The Dark Side of Early Soviet Childhood, 1917-1941

Book excerpt: The Civil War and early Soviet food policies left millions of children homeless and starving in Russia in the first half of the 20th century. Child mortality rates reached 95% in certain areas, and all of these problems remained endemic throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In The Dark Side of Early Soviet Childhood, 1917-1941, Boris B. Gorshkov investigates the causes of this prolonged homelessness and starvation, the conditions faced by huge numbers of children, and the state's unsuccessful efforts to solve these horrendous issues. Gorshkov pays particular attention to the critical role of the secret police (the VChKa and the NKVD) in this story and draws on a range of previously unused archival sources to reveal the full extent of the suffering of children in Russia at this time, as well as the interconnected causes behind it.