When the Soviet Politburo commissioned Andrei Tarkovsky to direct Ivan's Childhood, they expected a rousing patriotic tale of a brave boy soldier defending mother Russia.
Released in 1962, Ivan's Childhood, was acclaimed as a masterpiece, however the Politburo found it profoundly disturbing, and unable to say exactly why, engaged in a typical act of historical revisionism: Premier Nikita Kruschev declared there had been no child soldiers.
This is somewhat contradicted by photos of victorious Russian soldiers posing on the Reichstag steps, with a uniformed boy prominently in front.
Early in World War II, Russian troops regularly adopted children as their unofficial company mascots. Soviet leaders quickly appreciated the propaganda potential, enlisted them as official uniformed soldiers and made stirring films of their brave battlefield exploits.
Strange as it may sound, Tarkovsky used these boy soldiers to construct a film about love.