Children’s and school cinema of the first decade of Soviet power as a tool of spiritual and moral education

The article scrutinizes the role of Soviet children’s and school cinema at the stage of its formation in the 1920s. It characterizes the types and peculiarities of the first films that were shown in Soviet film distribution. Using the example of the materials of meetings on cinema, notes in the central and regional periodicals, devoted to the state of the film industry, shows the artistic and moral organizational and technical difficulties of creating a new Soviet children’s cinema, which faced the department of the People’s Commissariat of Education. The main directions of work on the control and improvement of the ideological and moral state of children’s and school cinema are considered. Particularly in this context, the role of the state corporation “Sovkino” is reflected. Conclusions dwells upon the fact that the period of formation of the Soviet children’s and school cinematography in the 1920s was accompanied by difficulties of creative, logistical, financial nature. At the same time, the influence of the bourgeois and pre-revolutionary system of moral values was overcome, but advanced technologies and methodological experience of the West of using cinema in education were not ignored and borrowed. In order to effectively develop the children’s film industry, an administrative resource was actively involved. In general, the leadership and the pedagogical community of the first decade of Soviet power were characterized by a close attention to the educational and educational role of cinema in the formation of the “new man” of Soviet society.