Figure 1.--Here we see a meeting of a Young Pioneer squd. These were groups organized from a claas. Note the older boy directing the group. This is a scene from "Vasyok Trubachev and His Class-mates". Vasyok is the boy in the center of the bsckground.

The movie “Vasyok Trubachev and His Class-mates” (“Vasyok Trubacherv I yego tovarischi”) was made in 1956 and is a standard Stalinist era film. The main heroes were three boys from 4th grade, very good friends. Vasya is the true leader of the Pioneer squad. He is very responsible, athletic, learns good, can use instruments (like axe, saw etc.) and dreams to be a train locomotive driver like his father. (Note the choice of a working-class biy.) Kolya is very disciplined, principle, active, learns good. He is an older brother in a big family, so he can to make a dinner, care for children and even sew. Sasha is the smallest and weakest boy in the class. He is depicted as the only boy in the class still wearing short pants with long stockings, but he learns good (again), knows a lot about sciences, communications and so on. All the children in the movie are depicted schematically, they are so serious and in my opinion are more like small adults or even a small robots. They all tell long and boring speeches about “duty of a Soviet pioneer”, “being a true Soviet pioneer” and so on. Adults, the class teacher and the school Pioneer leader are depicted as “true communist” and “true comsomol member”. The plot of the movie is very primitive and liveless. This reflects Soviet film making during the Stalinist era. Imagination and complexity were not characteriztics that were highly prised in film making and literature. In fact they could get you in a lot of trouble. Stalin died in 1953 and Khruchev denounced him at the 20th Party Congress (1956). It took longer for the impact of Stalin to loosen his grip on Soviet film making.

Created: 5:07 AM 12/8/2008
Last updated: 5:07 AM 12/8/2008