In addition, the word "propaganda" didn't have much negative connotation in Russia. In many contexts it has similar connotation to the word "advertising" in English --which depending on context can seem negative, or positive, but many times just descriptive.

I'd like to see more real life technology and economy featured in childrens media, so they can develop appreciacion for what miracles, we, as a species have achieved.

Instead at age 10 they think it's as mundane as rain because nobody told them otherwise and most of them keep thinking it way into adulthood.

It's interesting.

It is going all meta.

Or Holy Bible for that matter.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14577888 and marked it off-topic.

It's hacker news jargon, with an etymology something like RTFM (read the fricking manual) -> RTFA (read the fricking article) -> TFA (the fricking article), used as shorthand for "the article."

The Fine Article.

Or something more colorful if used in anger.

The Featured Article.