The Soviet Story

Infobox Film
name = The Soviet Story


image_size =
caption = [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqEf2FSbrdY Trailer VIDEO]
director = Edvīns Šnore
producer = Kristaps Valdnieks
writer = Edvīns Šnore
narrator = Jon Strickland
music =
cinematography = Edgars Daugavvanags
Uvis Brujāns
editing = Nic Gotham
distributor =
released = May 5 2008
runtime = 85 mins
country = Latvia
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Soviet Story" is a 2008 documentary film about Internal Soviet terror and Soviet-German relations before 1941 written and directed by Edvīns Šnore and sponsored by the UEN Group in the European Parliament.

The film features interviews with western and Russian historians such as Norman Davies and Boris Sokolov, Russian writer Viktor Suvorov, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, members of the European Parliament and the participants, as well as the victims of Soviet terror.

The film examines the close philosophical, political and organizational connections between the Nazi and Soviet systems before and during the early stages of World War II.cite news |title=Telling the Soviet story |url=http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11401983 |work=The Economist |date=2008-05-22 |accessdate=2008-06-03 ] It highlights the Great Purge as well as the Great Famine, Katyn massacre, Gestapo-NKVD collaboration, Soviet mass deportations and medical experiments in the GULAG.

Reception

The film has attracted praise and criticism from academic historians and political commentators.

The Economist review of "The Soviet Story" praises the film by saying quote|"Soviet Story" is the most powerful antidote yet to the sanitisation of the past. The film is gripping, audacious and uncompromising. [...] The main aim of the film is to show the close connections—philosophical, political and organisational—between the Nazi and Soviet systems. It concludes it's review by calling documentary "a sharply provocative work".

Various Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have expressed views in favour of the film. According to the Latvian MEPs Inese Vaidere and Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis writing in "Parliament Magazine":

Both Vaidere and Kristovskis represent the UEN group which actively supported the production of the film. [cite web |url=http://www.sovietstory.com/about-the-film/sponsors/ |title=The Soviet Story: Sponsors |accessdate=2008-06-12 |publisher=The Soviet Story official website |date= ]

After watching the film, Finnish MEP Ari Vatanen gave the following comment:

British MEP Christopher Beazley commented:

Vytautas Landsbergis, MEP and the former Head of the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament), assessed "The Soviet Story" as

Likewise, Latvia's Minister of Justice, Gaidis Bērziņš, has said that, because of its important historical message, he would encourage the Ministry of Education to have the film shown in all schools in Latvia. [cite news |title=Tieslietu ministrs: filma «Padomju stāsts» jārāda visās skolās |url=http://forums.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/127043 |publisher=apollo.lv |date=2008-05-08 |language=Latvian |accessdate=2008-06-12 ]

MEP from Latvia Tatjana Ždanoka regards the film as a "propagandistic odd job, which is given out to be "a new word in history".cite news |title=Жданок: фильм "The Soviet Story" — пропагандистская поделка (Ždanoka: film "The Soviet Story" - propagandistic odd job) |url=http://rus.delfi.lv/news/daily/politics/article.php?id=20714429 |publisher=Delfi.lv |date=2008-04-11 |language=Russian |accessdate=2008-06-09 ] She also thought that "the second part of the film is pure political PR": while the first part of the film pictures the point of view of some historians, contemporary politicians criticize modern Russia in the end of the film. Ždanoka also noted that "a lot of attention was devoted to the partnership of the German and Russian military. This is followed by a jump forward in time to the 1940s, with a mass-meeting of Vlasovites is shown against a background of swastika". General Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army was actually created by Nazi Germany to fight against the Soviet Union. However the film has prompted negative reactions from Russian organizations, press, and politicians. According to the "European Voice" newspaper, Russians are infuriated by the film which

On May 17, 2008 the Russian pro-governmental youth organization Young Russia ( _ru. Россия Молодая) organized the protest "Let's not allow the rewriting of history!" ( _ru. "Не дадим переписать историю!")cite web |title=Акция «России молодой» «Не дадим переписать историю!» |url=http://rumol.ru/news/3603.html |date=2008-05-14 |language=Russian |accessdate=2008-06-06] in front of the Embassy of Latvia in Moscow. An effigy representing Edvīns Šnore was burnt during the protest.cite news |title=Prokremliskie jaunieši pie Latvijas vēstniecības protestē pret "vēstures pārrakstīšanu" (Pro-Kremlin youth protest against the "rewriting of history" in front of the Latvian Embassy)|url=http://www.tvnet.lv/zinas/arzemes/krievija/article.php?id=546107 |publisher=TVNET.lv |date=2008-05-20 |language=Latvian |accessdate=2008-06-06 ]

One of the critics of the film, historical revisionist Alexander Dyukov, featured prominently in Russian media as an expert on debunking Baltic "myths" about Soviet occupation, declared:

quote|After watching two thirds of the film, I had only one wish: to kill its director and to burn down the Latvian Embassy. [ [http://novchronic.ru/1393.htm a_dyukov. The Soviet Story: первый просмотр - Новые Хроники ] ] Dyukov alleges inconsistencies in the film and questions the credibility of some of the film sequences and conclusions of some of the Russian and Western historians interviewed in the film.cite news |title=Латышские наследники доктора Геббельса|language=Russian |url=http://www.russ.ru/stat_i/latyshskie_nasledniki_doktora_gebbel_sa|accessdate=2008-06-16] "Izvestia" reported that the part of the film pertaining to medical experiments in the GULAG used Sergey Melnikoff's web-site "GULAG: With a camera among the camps" as a source [cite web |title=Обвинение СССР в опытах над людьми |last=Melnikoff |first=Sergey |url=http://www.gulag.ipvnews.org/article20060901_01.php |language=Russian |accessdate=2008-06-06 ] , which Dyukov maintains is not trustworthy. [cite web |title=Реальность информационной войны |last=Дюков |first=Александр |url=http://www.left.ru/2006/14/dyukov148.phtml |language=Russian |accessdate=2008-06-06 ] . Dyokov also alleges in the same report that the document supporting the Gestapo-NKVD partnership hypothesis presented in the film, the secret Gestapo-NKVD agreement of November 11, 1938, is a fake.cite news |title=Евродепутатам показали сталинский ужастик (A Stalin horror film was shown to members of the European Parliament) |url=http://www.izvestia.ru/politic/article3115028/ |work=Izvestia |date=2008-04-09 |accessdate=2008-06-09 ]

Latvian political scientist and cultural commentator Ivars Ījabs offers a mixed review of "The Soviet Story". On one hand, it is a well-made and "effective piece of cinematic propaganda in the good sense of this word", whose message is clearly presented to the audience. On the other hand, Ījabs does not agree with a number of historical interpretations in the film, asserting that it contains errors. For example, Ījabs states that, "In late 1930s Hitler did not yet plan a systematic genocide against the Jews", as it is suggested in the film; "Everybody knows that this decision was made in 1942 at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin." Furthermore, Ījabs comments on the notion in the film voiced by the British literary historian George Watson of Cambridge University that Karl Marx is "the ancestor of the modern political genocide" [minute 16:37 Film "The Soviet Story"] . Ījabs says: "To present Karl Marx as the "progenitor of modern genocide is simply to lie". Ījabs admits, however, Marx using the term "racial trash" (Völkerabfälle) in relation to a number of small European nations. [cite news |last=Ījabs |first=Ivars |date=2008-05-23 |title=Cienīga atbilde: Soviet Story |work=Latvijas Vēstnesis |language=Latvian |url=http://www.lv.lv/?menu=exblogi&sub=&type=full&id=44 |accessdate=2008-06-15 ]

References

External links

* [http://www.sovietstory.com Official site]
* [http://www.watch-movies.ro/index.php?m=movie&g=the_soviet_story_(2008)# Movie on Watch Movies]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YPmoJT1PRs Trailer on YouTube]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE0f-HZPO9M Russian language trailer YouTube]