Sofia Petrova Sparknotes

The novella Sofia Petrova is based on the experiences of Lydia Chukovskaya during the Great Purge of 1838. It focuses on the story of Sofia Petrovna who was a typist in the Soviet Union in 1937. In detailing her story, along with the story of others, Chukovska shows that these people are made to believe in the Soviet State through means of ignorance, peer pressure, and media. The trust in the Soviet Union that Sofia demonstrates at the beginning of the novel shows how truly successful the Soviet propaganda was. This novella was set during the Great Purge, which was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union which occurred from 1936 to 1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants and the Red Army leadership, and widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and arbitrary executions. The experiences of the Russians in Sofia’s generation greatly contribute to how effective the Soviet propaganda is. Prior to the Great Purge, the Russians had
This being the true children of the regime, as they are subtly influenced by the regime from birth. “Sofia Petrovna glued the curly head of the Child Lenin in the center of a big, red, five-pointed star...put it up on the very top of the tree … They took down the full-length portrait of Stalin and replaced it with another -- of Stalin sitting with a little girl on his knee… The party was a wonderful success. All the children came… ”(pg. 30). This generation of children are the ones who would grow up with mothers and fathers who would become the first generation to be indoctrinated to the Soviet Regime and way of thinking, making them true believers. This generation grew up surrounded by the symbols like the ones mentioned above, and are instilled with no other way of