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Page 1: Burns, Soviet Cinema, Collectivization, 1981

CULTURAL REVOLUTION,COLLECTIVIZATION, AND SOVIETOINEMA:

EISENSTEIN'S OLD AND NEWAND DOVZHENKO'S EARTH

by Paul E. Burns

Old and New (1929) and Earth (1930) were the last silent films madeby two world-renowed Soviet directors, Sergei Eisenstein and AlexanderDovzhenko respectively. The films deal with the Soviet village duringthe collectivization of agriculture under the First Five-Year Plan. MostWestern discussions of these works concentrate on their directors' uniquecontributions to filmmaking methodology, and in Eisenstein's case, tofilm theoryJ Old and New and Earth are indeed distinguished examples offilm art, but they are also graphic statements of the contemporary con-cerns and pressures of a society in unprecedented and mind-bogglingflux. This essay focuses on the historical context of collectivizationand cultural revolution as a key to understanding their ideologicalcontent and as a means of illustrating the interaction of Soviet cinemaand society.

The cultural revolution which accompanied and assisted "the greatturning point" of the First Five-Year Plan in Soviet Russia has recentlyreceived systematic analysis by a group of Western scholars.^ Instead ofviewing the period of the First Five-Year Plan as a transition from thetolerant and culturally diverse years of the New Economic Policy (1921-1928) to the repressive and culturally stagnant era of Stalin's "social-ist realism," they see the cultural revolution of 1928-1931 as a discretephenomenon with its own special characteristics. Cultural revolutionwas the counterpart to rapid industrialization and forced collectivizationof agriculture; it reflected the economic and social transformation, butwas also intended to foster that transformation. While it was to raise

Paul Ei Bums is a member of the history department at the Universityof Nevada at Las Vegas..

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the general cultural level of the masses (as Lenin had intended), it wasalso to advance the working class and Communist youth and introduce amilitantly proletarian culture (not envisioned by Lenin), In the crucibleof Stalin's revolution, no art form was free from the political pressureto produce works of relevance and ideological correctness.

Major Soviet films of the 1920s had already broken with the canonsof the bourgeois cinema. Absence of a star system, elevation of themasses or their representatives as hero, eschewal of romantic plots, andpositive treatment of revolutionary subjects characterized the avant-garde. But while such revolutionary epics as Potemkin, Mother, The Endof St. Petersburg, October, and Arsenal had astounded international filmcircles, imported entertainment films were the most popular fare of Sovietaudiences. As the regime geared up for the First Five-Year Plan, it soughtto marshal cinema's mass communication potential. At a Party conferenceon cinema held in March 1928, A. I. Krinitsky, head of the agitprop depart-ment of the Central Committee, characterized the cinema as "one of themost powerful instruments of the struggle for cultural improvement, anenormous factor in the cultural revolution and the socialist transformationof the country."-^ He praised the depiction of the Revolution in Sovietfilms for giving "a class assessment of historical events," but lamentedthe lack of worthwhile films on the problems of contemporary Soviet life,such as "the union [smychka] of the workersand the peasants" and "thefight for collective forms of agriculture."^ While he called for films"comprehensible to the millions," he also urged the Soviet cinema not to"follow in the wake of the audience...it must lead the audience, supportthe beginnings in it of the new man..."^

In no other area of Soviet life was it so difficult for the cinemato lead and be "a means of agitation for the current slogans of theParty"^ than it was in agriculture. The collectivization of Soviet agri-culture followed a tortured path, both in its conception and in its exe-cution. Individual peasant farming was the centerpiece of Lenin's NewEconomic Policy, and it had led to recovery of Russia's shattered economy..But when the decision to rapidly industrialize was made after long debatesin 1927-28, the leadership assumed that the necessary resources for in-dustrial investment would be extracted from the peasantry. Low pricescreated a crisis in grain procurement during the winter of 1927-28, andStalin responded with a campaign of forced requisitions and outcriesagainst "kulak speculators." While coercion was officially termed "extra-ordinary," or temporary, and the NEP was reaffirmed, grain shortages re-curred in 1928-29. The First Five-Year Plan, which was formally adoptedin the spring of 1929, projected increased agricultural production by the

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gradual but dramatic growth of collective farms to include 20 percent ofthe peasantry by 1932. Impressive growth of collective farms, or kolkhozes,during the summer and early fall of 1929 was based primarily on the poorpeasant. Believing that inclusion of the middle peasant was essentialand heartened by the earlier successes, the regime embarked during thewinter of 1929-30 on a frenzied assault to "liquidate the kulaks [richpeasants] as a class." By March 1, this effort yielded a staggering 55percent of the peasantry in collectives. The resulting chaos and destruc-tion caused Stalin on March 2 to issue his famous "Dizziness from Success"article in Pravda, in which he proclaimed victory, but also decried theoverzealousness of some officials. Collectivization statistics plummetedfrom over fourteen million to under six million on May 1, but the goalremained unaltered and by the end of 1932 60 percent of peasant familieswere reported collectivized.' Political control, famine, and economicdisaster were the results.

As the collectivization campaign raged in the countryside and theattendant cultural revolution took shape, the film industry struggled toassume its place in the arsenal of Soviet arts. Film journals detailedcinema's proper relationship to these two phenomena. "Cinema in the Ser-vice of Collectivization" described educational productions with suchtitles as Towards the Spring Sowing, Weeds and Measures for CombattingThem, Diseased Bread, and Introducing High Quality Seeds.^ "Sound Cinemain the Service of the Cultural Revolution" and "For a Marxist Film Criti-cism" dealt with the problems and prospects of creating a proletarianculture.9 The "cinema front" could be anywhere, including the regime'srenewed attack on religion. The Moscow Provincial Soviet organized atraveling anti-religious cinema, and some former churches were used asmovie houses.^^ In this politically charged and ideologically sensitiveatmosphere, Eisenstein and Dovzhenko offered their contributions to col-lectivization and the cultural revolution.

Prior to resuming work in 1928 on his agricultural film, Eisensteinwrote an essay included in a volume on Soviet arts published in the UnitedStates in 1930. In it he said:

In the Soviet Union art is responsive to social aims and demands.One day, for example, all attention is centered on the village;it is imperative to raise the village from the slough of ancientcustom and bring it into line with the Soviet system as a whole...The slogan is: "Face the Village!" The smichka, the union ofproletarian and poor peasant is established. Opponents of Sovietaims are ousted. The strongest propaganda guns are put in action;there begins a bombardment on behalf of socialist economy. Here

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the cinema plays a bigIn this same spirit he described the "enthusiastic workdays" devoted tocapturing the transformation of the Russian countryside, which was epito-mized by "kolkhozes, where, as in a drop of water, is reflected theboundless horizon of a new social era."'^ His enthusiasm was not dampenedeven when Stalin's intervention obliged him to spend two more monthsshooting footage for a new ending in the North Caucasus and the Ukraine,major centers of collectivizing efforts. In a letter to his French friend,Leon Moussinac, he enthused: "And I saw with my own eyes what is meantby the 'building of socialism.' Nothing could be more moving and moreheroic! " ^ Eisenstein'.s passion undoubtedly derived not only from hiscommitment to the cause, but also from his methodological experimentationand his related theoretical writing.

Just as Eisenstein's support for collectivization was apparentlyunqualified, the content of Old and New exhibits orthodox traits of thecultural revolution. Not only does the film deal with a contemporaryproblem of Soviet life, but it also displays attributes typical of Sovietliterature during the First Five-Year Plan. Eisenstein's central character,Marfa Lapkina, a poor peasant woman, is one of Gorky's "little men," whois being raised to his full "human dignity."'^ Her creative potentialwill be fulfilled through banding together with other little people andcontributing to the great achievements of the age. Typically, theseefforts would lead to rapid and radical change, a second characteristicof the cultural revolution. Examples of such change in Old and New in-clude: the miracle of the cream separator, which immediately increasesmembership in the co-op from four to fifty; the instant maturing of thecommunal bull and the rapid multiplying of his progeny, and the multi-farious accomplishments of the tractor, plowing deep and fast, knockingdown the fences dividing individual peasant holdings, and reproducing ata rate to equal the bull. But more than just the environment was to betransformed; by crossing "the muzhik with science, a new kind of personis born. Collectivist-man. Collectivizing-man."^^ At the film's end,a series of retrospective close-ups recapitulates Marfa's transformationfrom oppressed peasant to joyous tractor driver, attired in a stylizedheadgear with visor.

Closely linked to Eisenstein's positive relationship to the culturalrevolution was Old and New's socio-political orientation. His concen-tration on the poorest peasants as the object of collectivization corres-ponded to the regime's own efforts during the grain procurement crisisin 1928 and the electoral campaign early in 1929. " His portrayal of areligious procession's failure to bring rain to a drought-stricken land

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not only reflected his repulsion for such superstition, but also couldhave been seen as enhancing the regime's intensified campaign against thechurch in the countryside.'^ As the class that symbolized capitalistexploitation in the countryside, kulaks were destined for liquidationduring collectivization. Eisenstein depicts an obese, indolent, andunsharing kulak, whose family, fearing success of the collective, treach-erously poison Fomka, the communal bull. Although such a kulak might wellwarrant liquidation, one Soviet film journal faulted Eisenstein for re-sorting to the stereotype of the kulak "as a fat hog."^^ Eisenstein pre-sents the crucial smychka, the link between the poor peasant and theproletariat, in two related sequences. A tractor factory foreman inter-venes with the bureaucracy on behalf of Marfa and the collective to shakeloose the much-needed tractor which has been delayed by red tape. Tofurther illustrate the smychka, factory representatives come to Marfa'svillage and ceremoniously present the tractor. Eisenstein caricaturesbureaucrats who, like the kulak, have plenty of leisure; they dress likethe bourgeoisie and obstruct the construction of socialism by insistingin "Catch-22" fashion that there can be no tractor given on credit untilafter the crop is "realized."

Realization of collectivization depended in large part on the mechani-zation of agriculture, or as Stalin expressed it, putting "the muzhik on atractor."^^ Perhaps that is why Eisenstein at one point asserted thatthe tractor "is the real hero of my new film."^^ A Soviet critic, writingat the time of the cultural revolution, accused Eisenstein of "technicalfetishism," of emphasizing the technical revolution at the expense of theclass struggle, and thus transforming "the tractor...into the cause, thebase of social construction, instead of changing class content."^ Whilethere is a degree of justification to the charge, Eisenstein's concentra-tion on the cream Separator and the tractor also reflected Stalin'sobsession with the superiority of large-scale, mechanized farming.^^

While Old and New focuses on the transformation of the poor peasant,symbolized by Marfa, and the leading part that scientific breeding andmechanization will play in collectivizing the countryside, the film alsoprovides a distinct, albeit subtle, organizational and leadership role forthe Party and its representatives. At infrequent but crucial moments,there appear a young, blond member of the Komosomol (Young CommunistLeague) and a seasoned, district agronomist who bears a striking resem-blance to Lenin.^^ Attired in a black leather jacket and a worker's capwith a star, reminiscent of political commisars in the Civil War, theagronomist agitates for and organizes the co-op; he is present at theunveiling and successful demonstration of the cream separator; and he

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saves Marfa and the co-op's treasury, which is to purchase a bull,-from agroup of threatening peasants. He is never specifically identified as arepresentative of the Party, but the peasants resistant to the co-opaccuse him and the komsomol of Bolshevik tricks. The komsomol's physicalexuberance permeates the film; he entreats the peasants to join the co-op,cranks the cream separator, challenges the village strongman to a good-natured mowing contest, and assists the tractor driver in the triumphalparade of wagons. It would seem that Eisenstein was adhering to the Partyline by acknowledging the Party's role as catalyst, protector, and guide.

Pravda, however, saw it somewhat differently. The Party organ per-ceived the film as a summons, "in powerful language, to the reconstructionof ancient village life on a new basis, to the organization of collectiveeconomy, to the implementation of the party's general line."24 Pravda'sreviewer lauded the picture's presentation of the "fresh, exciting poetryof machines, the tractor, pure-blooded pedigreed cattle, an improved,well-organized agriculture." Although the reviewer conceded Old and New's"true communist aspirations," he also cited important "deficiencies."The film showed too little of the organizing and directing role played byParty organizations and the village soviet. It barely touched upon theclass struggle in the village and did not show how the kulak deceived andenslaved the poor peasants. Foreshadowing Eisenstein's problems in the1930s, Pravda warned of a "formalistic aestheticism" and "abstractness"in the picture.

Other contemporary reaction emphasized Eisenstein's "maximalism," orwhat Anisimov called the "boundlessness and excess of his images."^^Perpetuating a difficulty experienced by his preceding film, October, wasa report of a Red Army Club's preview reaction that Old and New could notbe understood by peasants.^^ In what must be viewed as a delayed ironicresponse by the man who felt that with Old and New he had mastered theintellectual film, Eisenstein stated in a 1934 lecture at the Instituteof Cinematography that "The people who were against the film were thosewho think rather than feel."^' In light of the subsequent furor raisedby Dovzhenko's Earth for what were called its "biological moments," itis important to note that the sexual symbolism found in Old and New bya later generation of Western critics seems to have eluded Eisenstein'scontemporaries.^^

Throughout production Old and New was known as The General Line.The title was changed upon its release because the authorities found itideologically inadequate. An equally persuasive explanation might be thatthe Party's line on agriculture was in such flux that no film, regardlessof content, was capable of bearing such a definitive title In any event

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to assert, as does a recent article, that Old and New "sets the spirit ofthe Bolshevik Revolution against the prevailing political circumstancesin the Soviet Union a decade later" and that it is an example of a work in"dispute with Soviet Ideology,"^^ is unwarranted. Instead, Eisenstein'saffinity with tenets of the cultural revolution and his attempted adher-ence to the Party's line on agriculture support the notion that ratherthan being a closet-Leninist in 1929, he was "dizzy from Stalinist poli-cies."30

At the same time that Eisenstein was completing Old and New andembarking on a foreign odyssey to study sound film techniques, AlexanderDovzhenko was writing and filming his contribution to collectivization.In the same month (December 1929) that the cult of personality was launch-ed and Stalin announced the new policy of "liquidating the kulaks as aclass," Dovzhenko was cutting and editing Earth. As he later recalled:

I conceived Earth as a film that would herald the beginningof a new life in the villages. But collectivization and liquida-tion of the small landowners class -- events of tremendouspolitical significance that occurred when the film had beencompleted and was ready to be released -- made my statement weakand ineffectual.^

The day before Stalin's "Dizziness from Success" article and a month beforeEarth's premiere, one of the more militant new journals spawned by thecultural revolution praised Dovzhenko as "a poet of social catastrophe....the first poet coming from the Soviet cinema," and predicted that "aremarkable future" awaited him.^^ Less than a week before the film'sopening, Demyan Bedny, the Kremlin folk poet, attacked Earth in Izvestiiaas a "kulak film." What was there in this simple story that provokedsuch a reaction and that stirred up the larger debate in film circles?

The story would seem to meet contemporary needs; a Ukrainian villageis collectivized through the efforts of a young middle peasant and thesecretary of the local Komsomol. The regime was currently trying to appealto middle peasants as well as the poor, and Komsomol members were one ofthe groups being promoted by the cultural revolution. Vasily, the younghero, secures a tractor for the village and performs marvels, knockingover kulak fences and plowing all fields into one. A rapid montage se-quence suggests the extent of the transformation wrought by the machine.A reaper harvests the fields and the complete process of mechanized bread-making is shown in a rapid succession of images. A kulak family angrilyand irrationally resists collectivization, with the father attempting toax his livestock and the son murdering Vasily. Vasily's father, who hasbeen vacillating about joining the collective, is won over and he turns

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his back on the village priest, who is implicitly allied with the kulak.The funeral, at which "songs of the new life" (the film's subtitle) aresung at the father's request, is the occasion for the village's rededica-tion to the cause for which Vasily gave his life. The village ignores thedemented confession of the murderer-kulak; he and the priest are linkedin isolation and represent the doomed past.

Despite Earth's seeming ideological orthodoxy, a barrage of criticismgreeted its release. The criticism's tone and substance reveal some of thepreoccupations and tensions prevalent in cultural circles during the crisisof collectivization. The editors of Kino i zhizn' devoted more than athird of their April 21 issue to Earth calling it a "turning-point picture"in the sense that Dovzhenko approached social themes "urgent for oursocialist construction."-^^ They portrayed Dovzhenko as representative ofthe better portion of "fellow travelers" who "come to us, but are not yetfully ours." Because Dovzhenko could not completely escape his "petty-bourgeois aestheticism," his work went far from the fundamental socialtask of making "a film saturated with enthusiasm for socialism's strugglewith capitalism in the village." While recognizing Earth's great artisticsignificance, the editors stressed the contradiction between the "loftyartistic form and the squalor" of Dovzhenko's social interpretation.Dovzhenko's kulak, they asserted, is presented as a "frenzied, neuras-thenic, finally disarmed character, with whom it is unnecessary to struggle."To the contrary, they argued, the class struggle was in full swing and thekulak "still shows his fangs, it is too early to bury him alive." Theyfeared that showing such a kulak might disarm the social activism of thevillage poor. Also alarming was Dovzhenko's distorted priest, who "only'searches for truth,' as if the church had already put up its weapons inthe struggle with atheism."^^

While the inimical elements were not drawn in sufficiently negativestrokes, for the editors of Kino i zhizn' the progressive forces--the Party,the Komsomol, and the poor peasants--suffered from a lack of "genuineBolshevism," particularly in their response to "kulak intrigues." AfterVasily's murder, they "all sort of throw up their hands, helplessly dreamand lapse into some sort of lyricism." Dovzhenko's presentation of thetractor, which he later called "a revolutionary on the wide fields of theUkraine,"36 also failed to satisfy the demanding expectations of theeditors. They described it as "a feeble, sickly-looking creature...in-capable of a serious revolution" (it first appears as a speck on thehorizon). In contrast, the editors noted "a genuine idealization of theold," a tendency to show the old with enthusiasm to the detriment of thenew. As an example, they offered Dovzhenko's poeticized oxen.

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Therefore, Earth suffered from the "organic flaw" of incorrectly por-traying the "social perspective of the class struggle in the village." Inaddition to this serious shortcoming, the editors observed a second flaw:"...the center of gravity of the entire picture appears to be biology, andnot sociology." The biological moments which they claimed diverted audiencesfrom the class struggle include: urinating in the tractor's radiator afterit boils over, a night of love after the day's joyous labors captured bythe village's young men standing motionless with a hand on the breasts oftheir young women, Vasily's bereft and nude fiance writhing in agony inher room while the funeral is taking place, and the concluding image ofVasily's fiance happy with another man. These scenes were expurgatedbefore general distribution, but a still from the urination sequence wasincluded in the April 21 issue of Kino i zhizn'. Because the picture showsbiological processes in a non-class, non-social interpretation, that is as"eternal," these moments "emasculate the production's social interior,"are "useless and even harmful." In conclusion, the editors reiteratedEarth's highly artistic quality, but condemned it as politically feebleand without serious political-educational significance for the villageaudience.

The additional discussion of Earth, which the editors of Kino i zhizn'offered, echoed and amplified the editorial views already expressed.Several writers lamented that Earth would not be understood by the peasants,a serious shortcoming in a cultural revolution which was to produce films"comprehensible to the millions." One critic referred to it as "a peasantpicture about peasants, but not for peasants"; another said it would not"charge up the village spectator in need of our guidance." Nearly everyoneclaimed that Dovzhenko overemphasized biological motivation at the expenseof social meaning. R. A. Kedrova, general secretary of O.D.S.K. (Society ofof Friends of the Soviet Cinema), cited the film's "unhealthy eroticism"and labeled the urination scene "simple pornography." P. A. Bliakhin,representing the film section of Glavrepertkom (Main Repertory Committee,a censorship organ), argued that the intercutting of the nude woman'sgrief was not understood, brought forth laughter, and thus neutralizedthe revolutionary meaning of the funeral scene. To illustrate the problem,the editors included reactions from the Krasnom Bogatyre factory audience,who shouted such remarks as, "She should be at the funeral!"^^ Reflect-ing the proletarian militancy of the cultural revolution, the editorscommented: "The argument about Earth...will be decided not in the cinema-tographic heights, but in workers' meetings." According to a post-StalinSoviet study of Dovzhenko, broad sections of the audience at such meet-ings--Red Army men, students, workers, peasants--differed sharply with

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professional critics and O.D.S.K. representatives, "deeply and truly"understanding the picture.^^

Kino i zhizn' included one strongly positive assessment of Earth,made by B. S. Ol'khovy of Moiodaia Gvardiia (Young Guards) and Litera-turnaia gazeta (Literary News).^^Showing unusual sensitivity to Doy -zhenko's artistic purpose, Ol'khovy strongly disagreed with the criticismthat the picture was constructed on biological, rather than social pro-cesses. He asserted that "all biological moments...are fully subordinateto social content." Earth might be accused of lacking philosophicalclarity, he said, but is was "by no means without class consciousness."Ol'khovy found neither mysticism nor eroticism in the film, remarking thatit would be necessary "to look especially for eroticism, in order to seeit." In Ol'khovy's opinion, the picture signified the development ofSoviet cinematography, and, employing a literary metaphor, he associatedEarth with the cinema audience's eventual demand for "cinema books" in-stead of "ABC books," books which they will want to "re-read several times."He saw the need and utility of "cruel arguments," but, in a direct refer-ence to Bedny, he cautioned that it was one thing to say the picture "wasa miss" and quite another to call it "a kulak picture."

Although Dovzhenko wrote in 1939 that Bedny's attack weighed heavilyon his mind, and he called his statement in Earth "weak and ineffectual,""^^in 1930 he answered his critics more boldly. Proclaiming the primacy of"political understanding" for his work, Dovzhenkp said that above all he.did not want to present a "vulgar poster" of a paunchy kulak, who drinksvodka and laughs disgustingly. He warned that it was necessary to take thekulak seriously, because he is "smart, strong, well-armed," and "readsPravda and Izvestiia." He explained that he treated the priest in likemanner, not as "drunken, gluttonous," and tippling vodka "behind the icons,"but as "surviving by his wits." From personal experience, Dovzhenko knewthat the village churches were virtually empty; thus he had Vasily's fathersay to the priest: "God doesn't exist and you don't exist."^2 On anotheroccasion he countered criticism of Earth's biological moments with thecryptic remark: "...the healthy like the picture, and.the sick don't likeit." And in a more pointed reference, he said: "Good lads sit and holdthe girls by the breast, and old men go balmy."^^ j^ a talk entitled"World Outlook and Creative Work," he told his comrades that they knewthe village only from magazines, which contained accurate but limitedinformation. "But," he admonished "the spirit, the smells, the tastes,the subtleties of those processes which are now occurring in the village,you do not know...'"*^ Such spirited responses bear little resemblance tothe public confessions of error that would be required later under Stalin

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Not only did Dovzhenko escape such humiliation in 1930, but he was alsoallowed to travel to Central and Western Europe from August throughOctober, demonstrating Earth and addressing press conferences. By 1932Dovzhenko was again under fire and his father was expelled from a col-lective farm.

Comparisons of Old and New with Earth usually stress their obviousstylistic differences, much to the latter's benefit.'^^ Eisenstein'scomplexity is contrasted with Dovzhenko's simplicity, and simplicity isjudged more appropriate to peasant village material. And indeed, Dov-zhenko seenis generally more enamored with the peasantry, perhaps becauseof his middle-peasant background, than does Eisenstein, who dwells moreon what Marx called "the idiocy of rural life." In Eisenstein's filmpoverty and ignorance characterize the Russian village prior to the comingof mechanization. Work is back-breaking and humans are equated withbeasts of burden. More than mere kulak treachery must be overcome, iflife is to be transformed. Eisenstein shows nature's caprices, droughtand untimely rain, as major causes of peasant misery. When Eisensteinenvisions change, it is dramatic and sometimes Utopian, as in Marfa'sdream of visiting a Bauhaus-like state farm, or sovkhoz, where everythingis orderly, sanitary, and abundant. When mechanization comes to thecountryside, it disturbs not only the kulak, but also disrupts nature'sharmony by startling horses and geese. In contrast, Dovzhenko's Earthcontains no such poverty, ignorance, drudgery, and disharmony. The solesources of disruption are the class enemies, the kulak and the priest.Dovzhenko's peasants are happy and healthy, taking joy in their laborsin what is shown as an abundant land even before mechanization. Nature isbeneficent in Earth; the rain is warm, gentle, and life-giving. Arrivalof the tractor does not destroy nature's harmonies, as horses and cattleremain calm in its wake. As these examples suggest, the films displaysignificant differences in style and outlook.

The two films also shared some similarities. In addition to addres-sing common subject matter, both Eisenstein and Dovzhenko encounteredcriticism for their treatment of mechanization, the one for "technicalfetishism" or overemphasizing machinery at the expense of social content,the other for understating the tractor's revolutionary role. Mechanicalbreakdown, a common problem in collectivization's early days,^^ threatenssuccess in both films. Peasant ingenuity saves the day in each instance,the tractor's radiator being ingeniously replenished in Earth and piecesof Marfa's dress being used to cure an unspecified tractor engine ailmentin Old and New.^^ Other similarities could undoubtedly be found, butthe overriding quality of their larger shared experience must not be

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obscured.We in the West are accustomed to thinking of artists like Eisenstein

and Dovzhenko as having worked under a severe handicap, as having beencompromised in their creative freedom by political constraints. Whilethat is undoubtedly true to some degree, we are too likely to forget thatthese artists were very often dedicated to building a new and better world,to constructing socialism, to "reconstructing the peasant village." Par-ticularly at the time of the First Five-Year Plan, dedication and fervorwere at a high point amongst the ideologically committed. They were under-taking a great experiment and were willing to struggle and sacrifice, topay almost any price to achieve their heroic goals. Many artists were justas committed to this great undertaking. They were convinced of the super-iority of collectivized agriculture, of kulak venality and treachery, ofthe church's complicity in kulak sabotage, and of the church's obstructionof progress with superstition. Striving to rid themselves of bourgeoisremnants in their work, Dovzhenko and Eisenstein were naturally sensitiveto charges of "petty-bourgeois aestheticism" or "petty-bourgeois limita-tion." If Eisenstein and Dovzhenko were not political revolutionaries,and at times were even politically naive, they were certainly culturalrevolutionaries. Thus could Dovzhenko be labeled "the most engage of allthe talents in all Soviet art.' And thus could Eisenstein write: "Wemust be prepared daily for quarrels, mistakes, corrections and freshmistakes."4^ On the eve of his departure for the West, Eisenstein's revo-lutionary ardor had not cooled, as he enthused: "...there is a need --with scissors clenched in fist -- to move film culture forward, togetherwith the need to make it immediately accessible to all."^*^

^An exception to this generalization is Vance Kepley,J r . , "The Evolution of Eisenstein's Old and New," Cinema Jour-nal 14 (Fall 1974), 34-50. Kepley, however, deals only withpol i t ica l and economic factors and does not place the f i lmin the context of cultural revolution.

^Sheila Fitzpatr ick, ed.. Cultural Revolution in Russia,1928-1931 (Bloomington i London: Indiana University Press,1978).

^Quoted in Richard Taylor, The Poli t ics of the SovietCinema, 1917-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1979), p. 108.

Sibid., pp. 108-109.

^ Ib id . , p. 108.

Information in this paragraph is drawn from: M. Lewin,Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectiviza-t ion , trans. Irene Nove 8 John Biggart (New York: W. W.Norton i Co., 1975) and Lazar Volin, A Century of RussianAgriculture: From Alexander I I to Khrushchev (Cambridge,Mass.: Haryard University Press, 1970).

%ino i zhizn' [Cinema and L i f e ] , No. 2, 30 November1929, pp. 11-12.

^ Ib id . , No. 7, 1 March 1930, pp. 15-16 and No. 14, 11May 1930, pp. 6-7.

John S. Curtiss, The Russian Church and the SovietState, 1917-1950 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965),pp. 239-240.

^Quoted in Joseph Freeman, Joshua Kunitz, & LouisLozowick, Voices of October (New York: Vanguard Press, 1930),p. 231.

'^S. M. Eisenstein, Izbrannye proizvedeniia [SelectedWorks], 6 yols. (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1964-71), I : 142.

^ \ e t t e r dated June 4, 1929 In Leon Moussinac, SergeiEisenstein, trans. D. Sandy Petry (New York: Crown Publishers.1970), p. 34.

^Vaterina Clark, "L i t t l e Heroes and Big Oeeds: Li tera-ture Responds to the First Five-Year Plan," in Fitzpatrick,Cultural Revolution, pp. 191-192 delineates the t r a i t s .

^^Eisenstein, "Eksperiment, poniatnyl milHonam" [AnExperiment Understood by Mi l l ions] , Izbrannye proizvedeniia,I : 146.

l^Lewin, Russian Peasants, pp. 226-227 and 284-285.I 'Curt iss, Russian Church, pp. 228-240; Matthew Spinka,

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The Church in Soviet Russia (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1956), pp. 74-76; and Robert Conquest, Reiiqion in theU.S.S.R. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), pp. 21-25.

^^"Rabochii i krest ' ianin na sovetskom ekrane" [Workersand Peasants on the Soviet Screen], Kino i 2hizn' , No. 16,f i r s t ten-days, June 1930, p. 10.

^^Quoted in Theodore H. Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin?A Reappraisal of the Russian Revolution. 1900-1930. 2nd ed.(Philadelphia: J . B. Lippincott Co.. 1971), p. 195.

^°Quoted in Freeman, Voices of October, p. 240.^^Ivan Anisimov. "The Films of Eisenstein," International

Li terature, No. 3. Moscow. 1931, a ten-page excerpt (AppendixFour) in Marie Seton. Sergei M. Eisenstein (New York: GrovePress. 1960). p. 502.

See Pascal Bonitzer. "Le machines e(x)tatiques (Macro-scopie et s ign i f i ca t ion) , " Cahiers du Cinema 271 (November1976): 22-25. for a discussion of machine symbolism in Oldand New.

23james Goodwin, "Eisenstein: Ideology and Intel lectualCinema." quarterly Review of Film Studies 3 (Spring 1978):175, mistakenly ident i f ied the bureaucratic director of thetractor factory as looking l i ke Lenin ( I think he looks morel i ke Plekhanov). Anisimov, "The Films of Eisenstein." inSeton, Eisenstein recognized the agronomist's prominence,but associated him with Eisenstein's "technicism," labelingthe episode "a very characterist ic perversion of real rela-t ions. . . , " p. 502.

2'^Pravda, October 13, 1929, p. 5. The remainder ofthis paragraph is based on ib id .

"maximalism" charge is taken from Sovetskii ekran.No. 40 [Soviet Screen] and is cited in the Pravda article.Anisimov is quoted in Seton, Eisenstein, p. 501.

26ibid., p. 115.

27quoted in i b i d , p. 487.28see Kepley, "The Evolution of Eisenstein's Old and New,"

pp. 47-48; Dominique Fernandez, Eisenstein (Paris: BernardGrasset, 1975), pp. 178-181; and Eric Rhode, A History of theCinema (New York: H i l l and Wang, 1976), p. 109, for discus-sion of such examples as: the phal l ic cream separator, theorgiastic rel igious procession, the bu l l ' s marriage, and thetractor dr iver 's suggestive positions as he f ixes the stal ledmachine.

^^Goodwin, "Eisenstein: Ideology and Intel lectual Cinema,"pp. 174 and 190.

Jean Narboni, "Le hors-cadre decide de tout , " Cahiersdu Cinema 271 (November 1976): 20. My translation is admit-tedly loose to t i e in with Sta l in 's "Dizziness from Success"a r t i c l e . "Delir ious" or "light-headed" may be more exact.

•^^"Autobiography" in Marco Carynnyk. ed. , AlexanderOovzhenko: The Poet as Filmmaker, trans, and in t ro . MarcoCarynnyk (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1973), p. 16.

32B. Alpers,"A. Dovzhenko,": Kino i zh izn ' . No. 7, 1March 1930, p. 5. This journal had been featuring s t i l l sfrom Earth since i t s f i r s t issue on 20 November 1929.

33"Filosofy" (The Philosophers), Izvest i ia , 4 Apri l1930, p. 2.

•^\ ino i zh izn ' . No. 12, 21 Apri l 1930, p. 5. tJnlessotherwise noted, subsequent quotations are from ib id .

3^Ib id. , p. 6.• Two Russian Film Classics: "Mother" (Pudovkin) and

"Earth" (Dovzhenko) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979),p. 78.

^^Kino i zhizn'. No. 12, 21 April 1930, p. 8.

38ibid., p. 9.

R. N. Yurenev, Aleksandr Dovzhenko (Moscow:Iskusstvo, 1959), pp. 49-50.

^\ino i zhizn'. No. 12, 21 April 1930, p. 7.

"Autobiography" in Carynnyk, Alexander Dovzhenko, p. 16.

'' "K bodrosti i zhizni" [To Cheerfulness and Life],Sobranie sochinenii• [Complete Works], 4 vols. (Moscow:Iskusstvo, 1966-69). I: 260-261.

^^"V podu s vremenem" [On the Hearth of Time], ibid.,pp. 267 and 269.

^^"Mirovozzrenie i tvorchestvo," ibid., p. 275.

Luda and Jean Schnitzer, Alexandre Dovjenko' (Paris:Editions Universitaires, 1966), pp. 64-65, and Gilberto Perez,"All in the Foregorund: A Study of Dovzhenko's Earth,"Hudson Review 28 (No. 1, 1975): 71, 77, 78, and 80, arebrief examples of such comparisons.

^^Lewin, Russian Peasants, p. 422, said that one govern-ment official reported in the summer of 1929 that as much as48 percent of the operational time of the tractors was lostthrough breakdowns or being used on non-productive activities.

Narboni, "Le hors-cadre decide de tout," p. 19, n. 9interpreted Marfa's dishevelment as symbolizing the despoil-ment of the peasant to assure the development of industrializa-tion.

' Ivor Montagu, "Dovzhenko: Poet of Life Eternal,"Sight and Sound 27 (Sutimer 1957): 4&.

^^Sergei Eisenstein, Film Essays and a Lecture, ed. JayLeyda (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1970), p. 21. Thiswas written in 1928 for Voices^ of Oct^ober, but was not included.

50"Perspectives," ibid, p. 35.

THE EDEN MUSEE IN 1898:THE EXHIBITOR AS CREATOR

^ ^ a l i and Express, 15 February 1898, p. 7. The paperonly mentions the Biograph once, perhaps unintentional ly.

^^Clipper, 19 March 1898, p. 42. Sigsbee was conmandingof f icer of the Maine.

^ New York Journal, 14 March 1898.^^Maii and Express, 5 Apri l 1898, p. 7." c l i p p e r , 9 Apri l 1898, p. 99.

and Express, 19 Apri l 1989, p. 7.

and Express, 7 May 1898, p. 7.32

33,1I b i d . , 21 May 1898.

11 June 1898.3*Equity No. 6989, U.S. Circui t Court, Southern D is t r i c t

of New York, Thomas A. Edison vs. J . Stuart Blackton andAlbert E. Smith, individual ly and as co-partners trading underthe name and style of Commercial Advertising Bureau andAmerican Vitagraph Company. This gathering took place at theVitagraph of f ice on 2 June 1898.

35Mai1 and Express, 25 June and 9 July 1898.

36lb id. , 16 July 1898, p. 18.37lb id. , 9 July 1898, p. 16.% r i b u n e , 7 August 1898, PT B, p. 12. Mail and Express,

27 August 1898.^^Maii and Express, 17 September 1898, p. 14.

''"Tribune, 20 November 1898, p. 3 B.' ' h b i d . , 4 December 1898. Mail and Express, 2D Dec 1898.

''^Tribune, 1 January 1899, p. 10 B.

^ ^ Ib i d . , 8 January 1898, p. 12 B.

Edison Vitagraph Company, broadside, 3 and 4 August1898, misc. exhibit in Equity Nos. 6990, 6991, U.S. Circui tCourt, Southern D is t r i c t of New York, Thomas A. Edison vs.Blackton, Smith, et a l .

^ ^ l i p p e r , 4 June 1898, p. 238; 18 June, p. 270.

Proctor's Pleasure Palace, program, 11 June 1898.Harvard Theatre Collection.

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