Digging my way through the bargain section of a used bookstore recently, I was annoyed to find alot of good shelf-space taken up by heavy tomes on Communist economics, Soviet foreign policy, and progress reports on Stalin's Five-Year-Plans. It began to dawn on me that I had stumbled onto what Marx had called the "dustbin of history." Ideas once popular enough to clog to overflowing those little left-wing basement bookstores up through mid-1980s now lay stacked as useless and unwanted as old computer manuals.

For most of us in the West, the "Union of Socialist Soviet Republics" has faded like a bad dream we'd rather just forget. The end of Soviet Communism has no more brought on the millennium than did its advent; there are pressing problems left to solve.

Yet now would seem an ideal time to reflect on what is no longer a threatening and mysterious "Evil Empire" or "Phantom". What, for example, was it about Marxist/Leninism that appealed to so many? And what went wrong -- the ideas themselves, or their misappropriation? How did ordinary people survive under the Stalinist regime? How did the Russians and Ukrainians and the others finally wake themselves up from their long nightmare?

Since Mikhail Gorbechev set the spark to Glasnost, or "openness," the now ex-Soviet peoples have done a better job at tearing down their Iron Curtains and facing their darkness than has the West. After thirty years on the brink of mutually-assured incineration, it would seem appropriate to take some time and get to know the incredible rich diversity of peoples so long in our gun sites.

Of course, it doesn't take too long a look to see that many of the ex-Soviet peoples are in some ways more like Americans than the French or some of our other allies -- in their abiding religiosity, for example. And they only wanted, at first, what all people want: a better life, a just society, plenty for all. Unlike Americans, they lived under oppressive rule for a thousand years before Stalin. The notion that the unstoppable forces of history and science were ultimately on their side presented a very seductive dream -- especially in a world not yet disillusioned with science and Progress. As it turned out, it was less unstoppable forces than accidents of history that made their Revolution possible. What was inevitable, in retrospect, seems the subsequent nightmare and their ultimate resurrection.

This Spring, I sat in on a class on the history of Soviet and Russian cinema at a local art school. My interests included the history of filmmaking. I was aware of the pioneering role played by Soviet directors and the state-support of a brand new artform other nations still deemed inferior and insignificant. But I also knew the films themselves presented their own remarkable three-act screenplay. The first act features true believers singing the praises of the Revolution. In Act Two, these become disillusioned with failed promises and oppression and either sell out, work subversively within strict bounds, or go to the Gulag. Finally, as truth outs in glasnost, a fury of muckraking climaxes in looking beyond simple confession and judgment to a new vision.

Watching these films in order over the course of six-weeks was a profound and thought-provoking experience, and I'll be sharing some of those thoughts here. I don't want to make the mistake of the foolish student who has just taken an "Intro to Philosophy" and then presumes to wax critical of Kant. The history and filmmakers I met in this class, in many cases for the first time, are threads of rich cultural tapestries I can't and don't presume to understand. I do understand that entire books may be written about a filmmaker or film. And that in an initial viewing, one tends to come away with a single dominant impression. But, in the spirit of journalist David Denby, who recently published a non-scholarly book about his experiences cruising through a course on Western classics, I offer a travelog of my journey.

LIKE MUCH OF THE WORLD, the Russians have been making movies since before the turn of the last century. From the first, however, their busy and profitable film industry was anxiously monitored by the Czars. And while the West was loosening government limits on free expression, the Russian Monarchy continued to move in the opposite direction. The Czar clamped down on all media, including the railroad -- which, as it turned out, was key indeed to overthrowing the Czar's government. The Bolsheviks gained power by quickly seizing all possible means of communications. Their Revolution sent the Russian film establishment fleeing the country and vanishing into history's dustbin. The Soviets had to rebuild with a younger generation -- one imbued with, and eager to share, the Communist vision.

What quickly surfaced as a key theme of discussion in our class, then, was the notion of propaganda. Lenin assumed power in an empire mostly illiterate, and immediately declared cinema "the most important art." He realized the medium's potential as a means for inculcating Marxist/Leninist reality in the masses. In much the same way, religious paintings, East and West -- and especially in the East -- have been employed in eras of low literacy to convey the liturgy to congregations. The official Soviet style, "Socialist Realism," was similar to the primitive representationalism of Eastern Orthodox icons: stripped down, easy to read, no ambiguity or vagueness, the individuality of the artist subservient to an architypal style. But while the goal of icon painting was to leave room for the Divine Presence, the attempt in Socialist Realism was to fill the space between with an ideological presence -- a contradictory combination both "betwitching" and psychologically suffocating. Agit-trains shipped such movies around the U.S.S.R. to spread the new faith.

Battleship Potemkin (1925) is the most famous of early Soviet films. The aim of director Sergei Eisenstein was to glorify the Bolshevik victory by telling the inspiring story of the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution. The story of the ill-fated workers' riots in the port of Odessa (later joined by a few military units) was seen as a heroic portent of the future victory of The People. By today's standards, Potemkin seems awkward and overdone. Yet it was astonishingly innovative filmmaking at the time. The cinema was an uncharted art form, and understanding the unique possibilities of movies required real "out-of-the-box" thinking. American director D.W. Griffith was the first to shake off the notion that movies were just a way of recording theater, taking the radical step of moving the camera in close and cutting together different angles of the same action to dramatic effect. Eisenstein, like all the early Soviet filmmakers, was greatly influenced by a print of Griffith's film Intolerance that had somehow made it through the blockade of Russia in World War I. But unlike the merely intuitive American, the young Soviet directors began to theorize about their chosen medium, and so were able to see gaps in Griffith's technique, work out the implications of and build upon Griffith's discoveries. Eisenstein realized that film was a medium not just for telling stories, but also for interpreting stories, for conveying meaning, movies as vehicles for ideas.

These Soviet filmmakers were concerned with identifiying those elements that separated cinema from all the other arts. In montage, i.e. the juxtoposition of images and action by joining different shots, they found what they felt was the key to understanding and developing this new form. In a manner that seems characteristic of true believers in Communism, Eisenstein compared such theories of film to Marx's theory of history, that is dialectical materialism, wherein opposing historical forces clash, creating a synthesis which then clashes with an opposing force, creating a new synthesis, etc. With cinema, one shot clashes with another to create a meaning hitherto not present.

The meaning Eisenstein achieved by carefully controlled juxtopositions of images was certainly clear: the Czar and the Church could do no right, and the Workers could do no wrong. Thus, after our screening of Potemkin, this question was raised: why is Eisenstein remembered chiefly as a cinematic pioneer, even an artist, rather than -- like Nazi filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl -- tarred with the reputation as mere propagandist? Reifenstahl, whose best-known film, Triumph of the Will, is a notorious glorification of Hitler and the Nazi state, often wondered the same thing. We never got around to answering this question in class, though it was one of several puzzles I have continued to struggle with. At this point, I would guess the answer has something to do with the weird historical selectiveness that remembers Hitler as the century's worst genocidist, even though Stalin murdered many millions more. Perhaps on the scale of crimes against humanity, racism is more despicable than ideological or pure totalitarian motives. Couple this evil with the frightening power that Nazi imagery still exercises over us -- in spite of ourselves -- it is not the attraction of an idea, but some dark, occult power, next to which the misguided enthusiasm of "true-believing" Bolshevik filmmakers can almost be forgiven.

But where our class discussion went and promptly got lost was among the nuances involved in separating propaganda from art. The first point to be granted was that a work could be good art but bad history. Indeed, at some level, it would seem good art must be bad history, since life requires some measure of shaping to be art. But can a work intended as propaganda be art? Someone in class pointed out that much of the art we value today began as propaganda: religious paintings, the painter David's glorification of the French Revolution. Even in Griffith's masterpiece Birth of a Nation, history is slanted to make heros of the Ku Klux Klan. One member of the audience then suggested that art is distinguished from propaganda by "balancing" views instead of adhering to one particular slant on events. This idea was quickly abandoned due to the subjective nature of "balance" and the fact that artists for centuries have been interested in embodying "truth" or the "ideal", a very exclusive, not inclusive, catagory. Inculcated as we all are today with the virtue of "inclusiveness," it was no surprise somebody in the class wondered if having a point of view makes for propaganda. In which case it would make sense to abandon the term entirely.

Before we did that, I suggested, maybe the instructor could help us frame the discussion with some kind of definition of the term.

Our instructor was, like Churchill said of Russia, something of a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. An emigrant from the Eastern Bloc, "Ivan" -- I'll call him -- was raised and schooled under the Communist system -- which left him ambivalent in ways he didn't see. One moment he was critical of the Soviet system, another he attacked American films from an Marxist position. His idea of "propaganda" was what he derided as "Hollywood films", which he insisted were nothing but vehicles for middle-class (i.e. "bourgeois") values. (In the light of conservative film critic Michael Medved's attack on Hollywood for being a propaganda machine for left-wing values, I found this ironic.) A whispered comment behind me seems to apply to many with strong opinions on the subject: "Propaganda is whatever the instructor disagrees with." And that was about as close to a definition for the term that anybody was ever able to come up with in our class.

Nevertheless, nobody in class gave any indication -- not even Ivan -- that they understood how close such a cynical definition of "propaganda" was to the one given by postmodern thinkers. There was no sense anyone was aware of the current turmoil in all the disciplines regarding the impossibility of finding objective truth. Old-style definitions of "propaganda" were once keyed to the now-discarded assumption that some "objective" view of history existed and could be found. Our discussion, it seemed, would be proceeding under the unexamined assumption that such a thing as "truth" still existed. Good thing, I thought. Because there's not much point in discussing anything if it doesn't.

Our next stop in pursuit of "truth" followed the track of the Soviet filmmakers in their pursuit of what they called "realism."

EISENSTEIN'S COLLEGUE and occasional rival, V.I. Pudovkin, was even more of a theorist than Eisenstein, applying his developing ideas about both film editing and film acting in his film Mother (1926), another retelling of the Communist myth. Here, czarist oppression converts an ordinary Russian mother into a red flag-waving radical, caught in a flow of historical forces symbolized by ice moving inexorably down a frozen river. Pudovkin utilized select images to trigger emotional responses he wanted to provoke in the course of his films. This technique can be quite effective, especially if employed with a certain subtleness , but I found it at times a tiresome non sequitur to have to look at trees and flowers whenever a character was shown to feel happy.

At the same time, and paradoxically, Pudovkin's handling of the action in his stories was more realistic than the often idealized imagery of Eisenstein. This fact, teacher Ivan suggested, made Pudovkin's work intrinsically superior to that of Eisenstein. I was already beginning to make a nuisance of myself in these discussions and so I decided not to point out that this seemed a rather superficial handling of an old, unresolved debate in the history of art and literature. In cinema, the dueling traditions of "real" and "ideal" (or "mythic") go back to those original pioneers of film, Georges Melies (who staged fantastic trips to the moon) and the Lumiere brothers (who shot scenes from life). Pudovkin himself demonstrates the inherent difficulty of visually depicting "the real" -- bouncing awkwardly between actual workers (as opposed to professional actors) playing themselves and images of nature as stand-ins for a different kind of "inner" reality.

The problem with deciding which approach is more "true to life" is that one always begins with certain assumptions -- not just about "truth," but about "life" and "art" as well. If we begin with the assumption that the basis of everything is economics or matter, as did Marx, we may find we have to talk out another side of the mouth if we want to talk about art. That's why "real" and "ideal" have always been two sides of the teeter-totter and both are at odds in the unsettling montage called "Socialist Realism."

Let's make some distinctions we never got around to making in class. We'll start by admitting up front the obvious: "realism" is a loaded term, relative to many considerations. "Realism" is one thing in epistemology, something else in metaphysics, something entirely different in politics. In literature, realism is (broadly speaking) "fidelity to nature." Opposed to the Romantic movement, Realism envinces a narrow bias toward naturalism -- or even a "scientific" realism that limits "reality" to that which can be quantified, measured and weighed. Just the opposite is "Magical Realism" -- a recent Latin American example of that long tradition of depicting psychological or other realities via fantasy, fables, and myth. In the visual arts, realism may be identified with the "representational", as opposed to impressionistic or abstract art -- though partisans of the latter would say their goal in employing non-representational art is an inner or emotional realism. Finally, we recall that the official Soviet art style mandated portrayal of "reality" as dictated by ideological considerations, i.e. Marxist ideals.

Further problems are introduced by the notion of so-called "documentary" realism -- though when introducing us to the Soviet pioneer of the documentary form, Ivan seemed oblivious to the ongoing debate over how "neutral" or "objective" that form can be. The naturalistic cinematography popularized in the Sixties by European filmmakers as cinema veritae was known by Djiga Verta as kino pravda. (Typically, Ivan showed no trace of irony in the term "pravda," Russian for "truth," but also the name of the daily Communist Party journal of carefully spun disinformation.)

The documentary style does not insure a more "objective" eye. The camera puts a frame on reality as soon as you turn it on and point it at something. What the man with the camera includes or excludes from the frame, which shots are included or excluded and in what order -- all presuppose choices -- political or aesthetic -- on the part of the filmmaker. The Soviet experiments with editing and montage proved that cutting disparate images together creates a new reality, one that didn't exist when the images were first recorded separately -- and more important, may have had nothing to do with scenes observed with supposed "neutrality."

Vertov scorned playacting in films and had much to say about the cinema's responsibility to be a "reflection of reality." Yet Vertov was the most famous of the U.S.S.R.'s "enthusiastic chroniclers of a nonexistent reality" (Horton and Brashinsky, 130). In his film Enthusiasm (1931), Djiga Vertov masterfully juxtoposes images with the obvious intent to and effect of demonizing religion and glorifying the Soviet worker. But while there's plenty of actual footage of coal miners, steel workers, and farmers, for some reason he neglected to include shots of protesters forced collectivization being sent to the Gulag, alonw with managers who failed their quota. Yet Vertov's films were shown as the "newsreel" before the features in Soviet theaters.

The flow of Enthusiasm goes thus. Shots of religious fanatics kissing icons. Cut to joyful mobs pulling crosses down from steeples, looting churches. Cut to workers pouring their religious energies into production, with bountiful result. Finally, a sequence of talking-head interviews, as grinning workers endorse Socialism like it was some life-changing product: "I needed help. I turned to Lenin, he was there to help me."

Of course, Lenin ultimately functioned as more than just a helpful banker or insurance company. On the Soviet leader's untimely death, "realists" like Vertov dedicated the documentary to the service of religious iconography. Lenin had been a special patron of film, and this grateful filmmaker led Soviet cinema into the sound era with Three Songs of Lenin (1934), visualized hymns -- almost music videos. The lyrics of the songs urge the viewer to cast their cares on Lenin, to become one with Lenin, reminding them that before Lenin, their lives were meaningless. And over footage of school children viewing his waxy corpse in the Red Square mausoleum, the songs chorus that Lenin has conquered death. One day people will forget the names of their own homelands, but will remember the name of Lenin.

Later Soviet leaders may have denounced Stalin's notorious "Cult of Personality," but the blame would seem to rest on their own successful strategy in redirecting the people's religious "enthusiasm" to Communist icons. Lenin's successor as head icon Joseph Stalin was paranoid and brilliant; his doltish exterior led many rivals, like Trotsky, to underestimate him. Stalin took charge and systematically purged his enemies and perceived enemies from government -- or from life: estimates of the number of his people murdered by Stalin range upwards of forty million.

Some argue that Stalin perverted pure Marxist/Leninist ideals, that a revolution bright with promise was sidetracked into tragic ends. They point out that Lenin himself was preparing to warn the Party against Stalin when he was stricken by his final disabling stroke. Yet the future seems clearly set forth in Vertov's documentaries -- though it is not a future the filmmaker himself would have predicted. Relentless images of impersonal machinery, religious fanaticism attached to technology and material efficiency, the glorification of Workers in the abstract, all clearly press towards a philosophy of "the end justifies the means" and the insignificance of the individual.

The Bolsheviks sought to harness the deep religious ferver of the Russian people to building communism; for awhile, it seemed to work. A generation of true believers poured their souls into raising a sprawling backward nation into an industrial giant. But the inadequacy of materialism to ground human values and fulfill spiritual needs quickly became clear. By the 1930s, the only way to continue building Communism was with violence and terror. Stalin's purges created an atmosphere of terrified compliance and silence -- thus commencing the U.S.S.R.'s long Ice Age, one punctuated and aggravated by a devastating world war. The Soviet film industry contributed layers to the glaciers in their mass-produced and mechanical cinematic paeans to Stalin.

And yet the frozen river moved inexorably on. In 1953, Stalin became a second waxy corpse in the Red Square Mausoleum.

BEHIND THE STONY KREMLIN WALLS a complex and violent power struggle eventually left Nikita Khrushchev in charge. In 1956, Khrushchev hoped to further consolidate power by denouncing his notorious predecessor and his "Cult of Personality" in a secret speech to party insiders -- the beginning of an unprecedented, if brief, "thaw" in the Soviet Ice Age. Stalin's body was removed from the Mausoleum, cities named for him were renamed, his face was removed from official displays of Soviet icons. After years of total idolatry, this new purge gave the system a real shock.

The changes were quickly (if tentatively) reflected in Soviet cinema, which had been singled out by Khrushchev for its own sins in idol-making. The 1957 film Cranes Are Flying depicts a society chastened by devastating world war -- with the Stalinist purges, no doubt, as an unspoken subtext. Either way, Cranes is the confession of a deeply wounded national psyche, one placing its future hopes not in glib triumphalist slogans but in mere survival. The official rejection of Stalinism also coincided with a growing awareness that utter materialism was fatal to both humanity and art. And so stirrings of a deeper humanity are seen in Cranes as the abstractions of Socialist realism give way to unique individuals and ordinary human behavior, following the story of a young couple separated by the Second World War. Beautiful black and white cinematography captures skillfully-choreographed movement: as the camera chases a figure through the crowd we see the reemergence of the individual from "The People".

Another film set in World War II is director Grigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier (1960), a bittersweet tale of young love and adventure among ordinary Russian people and families, an oasis in the horrors of war. The style is reminiscent of 1930s Hollywood, John Ford with touches of Frank Capra, all overhung with sadness. The 1962 film, My Name is Ivan, is the most beautiful of Soviet World War II movies, and it announced a new, original voice in cinema: Andrei Tarkovsky. This director's mystical faith in the power of images to communicate their own meaning led to a more impressionistic style, one that made the authorities nervous.

Indeed, aware that some kind of genie was escaping, Soviet leadership sought to plug the bottle. Khrushchev was sacked in 1964, part of a clampdown under Leonid Brezhnev that lasted through the 1970s. Yet a growing dissent movement spread forbidden information via samizdat, hand-copied or secretly printed texts. Audio versions, magnitizdat, included underground and Western music. Due to the expense of filmmaking, and the difficulty of making copies in a pre-video cassette era, underground cinema was impossible. Nevertheless, most filmmakers were no longer true believers, and artists employed real creativity in subversive and metaphorical attacks on Communist ideas and the Soviet system.