Socialist fun : youth consumption and state sponsored popular culture in the Cold War Soviet Union 1945 1970 Most narratives depict Soviet Cold War cultural activities and youth groups as drab and dreary militant and politicized. In this study Gleb Tsipursky challenges these stereotypes in a revealing portrayal of Soviet youth and state sponsored popular culture. The primary local venues for Soviet culture were the tens of thousands of klubs where young people found entertainment leisure social life and romance. Here sports dance film theater music lectures and political meetings became vehicles to disseminate a socialist version of modernity. The Soviet way of life was dutifully presented and perceived as the most progressive and advanced in an attempt to stave off Western influences. In effect socialist fun became very serious business. As Tsipursky shows however Western culture did infiltrate these activities particularly at local levels where participants and organizers deceptively cloaked their offerings to appeal to their own audiences. Thus Soviet modernity evolved as a complex and multivalent ideological device. Tsipursky provides a fresh and original examination of the Kremlins paramount effort to shape young lives consumption popular culture and to build an emotional community all against the backdrop of Cold War struggles to win hearts and minds both at home and abroad