In the USSR, it was not impossible to find readable, non-ideological fiction for the 13-16 crowd. I remember quite a few such novels. The only ideology in them was that they were not supportive of sex before marriage. Or divorce.
Without saying so for very obvious reasons, what the books advanced was a Christian worldview. They promoted kindness to others, generosity, family values, clean living, respect for old age, honesty, loyalty to friends. I would be very happy if my kid read those books as a teenager. There’s not a word in them that I’d like to edit out.
Children’s books, detective fiction and sci-fi were the genres where you could pretend that the Soviet ideology didn’t exist, and this would be a great refuge for writers and readers.
You see, Soviet ideologues were not stupid people. They knew that giving no respite from the ideology was counterproductive. In our society, there’s already such an oversaturation of wokeism that people are moving away from.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment