Tsar to Lenin is a documentary and cinematic record of the
Russian Revolution, produced by Herman Axelbank.[1] It
premiered on March 6, 1937, at the Filmarte Theatre on Fifty-Eighth
Street in New York City. Pioneer American radical Max Eastman
(1883-1969) narrates the film.[2] Because of its pro-Trotskyist position, the film was suppressed by the Stalinists of the American Communist Party[3] and was only widely available in a shortened format in the Library of Congress[4] until its re-release in 2012 by the Socialist Equality Party (US),[5] who state that its predecessor, the Workers League, purchased the film from Axelbank in 1978 and organized showings of the film in the intervening period.[6]
The footage was collected by Herman Axelbank, starting in 1920. The
scenes of the film were gathered from more than 100 different cameras
over the course of the next thirteen years.[2] Those behind the camera
include the Tsar's royal photographer, the Tsar himself, Soviet
photographers, military staff photographers of Germany, Great Britain,
Japan and the United States, and others.[7]
The narration is provided by the American radical Max Eastman, who
was originally slated to write captions to explain the scenes and help
raise money to finance the project.[8] Eastman was chosen by Axelbank because of Eastman's
close political relations with many leaders of the Bolshevik party,
chiefly with Leon Trotsky.[7] He also was among the first to provide an
account of the political struggle between Trotsky and Joseph Stalin
to the international arena.[9]
Eastman also provided Axelbank with additional footage, which included
the Tsar swimming with his courtiers, nude. Eastman's narration for this
sequence is, "This is the first time the world has seen a king as he
really is!”[10]
The film premiered at the Filmarte Theater in New York City on March
6, 1937.
Controversy
The New York Post gave a favorable review of the film, where they
said it was done "extremely well".[11]
Supporters of Stalin in the US denounced the film. The documentary,
which appeared at the height of the Moscow Trials, showed the chief
defendant, Trotsky, in an extremely favorable light.[7]
Eastman said at the time,
"Trotsky had led the October insurrection and organized the Red army—the films said so—but Stalin was now in total power. Tsar to Lenin never got the distance of a few dollars beyond the Filmarte Theatre."
Five days after the outpouring of praise, a big-headlined article appeared in the Daily Worker, the daily newspaper of the Communist Party, came out decrying Eastman. It said,
"Max Eastman, chief apologist for the Trotsky band of traitors to the Soviet Socialist land, has assembled news-reels and documentary clips. This man is an expert in distortion, chicanery, trickery, innuendo, and outright lies … Tzar to Lenin must be boycotted … Protest to the management of the Filmarte Theatre … Make it clear to other theatres that Tzar to Lenin is unadulterated Trotskyist propaganda, and as such cannot be tolerated by the friends of freedom. …Boycott Tzar to Lenin!”[3]
^Nugent, Frank S.
"Tsar to Lenin, a Documentary Film. Edited and Compiled by Max Eastman,
Collected and Produced by Herman Axelbank." Rev. of Tsar to Lenin. New
York Post 9 Mar. 1937
