The October Revolution

Introduction

A number of factors affected the quickly evolving film industry after the October Revolution of 1917 and until 1932 and interpretations of historians often vary. Unquestionably, the Soviet government action was a main factor and their first All-Union Party Congress on film questions in 1928 had a lasting effect on soviet cinema. A period of hope and experimentation after 1917 inspired revolutionary modernism in soviet cinema, which played a crucial role in the development of the world’s cinematography. However, soon the Russian Communist Party under Lenin began a process of creative repression and propaganda. The crux was reached in 1932, with Stalin’s solidification of socialist realism. Although Soviet cinema was greatly affected

In the long run, the Bolsheviks’ goal was ideological, economic, social and political, to transform Russia into a socialist state by using all means possible, therefore the involvement of government in the arts was not only unavoidable, but also necessary. Lenin impacted the early developments of cinema and setting its aims, which would become the foundation of socialist realism. Nevertheless, the first years after the revolution were focused on finding equipment, handling the fleeing creative force and creating short agitational films (agitki 1918-20) or newsreels, so the influence of government was mostly limited to urgent administrative work and

It has to be noted that soviet sources tend to overstate Lenin’s support for cinema, whilst western sources generally ignore Lenin’s influence in the 1920s and idealise this time as being artistically free. Richard Taylor calls this period the “disorganisation of organisation”. An example is the nationalisation of cinema, which officially occurred on the 27th August 1919, but only in 1920 this process was completed. Furthermore, other journalists, such as Boltyansky in the “Velikaya Oktyabrsaya” claimed that nationalisation of cinema was only a recognition of what was already achieved by the masses. Later on, the unsuccessful Goskino established in 1922 and soon closed would further show the lack of control of the government, which is explained later on. The party had planned out their approach towards cinema, enforcement in terms of content came much later and as Richard Taylor claims, that Lunachasky and Lenin preferred a more natural and gradual approach. That is why they supported old and new forms of artistic expression, which related to the revolution and their ideology. Other people like Alexander Bogdanov, wanted to create a new proletarian cultural movement called Proletkult. This movement rejected all bourgeois art and was initially accepted by Lenin. It had 400,000 members in 300