Soviet film and State penetration

Most writing on soviet film tend to deal with the technical and aesthetic rather than structure and rhetoric of the industry. It’s widely accepted that Soviet propaganda penetrated all forms of art and popular culture. It is felt that there was little convergence between popular ideas and the state system of values. Bertram Wolfe accused soviet power of attempting “atomize society and recreate as rapidly and completely… a new man, a new society, a new world”. A disjuncture existed between the cult of Stalin, or state power, and an ideology that propagated collectivism. The state nationalised cinema but also made use of the public as a propaganda creator.

Trotsky lamented the fact that the Soviet state had not fully taken possession of the cinema. in a July 1923 edition of Pravda he saw cinema as a “weapon, which cries out to be used… a propaganda which is accessible to everyone, cuts into memory and may be a source of revenue”. It would only be later, during the Cultural Revolution which accompanied the First Five Year Plan, that cinema became a “weapon of class enlightenment for the proletariat”. The attraction fro the Bolsheviks was threefold. As a technological medium it was symptomatic of a utopia built on modernity. Secondly its ease of distribution and reproduction. Lastly, film was considered an equal opportunities agitator. The latter factor may have been the most important. The soviet union spoke some 100 different languages. Three out of five adults were illiterate. Accessible literary propaganda would have been a logistical nightmare, never mind the point being missed by the great majority. Cinema was “the only book that even an illiterate could read.”

Film became an important part of Soviet intentions, and with good reasons. To suggest that film had a good platform to influence would be an understatement. Attempts to control the creation of films would be difficult. Film company owners could move the inherently mobile production to Crimea leaving authorities to seize empty rooms. between 1917 and 1921 non state controlled filmmakers produced over twice more than Government licensed productions.By 1928 nine-thousand film theatres existed, a figure that would double by 1931. Its not a great task to understand why Soviet power felt a need for tighter control over a narrative that could brew dissent.

Although older Bolsheviks with a conservative aesthetic dismissed filmmaking as an art form, montage, as used by Sergei Eisenstein, was without equal in traditional art forms. During the NEP era of Soviet Russia, cultural experimentation was allowed, and even encouraged. A filmmaker who flourished in these circumstances was Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein dedicated himself to filming a series of four films that showed the revolutionary movement in Russia which concluded with October . Ebbing through the series was a clear Proletariat consciousness, the revolution as socially progressive and fought for by the masses. These films structured an impeccable narrative of the myths of revolution. Through suppression of the workers rights, showing injustice and violence as the backbone of the capitalist system, a discovery of solidarity culminating in the mass tearing down of the system. Concluding with the struggle for a better life in post-1917 Soviet countryside.

Interestingly in these early days Eisenstein was not pushed by any state propaganda, but by more genuine ideological impetus. This revolutionary ambition was fostered through his involvement in Proletkult. Films created throughout the 1920s projected a revolutionary through genuine conviction, both artistically and politically. As the Party exerted an increasing effective control over machinery for production, distribution and exhibition, it meant that filmmakers were compelled due to State incursion to toe the party line. To gain effect and change required a structural transformation and reorganisation, but this was not all that needed to be done. The contents of film had to be controlled. Its visible how officials viewed and treated themes under the circumstances of Socialist realism. The Cultural Revolution’s focus on Socialist Realism not only affected themes and messages, and how they were conveyed, but also the methods of filmmakers themselves. In response to Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, Zhdanov claimed that the filmmakers fascination with shadows distracted the viewer from the action, as did his fascination with Ivan’s beard, prompting Eisenstein to promise that Ivan’s beard would be shorter in the future.

Although the State intervened to ensure a historical accuracy that fell in line of party ambitions, this involvement was inconsistent and temperamental. When Chekasov asked Stalin if the manuscript for Ivan the Terrible would need submitting to the Politburo for approval, Stalin allowed them self censorship. From the extract of Eisenstein’s works, during the discussion between Stalin, his officials and himself, Stalin mentioned that it would be better not to rush the production. Stalin likened the creation of a film to that of a sculpture with the goal to improve quality even if it meant less pictures. Although the state had penetrated art and popular culture, with the teleological aim of directing towards a certain ideological goal it was not over regulated and harmful to Eisenstein’s craft.

Make no mistakes though Eisenstein was an outliner. An all-union body was created called Sovkino to control distribution. Sovkino had a habit of prescribing. Originally they felt that the avante-garde was not what the public wanted to see. Despite this they were willing to allow experimentation, which Glavpolitprosvet, the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment disagreed with. Glavpolitprosvet’s Meshcheriakov felt that cultural pluralism would be unacceptable. This small exchange sums up the paradoxical nature of Soviet regulation. The desire was never quite matched by funding, only some fifty thousand roubles was invested into each production. Sovkino was replaced as the centralised controller of Soviet film by Soiuzkino. This solved issues of plurality by creating films that were ideologically acceptable by the party. The timing for the shift was right, moving away from anonymity to a star system that coincided with the cult of the hero that appeared with the First Five Year Plan. But the economic system that had helped it thrive also crippled it. Soiuzkino haemorrhaged money, and investing capital in it to buy foreign equipment would be seen a counter revolutionary. The solution was to give Soiuzkino complete control of stock and film, and create a Five Year Plan for the film industry. The intent was to create 300 films a year. This was an unmitigated failure. In 1935 only 43 productions were made and in 1937 it dropped to 24. Unsurprisingly Soiuzkino was replaced by the Ministry for Cinematography which was charged with making an income of 750 roubles. Although it took some time, through several cultural shifts and economies, they did finally manage to take control of Soviet cinema, proscribing a party line. It took considerable time due to administrative and logistical failures, as well as crappy quality productions.