Category Archives: HIST254-Archive

Circus

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The Soviet film, Circus, made in 1936, was about an American Circus artist who was performing in the Soviet Union.  She had left the United States in favor of the Soviet Union because of the racial intolerance towards her and her black son.   The aim of the film, Circus, was to demonize the west, particularly the United States and Nazi Germany, for their inequality and racism.

One of the most vivid scenes came at the end of film when a man looking like Hitler stopped the Circus and attempted to demonize the American circus artist for giving birth to a black child.  He stated that it was “a racial crime! She should be banished from civilized society!” ((Film: Circus)) This part demonized Nazi Germany because it showed how Hitler and Nazi Germany did not tolerate variations from what they wanted in a pure ‘Arian’ race.  The line struck me in that it sounded a lot like Hitlers views toward the Jews.  During the 1930s, Hitler and the Nazis goals were to banish the Jews from Germany.  By the end of World War II, they were exterminating them.  At the same time Nazi Germany was being demonized, the United States and its capitalist system was also demonized for its racism and inequality.  During the first half of the 20th century, racism in the United States had been wide spread.  Black people in particular, were demonized for being different.  As a result, they were segregated for being different.  In the Soviet Union, these differences and intolerances were not supposed to exist.  During the last scene of the film, the black child was taken away from the man looking like Hitler by the crowd.  The crowd then took in this child as someone who was no different than them.  They celebrated the fact that he was someone who could become a great Soviet worker.  They did not care whether he was white or black.  The child, according to the Soviet Union, could experience all the benefits of working in a classless society.

On a different note, what do you think the idea of a circus represents in the Soviet Union?  Does it try to emphasis the importance of a Soviet worker being fit for work?  Or does the circus represent something vastly different?

Stalin’s Speech

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In Stalin’s speech after WWII, it’s interesting how instead of just taking credit for the victory, that he used the victory to justify the existence of the entire Soviet system.  He also tried to use Soviet success in the war to refute the foreign media, which dismissed the entire Soviet system as being a “dangerous experiment” and a “house of cards”.  Stalin used the victory to prove that the Soviet social system worked, with its (supposedly) classless system.  It’s also interesting that Stalin would attempt to claim that the Soviet system was stronger than it was before the war.  And yet, odds are slim that Russia could possibly have won WWII without allied help, as it had no choice but to ally itself with the capitalist West governments that openly criticized it.  If anything, the only thing that the war proved was that the Soviet system could win a war, but only with the help of capitalist countries that it strongly disliked.  Another thing is that when Stalin claims that Soviet forces “utterly routed” enemy forces, this can’t possibly have been accurate until the end of the war, as Stalin is clearly exaggerating the extent of Soviet victories; after all, the war dragged on for many years.  Based on this information, it’s possible that one can dismiss Stalin’s speech as pure propaganda.

Stalin, Fascists and Freedom

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The texts assigned for Friday’s class portray the changing views, which the Soviet Union held towards Germany and other Western nations. While the Hitler-Stalin Pact suggests a mutual understanding between the two leaders (and, by extension, their nations), the later documents paint a far different view of a ‘fascist’ Germany.

In Stalin’s speech in February 1946, he seems to align the Soviet Union with the Western world in a coalition against fascism, and describes the USSR (and other countries involved in the coalition) as freedom-loving. To most Westerners, this would appear contradictory: freedom is only seen in a capitalistic, democratic context, indicating that socialism and communism are inherently freedom-less.

Stalin’s response to Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech shows a shift in Stalin’s thinking, as Stalin compares Churchill to Hitler and accuses Churchill of creating an English racial theory, somewhat similar to Hitler’s racial theory. This was a drastic shift, occurring in only a little over a month (Stalin’s response was published in Pravda in March 1946).

In general, these shifts in allies and the definition of ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ don’t seem uncommon for the Soviet Union. The massive arrests during the time period, in addition to the Great Purges within the Communist Party, seem indicative of this trend.

Religious Symbolism as Rebellion in Akhmatova’s ‘Requiem’

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In the Catholic Church, a requiem is a mass dedicated to the souls of the departed. Therefore, it serves as a fitting title for Anna Akhmatova’s poem written for those who suffered in the prisons and were executed under Stalin’s regime. Akhmatova wrote ‘Requiem’ in stages between 1935 and 1940, a time of unrest in the Soviet Union. After the prelude and dedication, the poem details the pain and anguish the people of the Soviet Union experienced during this time through the viewpoint of a widow who lost her husband to injustice and whose son is imprisoned. The point of view then changes briefly to the son then to third person when Akhmatova describes what she labels the crucifixion. Finally, it ends with an epilogue in the voice of Akhmatova, who seeks to remember the dead.

Throughout the poem, Akhmatova weaves Catholic religious references and symbolism into her condemnation of the events of 1935-1940. The title alone carries Catholic connotations, as previously mentioned. The first reference occurs when the widow describes the day her son was taken away. The line reads, “A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God…/ The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-cold sweat…”[1] Given that the Communists outlawed the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union, the presence of icons in a person’s household is illegal and dangerous. A second instance of an allusion to Catholic symbols is, “And, upon your cross, the talk/ Is again of death.”[2] However, the section entitled “Crucifixion” contains the most obvious religious implications.  Quoting directly from the Bible, two lines read, “To his father he said, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me!’/ But to his mother, ‘Weep not for me. . .’”[3] These lines appear to be attributed to the imprisoned son, which would provide a connection between the Soviet prisoners and Jesus, a martyr and savior.

It is apparent that Akhmatova condemns the policies of Stalin and his government, especially their treatment of prisoners. Her use of Catholic imagery only highlights this and serves as an additional form of rebellion against the regime. She calls for the prisoners, or martyrs as she sees them, to be remembered even though she fears she and the rest of the world will forget.

[1] Anna Akhmatova, Requiem, http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/requiem, accessed March 14, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich

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The story of Ivan Denisovich is a telling tale of the human spirit and it’s will to survive. The author was able to make you feel the emotions of what life was truly like in the typical day of an inmate in the gulag. Ivan story seems to be a typical story of an individual that was accused of being a spy and guilty of treason against the soviet empire. The fact that other individuals in the same camp found themselves there under the same pretext shows it was a rather common crime, or in other words was a crime the government used to classify someone they believed had done something wrong. The fact a person had to make a choice to either face a firing squad if they denied the charge or admit to treason and go to the gulag show that the government had no desire to find out if there was any merit to the accusation.

 

The author highlighted the theme, not of escape, freedom, injustice; allusion to these theme appear throughout the account, yet while important, these themes to an inmate are irrelevant. Nothing can change why they are in the gulag. The only thing a prisoner can think about is survival. The account brings to the fore this issue by placing emphasis on two reoccurring areas, food and warmth. The amount of time in just one day a person thinks about food and the extent that a person’s life revolves around getting food only to make it to the next day. So much effort by the author goes into describing food, the rationing out of it, when and how much, as well as the type and the result of deprivation of food. The book really puts into perspective the condition of the gulag, and the human spirit will to survive.

The Social Crisis of Language

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The author of the article Sarah Davies sets out on a mission to solve the unresolved question of ‘Was the USSR a class(les) society?’ by presenting her own school of thought. However, Davies proceeds to elaborate that only workers and peasants will be analyzed by differentiating their use of language to form social identity. Under Stalin’s regime, language was an issue of national policy.  If one were to speak out in an unauthorized  manner, it would be considered unlawful against the party therefore separating oneself from society.  I therefore agree that the Soviet society did not exist in a classless state of existence according to the Marxist idealism.  Marx believed that the eventual elimination of the class society was essential to the development and survival of the new communist world.  Stalin’s policy of a unified and single usage of certain dialect would create buffer zones in the way peasants thought as opposed to the regular workers idealism in country.  That automatically is cause enough for a social identity crisis particularly in the class divide realm.

Circus

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In the Russian film, Circus, directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, a clear message is carried throughout the entire content of the film. One can automatically catch on to the film’s pro-Soviet message, which includes a positive portrayal of the country. This is first is shown when Marion finds refuge in the Soviet Union from the United States because she is the mother of an African American baby. The film tells the audience that the Soviet Union does not discriminate against any race and embraces everyone with open arms, portraying themselves in a positive manner and informing the nation on their improvement as a collective group. This specific message is also shown in the very end of the film, the closing scene includes the circus’ audience singing a lullaby to the baby and shunning the circus manager for his racist comments and actions towards the baby. The baby is passed around through the audience as everyone sings and lulls the baby to sleep (denoting their collective unity). At the very end of the film, Marion understands that her new home (the Soviet Union) is the right place for her and her baby and understands that the Soviet Union is the only place she can be happy and ends the movie with a song dedicated to her motherland.

This specific piece shows the change in the arts of the time, this film was made at the time where the arts were used for the purpose of the state. It is a prime example of where the Soviet Union is portrayed in a positive and welcoming way where the outside world could see its improvement and impeccable state.c

“To Catch Up and Overtake”

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Watching Aleksandrov’s “Circus” it’s certainly hard to not notice the main message of the film, propaganda of national equality and tolerance among the soviet people. However, the plot itself is based on another interesting idea.

“To catch up and overtake [capitalists/America/etc]” is the slogan used for a really long time to explain the motivation of soviet people to work hard to reach the level of the Western countries and to be better then they are in everything. How the country without industry and proper level of economic and social development could be able to do it? The first idea, widely spread among “developing” countries during, probably, the last two centuries, is to try to copy the practice which are considered to be successful from Europe and, later on, from America. And here we can see a great illustrations to this slogan.

First of all, the whole story starts in the Moscow Circus, where the guest performer comes with a successful, popular in the entire world show “The flight to the Moon”. Watching it, the Circus’ director decides to, literally, copy it. He changes decorations, call it a different name, but the outline of the performance is absolutely the same. And the idea is that he’s taking the work and ideas of this Western artists, but has no longer to pay a huge compensation to these guest performers, because soviet people can do it themselves (and, probably, not care that much about the monetary stimuli).

Besides, one of the main characters, Marion Dickson is in many ways copied from German Marlene  Dietrich. It is seen not only in the appearance of Lyobov Orlova, but also in her dance while performing “The flight to the Moon”, which to a certain extent resembles Marlene’s scenes from “The Blue Angel”. Looking more broad at Aleksandrov and Orlova’s filmography, we can find some other analogies. So, in some way this film, as well as “Jolly Fellows”, is a try to build a “local”, soviet star of the level comparable to Dietrich’s in the world.

And it’s very surprising how both anti-western campaign and showing the “capitalistic” output which the country would be happy to copy are combined here so that it doesn’t create a dissonance in the mind of soviet people who are watching it. Does’t it resemble Orwell’s “doublethink” to the certain extent?

Discrimination in the West

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Throughout Western history, racism has always been a problem.  The movie Circus took this into account, and criticizes the West for being discriminating and racist against black people, namely against the black baby that the woman in the circus belongs to.  It’s undeniable that there was such discrimination in the West, especially against black people (in the US) and against other minorities such as Jews throughout Europe.  However, that’s not to say that the USSR wasn’t any better.  Even though the USSR certainly may have stamped out discrimination legally, that’s not to say that the Russian people themselves weren’t racist, and didn’t discriminate against people of other ethnicities.  Rather than by ethnicity, the USSR categorized people according to what country they were from.  In a country with 180 languages, it’s hard to imagine that there wasn’t any discrimination.

A second thing that comes to mind is that at the end of the movie, the woman who stayed in the USSR was happy in the arms of the Soviet people.  However, in a country with a horrible totalitarian government and a ruined economy in which people starved to death, it’s hard to imagine that anyone could possible be happy.  Were this movie real life, that woman would soon be miserable and regret her decision.

Circus as a metaphor for Soviet Collectiveness

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The film “Circus” portrays a white American actress Marion Dixon attempting to integrate into Soviet culture while struggling to conceal the existence of her black child. After fleeing from the racial West (specifically America), Marion moves to Moscow to join the circus with her manager, who blackmails her and threatens to expose her secret. However, Marion’s career in the circus provides her with a sense of community and belonging. When her manager attempts to humiliate her, he exposes her baby to the entire audience and is shocked when the audience warmly embrace the baby and proclaim that they do not discriminate against children. Marion is then welcomes warmly into Soviet life and the film concludes with her marching in a Soviet parade. In this film, the circus is the setting of Marion’s transition from an oppressive former life to a liberated new existence.

When Marion debuts at the circus, she performs alone. However, once she joins the circus, she develops a group of friends, a companionship and romance with ideal Soviet man Martinov and establishes herself not as an outsider with a secret, but as a part of a greater, benevolent collective. The circus represents a platform for which groups of individuals perform for their audience. When Martinov and Reya (and later Marion) perform, they do not perform as solo artists but always with a group. The tricks of the circus are so spectacular because they involve precision and multiple people (as was the case in the first scene when dogs were jumping over horses) – everything was timed, rehearsed and orchestrated, which made is all the more outstanding. By becoming part of the circus, Marion is able to appreciate and identify with the collective and is transitions into Soviet life.