SOURCE: "October" and "Alexander Nevsky" in his Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, Croom Helm, 1979, pp. 92-102, 116-30.

After Battleship Potemkin, October is bad.

Soviet critics, 1928

October is without doubt a film of great revolutionary and artistic importance. It is good in its revolutionary content, good in its execution.

Krupskaya, 1928

These two comments are typical of the reception that greeted Eisenstein's third film and typical of the arguments that surrounded the film maker's career as a whole. Eisenstein was commissioned to make a film of the revolutionary events of 1917 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Revolution: similarly Pudovkin was commissioned to make The End of St Petersburg and Shub made The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty and The Great Way. Eisenstein had already completed Strike, which had been attacked for its experimental nature and its obscure symbolism, and Battleship Potemkin which, despite its immense popularity in Berlin, had failed to move Soviet audiences in large numbers, probably for similar reasons. When approached to make the film that was to become October, Eisenstein was already engaged in filming The General Line. He deferred this project to make his revolutionary film. He had little choice, and there is no evidence to suggest that he had any doubts; none the less it was a decision that was to have serious consequences for his career. October (if we allow for the earlier start on The General Line) was Eisenstein's last silent film, and the last film he was to complete for over ten years. After October Eisenstein was always on the defensive: in 1929, for instance, he announced that The General Line was 'an experiment comprehensible to the millions'.

October was made in a hurry. Filming began in mid-April 1927 and did not finish till October. Editing began in September and a preliminary version of the film was shown to a selected audience in the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow, on 7 November, the actual date of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. The film was then re-edited, some of the more 'intellectual' sequences were removed, and it was given a general release on 14 March 1928. Like Potemkin, October was shown in Berlin, where it was retitled Ten Days that Shook the World, after John Reed's famous account, to increase its popular appeal. Nevertheless, October never achieved the fame or notoriety of Potemkin and never attracted the same degree of political acclaim outside the USSR. Inside the Soviet Union its reception was, as we have seen, mixed. On the one hand it was attacked for being obscure: one of the speakers at the first Party Conference on the Cinema in March 1928 remarked:

In the countryside many films are not understood … And it must be said that the more widely the Soviet cinema develops, the greater will be the percentage of films that are completely incomprehensible to the peasantry. I am talking about a film like October.

On the other hand, Krupskaya, Lenin's widow, felt that October, despite its faults, marked a turning-point in the development of Soviet film art: 'Now an art is emerging that is near to the masses, that depicts the fundamental experiences of the masses. This art has a colossal future. The film October is a fragment of this art of the future.

I am inclined to agree with Krupskaya, although for different reasons: despite its weaknesses October is of fundamental importance, both in the Soviet context in terms of the transition from artistic pluralism to the straitjacket of socialist realism, and in the general context in terms of the development of the propaganda film, especially in the field of the heroicisation of reality.

Almost no film exists of the October Revolution or of the most important event of the February Revolution, the abdication of the Tsar. The reality of the Revolution does not therefore exist on film and it was thus necessary to create it. The Bolsheviks had to establish a basis of historical legitimacy for their regime and the absence of adequate documentary evidence gave Soviet film makers a golden opportunity for the re-creation of the realities of Russian history, and for some improvement on them. Eisenstein was in the forefront of the projection of this revolutionary realism at the expense of the actual historical reality. In Battleship Potemkin he had highlighted the oppression of the masses by inventing the episode on the Odessa Steps. In October he was to present the Bolshevik view of the elemental nature of the October Revolution, culminating in the storming of the Winter Palace. Ironically enough, the very absence of documentary material which made this possible has also meant that subsequent historians and film makers have turned to October as their source material, and Eisenstein's fictional re-creation of reality has, because of its very realism, acquired the legitimacy of documentary footage. That is a measure of its success as a propaganda film.

October begins with a sequence showing the toppling of the statue of Tsar Alexander III. the symbol of the worst aspects of autocracy, who ruled Russia from 1881 to 1894 after Alexander II, emancipator of the serfs in 1861, had been assassinated. Alexander III epitomised the depths of reaction and repression and the massive machinery of tsarist oppression is conveyed by his immense statue. In his hands he holds the traditional symbols of power, the orb and sceptre, while the pedestal is adorned with eagles. The film shows these symbols in closeup. To us the meaning of this sequence may be abundantly clear, but a Soviet peasant in the 1920s would have found the symbolism in comprehensible, and the necessary process of explanation (which was attempted with this and other 'difficult' films) would have destroyed much of the vivid effect of the film: it was for this type of relative obscurantism, for the 'intellectual cinema' in which he so fervently believed, that Eisenstein was constantly criticised. Workers rush up towards the statue, echoing the Odessa Steps sequence in Potemkin: but on that occasion they were mown down by the Tsar's soldiers, whereas this time they will, ultimately, gain their revenge. They erect a ladder against the statue's head and tie ropes around the Tsar: autocracy is doomed and helpless. The film then cuts to a crowd of peasants angrily wielding their scythes: the peasantry too is in revolt and, by implication, in alliance with the workers and soldiers in the overthrow of the ancien regime. The first title appears: 'FEBRUARY'. For those of us in the know, this is a warning, but only if we do know the subsequent history of the Revolution. The statue is toppled hesitantly and in parts: first the head, then the arms and legs, with the orb and sceptre, and finally the throne itself. The workers', soldiers' and peasants' Revolution is apparently accomplished, the autocracy is overthrown. But then Eisenstein's warning is made explicit: the Revolution is greeted by the bourgeoisie and blessed by the Church. It is their Revolution, although it was effected by the masses. As such, February is but a prelude to the real Revolution, that of October, and the aptly named Provisional Government is more provisional than even it anticipated.

From the Revolution the masses expect land, peace and bread, fundamental human demands that date back to the Old Testament and beyond. The soldiers at the front abandon their rifles and fraternise with the 'enemy': we see an Asiatic Russian soldier trying on a German helmet, while the German tries on his fur cap. The solidarity of the international working class is thus underlined, the artificiality of the concept of patriotism in an imperialist war emphasised. Then, suddenly, the tsarist eagle is intercut with the abandoned rifles: the threat to the Revolution is now direct. A lackey crosses a tiled floor, bows low and proffers a silver platter with the government's note: 'THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT HONOURS ITS OBLIGATIONS TO ITS ALLIES.' There is a violent shellburst, the war is resumed, the working class betrayed. In the cities bread rationing is introduced. We see women and children queuing for bread in heavy snow. As the ration is gradually reduced, Eisenstein introduces a metaphor: we see a press being lowered as if to squeeze the workers. Finally their situation becomes intolerable, they are desperate but a saviour is at hand.

The scene switches to the Finland Station. Searchlights flash frenetically across the roof, the crowd is turbulent, a sense of eager anticipation prevails. The tension reaches its climax with the heroic, liberating arrival of: 'ULYANOV … LENIN.' There is a storm of enthusiasm and Lenin speaks from an armoured car. Flags and banners fluttering dramatically in the background and the flickering searchlights increase the sense of urgency. He denounces the Provisional Government and pledges a socialist Revolution: he offers the masses hope in their hour of utmost trial. None the less, despite this elaborate heroicisation, Lenin does not appear in October as an individual but as an embodiment of the elemental power of the mass, of the collective will. Eisenstein was severely criticised by many of his contemporaries for the portrayal of Lenin in this film: the poet Mayakovsky attacked the superficiality of the characterisation: 'It is revolting to see someone striking poses and making movements like those of Lenin, when behind this exterior you can feel complete emptiness, the complete absence of life.'

The Soviet critics quoted at the head of this chapter also had their doubts about the characterisation of Lenin:

Lenin has turned out badly. The audience is faced with a rather brisk and fidgety little man. Ilyich's characteristic dash and liveliness have given way to an improbable fussiness. Antonov-Ovseyenko grows into the gigantic figure of the leader of the whole uprising.

The part of Lenin was played by an unknown worker by the name of Nikandrov. Eisenstein was averse to the use of professional actors, at least as far as his silent films were concerned, feeling that greater realism was to be achieved by using ordinary workers and peasants. In the case of Lenin, having the part played by a worker emphasised the revolutionary's role as representative of the mass. It was perhaps inevitable that, if Lenin were to be portrayed in this impersonal way, he would fail to come alive for audiences as a human being: his function is as a leading symbol in a film full of symbols. Indeed Krupskaya conceded that if the film had a fault, it lay in the director's use of symbolism that would not in fact be 'comprehensible to the millions':

In the film October there is a great deal of symbolism. There is some symbolism that is accessible and comprehensible to the mass: the toppling throne, the idols from St Basil's, etc. These symbols are very good: they help the viewer to make sense of the film, they provoke him to thought. But in the film there is much symbolism that will be little understood by the masses, and this is particularly true of the symbolism embodied in the statues all the Napoleons and so on. The following symbol is probably also incomprehensible: a sea of scythes that appears before the toppling of the thrones. To someone who had not seen pictures and sculptures that symbolise the mass peasant movement by scythes this image would probably be incomprehensible and it would pass right over him.

Krupskaya was thus agreeing with the implied criticism of other reviewers that Eisenstein was, in effect, producing a pedant's film for a peasant audience.

The symbolism however was only just beginning. The action of the film moves now to July 1917. Workers and soldiers are seen streaming across a bridge bearing placards and banners calling for: 'ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS!' The Provisional Government loses its nerve and the demonstrators are machine-gunned. Bolsheviks are denounced, attacked and beaten up. There is a particularly gory sequence of a young worker being stabbed to death by bourgeois ladies in their finery using their umbrellas as offensive weapons. Their hatred is quite clear, as is the nature of their allegiance to the Revolution. We then see a functionary of the government speaking on the telephone. The order is given to raise the bridges, thus cutting off the workers' quarters from the centre of the city. The martyrdom of the working class is symbolised, rather sentimentally, by the images of the dead girl and the dead horse, both lying across the middle of the bridges, both in a sense torn apart by the decision to raise them. The horse eventually drops into the river, thus linking with the next scene, where the bourgeoisie are throwing copies of Pravda, the Bolshevik paper, into the same river, the Neva. The banners of the demonstrators are also seen floating down the river: the Revolution is being literally washed away. The First Machine-gun Corps is 'disarmed for solidarity', the Bolshevik Party headquarters is ransacked. The Revolution would seem to be in ruins.

Then for the first time we see inside the Winter Palace. Kerensky climbs the stairs. He is in fact climbing the same flight of stairs over and over again, but the sequence is filmed to imply that he is climbing a single endless staircase, metaphorically speaking as well, for his ascent is interspersed with titles proclaiming his different positions: 'DICTATOR/SUPREME COMMANDER/AND SO FORTH … AND SO FORTH … KERENSKY.' Finally, both metaphorically and actually Kerensky reaches the Tsar's apartments. His figure is overshadowed by a statue holding a crown, and he is attended by the Tsar's footmen. We are shown his elaborate boots and gloves: he is fascinated by the external trappings of power. By contrast with Lenin, Kerensky is a dilettante, playing at revolution, alone and isolated from the mass. Whereas Lenin has been shown in an active and decisive posture, Kerensky vacillates. At this point Eisenstein introduced another of his 'intellectual' metaphors: a golden peacock, a gift from Tsar Nicholas to his wife Alexandra, preens itself. Kerensky hesitates again and then enters the Tsar's apartments.

To underline the contrast with Lenin the scene then switches to the latter's thatched hideout in the misty marshes near Razliv. There could be no greater contrast. Back in Petrograd Kerensky broods now in the Tsarina's apartments. Eisenstein uses the caption 'ALEXANDER FYODOROVICH IN THE APARTMENTS OF ALEXANDRA FYODOROVNA': by playing on the fact that Kerensky's first name and patronymic share the same root as those of the Tsarina he is able to imply a continuity and a close resemblance. This resemblance goes beyond the shared imperial heritage, for in showing Kerensky in the Tsarina's bedroom, surrounded by all her finery, he is also able to suggest a degree of unmanly weakness and indecisiveness both on the part of the Prime Minister and his government. His one decisive action is a reactionary one, the reintroduction of the death penalty. This action leads into the scene criticised by Krupskaya. We see first Kerensky, then a statuette of Napoleon. To an audience that knows its history the inference is clear: Kerensky is a second Napoleon and, like his mentor, he will usurp and betray the ideals of the Revolution. His intentions are symbolically clarified as he plays with a set of decanters, moving them into different positions and finally bringing them into place, fixing them together with a stopper that is shaped like a crown. Kerensky, like Napoleon, wishes to be emperor. But he is not alone in this ambition. A factory hooter sounds a warning: 'THE REVOLUTION IS IN DANGER!' While Kerensky busies himself changing the monogram on the Tsar's bed from A III (representing the autocrat whose statue has been toppled in the opening sequence of the film) to A IV, thus confirming his own imperial ambitions, General Kornilov is approaching the city with British tanks, French aeroplanes and the notorious 'Wild Division' of Cossack horsemen. He stands 'FOR GOD AND COUNTRY'. His values are expressed through a sequence of religious images from the Russian Orthodox through the Muslim and Buddhist back to primitive tribal masks. This sequence served partly to indulge the director in one of his particular artistic interests but in the context of the film it has a more immediate importance in demonstrating that the significance of the appeal to religion is a universal one, just as the significance of the Revolution will be universal. Further, the universal appeal of religion, even in its diversity of forms, serves to point up the universal appeal of patriotism in its diversity of forms. Both religion and patriotism are, in the Marxist terminology, opiates of the people, both are spurious focal points for popular allegiance: only the Bolsheviks represent the true demands and needs of the mass for bread, peace and land. The religious masks fade into epaulettes and military decorations: the Tsar's statue is restored by montage and the nadir of the Revolution's betrayal has been reached.

Kornilov and Kerensky are compared with two statuettes of Napoleon: both are traitors and counter-revolutionaries, both megalomaniacs. The one, Kerensky, lies motionless and helpless face down-wards on a couch, not knowing what to do: he has the trappings of power but not the power itself. The other, Kornilov, advances on revolutionary Petrograd. The Provisional Government, in the hands of the ineffectual Kerensky, is powerless to defend the city and this task is left to the Soviet. For the first time we see the Bolshevik headquarters at Smolny. Arms are being distributed to the proletariat, agitators harangue the fighting men by the light of bonfires and torches. The darkness enhances the sense of anticipation. The camera cuts to Kornilov's Wild Division: a close-up tells us that their swords are inscribed with the motto 'God is with us'. Bolshevik agitators arrive, distribute leaflets and address the 'enemy': they offer bread, peace, land. The Cossacks sheath their swords, dance and fraternise: the Wild Division has changed sides. Kerensky takes refuge under the Tsarina's cushions as his power ebbs away.

Eisenstein then indulges in an effective piece of trick photography. In a series of stills a rifle is assembled from its constituent parts. Symbolically this sequence denotes the need for proletarian self-help: the mass must make the best of the materials it has available, it must literally forge its own weapons to defend the Revolution that nobody else will save. The next title reiterates this: 'PROLETARIAT, LEARN TO USE ARMS.' We see the serried ranks of the Petrograd Soviet training on a makeshift parade ground. The scene shifts again, to the smoke-filled room in which the Bolshevik leaders are deliberating. With Stalin at his side Lenin designates 25 October as the date for the seizure of power. The deadline for the victory of the Revolution has now been established: progress can be measured against that deadline and the tension that leads to the climax of the film can therefore be created.

Eisenstein then intersperses a shot of the cruiser Aurora which is to fire the shot that signals the storming of the Winter Palace. The bridges reappear: they are raised, then lowered. The functionary on the telephone is beside himself. Kerensky is desperate: he phones for the Cossacks but the phone is answered by a Bolshevik sympathiser and his message is not passed on. He flees to Gatchina in a car flying the US flag. The comparison with Napoleon is continued by the stance that Kerensky takes in the car, and by his gestures. As the captain leaves his sinking ship, the gates of the Winter Palace are closed on the outside world. The Provisional Government is now completely isolated, devoid of outside support, and the final confrontation is drawing near. The Palace itself is defended by a remarkable group of rather Brechtian women called the Shock Battalion of Death. They are largely drunk and disorderly. There are shots in which the women admire a Rodin statue of an embracing couple and another sculpture of a mother and child: by these devices Eisenstein suggests that the Shock Battalion of Death has been driven to its reactionary political stance by sexual frustration. The scene switches to Smolny, a complete contrast, a hive of frenzied activity as the Bolsheviks enthusiastically report for duty, while the Mensheviks spy on them treacherously. The darkness of the surroundings serves to heighten the tension: the storm clouds are gathering.

The Second Congress of the Soviets is in session. If the seizure of power is not effected soon, the Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and Constitutional Democrats will gain control and the Bolsheviks will have lost their historic opportunity. Lenin waits in the corridor, disguised as a man with toothache: there is a tension-heightening diversion as we wonder whether he has been recognised by his enemies. Meanwhile Kerensky's car speeds towards Gatchina and the Provisional Government sits waiting, the Prime Minister's chair conspicuously empty. The contrast of extremes between Lenin and Kerensky, Soviet and government, is once more underlined by the juxtaposition of the imagery. Aurora appears again: it represents the new element that will upset decisively the present balance of authority between the two. The Congress of Soviets, like the government, waits and tension mounts. The Bolshevik appeal is distributed, the Red Army surrounds the Winter Palace and presents an ultimatum. The government still waits. Some of the women soldiers defending the Palace lay down their arms and join the Revolution, while others remain undecided. Their indecision is echoed by the owl clock that moves its head first one way and then the other. Bolshevik agitators penetrate the Winter Palace, sailors arrive on the roof. The Bolsheviks take over the Congress of Soviets, their banner adorns the platform as the Revolution gathers its momentum. A messenger enters: 'THE CYCLE CORPS IS WITH us!' There is a montage of cycle wheels accelerating in tempo and heightening the tension still further. Sailors drop a grenade through the Palace roof, breaching its defences. The government sleeps as history slips beyond its reach. At the Congress a Menshevik speaker urges caution: a montage of harps suggests that these tired arguments have been heard once too often. A Bolshevik takes the rostrum and announces: 'THE TIME FOR TALK IS PAST.' Action, not words. The guns open fire on the Palace, now virtually undefended The Provisional Government is like the emperor without his clothes. Eisenstein makes this visual comparison by showing the ministers' empty suits.

This is the climax of the film October—the storming of the Winter Palace. It is midnight on 24 25 October 1917. Crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors stream across the square and up the stairs. This time they will be victorious, this time they will avenge Potemkin and the betrayal of February. When this vanguard of the masses penetrates the Palace, when ordinary workers and soldiers see the ornate splendour of the royal bedchamber and the size and scope of the royal wine cellars, they are amazed. Their amazement soon turns to something less passive and they begin to loot the Palace. But property, especially royal property is theft and the sailors take disciplinary action. To prevent the looting of the wine cellars, they start to smash the bottles. This time the liquid that flows across the screen is not the workers' blood but the Tsar's wine. In the bedroom soldiers find religious images, Faberge eggs and a box containing thousands of the medals that have been used to reward bravery at the front. The truth of the imperialist war finally dawns on them: 'IS THIS WHAT WE FOUGHT FOR?' The hollow facade of imperial power is then underlined by a shot of a small boy sitting on the Tsar's throne, swinging his legs. The soldiers, led by Antonov-Ovseyenko, burst into the Cabinet Room and arrest the Provisional Government. The film quotes Lenin's declaration that the government is overthrown. A series of clocks indicates this historic moment in the different time zones of the world: Petrograd, Moscow, London, Berlin, Paris, New York and other places. The boy on the Tsar's throne is asleep: history has passed him by and made the throne irrelevant. The Congress of Soviets applauds Lenin's declaration and the montage of clapping hands merges into a montage of the clock faces. Finally, Lenin speaks to the Congress. Again he is bursting with vitality and movement—a leader, but of and with the mass: 'THE WORKERS' AND PEASANTS' REVOLUTION IS ACCOMPLISHED. LONG LIVE THE WORLD OCTOBER.' The victory that had been thwarted in Strike and Battleship Potemkin is now finally assured.

October, as I have already shown, had a mixed reception. One leading critic insisted that the film should be reedited. Another, describing the film as 'not easily accessible', conceded that, 'In spite of all its defects. October is undoubtedly the best film that we have of the history of the October Revolution. The discussions provoked by the film in the columns of the journal Zhizn' iskusstva were perhaps most fairly summed up in the following words:

October is unusual in theme and execution. It requires interpretation, careful preparation for its comprehension and the explanation of the enormous work and the enormous material which it contains. It deals with the great events of the proletarian revolution in a new cinema language, aimed not merely at the contemporary cinema audience, but also at the audience that will appear in the near future as the cultural level of the broad working masses improves. And we are entitled to say that, with all its particular and separate faults, October is our great achievement, preparing the way for the creation of a great Soviet cinema art.

But even this praise did not save Eisenstein from his critics. In June 1928 a rather unpleasant caricature of the film director appeared in the pages of Sovetskii ekran and Eisenstein's career never really recovered from October. It is ironic that one of the supreme examples of cinematic myth-making should have caused its creator to be denounced for obscurantism by the very people whose ideology he was attempting to popularise. However, when Pudovkin saw the film, he remarked, 'How I should like to make such a powerful failure.'

'Patriotism is my theme' was the thought immediately in my mind and in the mind of everyone in our creative collective during the shooting, the sound recording and the editing.

Sergei Eisenstein, 1939

Alexander Nevsky, made in 1938, marks a watershed in the development of Sergei Eisenstein as a film director. After completing October in 1927, in time for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, Eisenstein returned to the studio to finish The General Line, his film statement on the problems confronting Soviet agriculture. Unfortunately, during the time he had spent making October the Party Line on agriculture had changed: for this reason The General Line had to be altered, and then re-titled as The Old and the New. He was then sent abroad on a delegation to investigate the possibilities of sound and stayed in the United States and Mexico to shoot Que Viva Mexico! This project ran into difficulties and Eisenstein returned to the Soviet Union. But the Soviet film industry was now under the control of Boris Shumyatsky, who proved to be unco-operative towards the director's proposals for a film involving Paul Robeson or one based on Marx's Das Kapital. Eventually, in 1935, Eisenstein was allowed to begin shooting Bezhin Meadow which dramatised the problems of collectivisation in a conflict between the generations. In March 1937 however, after two million roubles had been expended on the film, Shumyatsky ordered a halt to production, alleging that Eisenstein was wasting the resources that he had been given. Ironically enough, when Shumyatsky was dismissed in January 1938 these same charges were made against him and he was accused especially of squandering money by cancelling films like Bezhin Meadow.

It was Shumyatsky's dismissal that opened the way for Eisenstein to finish a film. Alexander Nevsky was to be his first completed film since The Old and the New in 1929 and his first completed sound film—the first opportunity therefore for the public to measure the practical application of the principles of 'orchestral counterpoint' enunciated by Eisenstein, together with Pudovkin and Alexandrov, in their statement of August 1928, in which they had inveighed against the use of sound for' "high cultural dramas" and other photographed performances of a theatrical kind'. In his own writing [Izbrannye proizvedenias, vol. 1] Eisenstein made the political purpose of Alexander Nevsky abundantly clear:

The theme of patriotism and a national rebuff to the aggressor is the theme that permeates our film. We have taken a historical episode from the 13th century when the forerunners of the present-day fascists—the Livonian and Teutonic knights—waged a systematic struggle for the conquest and invasion of the east in order to subjugate completely the Slavs and other peoples in the same way that contemporary fascist Germany is seeking to subjugate them with the same frenzied slogans and the same fanaticism.

The film then was to be an allegory, a projection of present events on to the past, an appeal to the example offered by Russian history:

Reading the chronicles of the 13th century and alternating them with contemporary newspapers, you lose all sense of the difference in time, for that murderous fear spread by the conquering orders of chivalry in the 13th century is almost the same as that which is being spread in Europe today.

And so the picture, telling of a completely historical epoch, of completely historical events, was made and is seen, according to audience testimony, as a completely contemporary picture, so close are the feelings that inspired the Russian people in the 13th century in repulsing the enemy to the feelings that inspire the Soviet Russian people now, and doubtless to all the feelings that inspire all those towards whom the grasping claw of German aggression is spreading.

This historical precedent was to be used to strengthen the resolve of those inside and outside the Soviet Union who were engaged in the struggle against fascism, to transform their passive opposition into active resistance:

We want our film not only to mobilise those who are in the thick of the fight against fascism on a world scale, but also to give heart, courage and conviction even to those parts of the world population to whom fascism appears as invincible as the orders of chivalry appeared in the 13th century. Let them not cringe before fascism, let them not kneel before it without protest, let them stop the unending policy of concession and appeasement towards this insatiable monster. Let the sceptics remember that there is no force of gloom and darkness that could stand against the combined efforts of all that is best, healthiest, most progressive and forward-looking in mankind.

These words were written early in 1939; like the film itself they were to fall foul of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 and be temporarily suppressed in the Soviet Union. They do however confirm that Alexander Nevsky was both conceived and executed primarily as a work of political propaganda: the artistic considerations were therefore secondary.

In terms of both its content and its style Alexander Nevsky marks a break with Eisenstein's previous films and looks forward to his last film, Ivan the Terrible. The differences are only partly attributable to the advent of sound, for they also reflected developments in Eisenstein's technique and the changes that had occurred in the political life of the Soviet Union. His silent films had all been characterised by a use of free and rapid montage. This in itself had a dehumanising effect on the characters in the drama and underlined the director's deliberate policy of making the mass, rather than an individual, the hero of his work. The introduction of sound slowed the pace of visual montage even for a more experimental director like Dziga Vertov; it also enabled individual characterisations to be more fully developed on the screen for the characters could now voice their thoughts as well as demonstrate their actions. Instead of the workers in Strike or October or the sailors in Baftleship Potemkin, we have the figure of Alexander Nevsky himself. Admittedly Eisenstein had also used an individual characterisation for the figure of Marfa Lapkina in The Old and the New: she came to symbolise the progressive peasant, just as Alexander was to symbolise the spirit of Russia and its resistance to the invader. However, Lapkina's limited individualism is the only trace of that characteristic in the film: Nevsky, on the other hand, also offers us the characters of Gavrilo Olexich and Vasili Buslai and their rivalry in love and war. It is in their characterisation above all that we see the break: for the first time in an Eisenstein film we see characters who display signs of individual human emotion and motivation, who behave as the audience might behave, rather than as symbols. This is also true of Vasilisa, whose ferocious participation in Alexander's army is inspired by the Germans' torture and execution of her father during the sacking of Pskov. It is of course true that the degree of individualism permitted by Eisenstein in Alexander Nevsky is no greater than that employed by Pudovkin in Mother twelve years earlier and in this sense he may be reacting to the criticisms levelled at his flims in the late 1920s. However, in the emphasis given in the film to a powerful leader figure, Eisenstein is following in the steps of other directors of the 1930s. In the 1920s the mass themselves had been the hero of the Soviet cinema, but now the mass had acquired a leader. Marc Ferro has amply demonstrated the function of Chapayev, made in 1934, in propagating the ideology of Stalinism, but other examples of the powerful and charismatic leader figure abound: Petrov's Peter the First, Pudovkin's Minin and Pozharsky, Dovzhenko's Shchors (made in response to Stalin's request for a Ukrainian Chapayev), even Vertov's Three Songs of Lenin, and films like A Great Citizen, Baltic Deputy and later Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Ivan the Terrible. But perhaps the simplest and most instructive comparison can be made between October and films like Lenin in October or Lenin in 1918& in the latter the role of the individual, and the role of Stalin in particular, is much enhanced.

It is against this background then that we must see Alexander Nevsky. When Stalin had distributed honours to the Soviet film industry in January 1935 Eisenstein had been ignored. In February 1939 both he and Nikolai Cherkasov, who played Alexander, were awarded the Order of Lenin. Alexander Nevsky was the film that rehabilitated its director: it also marked his major contribution to the Soviet war effort.

The screenplay for the film was written in collaboration with Pyotr Pavlenko and a first draft, under the title Rus, the name for mediaeval Russia, was published in December 1937. Several alternative titles were considered—Lord Great Novgorod and Battle on the Ice among them—but eventually Alexander Nevsky was chosen; in the light of Stalin's 'personality cult the choice is in itself significant. Filming began on 5 June 1938 and finished on 7 November. Eisenstein was determined to show that he could produce a film quickly if necessary, to rebut Shumyatsky's criticisms of Bezhin Meadow. He succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. The film divides into three major sequences: the first depicts the Russians uniting in the face of common danger. This sequence further divides into seven scenes: (1) on the shores of Lake Pleshcheyevo Alexander encounters the Mongols; (2) Gavrilo and Vaska rivals in love; (3) the Novgorod assembly debates its response to the German attack; (4) the sacking of Pskov; (5) emissaries from Novgorod come to Pereyaslavl to ask Alexander to lead the Russian forces; (6) a brief interlude showing the recruitment of the peasant army; (7) Alexander assumes command of the Novgorod forces. The second sequence marks the focus and the climax of the film—the Battle on the Ice. The third sequence, with which the film ends, consists of the victorious entry of Alexander's forces into Pskov and the reckoning with the invaders.

The opening scene of the film shows the devastation and humiliation suffered by mediaeval Russia at the hands of foreign invaders. In this case the invaders are the Mongols. It was Eisenstein's original intention to depict a Russia fighting a battle on two fronts—against the Mongols, symbolising the contemporary threat from Japan, and the Teutonic Knights, representing the Nazis. In an early draft of the screenplay Alexander, having defeated the Germans, was to have been poisoned by the Mongols, and his death was to have been avenged by his great-grandson, Dmitri Donskoi, another legendary figure from the history of mediaeval Russia. But a battle on two fronts would have disturbed the simplicity of the story line and lessened the impact of the propaganda message. Eisenstein was therefore content to confine the Mongol presence to this opening episode. The scene is set on the shores of Lake Pleshcheyevo, near Alexander's home at Peryaslavl. It is a scene of peace and harmony, emphasised by the shots of the lake and the sky. Throughout the film there is a close relationship between man and nature and their respective moods. As Eisenstein wrote elsewhere: 'Everywhere the emotional landscape assumes the form of the mutual submergence of man and nature in one another.

In this scene the sky is open and bright, but the idyll is disturbed by the arrival of Mongol horsemen. They are dark and threatening figures, kicking and lashing the Russian peasants. The khan has sent an envoy to ask Alexander to join the Golden Horde. The contrast between the two men is instructive: Alexander is tall, composed and dignified, a fisherman and man of the people, a man among men, a Russian among Russians. The Mongol peers from behind a curtain; he is feared by his men and his whole position is unnatural and alien. Alexander refuses the offer: 'We have a saying: die on your native soil, do not abandon it.' The incident brings home to Alexander the plight of his country and its imminent need of his services: 'The Mongol can wait. We have an enemy more dangerous than the Mongol, closer at hand and more evil, one who cannot be bought off by tribute—the German. When we have beaten him we can attend to the Mongol.' This tentative call to arms leads into the next scene.

In a sense the next scene is a light interlude between serious affairs of state. The two characters Vasili Buslai and Gavrilo Olexich are seen together, joking and courting Olga: their friendly rivalry is established. Novgorod is busy and prosperous, with little outward sign of the impending danger. The sets for the Novgorod and Pskov scenes were reconstructed in the studio because the originals, in Eisenstein's eyes, were no longer sufficiently authentic. Over the centuries the old palaces and churches had sunk several feet into the ground and their visual proportions and perspective had therefore altered. Such was Eisenstein's sense of perfection that they were rebuilt in the studio according to their original proportions. But the idyll of Novgorod too is shaken as a bell calls the population to an assembly. We see carts bringing refugees from Pskov and a wounded soldier calls for vengeance. Tension mounts as he tells of the German atrocities and the crowd respond:

Soldier: If they catch you with a sword, they beat you for having it! If they catch you with bread, they beat you for the bread! They've tortured mothers and wives for their sons and husbands.

Crowd: The German is a beast! We know the German!

There are of course those who argue for compromise and collaboration with the invader, but they are confined to the merchants and the Church, both by now familiar actors in the demonology of Soviet propaganda. There is confusion and shouting, emphasised by the music, but eventually the assembly decides to call on Alexander Nevsky to lead the forces of Novgorod. It seems that Russia may be saved.

The next scene brings us face to face with the confrontation between good and evil that has been hinted at in the opening sequence and the previous scene. The portrayal of the sacking of Pskov is itself a classic example of atrocity propaganda. The characters are all typecast in line with Eisenstein's concept of 'typage', and we revert briefly to the Eisenstein of the silent film era. The Russians are again open, human characters, 'real people'. The Germans are faceless, often hooded and frequently shot in profile, with cruel, animal-like features. In their meanness they are dwarfed by the massive solidity of the Russian buildings that surround them. The contemporary relevance of the film is underlined by a shot of a knight's helmet decorated with the swastika. Otherwise their symbol is the conventional Latin cross of Western Christianity, usually shot from below to increase the sense of its power. Russian Christianity, which obviously played a significant part in the life of the country in the thirteenth century, is represented in the first instance by its buildings. But these are portrayed as an integral, almost a natural, part of the Russian background. The only priests who appear on the Russian side play the part assigned to the monk Ananias, that of a traitor. The Russia presented on the screen is a secular state, religion is only a folk memory; in other words the portrayal reflects the official view of contemporary Soviet life. But the mayor of Pskov, Tverdilo, is a Russian who has betrayed his country: his character echoes the accusations of the purges and presages the role of Shuisky in Ivan the Terrible. He is contrasted with Pavsha, the good Russian, who is executed calling for vengeance. Similarly the traitor-priest Ananias, despatched to Novgorod to rouse the people there against Alexander, is contrasted with the beggar Avvakum, whose dying words at the stake become the clarion call for Russia's resistance:

Arise, people of Rus,
To glorious battle, mortal battle!
Arise, men of freedom,
For our fair land!

The next scene takes place in Alexander's hut near Pereyaslavl. The prince is pacing up and down; one of the men voices his thoughts: 'We ought to be fighting the Germans, not mending nets.' Emissaries from Novgorod arrive to ask Alexander to lead the army of resistance. He accepts the challenge with fighting words and plans to raise a peasant army. The scene changes to show the peasants joining Alexander's army in large numbers. They are seen largely in silhouette against the sky, and dominated by it. Again man is closely intertwined with nature: the Soviet cameraman, Anatoli Golovnya, has observed of this sequence:

The movement of people is drawn across the bottom of the frame. The earth is at times completely absent from the frame and it looks as if people are walking across the sky. There is a certain convention at the basis of such composition. The white costumes show up effectively against a background of grey sky. With its indefinite colour the earth would only disturb the purity of the tonal compositions … A realistic treatment of the action at times involves the sacrifice of decorative effect.

In the final shots of this sequence the peasants merge like streams flowing into one large river; there is something elemental in their urge to resist the invader.

In the original screenplay for Alexander Nevsky there followed a scene set in Novgorod showing two fighting camps, one supporting Alexander and the other, composed of merchants, arguing for peace. The material for this scene was shot at considerable expense but was not included in the final film. The critic Viktor Shklovsky has explained:

Eisenstein was editing the picture…He edited and edited and lay down and fell fast asleep.

One night there was a telephone call from the Kremlin. They said Stalin was asking for the film. They did not wake the director but took the cans and carried them away.

The film was a great success, but one scene had not yet been edited and the can containing the sequence on the Volkhov bridge lay apart from the others.

It was not shown. Nobody noticed and they decided not to mention that they had not shown the complete film, and that is how it was released. The absence of this sequence was not noticed by a single critic.

It is not known whether the missing sequence has been preserved in the archives. Eisenstein however considered the missing scene to be an integral part of the structure of the film and petitioned Dukelsky, Chairman of the Committee on Cinema Affairs to have it reinstated. He was unsuccessful. He described his feelings in his autobiographical notes:

The eternal rush of the film world was the undoing… of the Novgorod bridge in Alexander Nevsky.

On it we filmed the scene of the famous fistfights between the St Sofia and merchants' quarters of the ancient city.

In terms of the story it is here that Vaska Buslai and Vasilisa have their first romantic encounter. And it is here in the midst of the scuffle that Vaska first shouts enthusiastically, 'What a fine girl!' after Vasilisa has hit him in the teeth.

I grieve for this lyrical link in the relationship between the two romantic heroes. I grieve deeply for those desperate children who throw themselves from the bridge into the icy water in October…

But I grieve most of all that this whole scene flew into the bin.

It is ironical that what was in some ways Eisenstein's most successful film should have been released in a form that he considered incomplete and unsatisfactory.

The film as released moves straight from the raising of the peasant army to the assembly where Alexander addresses the people of Novgorod. The cathedral broods over the proceedings. The orators are filmed against the sky, their heads on a level with the church cupolas. Only the doubting merchants are filmed from a higher angle, so that the buildings rise above and dwarf them. They are out of step with their environment and with the spirit of the times. Alexander calls for the defence of Russia and the crowd follow him, singing what has become their battle hymn, 'Arise, people of Rus!' The spearmakers vie with the smiths in their contributions to the armoury. Ignat distributes chain mail and weapons to all and sundry. Vaska and Gavrilo ask Olga to decide between them: she agrees to give her hand to the one who proves bravest in battle. Ignat is left with a chain-mail shirt that is too small for him: 'This shirt's on the short side!' The scene ends with the battle hymn once more.

The Novgorod scene is full of life and vibrant with activity. The next scene on the other hand, set in the Teutonic camp, reeks of death. In the background is the bishop's tent, adorned with the cross. The knights, with the Master of the Order at their head, are kneeling in prayer. Whereas Alexander, though a prince, is still a man of the people, here there is a clearly defined hierarchy and a remoteness from real life. They hear that Alexander's army is marching through the forest towards them. It is night and the snow weighs heavily on the trees. The Master believes that the Russians can be trapped and orders his men on to their horses.

In the middle of the forest the knights find a detachment of Russians: it is the advance party led by Vaska. Although taken by surprise, they do not run away. Battle is joined and the longest scene in the film begins. All in all the sequence of the Battle on the Ice lasts 37 minutes: it is both the climax and the focal point of the film. It was perhaps typical of Eisenstein that he should decide to shoot the most important scene in Alexander Nevsky first. But this desire conflicted with his wish to shoot the film very quickly. He could not wait until the winter of 1938-39 and so a battlefield of artificial ice and snow was created and the scene was shot in the middle of a Moscow heat-wave. Shklovsky writes [in his Eizenshtein, 1973]:

Winter scenes are very difficult to shoot, because winter is a gloomy season. They decided to reconstruct winter. They constructed it without icicles, without steam, and without snow-covered trees. They constructed not winter but a battle. They felled a cherry orchard, dug up the roots, ploughed up a vast field and covered it with asphalt.

Then they put a mixture of chalk and naphthalene on it. They dressed the Russian army and the Teutonic army and started filming.

But before we come to the actual Battle on the Ice there is a period of tense waiting. The sounds of battle are heard in the Russian camp, while Alexander and Gavrilo await the return of Vaska's detachment. Ignat entertains them with a story. The tension mounts. The tale of the hare and the vixen is an allegory for the fate that awaits the Teutonic knights on the field of battle. It is this tale that galvanises Alexander into action: the German troops are heavier and less mobile and he therefore decides to fight them on the ice of Lake Peipus, rather than on Russian soil. Just as the vixen in Ignat's story is trapped between two trunks because she is too fat, so the knights will be trapped on the breaking ice because they are too heavy. The plan is reminiscent of Kutuzov's strategy of allowing Napoleon deep into Russia, only to be worn down by the rigours of the winter climate. It is also a warning to the potential contemporary aggressor that he too will have to cope with the Russian winter, and it is a warning that Hitler and his generals ignored at their peril. One of the strengths of this pre-battle scene lies in the fact that the enemy is unseen and the tension is increased by the prolonged anticipation of their appearance. Here Prokofiev's score plays a very important part, although the relationship between the music and the visual image remains significant throughout the film. Viktor Shklovsky wrote [in "Aleksandr Nevskii," Kino, 2 November 1938] of the composer's part in Alexander Nevsky: 'For a long time music has remained on the fringes of the cinema. Now the cinema breathes music. This particular segment of the film, the scene leading up to the appearance of the invading army on the screen, has been analysed by Eisenstein in the fourth chapter of the collection of essays published in English as The Film Sense. Writing generally of the relationship between the director and the composer in this film and dealing in particular with the question of which of the two has the leading role, he observes:

It makes no difference whether the composer writes music for the 'general idea' of a sequence, or for a rough or final cutting of the sequence; or, if procedure has been organised in an opposite direction, with the director building the visual cutting to the music that has already been written and recorded on sound-track.

I should like to point out that in Alexander Nevsky literally all these possible approaches were employed. There are sequences in which the shots were cut to a previously recorded music-track. There are sequences for which the entire piece of music was written to a final cutting of the picture. There are sequences that contain both approaches. There are even sequences that furnish material for the anecdotists. One such example occurs in the battle scene where pipes and drums are played for the victorious Russian soldiers. I couldn't find a way to explain to Prokofiev what precise effect should be 'seen' in his music for this joyful moment. Seeing that we were getting nowhere, I ordered some 'prop' instruments constructed, shot these being played (without sound) visually, and projected the results for Prokofiev—who almost immediately handed me an exact 'musical equivalent' to the visual image of pipers and drummers that I had shown him.

Eisenstein goes on to explain how individual frames, and individual notes, achieve their power because of the uniqueness of their particular position in the sequence and their combined effect:

The farewell embrace between Vaska and Gavrilo Olexich in Alexander Nevsky … could only occur at one precise point in the musical score, in the same way that the close-up shots of the German knights' helmets could not be used before the point where they were finally employed in the attack sequence, for only at that point does the music change its character from one that can be expressed in long shots and medium shots of the attack to one that demands rhythmic visual beats, close-ups of galloping and the like.

Alongside this, we cannot deny the fact that the most striking and immediate impression will be gained, of course, from a congruence of the movement of the music with the movement of the visual contour—with the graphic composition of the frame; for this contour or this outline, or this line is the most vivid 'emphasiser' of the very idea of the movement.

I would refer the reader to The Film Sense for the more detailed analysis of the 'dawn of anxious waiting' sequence with which Eisenstein justifies his statement that 'The audio-visual aspect of Alexander Nevsky achieves its most complete fusion in the sequence of the "Battle on the Ice" … The method used in it of audio-visual correspondence is that used for any sequence in the film.

The Russian forces wait. Alexander stands above the lake on Raven Rock, peering into the distance, against a background of open sky and storm clouds. There is little movement. At the base of the rock the Russian army waits; shots of its massed ranks are intercut with close-ups of Ignat and Vasilisa. The conflicting angles of pictorial composition add to the tension created by the music. Suddenly and almost imperceptibly the Germans appear on the horizon, marching across the lake that is to become their graveyard. At last we see the two opposing forces at their full strength. Gradually the camera moves from the Russians to the Germans: it is they who first fill the horizon, then move diagonally across the screen until their movement fills it completely. The final shot in this sequence sets the two armies in immediate confrontation: the camera is raised and the advancing Germans are seen through the heads of the Russian soldiers, through a forest of their spears. The opposing armies meet and the great battle begins.

The Battle on the Ice allows Eisenstein to realise to the full his concepts of montage and an orchestral counterpoint between sound and image. Visually the film cuts from general shots of the advancing armies and the battle to closeups of the individual participants: Ignat, Vaska, Gavrilo and Alexander himself. The music too is a mixture, combining Russian and German themes until the point in the battle where the tide turns in favour of the Russians: then the Russian themes swamp the German. For much of the scene the music functions in counterpoint to the image, in places sound and vision run parallel, while on two occasions, with the image of the German horns and that of the Russian bugles, the music acts as a direct sound illustration of the image. By this variety of approaches Eisenstein and Prokofiev build up a sense of the confusion and the excitement of the battle. The Russian victory is confirmed by the man-to-man combat between Alexander and the Master of the Teutonic Order, which ends with the Master slipping from his horse. He is led away with a noose round his neck, defeated and humiliated. Vasilisa and Ignat tie up the German bishop, whose prayers for deliverance have remained unheard. Ananias is pursued and killed by Vasilisa. Tverdilo, whose treachery is underlined by his inability to decide whether to cross himself in the Latin or the Russian manner, is captured by Ignat. But at this moment the German war horn sounds, Ignat turns and is stabbed in the back by Tverdilo. He dies muttering, 'This shirt's on the short side!', taking us back to the scene in Novgorod when Alexander took command of the Russian forces. The battle is however won. The Germans crowd round their war horn and the ice covering Lake Peipus begins to crack beneath them. Like Napoleon and Hitler they are to fall victim to the Russian winter. Because of the lack of detailed evidence for thirteenth-century Russian history, Eisenstein was able to use poetic license in this fashion; indeed it was this freedom that attracted him to the story of Alexander Nevsky.

The next brief scene is known as the 'Field of Death'. It is night and there are corpses everywhere, but Vaska and Gavrilo find one another alive. Olga comes in search of them: each tries to convince her that the other has fought more bravely and the three stumble off into the foggy darkness.

The final scene in Alexander Nevsky marks the liberation of Russia and the triumphal entry of Alexander's forces into Pskov. First the dead heroes are brought in, then the captured Germans. Alexander displays his humanity by releasing the foot soldiers and holding only the knights for barter. Tverdilo is left to the mercy of the people he has betrayed. All that remains is for Olga to decide between Gavrilo and Vaska. It is Vaska who makes her decision for her: Gavrilo will take Olga and Vaska will have Vasilisa, the bravest warrior of all. The badinage over, the film comes to its serious conclusion. Alexander addresses his army and the people of Pskov: 'Go and tell all in foreign parts that Rus lives. Let people come to us as guests without fear. But he who comes with the sword shall perish by the sword. On this Rus stands and will stand forever!' His words merge with the shouts of the people and the film ends with the battle hymn:

Arise, people of Rus,
To glorious battle, mortal battle!
Arise, men of freedom,
For our fair land!

The filming of Alexander Nevsky was completed by the deadline that Eisenstein had set himself—7 November 1938, the twenty-first anniversary of the October Revolution. By 23 November the editing too had been completed and the film had its premiere. It was released to the general public on 1 December and was an immediate success, capturing, as it did, the spirit of the times. Alexander Nevsky brought Eisenstein the official recognition that he had for so long been denied: on 1 February 1939 he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the highest honour that the Soviet government can bestow, and on 15 March 1941 he received the State Prize, First Class. His film was withdrawn from distribution after the Nazi—Soviet Pact had been signed in August 1939, just as anti-Soviet films like Frisians in Peril were withdrawn in Germany, but it was released again after the German attack in June 1941. It is perhaps a tribute to the powerful role that the film played in strengthening the Soviet resistance that the government instituted a new battle honour, the Order of Alexander Nevsky.

To Eisenstein himself the success of what he regarded as his least satisfactory film remained an inexplicable mystery. In his archive there is a note, dated 24 December 1938 and entitled 'The Riddle of Nevsky':

Nevsky is brazenly effective despite itself Everyone can see its defects: its staginess avant tout, its length, the rhythmic breaks and failures. Everyone can see them, not just the specialists. The persistence with which even those who were dissatisfied the first time go two or three times would make it seem that even the devil would go again if he didn't like it! And it is effective quand-même. Why? I think it's a matter of 'Shamanism': it's just like the Shaman's tambourine, there's only a single thought, and everything revolves around a single thought. There's not a word, a remark, an episode or a scene where the speech and the plot are not concerned with the enemy and the need to beat him: in the shots, designs, reminiscences, the very actions themselves. You do not, of course, have to search so openly for this single-mindedness through all the variety (and even diversity) of what is happening. It rivets you hypnotically.