During the Soviet Union's Great Patriotic War, from 1941 to 1945, as many as 24 million of its citizens died. 14 million were children ages fourteen or younger. And for those who survived, the suffering was far from over. The prewar Stalinist vision of a "happy childhood" nurtured by a paternal, loving state had given way, out of necessity. What replaced it--the dictate that children be prepared to sacrifice everything, including childhood itself--created a generation all too familiar with deprivation, violence, and death. The experience of these children, and the role of the state in shaping...