soviet propaganda

14 movies and shows

Enemy at the Gates

Wed, 28 Feb 2001

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

The movie takes place during Russia's civil war between the Reds (Bolsheviks) and the Whites (Mensheviks). Andrejka and Yarinka are a young betrothed couple in the village of Malinovka, caught between the battle lines. Gritsian is the leader of a Menshevik band who are planning to attack the village. Yarinka appeals to the local Bolshevik commander for his faction's help. The Bolsheviks quickly come up with a plan to save the village... but the plan requires Yarinka to enter into a pretend marriage with Gritsian.

A Night in September

Thu, 21 Sep 1939

Film deals with Stakhanovite movement. Old miners try to sabotage young man's plan to renew methods of getting coal.

Salt for Svanetia

Sat, 24 May 1930

An ethnographic treasure that documents with visual bravado the harsh conditions of life in the isolated mountain village of Ushkul.

If War Comes Tomorrow

Wed, 23 Feb 1938

The propaganda documentary about the readiness of the Red Army to repulse any enemy is based on documentary shots taken during the real maneuvers of the Red Army. Armadas of tanks, immense columns of infantry, dozens of fighters and bombers, thousands of cavalry, legendary divisions of the Civil War. The film glorifies Soviet military power and shows the Soviet people what the war will be like when the imperialists attack the USSR — quick, victorious, almost bloodless.

The Invisible Front

Thu, 20 Mar 2014

Between 1944–1953, courageous resistance movement took place in the Baltic region of Europe, uniting the partisan troops for struggle against the Soviet Union. “The Invisible Front” was a coded name used by the Soviet Interior forces to describe the resistance movement in Lithuania. Film depicts the story of the fighters through the words and experience of the partisan leader, Juozas Luksa, and interviews with eyewitnesses of those events - both the partisans and the Soviet fighters. Tales of horror, torture and courage are told in the rare archival footage that has never been screened before, and interviews with the surviving members of the resistance movement.

Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution

Sun, 10 Jun 2018

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

The Letter to a Chinese Friend

Wed, 01 Jan 1969

Film by Aleksandr Medvekin to a metonymic Chinese friend, advocating against Mao and the Ussuri River Skirmish.

A Very Animated War

Sun, 15 Aug 2021

From 1945 to 1989, after the capitulation of Nazi Germany, two rival ideologies, communism and capitalism, faced each other in a merciless battle. On one side of the Iron Curtain and on the other, throughout the Cold War, the USSR and the United States sought to shape children’s imaginations through their magazines and films. Never in the history of mankind have so many comic books been published and so many cartoons produced for young people. In November 1989, communism collapsed with the Berlin Wall; capitalism was left to decide the future of the world. What if this victory had been prepared for a long time, and our thinking conditioned, from our early childhood, to ensure this absolute triumph?

Tale of the Woods

Sun, 26 Dec 1926

A young Belarussian man joins Soviet partisans in order to fight Polish occupational forces in Belarus.

PBS NewsHour: Inside Putin's Russia

Fri, 21 Jul 2017

Correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin take us inside Vladimir Putin's Russia, with an in-depth look at the resurgent national identity, the government's propaganda machine, the risk of being a Kremlin critic and much more.

Light Over Koordi

Mon, 27 Aug 1951

When Paul Runge, a soldier of the Red Army, returns home to Koordi after the war, he sees that, despite the new regime, life in Koordi hasn't changed. It's still a abandoned, uncultured Estonian village, where rich landlords still oppress the population. Runge starts talking about founding a kolkhoze.

Farewell on the Ice Floe

Sat, 01 Jan 1938

Veteran Soviet polar explorers have spent nearly a year adrift on an ice floe in the Arctic. To commemorate their recent Hero of the Soviet Union honors, they retreat to their heated “USSR” tent, where a lavish feast magically appears: fish, fruits, cake and sparkling wine. As Stalin’s portrait looms above a banner quoting his 1935 promise that “life has become better, life has become merrier,” the scientists toast the New Year in true Soviet style. Outside, the Arctic wildlife has been rounded up like GULAG prisoners, marching in formation with banners to salute their “Bolshevik masters.” Mid-revelry, famed geographer Otto Schmidt parachutes in, greeted by each scientist with a warm “Brezhnev-style” cheek kiss. United once more, the five heroes raise their glasses under the northern lights, proving that even on the loneliest ice floe, Soviet camaraderie and celebration endures.

Solovki

Thu, 16 May 1929

Depicts life in the Solovki prison camp as a vacation at a holiday resort, pointing at the authorities’ efforts to humanise the re-education of criminals via an aesthetics of normalcy.