Between Manipulation, Propaganda and Education – the Activity of the Romanian Journals for Children during the Communist Regime

The Communist regime installed in Romania with the support of the Soviet army set out on a large-scale propaganda mission to implement the new ideology, backed up by new legislation. Children were one of the targeted age groups, and the strategies of indoctrination adopted confirmed that the Soviets had advanced knowledge concerning the stages of children’s cognitive development. Some of the most effective instruments in creating the «new man» were the periodicals dedicated to children, which were actually press organs of the Romanian Communist Party. However, this detail was ignored by most parents, and thought irrelevant to the children’s universe. A number of other factors secured the success of this means of propaganda: the trust and appreciation of these publications among children, an excellent distribution network, low acquisition cost, the limited number of books available, and reduced access to the same. In an era dominated by austerity in terms of communication and forms of entertainment, children’s periodicals represented an escape from the poverty and banality of everyday life