University of Glasgow Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure Author(s): Jamie Miller Reviewed work(s): Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 103-124 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20451166 . Accessed: 15/12/2012 17:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and University of Glasgow are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Europe-Asia Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Sat, 15 Dec 2012 17:52:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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University of Glasgow
Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development of Industry and InfrastructureAuthor(s): Jamie MillerReviewed work(s):Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 103-124Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20451166 .
Accessed: 15/12/2012 17:52
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and University of Glasgow are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Europe-Asia Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
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Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure
JAMIE MILLER*
Abstract
This article explores the development of the Soviet film industry in the 1920s and 1930s and argues that the rise of Soviet cinema as an industry was hampered by a lack of technical equipment and the know how to produce this, and that the USSR struggled to achieve independence in the production of equipment for film production and demonstration throughout the 1930s. The article examines the technical and economic aspects of film production in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. It explores the extent of 'cinefication', especially in terms of the lack of technology for sound film. It scrutinises the distribution and demonstration systems for films, making comparisons to the US industry. It argues that fewer films were produced in the USSR, thus offering a limited choice to Soviet audiences; at the same time new films were distributed with an insufficient number of copies, so that the rise of Soviet film as an industry was hampered. The article demonstrates the absence of an infrastructure and an industry to produce the technical equipment for film production and demonstration (film stock, cameras, sound equipment were all important) making the industry dependent on the West.
CINEMA PRESENTED THE BOLSHEVIKS with a potentially powerful weapon, as it was not
only an exciting new technology, it was also accessible and appealing to the masses as an art form that they could engage in. From the communist perspective, cinema could serve many crucial functions. First of all, it could play its role in the struggle to eliminate illiteracy. Yet, this was not merely a practical application. The liquidation of
illiteracy would be done within the terms of reference and ideas of communist
ideology. Therefore, cinema would politically educate the masses so that they would develop a conscious understanding of the revolution, the new socialist reality and their part in that reality. At its most ambitious, such an education would contribute to the
creation of a 'New Soviet Man', a highly moral, socialist paragon of virtue, dedicated to the final goal of communism. However, the most fundamental task of cinema was never publicly spelled out. Through the political education of the masses, cinema had to help legitimise communist ideology, power and, most importantly, the reality that
they had given rise to. The legitimating task was central, as the communists had to reconcile their rhetoric of human emancipation with the grim Soviet reality of
*1 would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the financial support that allowed me to carry out this research.
ISSN 0966-8136 print; ISSN 1465-3427 online/06/010103-22 ? 2006 University of Glasgow DOI: 10. 1080/09668130500401715
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breakneck industrialisation and the hardship and poor living standards that came with
such a transformation. Party leaders also knew that achieving mass cooperation was
essential for the realisation of their goals to politically, socially, economically and
culturally transform the country; they had to convince the masses of the necessity of
their effective participation in socialist construction by claiming that they were
working towards a communist paradise. The focus of this article on the nature of
cinema industry development is essential because for cinema to fulfil these tasks, there
had to be an infrastructure to produce, distribute and exhibit Soviet films.
Over the past two decades, scholars of Soviet cinema have gradually paid more
attention to the Stalinist period. The basic shape of the traditional Western approach
to Soviet cinema, which emerged in the 1930s, and now still exists in a traditional
totalitarian form of analysis, suggests that under Stalinism the Soviet film industry was
brought under the firm grip of an all-embracing, centralised state and administrative
system, which crushed the creative spirit of the 1920s, and obliged filmmakers to
become complicit in the creation of pro-regime film propaganda.' A revisionist
approach emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. Revisionists have argued that the changes
brought to cinema were not only imposed from above, but had a great deal of support
within the film industry itself. It was also argued that instead of simply seeing the
1930s as crushing creative freedom, it was in fact a genuine attempt at transforming
Soviet cinema into a mass form of politicised entertainment in contradistinction to the
elitist cinema of the 1920s.2 Meanwhile, academics in the Soviet Union, at least
formally, saw the Party as the careful guiding hand for the film industry, ensuring that
it moved in the correct political direction. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, study
of the 1930s has ironically adopted the traditional totalitarian arguments of the West,
concentrating on the supposedly overwhelming interference of Stalin, comparing
Soviet films of the 1930s with those of Nazi Germany, and focusing on victims of the
purges in the cinema industry.3 However, while in general the debates and polemics surrounding Soviet cinema have
become increasingly more sophisticated, academics, from both East and West have
neglected the economic and technical aspects of cinema industry development in the
lA series of important studies of cinema under Stalin can be found in Richard Taylor & Derek Spring
(eds) (1993) Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (London, Routledge). For the traditional view, see Dwight McDonald (1969), 'Soviet Cinema, 1930-1940, A History', in On Movies (Englewood Cliffs, NJ,
Prentice Hall). This work, originally carried out in the late 1930s, foresaw the development of later, more systematic totalitarian accounts. The most influential of these is Peter Kenez (2001) Cinema and
Soviet Society from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin, 2nd edition (London, I. B. Tauris).
2See Denise Youngblood (1985) Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918-1935, (Ann Arbor, MI, UMI
Research Press). In this book, Youngblood argued that Stalinism constituted a revolution from below
in cinema, but later amended this theory, arguing that there was no mass support for the changes. Instead a revolution 'from the middle' was said to have taken place within the film industry itself. See,
for instance, Denise Youngblood (1993) Movies for the Masses (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press). The argument that the 1930s saw an attempt to create a genuine mass form of politicised entertainment can be found in Richard Taylor (1991) 'Ideology as Mass Entertainment: Boris
Shumyatsky and Soviet Cinema in the 1930s', in Taylor, Richard & Christie, Ian (eds) Inside the Film
Factory (London, Routledge), pp. 193-216.
3See Alentina Rubailo (1976) Partiinoe rukovodstvo razvitiem kinoiskusstva 1928-1937 (Moscow, Moskovskii Universitet). For examples of more recent Russian studies of the 1930s, see Lidiya Mamatova (ed.) (1995) Kino: politika i lyudi 30-e gody (Moscow, Materik).
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1930s. For example, when addressing issues such as the production of Soviet films, the
expansion of cinema exhibition outlets, the development of sound and a production
base for film stock, cameras and projectors, it is usually claimed that in the 1930s the
USSR was fairly successful in reaching the masses and achieving economic self
sufficiency in every sphere. Where economic and technical matters have been
addressed, the conclusion has emphasised Soviet successes in the 1930s in achieving
economic and technical independence without foreign assistance.4 Studying this aspect
of the film industry is not only crucial in our general historical consideration of
whether or not the Soviet cinema infrastructure was sufficient for the medium to form
part of an effective political propaganda system of persuasion and mobilisation, but it
also helps us to understand how realistic the broader aim of surpassing the capitalist
West really was in relation to cinema.
This article adopts a perspective, that acknowledges the value of certain elements in
the totalitarian account, especially those that emphasise central state and administrative
control over policy direction, as well as endorsing revisionist accounts that suggest the
Soviet bureaucracy was often extremely inefficient at implementing these policies. I shall
thus examine the aims that emanated 'from above' and the reality of implementation on
the ground. I begin by examining the goals of the cinema administration, before arguing
that the attempt to reach the masses through new exhibition outlets had very limited
success, largely due to the failure to create an adequate infrastructure for the production
of sound equipment. I also contend that existing viewing facilities were often of a poor
standard and the films being shown for much of the decade were often dated foreign or
Soviet products. The analysis suggests that there was a fundamental problem with film
copies and the nature of the distribution and exhibition network, which failed to move
towards ideological planning. Subsequently, the article shall examine the attempt to
establish a technical base for the production of film stock, cameras and projectors. I
indicate that shortcomings of both quantity and quality meant that foreign equipment
and knowledge still played a central role in Soviet filmmaking during this period. I also
point out that the general weakness of development in the industry was manifest in the
area of exports. The article concludes with an assessment of the administrative record, arguing that limited achievements were the result of extremely complex contextual
factors and a degree of administrative ambiguity. All of these factors form part of the
central argument, which suggests that the failure to adequately reach the masses and
achieve an independent, developed infrastructure represented a serious blow to the
Bolsheviks' intended political use of cinema in the 1930s.
Concerns about the development of the film industry were raised at the Party
Conference on Cinema in March 1928. The conference decided that the cinema
industry had to be significantly expanded to reach the masses and should achieve a
balance between commerce and ideology to ensure that Soviet cinema was still highly
4Economic and technical matters are addressed in Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society, pp. 118-124.
An important recent examination of industry development during the first Five-Year Plan can be
found in Vance Kepley Jr (1996) 'The First Perestroika: Soviet Cinema under the First Five-Year
Plan', Cinema Journal, 35, 4, Summer. Kepley offers an extremely detailed analysis, which focuses on
the institutional changes of Soviet cinema in the late 1920s and early 1930s. For a Soviet perspective on
industry development in the 1930s, see N. Semenov & L. Chernyabskii (eds) (1940) Dvadtsat' let
Sovetskoi Kinematografii (Moscow, Goskinoizdat).
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profitable. This required the development of a 'cinema intelligible to the millions'
where films would convey the political message in an entertaining manner. Support for
this new agenda was, to some extent, recognition of the fact that the montage classics
of Soviet cinema in the 1920s failed to attract a mass audience. Ordinary people
wanted the action, adventure and comedy that they had become accustomed to
through popular Soviet films and imported American and European films. One of the
other central points of the resolution was that the industry must achieve autarky by
freeing itself from dependence on the foreign market in areas, such as film stock and
almost all forms of cinema equipment and hardware.5 This equipment was still being
imported from countries such as the USA, Germany, France and Italy. This demand
reflected the Party rhetoric of recent years, which called for industrialisation without
foreign help. In 1928 Stalin also made his famous call to 'catch up with and overhaul'
the capitalist countries in an economic sense. Cinema had to make its contribution to
matching and surpassing the economic achievements of the capitalist West. Yet,
cinema also had to play another role; the Bolsheviks wanted to show the world that
their economy was also capable of engaging in more sophisticated areas of production
and they wanted to be associated with such futuristic advances.
The political leadership's concern with economic development was mirrored by the
aspirations of the cinema administration under Boris Shumyatskii. This is illustrated
in a draft plan written by Shumyatskii in 1931 under the heading 'The Big Programme
of Soyuzkino for 1932'. Shumyatskii began with the now familiar condemnation of
Soviet cinema to date. That is the lack of film productivity, caused by the same old
'illnesses' of Soviet cinema production, namely far too many ideologically unsound
films, as well as the lack of scripts and cadres. Shumyatskii also complained of the lack
of an industrial base for the production of film stock and filming equipment, as well as
the poor financial position of Soviet cinema in terms of its debts, tax obligations, and
lack of investment in capital construction. Furthermore, Shumyatskii pointed out that
completed films were not being exploited properly and cinefication was characterised
by the backwardness of the rural and school cinema network.6
In response to these problems, Shumyatskii proposed a comprehensive programme
of development and reconstruction for Soviet cinema. First of all, he aspired to the
creation of 500 full-length films, including more than 100 silent movies, compared to
the output of 200 films in 1931. He looked to a figure of 3 billion cinema visits in 1932
compared with 700 million in 1930 and 1 billion in 1931, as well as a 1 billion ruble
turnover compared to R400 million in 1931 and R300 million in 1930. From these
rather optimistic figures, Shumyatskii deduced that the state would be able to deduct
taxes and duties of between R200 and 220 million, as opposed to R100 million in 1931
and R20 million in 1930. He wanted to see a clear profit for Soviet cinema of R200
220 million instead of the zero profit of 1930 and the R17 million made in 1931. As
well as a dramatic increase in financial growth, Shumyatskii aspired to massive
5B. S. Ol'khovyi (ed.) (1988) 'Party Cinema Conference Resolution: The Results of Cinema
Construction in the USSR and the Tasks of Soviet Cinema', document 148, translated in Taylor, Richard & Christie, Ian (eds) The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents, 1869-1939
(Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press), pp. 383-384.
6Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (RGALI), f. 2497, op. 1, ed. khr. 22,1. 182,
'BoFshaya programma Soyuzkino na 1932'.
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The development of sound in Soviet cinema was closely associated with the
development of 'Kinofikatsiya' (cinefication) in the country at large. In essence, this
referred to the expansion of the cinema network and the availability of viewing
facilities in both the urban and rural environments. Even if the production of sound
films had been more substantial, the chances of the majority of the population being
able to see them were fairly slim. By June 1931, the Soviet enterprises concerned had
only managed to produce one sound projector, which was set up in a theatre that
month.16 The situation remained difficult throughout the 1930s. By the end of the first
Five-Year Plan in 1933, there were 27,578 cinema installations, but only 224 had
sound projectors. In 1938 there were still only 28,574 cinema installations overall. It
seems that many of the silent projectors had been decommissioned as the number with
sound projectors included in this figure had now reached 11,242. It was only by the
end of 1938 that the quantity of sound projectors within the overall network reached
the 54% mark.17 Overall, despite the dramatic increase between the mid-1920s and the
beginning of the new decade, the growth of cinema outlets was fairly meagre in
the 1930s, largely due to the slow transition to sound. It made no sense to produce
more silent projectors, yet the technological base was not developed enough to enable
the mass production of sound projectors. We can gain a strong idea of just how poorly
the cinema network was serving the population from the proposals of the third Five
Year Plan declared in 1939. In order to adequately provide cinema facilities
throughout the USSR, Molotov announced that the network of sound producing
stationary and mobile projectors would have to be increased by six times.
Urban cinefication
The cinefication programme undoubtedly favoured the urban and European part of
the Soviet Union. Throughout the 1930s, the major towns and cities of the USSR
consistently had over one third of the viewing facilities of the entire Union. Moreover,
the quality of cinefication in the urban environment was far superior to that in the
countryside. In the towns and cities citizens were more likely to see films in proper
theatres as opposed to the more makeshift installations that predominated in the rural
areas. It is also notable that while the growth of sound cinema was generally slow, the
urban zones saw a much quicker growth than the villages. For example, in the
wealthier capital Moscow, there were 48 cinemas by the end of 1934. In 1932 only
seven theatres had been wired for sound but by the end of 1934 this figure had risen to
32, or two thirds of the total. In contrast, only 24 installations in the entire rural Soviet
Union had sound at the same time. It was only towards the end of the decade that the
countryside began to catch up. This meant that the large cities, such as Moscow,
Leningrad and Kiev, had a much better quality of cinema provision than their rural
16B. Shumyatskii (1931) 'Signal Trevogi', Proletarskoe kino, 5-6, pp. 5-7.
17See 'Cinema Installations and Their Distribution in the Russian Empire and the USSR, 1914-41', Table 1,
translated in Taylor & Christie (eds) The Film Factory, p. 423. M. Ryzhkov (1940), 'Kinofikatsiya SSSR', in Semenov & Chernyabskii (eds) Dvadtsat' let Sovetskoi kinematografii, p. 170.
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At the beginning of 1939, there was a total of around 19,500 cinema installations
throughout the rural areas of the Soviet Union, revealing a very slow development.
Moreover, only 7,500 of these installations were equipped with sound.21 As I have
indicated, the issue of sound was of central importance in persuading the peasantry
throughout the USSR that the Soviet political system was working for their interests.
During the 1930s, the campaigns against mass illiteracy were in full swing.
Nonetheless, this took time and showing peasants sound films was a far more
effective means of conveying the communist message. The failure to produce a good
quantity of sound projectors for the country represented a major shortcoming in the
attempt to reach the masses during the 1930s.
As noted above, cinefication favoured the European part of the USSR and
especially its towns and cities. Many rural regions in the RSFSR had no cinema
facilities at all until the end of the decade. This included the northern Chukchi and
Koryak regions where primitive transport meant that it was very difficult to bring
heavy projectors to these areas. Republics, such as Tadzhikistan, Turkmeniya and
Kirgiziya, very rarely had the opportunity to see films and millions of peasants had
never seen a film.22 It was only in 1939-40 that some of these areas received portable
16mm projectors and some film copies, usually one copy of each film. In addition,
people in many regions and republics of the USSR spoke a multitude of languages and
in these parts of the Soviet Union Russian speakers were still in the minority of the
population as a whole. It became clear to the cinema administration that sending silent
or even sound films with solely Russian subtitles or only in Russian language to these
regions and republics, would have little impact in persuading these people that the
Bolshevik cause was one that they should support. Again it was only at the very end of
the 1930s that some films were made with inter-titles in many of these less well-known
indigenous languages.
Films and cinemas
In the latter half of the 1920s, journalists constantly complained that Soviet cinema was relying far too much on commercialism. This largely referred to the import of
mass entertainment foreign films, which continued after 1928, regardless of the
demands made by the Party. However, in 1930 a combination of such demands for
Soviet cultural and economic independence, as well as the USSR's growing trade
deficit, led to a drastic cut in imports of foreign films. In fact the closest the Soviet
cinema industry came to achieving complete independence in any area in the 1930s was
in the area of film production. During the early part of the decade, more and more
Soviet-produced films could be seen, especially in urban areas, due to the sudden
curtailment of foreign products. Nonetheless, regardless of the demands from above,
figures in the cinema industry still thought of box office returns as being very
important. Consequently, foreign films that had been imported in the mid to late
1920s were shown in many of the main cinema theatres in Moscow and other Soviet
urban centres until as late as 1935. These films were mainly mass entertainment films, including comedies featuring Harold Lloyd and Monty Banks, escapist westerns or
German thrillers, such as the film Angst, which was a huge hit in 1930 and was shown repeatedly in subsequent years. In the summer of 1933, one critic demanded to know
why Moscow's theatres were dominated with dated foreign films that had been seen time and time again with the exception of the occasional new import.23
By 1934, in urban areas, the presence of foreign films was significantly reduced and Soviet movies began to dominate cinemas. Nonetheless, although the import of new foreign films was now reduced to a few on a yearly basis, it did not completely stop. Such events as the first international film festival in Moscow in 1935, kept interest in foreign products alive. Shumyatskii ordered the purchase of some of the best films shown at the festival for the benefit of the wider public. Most of these were light entertainment films, including The Invisible Man (1933), a film about a scientist who finds a way of becoming invisible then loses his mind; La Cucaracha (1934) about the rise to fame of a Mexican dancer; and the Walt Disney cartoons Three Little Pigs (1933), Peculiar Penguins (1934) and The Band Concert (1935), featuring Mickey
Mouse. Shumyatskii's administration also bought some of the more socially concerned films that had been shown at the festival, including Henry Koster's Peter (1934), which
told of the life of an unemployed girl, and Rene Clair's The Last Billionaire (1934), a
satirical comedy. All of these were dubbed into Russian, using new technology and released during 1935-36.
Yet many of the Soviet films shown in the early to mid 1930s were the hits of the 1920s, such as The Bears Wedding (Medvezh'ia svad'ba, 1926) or Miss Mend (1926) rather than the politicised classics. It was clear by the way films were being advertised that urban film exhibition still had an essentially commercial face. In many cases, Soviet films were deliberately advertised to look American in order to draw in audiences and maximise profits. For instance, a film entitled Slava mira (1932) was advertised in Vecherniaia Moskva during March 1933 with an English translation of its
title, The Glory of the World, and an illustration which made it look like an American import. The film was in fact produced at Belgoskino, a studio based in Leningrad.
Despite the huge reduction in foreign imports, foreign films still had a significant presence in urban cinemas. Rossnabfil'm, the film distribution agency, knew that
ordinary people would still pay to see endless repeats of foreign entertainment films rather than repeats of the Soviet films favoured by the government.
Lower down the distribution ladder the situation was equally problematic. Since the
1920s workers' clubs had established themselves as a cheap and popular means of
watching films compared to the commercial cinemas in the main cities, which were often too expensive for the average citizen. During the 1930s, the clubs remained
popular, yet the films exhibited in these establishments were often several years old.
For instance, in the autumn of 1933, the workers' clubs of the Ivanovo region, to the
east of Moscow, were shown films, such as Aleksandr Tsutsunava's Riders from the
Wild West (Naezdniki iz uail'd-vesta, 1925), a Georgian social historical drama, Georgii Tasin's Jimmy Higgins (Dzhimmi Khiggins, 1928), about an American factory worker coming to revolutionary consciousness, Iurii Tarich's screen version of
23N. Lyadov (1933) 'Sledya za reklamoi', Vechernyaya Moskva, 26 July.
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Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter (Kapitanskaya dochka, 1928), and Charlie Chaplin's
City Lights (1931).24
In the countryside a similar situation prevailed. The problem in both workers' clubs
and rural areas was not an excess of foreign films, but rather the lack of films
generally. In 1936 one commentator claimed that 80% of the installations were
showing dated films, which in many cases, were not in a condition worthy of public
exhibition. The typical sort of film shown would again be Soviet product from the late
1920s, such as Grigorii Roshal's Salamander (1928), a film about the biologist Paul
Kammerer, which was unpopular on its original release, or Amo Bek-Nazaryan's
Khaz Push (1928), a film about a revolt of Persian peasants and craftsmen in 1891.
Older foreign films were also shown in the countryside, such as Duke Worne's Blue
Fox (1921), an American adventure movie. The obvious concern for Party officials was
not only that the more prestigious urban theatres and, to a lesser extent, the workers
clubs and kolkhoz buildings, were still showing many dated foreign films, as well as old
domestic product, but that most new Soviet films were hardly being shown at all
throughout the USSR. Soviet citizens, especially in the smaller towns and countryside,
could only be offered the same films from the 1920s over and over again. It was clear
to all that the new cinema for the millions was not actually reaching the millions.25
The crux of the problem was the lack of prints available for new Soviet films. In the
mid-1930s, it usually took two to three years before the areas with cinema provision
had seen the majority of new Soviet films due to the low productivity of the newly
established copy factories and this was compounded by the slowness of production.
There simply were not enough copies to distribute. At the beginning of 1934, there was
an average of 39 copies of each film for the entire USSR. Over the next few years, this
figure slowly increased and prints for sound projectors also began to emerge. By the
end of the decade, this had risen to between 250 and 300 sound and silent copies per
film, which was still less than sufficient. It is useful to draw a comparison with America
in this case. In 1940 the USA had fewer than 20,000 cinemas compared to just over
29,000 viewing facilities in the USSR. The average number of prints for major
American films at this time was 250, similar to the Soviet figure. However, the fundamental difference was that America produced 673 movies in 1940 compared to
the USSR's 40 films. So, in addition to the fact that US theatres were well provided
with film prints, they also had a higher level of choice.26
24Eberhard Nembach (2001) Stalins Filmpolitik: Der Umbau der Sowjetischen Filmindustrie 1929 bis
26B. Kotiev (1935) 'Problema kopii', Kino, 5 May. Kotiev also notes that the overall quantity of prints available in the USSR in 1934 was 24,355. This figure actually decreased over the next few years to
17,000 in 1938 and only returned to just over 25,000 the following year. This was probably due to the
sizeable number of Soviet and foreign silent films that were gradually falling out of circulation and the
failure of the copy factories to compensate by producing sufficient quantities of new films. On later
print runs, see Anon. (1939) 'V komitete po delam kinematografii', Kino, 3 November. K. Svetlanin
(1939) 'Neskol'ko voprosov Soyuzkinoprokatu', Kino, 11 October. For the American statistics, see
Chester Bahn (1941) 'Industry Statistics', in Alicoate, Jack (ed.) The 1941 Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures (New York, The Film Daily), pp. 35-47.
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leadership what he thought about the quality of domestic equipment and was
instrumental in persuading Stalin and the Central Committee that the import of more
foreign products, as well as expertise, was absolutely necessary. Following a viewing of
an American film at the Kremlin, Shumyatskii praised the quality of the camera work
and American film stock in comparison to the Soviet version. Stalin responded to
Shumyatskii: 'But you say that we have probably already overtaken America in terms
of film stock'. Shumyatskii replied:
No, Josef Vissarionovich, I am not saying that to either you or anyone else. On the contrary, I always underline our backwardness and the necessity of helping ourselves through imports and of sending people abroad on practical work.
Stalin modestly responded:
We need to say directly that we still have not caught up. We need to catch up. Yet in our country we are all boasting that we have overtaken them, but in reality we are lagging behind and working badly in our blissful conceit.
Shumyatskii went on to point out that the problem with cinema industry production
lay in the poor quality of raw materials, as well as the low technical knowledge of
personnel in places, such as Shostka and Pereslavl' Zalesskii, and the poor
administration of these factories. He concluded that the cinema administration had
to import equipment. Stalin accepted Shumyatskii's advice, stating that he would
speak to Molotov, regarding the necessary financial means.37
Shumyatskii's realistic approach to economic development and his subtle pressure
on Stalin and the Central Committee, which happened more than once, did bear fruit.
In May 1935, Shumyatskii was permitted to lead a delegation to America to examine
technical equipment and production processes. The main requirement for a better
understanding of film stock production was satisfied during this period. The
delegation visited the Fridmen laboratory in New York where the group studied
film developing and film copying machines and were impressed by their speed,
efficiency and quality. After the delegation had returned home, several American film
technicians were invited to the USSR to help with further technical improvements and
development in the various areas of production. When the technicians arrived, they were posted at Mosfil'm and Lenfil'm to carry out support work. In addition, the
cinema administration ordered a sizeable quantity of technical equipment to be
imported into the Soviet Union. In 1936 Shumyatskii's administration spent nearly
$500,000 purchasing American equipment that was used to update the Soviet
studios.38
Thus, under Shumyatskii, the aspiration to achieve complete autarky for the Soviet
cinema industry was gradually brushed aside as importation continued in almost every
single area associated with cinema. All the key technical items were still imported,
37Aleksandr Troshin (ed.) (2002) '"A dryani podobno 'garmon" bol'she ne stavite?" Zapisi besed
B. Z. Shumyatskogo s I. V. Stalinym posle kinoprosmotrov 1935-1937 gg.', Kinovedcheskie zapiski,
61, p. 293.
38Vladmir Verlinskii (1937) 'Ten Years of Soviet Films in The United States', in Alicoate, Jack (ed.) The 1937 Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures (New York, The Film Daily), pp. 1170-1171.
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including film stock, cameras and projectors, but Shumyatskii and his successors also
imported other items. Amongst them were film printing and developing machines,
cranes, special automobiles for carrying out moving shots, as well as more minor
items, such as cables. This meant that imports varied from, for example, the 3,000
rubles released by the government in 1940 for Ivan Bol'shakov's administration to
make some purchases in France, Germany and Switzerland to the $300,000 spent by
Bol'shakov's representatives in New York in the same year, with plans to spend three
times that amount.39
Exports
The relative weakness of the industry's development was also manifest in levels of
exports. Due to the fact that in the 1930s the USSR had to construct its own cinema
industrial base, its levels of exports were relatively low. The export of raw film stock
only really began in the mid-1930s. In 1935 the Soviet government earned a modest
R10,000 from raw film stock export. This income peaked at R65,000 in 1938, before
dropping over the next few years. The export of cameras, projectors, sound recording
devices, lighting and so on was also relatively minimal. This began with the export of
one item in 1934, yielding R25,000, before reaching its height in 1939 with the export
of 29 items at a profit of R216,000. However, in 1940 the number of items exported
dropped to ten and the previous year's profit was halved. As the USSR was relatively
new to these areas of production, demand for its raw film stock and equipment was
almost non-existent in the West. Most of the income from exports in the late 1930s
came from neighbouring countries, such as China and Mongolia, which were at a
fairly early stage of cinema industry development.40 By far the most profitable area of export for the Soviet film industry was of the films
themselves. In the mid to late 1920s, Soviet films achieved both critical and financial
success in countries, such as Germany and the USA. Yet, despite financial success, the
USSR was receiving relatively little in terms of a currency equivalent due to relatively
weak connections and understandings of Western markets, as well as a lack of specialised personnel to trade with foreign partners and establish more beneficial price
policies.4' Moreover, by 1933 the close relationship with Germany was ended by the
rise of the Nazi regime. Despite this setback, the USSR began to develop a more
professional approach to film export with the establishment in 1930 of a specialised
department called Intorgkino, which became Soyuzintorgkino in 1933. The closure of its Berlin offices led to the establishment of a new permanent Paris office and stronger trade links were set up with America through the Amkino Corporation in New York.
Overall however, Soviet trade links with foreign cinema industries remained
extremely basic, partly due to the general decline of world trade in the 1930s and also
to the increasingly inward nature of the Soviet economic system. The export of Soviet
39See endnote number 34, in Andrei Artizov & Oleg Naumov (1999) Vlast' i khudozhestvennaya
intelligentsiya (Moscow, Demokratiya), pp. 777-778. Paul Babitskii & John Rimberg (1955), The
Soviet Film Industry (New York, Praeger), p. 260.
40Anon. (1960) Vneshyaya torgovlya SSSR za 1918-1940: statisticheskii obzor (Moscow, Vheshtor
gizdat), pp. 126, 160.
41Efraim Lemberg (1930) Kinopromyshlennost SSSR (Moscow, Teakinopechat'), p. 89.
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mezhdu aktsionernym obshchestvom "Amkino Korporeishin" i Soyuzintorgkino ob isklyuchitel'nom
prave prodazhi produktsii sovetskoi kinematografii na territorii SShA, gosudartsv Latinskoi Ameriki i
Kanady', in G. Sevostyanov & E. Tyurina (eds) (2001) Rossiya i SShA: ekonomicheskie otnoshenyia 1933-1941: Sbornik Dokumentov (Moscow, Nauka), pp. 124-127. Anon., Vneshnyaya torgovlya, pp.
126, 160.
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Production), which was responsible for the production of stationary projectors, fell
into financial trouble and was forced to make a deal with the State Sewing Machine
Enterprise in order to maintain the production of projectors. Unfortunately, the deal
proved to be a failure as the sewing machine enterprise did not carry out the order.
Even when mechanical factories specifically aimed at cinema were established, they
failed to fulfil the demands that were made on them.
Furthermore, shortages of electricity were still a fundamental problem for the
developing cinema industry during the 1930s. Although the blackouts of the 1920s
gradually became a thing of the past, this did not mean that problems of electricity
supply had been resolved. For instance, in August 1934, one commentator pointed to
the need for more powerful lamps in the studios. At the same time he noted that such
powerful devices required around 35-45 volts, which was still not possible in Soviet
studios at that time.44 The provision of electricity was also intimately related to the
development of effective cinefication. Many parts of the Soviet countryside still had no
electricity, which meant that those areas that did have cinema provision often had to
make do with silent hand-cranked projectors with dynamo fed lamps as opposed to
the more sophisticated electrically-driven models. As with many other issues, this
problem was only slowly resolved towards the end of the 1930s as the USSR's
electricity supply rapidly increased.
Another key contextual problem that undoubtedly had an impact on the slow
development of the Soviet cinema industry was the lack of personnel and the often
poorly trained cadres that were available. In 1929 Soviet cinema lacked a significant
quantity of technical personnel who could be relied upon to generate the knowledge
required to create the infrastructural base of the industry. This included the teachers
themselves who often lacked the qualifications to train the workforce or were
sometimes experts in another field, such as chemical applications, but found themselves
teaching mechanical courses on projectors and cameras. Apart from VGIK (State Film
Institute), which had a small department for engineers, the educational system for the
broader mass of mechanics and engineers only reached adequate capacity by the end of
the 1930s. Consequently, by the time that the first film stock, camera, projector, lighting and film copying factories were built between the early and late 1930s, many workers
were not adequately trained to carry out their tasks in the most efficient and effective
manner. This led to constant complaints about the quality of items, ranging from raw
materials, such as gelatine, to the final product, such as film stock. The lack of sufficient
numbers of well-trained specialists had an impact on most of the central areas,
including the production and application of sound projectors.
But the efficiency of those workers who had received the necessary training was also
compromised by the nature of the Soviet economic system. Under Stalin the Soviet
cinema industry was subjected to the same system of central planning that was applied
to every other sphere of the economy. However, despite the industry's ineffectiveness
and inefficiency, the administrations of Shumyatskii, Dukel'skii and Bol'shakov were
fully committed to the attempt to impose planning on every aspect of cinema from the
thematic content of films to their distribution and from the production of film stock to
the building of cinemas. Yet, Shumyatskii displayed ambiguity by simultaneously
44V. Mikhailyk (1934) 'O kachestve osvetitel'noi apparatury', Kino, 16 August.
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