Political Leaders in Russian History Textbooks Between the Rise and Fall of the Cult of Personality (1938–1962)

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the portrayal of Lenin and Stalin in Soviet history textbooks used in Grades 3 and 4 by Shestakov (1938), and in Grade 10, edited by Pankratova (1940), tracing the development of these leaders’ political influence on the chief historical events taking place in the period between 1917 and the early 1950s and uncovering the ideological messages sent to student readers. Using a comparative hermeneutic discourse analysis, the chapter shows how text and images of Lenin and Stalin promoted the cult of the personality, and how they held up the heroic actions of the two leaders as the infallible source of all historical truth. While the different editions of the book for Grades 3 and 4 recount the political struggles of Lenin and Stalin in a quasi- mythological style, glossing over the roles of the others who are essentially marginalized, the textbook for Grade 10 describes the political actions of these leaders as if they were the authors of peace, of major social change and as defenders of the country from enemies, both internal and external. The chapter concludes that through the textual and visual representations of major political actors the textbooks were constructed with the goal of indoctrinating younger generations with a patriotic and communist spirit and of conveying a particular Soviet interpretation of history.