Figure 1.--We see a small boy squatting on the floor in the presence of his middle-class parents. The father seems to be whittling a piece of wood, and there are toys spread out around the little boy. He is wearing typical boy's clothes of the 1950s in the Soviet Union--short trousers with brown long stockings and supporters. Notice that there is a hole in the stockings at the knee of his left leg of his stockings.

We do not know much about the Soviet film, "Life in Thy Hands" (1959), but it provides some fascinating scenes depicting family life. We see a small boy squatting on the floor in the presence of his middle-class parents. The father seems to be whittling a piece of wood, and there are toys spread out around the little boy. He is wearing typical boy's clothes of the 1950s in the Soviet Union--short trousers with brown long stockings and supporters. Notice that there is a hole in the stockings at the knee of his left leg of his stockings. These Russian films are interesting in part because they provide glimses of ordinary family life, something most of us in the West know nothing about. How accurate they are is another question. We suspect that this presentation of middle-class life is fairly accurate. What is less obvious is that Soviet films tend to show families that are reasonably well off in Soviet terms. How representative this is we do not know.

Created: 12:42 AM 12/5/2011
Last updated: 12:42 AM 12/5/2011