In a striking 1964 portrait by Antanas Sutkus, a young Lithuanian Pioneer doesn’t smile—despite the fact that it’s September 1, decreed by the Soviet Union’s Central Committee to be the first day of school, a day of celebration. Though the Pioneer is wearing his new uniform and knotted scarf, though schoolchildren are milling around, full of excitement, in a celebratory assembly, this young Pioneer with cropped blond hair is sulking, seemingly wondering what he is doing there, and what there is to celebrate.

“A Pioneer that sulks? This was intolerable at the time,” Sutkus explained. The purpose of the Pioneer divisions, Scout-like in form and Communist in content, was to educate children to be loyal to the ideals of Communism and the party, as expressed by their motto: Pioneer, be ready to fight for the cause of the Communist Party! When the picture was published in the magazine Sovetskoye Foto (Soviet Photo), Sutkus continued, “readers wrote over 200 protest letters, and I was summoned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Moscow to give explanations.” He barely escaped a one-way trip to Siberia.

WHOLE ARTICLE