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During the Second World War, teenage labor was an economic necessity in the Soviet Union. Though the Stalinist government attempted to protect teenagers’ rights, the coercive labor policies it enacted and the general systemic deficiencies indirectly resulted in the abuse and exploitation of young workers. Although life was hard for all Soviet workers during the war, factory apprentices usually led a far more precarious existence than their adult colleagues. The inability of the state to realize its welfare objectives and to live up to its promises bred low morale and work inefficiency among many teenage workers. Instilled with a sense of entitlement and self‐efficacy, they resisted by leaving their trade schools and factories. The regime proclaimed such actions unpatriotic and criminal, at the same time refusing to take responsibility for widespread abuse. This essay looks at the institutional interaction and the actual experience of teenage workers on the factory floor and within the penal system. It argues that Soviet wartime labor policies were a failure; Stalinist humanitarian pretensions—a sham; and the regime's claims of being in full control of its labor force—at best optimistic.