How will these resources help you?

While Hitler and the Nazis are familiar to most children on their arrival at secondary school, the 20th century’s other great European tyranny, Stalin’s Soviet Union, is not. Russian history in general is relatively unknown in the Western world, so you may be introducing the subject to your class for the very first time. For over a century, the Russians have been perceived as ‘the enemy’. This was the case throughout the Communist era and now, under Putin, it is the case again. For this reason, pupils may need to differentiate between the Russian people and the actions of their leaders.

Stalin reportedly said ‘One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic’ and the unbelievable scale of the cruelties inflicted on the Russian people by his regime is often difficult to grasp. With breath-taking irony, Soviet children were presented with propaganda posters declaring ‘Thank you Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood’. Seeing these events through the eyes of children and young people allows a deeper understanding of the horrors of this great Soviet project in social engineering, as well as encouraging pupils to make that important distinction between the people and the leader. Studying the life of teenagers under Stalin is a good place to start learning about the mechanisms of social control in totalitarian states. Looking at this era of Russian history is also vital in developing an understanding how Putin’s Russia operates today.