Moscow, 1937

by Karl Schlogel

  Volga-Volga: directors as conspirators, actors as spies

  The film Volga-Volga too should have been ready for the jubilee. Aleksandrov and Nilsen wanted to make a film using the most up-to-date film technology. The shooting had already begun on a boat on the Volga. In January 1937 Nilsen and Aleksandrov had received awards for The Jolly Fellows and The Circus. The screenplay was written by Nikolai Erdman, who had previously produced the screenplay for The Jolly Fellows. After he was sentenced in 1933, Erdman lived in exile outside Moscow, and there is much to be said for the thesis advanced by the Russian film historian Maia Turovskaia that Melkovodsk, the provincial backwater where Volga-Volga opens, is based on Eniseisk, to which Erdman had been banished.32 Volga-Volga is a film about the struggle of a simple but ingenious and energetic girl, Dunia Petrova, to persuade a self-satisfied provincial Party bureaucrat to let her take part in a music Olympiad in Moscow. Conflict breaks out between the pretentions of highbrow classical music on the one hand and the spontaneous music-making of the people on the other. The troupe’s journey moves up the Volga to the capital. The spectator travels on board ship through a country that is caught up in the process of change. The boat enters the Moscow–Volga Canal and ends up leading an entire flotilla into the North Harbour. The song ‘invented’ by Dunia, and its melody, may be said to find its way spontaneously to the national competition. It catches on at lightning speed and grips the masses. Dunia finally triumphs, while Byvalov, the bureaucrat, is duped and becomes the object of universal derision. Like the ‘Song of the Motherland’ from The Circus – with words by Vasilii Lebedev-Kumach and music by Isaak Dunaievskii – which quickly became the unofficial national anthem of the USSR, the title song of Volga-Volga quickly became a hit. Nevertheless, the film was not completed in 1937, as planned.33

  On 12 October 1937 Kino published an article with the title ‘Increase Bolshevik Vigilance’. It dealt with the cameraman Vladimir Nil'sen, who had previously always been referred to as ‘the decorated cameraman’. Now Nil'sen was said to ‘have insolently concealed his obscure criminal past’. In fact, Nil'sen did have an unusual past. He had studied in Germany, had joined the Communist Youth organization and had met Eisenstein. He worked at first as Eduard Tisse’s assistant on Eisenstein’s October and then acted as cameraman for Grigorii Aleksandrov. He had gone to Hollywood with Shumiatskii and a Soviet delegation to study American camera techniques and had written a number of books on the subject. On 10 October 1937 Nil'sen was arrested. The cameraman’s name no longer appeared in the credits, either at the beginning of Volga-Volga or at the end, and, as director, Aleksandrov was forced to justify in public his collaboration with both Nil'sen and Nikolai Erdmann. The film did not make its appearance in the cinemas until 1938.

  At a critical moment during the production of the film the team was dealt a second blow. On 22 December 1937 the film’s director, Zakhar Darevsky, was arrested. There are fantastic accusations against Darevskii in his case files. For example, he confessed that he had been recruited into an anti-Soviet, right-wing Trotskyite organization by E. Sokolovskaia, a director of the Mosfilm studios, and that with her assistance he had wasted money on Bezhin Meadow. Darevskii confessed that he had been entrusted with the task of procuring weapons, should there be an armed uprising in Moscow. On his instructions armoured cars had been purchased as well as machine guns and rifles. The weapons that had been acquired for the purpose of making the film Lenin in October were intended in reality for an armed revolt. The indictment of 2 February 1938 claimed that Darevskii was implicated in creating an armed squad in Mosfilm. On 10 March 1938 Darevskii was condemned by the Supreme Military Court to the ‘supreme penalty’, i.e. death. He was shot the same day.

  Boris Shumiatskii, the man at the very apex of the Soviet film organization, was likewise arrested and condemned. He too stood accused of squandering sums of money on Bezhin Meadow, as well as being a Japanese spy and planning attacks on members of the Politburo. Specifically, it was alleged that he intended to smash a spare tube ‘for a mercury rectifier’ in the Kremlin’s projection room. Shumiatskii was shot on 28 June 1938. While all this was going on, Eisenstein, who had been disciplined a year before and whose film had been destroyed, had now resumed work on Aleksander Nevskii, his first film after years of silence. In the meantime, Mikhail Romm, the director of the successful film Lenin in October, had been given Party membership. On 11 April 1938, Volga-Volga was approved for public showing by the censorship authorities so that the film could be released on 24 April. Some of the people who had helped to make Volga-Volga, which proved to be one of the most successful musicals in Soviet cinematic history, were no longer at liberty or even alive.34

  Terror and good entertainment

  The cinema world of 1937 is the world of 1937 ‘in moving pictures’. They show the world in a state of dialectical tension: not as it is – that would be shallow naturalism – but as it will become. But the only film that is worth anything is one that seizes hold of human beings and takes their anxieties, fears and hopes seriously. In short, it must be free of ‘formalist games’. It was this that constituted the achievement of the new Soviet cinema, and this is what was at stake in the debates about how to establish ‘socialist realism’ – debates fuelled by passion, hatred and resentment. Reality ‘as it was’ could not be found within this context. There could be no documentaries or film chronicles dealing with the deaths occurring in the countryside, the dugouts in the new industries conjured out of thin air, nor could there be any pictures of the executions carried out every day on the shooting range in Butovo, but apart from these things the entire world could find a voice.35 All the significant events of the period found their way onto the cinema screen. And, since the age was edgy and tense to breaking point and might easily turn into blind rebellion at the drop of a hat, the demands made on the cinema were correspondingly extreme. Its task was to produce masterworks of empathy and demagogy, of violent conflicts and utterly implausible idylls.

  Almost everything of significance in 1937 was given its expression in image, in film. The uniqueness of the Stalin Constitution became a theme in a popular film such as The Circus, in which a single mother, fleeing with her coloured child from the class conflicts characteristic of the United States to the haven of the Soviet peoples, is given a warm reception and is defended from the attacks of the fascist German villain. This film featured the nation’s best actors, had enchanting tunes, and played against the impressive backdrop of the new Moscow. The Pushkin year was reflected in film versions of literary masterpieces: Dubrovskii (A. Ivanovskii, 1936) and Journey to Erzerum (M. Levin, 1937). The aviation fever of 1937 had already given rise to a series of aviators’ films and would produce even more: The Pilots (Yu. Raizman, 1935) and Valerii Chkalov (M. Kalatozov, 1941). The thrill of the North Pole expeditions was conveyed not just in direct radio broadcasts and the current cinema chronicles, but also in feature films, such as Seven Brave Men (S. Gerasimov, 1936), which depicted the solidarity of a community struggling to survive while overwintering on the ice. The country had no shortage of venues to illustrate the lunatic pace of change, and that too could be transformed into cinematic images, as was the case with the new town in the Far East that was used as the setting for Komsomol'sk (S. Gerasimov, 1938). There are many films that use the new Moscow as a setting. Examples are The Circus and Volga-Volga. Even the use of forced labour on the White Sea Canal found its way onto the screen – in The Prisoners (N. Pogodin and Y. Cherviakov, 1936), a film treating the great re-education of former criminals and their transformation into model Soviet citizens. The world of the Civil War, of cunning and daring, of impressive swashbucklers and cavalrymen, and of legendary, sympathetic figures, fitted perfectly into the atmosphere of the Civil War as resumed in the age of collectivization. That world also imbued these figures with an aura of historical inevitability and romanticism. Film recalled a history that lay something over a decade in the past, not as text, or as narrative, but in dramatic, moving pictur
es with genuine characters and, more recently, even in sound. The drama of the years 1917–21 provided an inexhaustible stock of events, episodes and heroic figures. The historical films of the thirties – whether they featured Peter the Great, Lenin and Sverdlov in October or Aleksander Nevskii, produced an image of history that became established among the growing generation, together with the faces, gestures, topoi and symbols that crystallized the enduring, canonic image of the past.

  Like all great cinema, Soviet cinema of the thirties tells the story of a better life and of the struggles that must be faced if that life is to become reality. The principal setting of Soviet cinema is that of ordinary life, its chief figures are ordinary people – but they are always shown in extraordinary circumstances, in emergency situations, and caught up in a struggle for a better world. That is what makes heroes of ordinary people. The screen is populated by miners, tractor drivers, milkmaids, collective-farm bookkeepers, shock workers, team leaders, elderly scholars who have discovered their path to Soviet power, housewives and border guards doing their patriotic duty at the risk of their own lives. Their heroism consists in asserting their authority over everyday existence in the face of conflict, threats and dangers that are always on the point of breaking in on peaceful Soviet citizens going about their daily tasks. The world is full of sinister, mysterious figures that pursue their own dark designs in ever more insidious, ingenious and criminal fashion, however doomed their machinations may be.36 Paradoxically, the danger such figures represent increases the more their historical significance wanes. In these films everyday life is seen not as banal but as a reality in which everything is imbued with historical meaning. Everything is coded in terms of the great conflict between the classes and the final, decisive battle. The apocalyptic and hysterical spirit of the age extends into the minutest detail. There are no routines on whose stability people might rely. Conflict is everywhere, sometimes hidden, sometimes overt. History is never about love; love is always shown against the backdrop of world-historical conflicts. These films never deal with personal hatred or straightforward human envy, but with politically necessary hatred in the service of higher goals. The virtues that triumph on screen include vigilance and the unmasking of the enemy, combined with the injunction not to let oneself become too absorbed in ordinary daily activities. Denunciations, tirades against the enemy and calls to destroy him are the constantly recurring leitmotifs of these films. They provide us with unambiguous portraits of friends and enemies as well as constantly recurring patterns of conspiracy and intrigue. The screens are full of the antics of wreckers, saboteurs, spies and terrorists – the more sympathetic and innocent they seem, the more insidiously treacherous they are. The great films of this period combine pictures of a successful life with calls for vengeance, the hunger for beautiful images with the readiness to abandon one’s dearest scruples – even towards one’s closest relatives and friends – when the defence of the ‘good cause’ is at stake. The greatest successes of 1937–8 – The Great Patriot is just one example37 – are those in which the cinema screen becomes a theatre in which the show trials are run once again, but this time staged by brilliant actors and directors and shown to a paying public of millions throughout the country. The music for The Great Patriot was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich.

  26

  Death in Exile

  Amid the chaos of the 1937 purges, no one could make sense of what was happening, least of all the members of the foreign communist parties who had found refuge in the Soviet Union. The confusion and perplexity was complete, as can be seen from the letter that Ella Henrion sent to Stalin on 29 October 1938. She was the wife of a leading, loyal official of the German Communist Party who had himself been arrested. Looking back on the events of 1937–8, she wrote:

  Esteemed Comrade Stalin,

  I should like to give you a frank description of the mood among the German communists. I believe that it is not wrong of me to do this. There are almost no German families who have not been affected in one way or another by the arrests, whether it be of a husband, father, brother, son, mother, wife, sister or perhaps a very good friend or colleague. The arrests began around two-and-a-half years ago. The bandits David, Emel and others were known to the German comrades, if not personally, then at least by name. These arrests took none of our comrades by surprise, since the deviations and un-communist actions of these enemies of the people were more or less well known, even if their greatest crimes still remained hidden. Then further arrests took place. Many of them came as a surprise but everyone thought that it must be alright; innocent people would not be arrested.

  Then, about a year ago, the mass arrests started. Daily we learned of new names. We were astounded. What, him? And him as well? But everyone was convinced that they must certainly have done something or other. Many comrades were not too ashamed to confess that their hearts began to pound when they heard heavy footsteps approaching at night. When the arrests just went on a general panic set in – it’s the truth. And every day you could hear the words, what, and him too!

  The mood among the German comrades at present is like this: they are completely baffled by all these arrests. They say it’s just not possible that there were so many bad apples in the German Party, and that all the people who had been sent were really spies and counterrevolutionaries, etc… . Our comrades all say quite openly: there can be no doubt, we’re all for it.1

  Figure 26.1 Dimitrov’s letter to Stalin of 28 November 1937 on the resolution of the Executive Committee of the Comintern about the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party, with Stalin’s handwritten reply

  ‘Stunned and horrified, people in their home countries followed the disappearance of their leading comrades in exile in Moscow.’

  Letters, desperate cries for help of this kind, became legion.2 And, in fact, they ‘were all for it’. The German political immigrant colony was the largest in Moscow, and it was the preferred target of the purges. The Journal de Moscou even declared on 12 April 1938: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that every Japanese living abroad is a spy or that every German citizen living abroad is an agent of the Gestapo.’3 By the end of April 1938 the German delegate on the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) had recorded the arrest of 842 German anti-fascists – in reality there were far more. Some of them belonged to the leadership of the German Communist Party (KPD) of the Weimar period: Hugo Eberlein, a participant of the first Comintern Congress, secretary of the German Central Committee and its representative on the ECCI; Werner Hirsch, secretary and friend of Ernst Thälmann; Leo Flieg, secretary of the German Central Committee; Hermann Remmele, Politburo member; Heinz Neumann and Hermann Schubert, Central Committee members; Hans Kippenberger, head of the illegal underground operations of the German Central Committee; and Heinrich Süßkind, editor in chief of the Rote Fahne.4

  The others who were ‘for it’ included the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian communist parties, the Iranian communists, Gomez, the leader of the Mexican communists, the representative of the Chinese communists in the Comintern, its Korean section and prominent Indian communists. The Yugoslav delegation was decimated; the Bulgarian Communist Party lost leading members. Many Italian, Finnish, Austrian, Spanish, Czech, French, Romanian, Dutch and even American and Brazilian communists were arrested and died. Leading figures well known in the Comintern for decades were arrested and accused of being enemies of the people, among them Osip Piatnitskii, Central Committee member of the Soviet Communist Party and secretary of the Comintern; Béla Kun, the leader of the Hungarian Revolution; and Adolf Warski, one of the founders of the Social Democrat, later Communist Party of Poland. In the summer of 1938, the Belorussian, West Ukrainian and Polish communist parties were simply dissolved. ‘It is a terrible paradox that the West European Communist leaders and activists who lived in the USSR perished, while most of those who were in prison in their native lands in 1937–1938 survived.’5 Stunned and horrified, people in their home countries followed the disappearance of
their leading comrades in exile in Moscow. The Polish communist Marian Naszkowski remembers how the news from Moscow was received by the comrades languishing in gaol in Poland: