How a 1937 Soviet propaganda film was edited to erase its own history

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Lenin in October was a masterpiece of Soviet realism, designed to cement the Bolshevik narrative for the revolution's twentieth anniversary. Yet, the film became a living document of political shifts, undergoing radical changes decades later to excise the very figures it once championed as the revolution's greatest heroes.

Commissioned to mark the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, Lenin in October was a high-stakes production. With the screenplay by Alexei Kapler approved, the film was rushed into production on 10 August 1937. Under the direction of Mikhail Romm, the crew completed the entire project in a mere three months, ensuring its release on 7 November. The film served as a potent propaganda tool, depicting Lenin’s secret return to Petrograd and his meticulous organization of the Bolshevik uprising alongside his supposedly closest ally, Joseph Stalin.

The narrative was carefully constructed to highlight specific historical interpretations, including the alleged betrayals of Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev. It captured iconic imagery, such as the cruiser Aurora firing its signal shot and the dramatic storming of the Winter Palace. However, the film’s content was not static. Following the process of de-stalinisation, the 1958 reissue of the movie saw all scenes featuring Stalin systematically removed. This alteration transformed the film from a contemporary record of state-sanctioned history into a malleable artifact that reflected the changing political climate of the Soviet Union.

Beyond its domestic impact, the film achieved a strange afterlife abroad. During China's Cultural Revolution, it was one of the few Soviet feature films permitted for public screening. Its influence was so pervasive that it permeated Chinese cultural memory, eventually inspiring a 2011 xiangsheng performance by Guo Degang. In this comedic crosstalk, performers depicted the struggle of traditional artists who, unable to perform their usual repertoire, resorted to blending scenes from Lenin in October and its sequel, Lenin in 1918, into their arias. This evolution from state propaganda to a cultural relic demonstrates how cinema can be repurposed by different regimes to serve shifting ideological needs.

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