№ 1 - 2000
Shcherbinin A.I.
«I’d Master Russian Just Minding the Fact...» (The Studies of the Language as a Means of Constructing the Image of a Totalitarian World in Soviet Schoolchildren’s Consciousness)

In this article, the author delves further into the indoctrination theme tackled in his earlier “Polis” article where Soviet ABC books were analyzed. Now he widens the scope of the discussion analyzing the Soviet school practice when lessons of Russian served as s means of total indoctrination; that is to say, both written word and word of mouth were being exploited as a major instrument of power, by which conscious-ness was being “programmed” in parameters that mattered for the rulers. The whole system of school education was thus oriented; and the programme inserted into the schoolchild’s consciousness, would subsequently begin to work by itself. That, in par-ticular, might be the explanation why it is exactly those who were since their child-hood programmed to participate in elections, that prove to be stably immune against absenteeism.