Between 1927 and 1933 a fascinating experiment in textile making took place in the Soviet Union. As the new nation emerged and the Communist party struggled to transform an agrarian country into an industrialized state, a group of young designers began to create thematic textile designs. They believed that by mass-producing fabrics depicting locomotives, factories, and other symbols of collective modernity for clothing and household use, they could mold the buyers into ideal Soviet citizens. While the experiment ultimately failed as propaganda (the ideal citizens clung to their traditional floral motifs), it yielded many bold and intriguing new designs. Soviet Textiles: Designing the Modern Utopia presents some forty of these textiles and discusses the political and artistic contexts that gave rise to them. Author Pamela Jill Kachurin identifies major themes and motifs that permeate the designs: industrialization, transportation, electrification, youth, agriculture and collectivization, and sports and hobbies. In the final account, few of these designs ever saw mass production; but their graphic power - and their value as elements of artistic and social history - is undiminished.