Michael Rosen examines four very different historical attempts at moulding the minds of the young. 2: Russia: the Imagination at War
Meet the man who never was and the cockroach who might be Stalin. The early experiments of the first years of the Russian Revolution saw the folk tale elevated to a new status in the people's regime, the fairy tale attacked for its lack of reality, and the classics newly revered. As the new Communist ideology twisted and hardened, one man - Kornei Chukovsky - fought and won a lone battle for the fairy tale, while others, unwelcome in the harsh world of socialist realism, found the forest of children's literature a place of refuge - if not safety.
Next programme tomorrow 9.00pm