ABSTRACT
Comparable transformations in urban settings meant that private enterprise was actually eliminated by the early 1930s. The system of resident permits, or propiski, also made migration hard for the proletariat and intelligentsia, and city workers became, in effect, bondsmen of the state. Agricultural collectivization and industrialization was part of Stalin’s ambitious plan to catch up with and surpass the most advanced industrial countries of the West—to turn agrarian Russia into an industrial giant. The combined belief in the miracle of technological and social progress can be found in Eisenstein’s The Old and the New, which provided the official view of collectivization. Anti-individualistic ideas combined with the glorification of advanced technology are found in several movies. The struggle against class enemies remained one of the major preoccupations of filmmakers. Enemies of the revolution and socialism were portrayed, sometimes at the direct request of the authorities, as vile creatures.
