Stalin Cinema symposium took place in Toulouse on May 4 and 5. The Toulouse collection of films founded in the fifties by a votary of the USSR Raymond Bord includes a great number of soviet films that were screened in Toulouse for two months. However, not only Battleship Potemkin and Chapayev were on but also some of the pictures seldom shown abroad such as Medvedkin’s Happiness, Pyryev’s Party Card, Ermler’s Remnants of an Empire and even some films for children.

The symposium that was originally not expected to attract much attention became an event of great importance for cinema critics and Sovietologists. Among the participants were specialists who spent decades of their life studying problems of social realism, soviet cinema and soviet history – thus amateurish or purely evaluative approach to the problem was excluded.

Professionalism of the researchers could not but excite sincere admiration. For example, an Englishwoman from Plymouth who delivered a speech on the film Spring cited a passage from Kabardinskaya Pravda, a republican soviet newspaper. One can only wonder how she came to read Kabardinskaya Pravda in Plymouth.

As I was born in 1945 I could in a sense play the part of a looker-on – Stalin films were not films of my childhood. Statistical data – such as number of cinemas and screened pictures – speak for themselves and say much about the development of soviet cinema and ideology. Just consider the project (however not implemented) of a huge 3000-seat cinema opposite the 2000-seat Bolshoi theatre with a palatial marble entrance hall, luxury bar-room etc. Or the fact that Stalin’s name was practically not mentioned in news films of 1942 – not even in the cine-magazine devoted to the jubilee of the October revolution. Apparently Stalin didn’t want to attract attention to himself as long as the issue of the war was in doubt.

It was also interesting and sometimes amusing to consider the list of cinemas. For example, Nero turned into Spartacus and a Budapest cinema REX was renamed into MARX after the war.

The symposium name aroused disputes because of its vagueness. The participants suggested several interpretations:

"Cinema of the Stalin era";

"Cinema of social realism";

"Cinema celebrating Stalin";

"Cinema of the soviet period";

"Cinema expressing totalitarian ideas".

And finally, "Stalin Cinema" with a question mark would express doubt about existence of Stalin cinema as such. This was what several participants of the symposium suggested to do. In their opinion, new methods and ideas of soviet film directors found their way to the screen notwithstanding censorial pressure of the 30’s-50’s.

It was quite hard for censors to do anything about the powerful creative impetus obtained by soviet cinema from avant-gardists and constructivists in the twenties. Interest to form and unique talent of the film directors turned ideological pictures into real works of art. Naturally, little by little the impetus receded and this eventually resulted in creation of truly Stalin films such as Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin and The Oath.

Few of non-specialists are aware of an amazing fact that the Central Committee of the communist party established an ad-hoc Art council that existed from 1944 through 1947 and included well-known film directors (Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Alexandrov, Pyryev) and famous actors. Naturally many members of the council strictly followed the party policy. However, the council actually discussed artistic merits and demerits of films and made recommendations for release. Some members of the council, such as Mikhail Romm, even ventured to speak in support of disgraced film directors.

By the way, the former soviet film director Gabai told one of the participants an amusing story about Romm. One evening in summer 1953 Gabai leaving the building of Mosfilm noticed the light in Romm’s window. Entering his workroom he saw Romm with heaps of film.

"Mikhail Ilyich, what are you doing?"

"Why, I’m cutting out Stalin".

Mikhail Romm actually cut out Stalin from the film Lenin in October. Note that, first, he did it three years before the 20th congress of the communist party and, secondly, the cut-out didn’t do any perceptible damage to the picture – apparently scenes with Stalin were shot with the idea that they would be cut out later.

As cinema critics repeatedly wrote, soviet cinema of the 30’s-40’s did not show real life but created an idealistic image of what life in the USSR was expected to be; what viewers saw was the future translated into the present and a fairy tale translated into a true story. Stalin’s words of 1935 (“Life’s become better, life’s become jollier”) were reflected in musicals. It was not surprising that at least three of symposium participants presented reports on this subject. Speaking about Stalin musicals they noted that, first, geographically hopes usually came true in Moscow and, secondly, love stories never had any sexual connotations. Sex was claimed not to exist – maybe under the influence of the image of abstentious leader who worked nights instead of sleeping.

The pictures created an image of a nationwide family headed by a common wise father. Fairytale origin of the Utopia was not even concealed. The film The Shining Path that was originally named Cinderella ends with a scene in which a fairy takes the heroine to rake the achievements in a luxurious car that suddenly acquires wings. The story of the Sleeping Beauty actually underlies the plot of Spring: the heroine awakes and recognizes the beauty of life represented by white coats of marching demonstrants and luxurious evening dress.

Apparently ideas of beautiful and even luxurious life started to come into the gloomy soviet reality through musicals. Was it a result of influence of leader’s tastes or did it happen by itself?

Anyway, the ideal of the soviet beauty of the 30’s – a machine woman in a quilted jacket and kerchief – blended in with the return of an elegant way of life, at least in musicals.

In the late 40’s Krestyanka and Rabotniza magazines first started to publish pictures of women in elegant clothes with beautifully styled hair. The nation-wide object of adoration actress Lyubov Orlova took for a model the way of life led by Hollywood stars: personal car driver, housemaid and masseuse. Hers and Alexandrov’s villa was the twin of the one owned by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Lyubov Orlova managed to successfully combine elegance and quilted jacket on the screen. The wonderful music of Dunaevsky helped her much of course. Leaving a cinema with Dunaevsky’s music in their heads people felt life really had become better and jollier.

Now back to the symposium. Serious approach and professionalism of the specialists can not but satisfy the heart. However, naivety and innocence of some representatives of the Western middle class is confusing. It first struck my eye many years ago at the beginning of the reconstruction upon acquaintance with an American lady who made a stand for friendship with the USSR. Once she presented me a badge passed “to the soviet people” by her neighbour.

Adjusting the badge to my dress the American suddenly burst into tears. Startled I asked her why she was crying. It turned out that her neighbour’s husband had died and the widow had to work at a military factory to support her children. Passing the badge to my American acquaintance she asked her to tell soviet people she worked at a military factory not because she was for war but because she had to earn for living.

This incident suggested to me various thoughts on the effectiveness of propaganda, on the astonishing innocence (in our opinion approaching stupidity) of 'ordinary Americans' and our inherent cynicism.

Of course it might well be not the matter of upbringing but of intellect, and the ratio of intelligent and not very intelligent people is practically the same everywhere. But isn’t it at least partly true that being determines consciousness?

One more example – at a party in one of Bordo cinemateques I got acquainted with a nice old Frenchwoman, a former teacher. Our tastes were very much alike. We both liked Romer – this name is practically unknown in France. This woman saw many soviet films including those of Tarkovsky and we spoke a little about The Sacrifice. Two weeks later I got a letter from her in which she wrote about this picture. I suddenly found out that she understood the idea of the film in her own way and that her notion of the picture fundamentally disagreed with what Tarkovsky wanted to say. Was I to tell her that Tarkovsky’s views and outlook were so different from what she thought them to be? She could believe and understand me but she could as well misunderstand me and feel hurt.

We are still surprised at love and sincere sympathy for the Soviet Union of the 30’s-50’s which was expressed not only by ordinary people but also by more knowledgeable Western intellectuals. Their awareness is questionable though. People usually see what they want to see.

As to amazing popularity of the soviet cinema in the West, it might well be explained. We should only remember that cinema clubs and cinemateques were established in the Western Europe just after the Second World War when Europeans were in sympathy with the USSR and communists because of their heroic performance in the war. Sympathy of the French for their own communists and the Soviet Union could be explained by the sense of shame for their abstention from struggle with Hitler (28% of the French voted for communists in 1945 and 25% in 1950). In my opinion this was the reason why the French crowded cinemas and were so enthusiastic not only about Barnet’s Outskirts (later Rivette called him the only great soviet film director) but also about The Fall of Berlin. Given the high artistic quality of the films, interest to soviet cinema is not surprising.

For the communist party of France and its new leader Maurice Thorez admiration for Stalin was a kind of 'moral legitimation' of Thorez, “the best Frenchman and the best communist”. This aim was particularly achieved by creation of the picture The Man Whom We Love Most (L'homme que nous aimons le plus) after Paul Eluard’s filmscript. This twenty two-minute film full of ideological and artistic cliches was practically not shown – at first because of censorship (it was shown only in worker clubs) and then just because of the feeling of shame.

At the symposium a report was delivered about a famous cinema critic Georges Sadoul well-known in the USSR for his devotion for the soviet state and its cinema. Sadoul wrote about 80 (!) reviews on soviet films of Stalin and post-Stalin times in the Les lettres francaises magazine. According to him, there were three 'golden ages' of soviet cinema – silent films, films of the late 30’s (of which Chapayev was the favourite) and post-war cinema with such 'masterpieces' as The Fall of Berlin and The Oath.

As readers may remember, Venichka Yerofeev wondered where Russians were most appreciated – on the near side or on the other side of the Pyrenees. As for the other side, I don’t know yet. As for the near side, the appreciation is obvious.

• This article in Russian