"Perhaps nothing captures an American's inability to think through the meaning of the Soviet photographs like Viktor Bulla's Pioneers in Defense Drill, Leningrad (1937), the most profoundly unsettling photograph in the exhibit. Bulla's photograph of hundreds of children wearing gas masks was not meant to be ghoulish, a commentary on war or lost innocence, but rather exemplified a reason for pride--the country was blessed with well-trained, well-equipped and obviously courageous young fighters."
