ABSTRACT
The mid-Twenties form, in the history of the Soviet regime, a period of relative quiet and stability, of consolidation after the cataclysmic events of the War, Revolution and Civil War. In the Twenties, the Soviet government, after surviving the Civil War and setting up a vast machinery of domination that could not be overthrown by internal rebellion or foreign intervention, expounded its official ideology in the very manner foretold by Engels. At the same time, the Soviet government exercised strict control over the production of new literature–fiction, stories, novels and even children's books as well as works in the social sciences. Even during the most liberal phase of the Soviet regime, the government quietly but most successfully proceeded to seal off Russia's channels of communication with the outside world. In Soviet Russia, history did not even begin with the October Revolution, since a few years later Trotsky's works were also included in the index of prohibited literature.
