A Review of Mirjam Galley, Building Communism and Policing Deviance in the Soviet Union: Residential Childcare, 1958–1991. Philadelphia, PA: Routledge, 2020, 240 pp.

Abstract

Mirjam Galley’s monograph on the history of boarding schools in the USSR from 1958 to 1991 fills a significant gap in the historiography of Soviet boarding institutions. Prior to the publication of this book, there was no in-depth analysis and description of this phenomenon throughout the post-Stalin era. The monograph analyses the historical context which conditioned the project of boarding schools, reconstructs their routine, which the author describes as unchanged during thirty years, and uncovers the personal experiences of boarding school staff and charges. However, the author’s primary interests lie within the domain of management principles. While high officials postulated ideals of care and concern, the key features of these institutions were austere conditions, on the one hand, and the almost total indifference that officials and representatives of state institutions demonstrated towards the project of boarding schools and schoolchildren in particular, on the other hand. Galley outlines how the upbringing of future workers, which was advertised as a duty of the utmost importance, actually depended on the personal goodwill of bureaucrats as well as on the ability of boarding schools’ staff to present the paper results of their work in the best possible manner.