Scenes from Soviet Schools, Middle NEP
The Soviet government faced daunting tasks in preparing a generation of children for their modern society who had been severely undereducated under the tsar, and had languished during seven years of war and revolution. The notion that children can learn best when they are learning to do practical work had a strong grip on the education administration in the 1920s, and the so-called labor schools were designed to educate working class children and prepare them for their social contributions.
Bringing Health to Ukrainian Huts
Bolshevik claims to represent all the laboring classes often clashed with their alarm over peasant ignorance and superstition. Attempts to enlighten the rural classes often displaying an alarming condescension. This series of health posters in Ukrainian depicts peasants, if left in their natural state without instruction, as a filthy and barely civilized class desperately in need of basic hygiene.