Emily Bostaph
Literature Review-The Soviet Cinefication Process
Since the development of the Cinématographe by the Lumière brothers in 1895, cinema
has become a key part of culture around the world. This was especially true in Soviet Russia.
Studying the Soviet cinematic industry can help historians explore cultural ideology, western
dependence, and government-business relationships as well as the state’s economy and
international policies. In this literature review I will examine seven different works that study
Soviet cinematography and the cinefication process. In my research no two historians have
agreed on the same source as initializing the cinefication process. This is a theme I have found in
all historians’ works that I have read on this topic. I will attempt to answer the question of whom
or what the historians believed started the Soviet cinefication process and how this defines their
periodization on the topic.
Cinefication or “kinofikatsiia”1 is a Soviet term that can be described as the expansion of
the cinema industry from urban Soviet Russia into rural Soviet Russia. This process took place
for multiple reasons, some scholars argue, the most common being the shift from privatized
industry to government owned industry. Jamie Miller, author of “Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The
Development of Industry and Infrastructure” published in 2006, defined cinefication as, “The
expansion of the cinema network and the availability of viewing facilities in both rural and urban
environments.”2 According to Russian historian Vance Kepley Jr., the term “was coined to
describe projected changes the Soviet system promised to bring to Russia, changes which
1
Vance Kepley Jr., “ ‘Cinefication’: Soviet Film Exhibition in the 1920s,” Film History 6, no. 2
(Summer, 1994): 262.
2
Jamie Miller, “Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure,”
Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 1 (2006): 109.
2
seemed so consequential as to require a new lexicon.”3 Kepley’s article “ 'Cinefication': Soviet
Film Exhibition in the 1920s,” published in 1994, goes on to say, “The Soviets vowed to 'cinefy'
the USSR in the course of developing film as a tool of mass education and persuasion. The effort
entailed building an infrastructure which would allow films to reach a mass audience.”4 The
seven works assessed in this literature review all include different theories on why the
cinefication process started, which also alters their periodization on the topic.
Almost all of the scholars I have researched agree on the ideology behind the Soviet
government’s support and funding of the cinefication process. This rationale included the Soviet
government wanting to use cinema as a propaganda tool, because of how quickly and easily it
reached the masses. The Soviet government wanted to use cinema as a means of demolishing
illiteracy, boosting the economy, as a tool of education. The USSR government especially
wanted to use it to legitimize communist ideology and actions revolving mostly around the
revolution and its aftermath, to eliminate social status, and to gain support of illiterate peasants.
The concepts behind endorsing the cinefication process are not debated, but the cause of the start
of the process.
In Louis Harris Cohen’s book published in 1974, The Cultural-Political Traditions and
Developments of the Soviet Cinema, 1917-1972 he sets the time frame, of the start of the
cinefication process, at the earliest out of all the historians I have examined. He believes the
process of cinefication started in August 1919 when Lenin signed the decree of, “The Transfer of
Photographic and Cinematographic Trade and Industry to the Jurisdiction of the People’s
Vance Kepley Jr., “ ‘Cinefication’: Soviet Film Exhibition in the 1920s,” Film History 6, no. 2
(Summer, 1994): 262.
4
Ibid.
3
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Commissariat for Enlightenment.”5 Lenin believed cinema could fight and destroy the class
system, educate a variety of people, and could “foster a new socialist morality,”6 which was why
he promoted the government take over of cinema from private owners in 1919. According to
Cohen, Lenin believed the cinema as “the answer to the appointed hopes of the Communist
Party.”7 Cohen argues that this decree was the start of the expansion of the cinema industry and
that the start far predated those theories of the other historians we will look at.
In Neya Zorkaya’s book The Illustrated History of the Soviet Cinema, published in 1989,
she moves the time line up a bit, when categorizing the start of the expansion of the cinema
industry. Unlike Cohen, she believes through her research that the cinefication process began in
1925 with the start of the cinema exporting industry.8 Zorkaya discusses how Soviet film
companies quickly realized that the “uneducated masses”9 were flooding into their theaters and
that to increase revenue they needed to transform the types of movies they were showing to
“cater”10 to their audiences, so they began “importing productions.”11 Around 1919, Zorkaya
writes that all privately owned cinematic industries became nationalized.12
Once nationalized, the government wanted to cease the importing process of films, until
they realized in 1920, after the civil war “ravaged their studios”13 that they needed to import
“essential film equipment.”14 According to Zorkaya, because the industry was able to quickly
5
Louis Harris Cohen, The Cultural-Political Traditions and Developments of the Soviet Cinema,
1917-1972 (New York: Arno Press, 1974), 33.
6
Ibid., 30.
7
Ibid., 33.
8
Neya Zorkaya, The Illustrated History of the Soviet Cinema (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency
Publishing House, 1989), 106.
9
Ibid., 31.
10
Ibid., 31
11
Ibid., 32.
12
Ibid., 37.
13
Ibid., 47.
14
Ibid., 47.
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recover, in 1925 the Soviet Union began exporting films.15 Zorkaya claims that other countries
“were eager consumers of films put out by the young Soviet film industries, for they were
profitable.”16 This process led to progress in the import-export industry, which allowed the
Soviet film market to become predominant. Because she attributes the expansion process to the
exporting industry, her time frame revolves around the early to mid 1920s, especially focusing
on 1925.
In her 1992 essay “Government Policies and Practical Necessitates in the Soviet Cinema
of the 1920s,” Kristin Thompson attempts to disprove the theory that Cohen uses as his thesis
that Lenin and his transfer decrees led to cinefication in 1919. Thompson places the start of
cinefication in May of 1924, when taxes were placed on cinemas, which helped the industry
recover after the New Economic Policy was implemented.17 Thompson says that when studying
economic aspects, it is easily discovered that “the government gave direct subsidies to the film
industry only on a limited and inadequate basis.”18 This forced the cinema industry to be selfsustaining and was expected to do so by “importing and distributing foreign films.”19 This
caused revenue to skyrocket, but quickly failed when the government tried to implement policies
for the industry to become less dependent on the West.
The goal of the NEP was to eventually become fully self-sustaining, but never worked
because the government failed to subsidize.20 In 1921, the NEP backed off their policies and
allowed the industry to continue with foreign trade, but at this point no other country was
15
Neya Zorkaya, The Illustrated History of the Soviet Cinema (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency
Publishing House, 1989), 106.
16
Ibid.
17
Kristin Thompson, “Government Policies and Practical Necessities in the Soviet Cinema of the
1920s,” The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema, edited by Anna Lawton (London:
Routledge, 1992): 25.
18
Ibid., 19.
19
Ibid., 19.
20
Ibid., 23.
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interested in trading with Soviet Russia. The way they recovered from all these failures was by
raising taxes on state cinema. “When the Council of People’s Commissars set the ceiling on state
cinema taxes at ten percent and on local taxes at five percent, this move no doubt bolstered the
recovery of the industry.”21 Thompson focuses around the same time frame as Zorkaya but has
opposing ideas as to what started the cinefication process.
Vance Kepley Jr.’s article published in 1996, “The First Perestroika: Soviet Cinema
Under the First Five Year Plan,” argues that the cinefication process occurred in 1928. Kepley
bases his article around the idea that Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan was the reason the cinefication
process was started. Under Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan, “the state restructured agriculture and
industry and installed the command economy that would reshape the whole Soviet system.”22
The First Five-Year Plan occurred at the same time that the Cultural Revolution was happening,
which led to “tight controls”23 being implemented on all cultural aspects. The cinema industry
quickly became engulfed in governmental restrictions and guidance. Kepley discusses that in
Stalin’s Plan he wanted to make movies a “genuine mass art”24 which led to it quickly becoming
“nationalized and more directly subordinate to state planning and control.”25
Kepley believes that the cinefication process “came about through the reorganization of
cinemas infrastructure.”26 Because Kepley attributes the start of the cinefication process to the
First Five-Year Plan, he bases his studies around 1928 to 1932. In this article, Kepley uses all
Kristin Thompson, “Government Policies and Practical Necessities in the Soviet Cinema of the
1920s,” The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema, edited by Anna Lawton (London:
Routledge, 1992): 25.
22
Vance Kepley Jr., “The First ‘Perestroika’: Soviet Cinema under the First Five-Year Plan,”
Cinema Journal 35, no. 4 (Summer, 1996): 31.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid., 32.
25
Ibid., 32.
26
Ibid., 32.
21
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secondary sources, which means he bases all of his research around other historians works,
meaning he does not develop an argument for himself using his own archival research.
Historian Jamie Miller uses his 2006 article, “Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development
of Industry and Infrastructure” to discuss how sound technology jumpstarted the cinefication
process in the Soviet Union. His article examines how the Bolsheviks quickly realized that
cinema was widely popular and easily accessible, which made it a “potentially powerful
weapon.”27 Miller goes on to say how the Bolsheviks wanted to use cinema in multiple ways
including “eliminating illiteracy”28 and “educating the masses”29 especially in a way that the
population could better understand “the revolution, the new socialist reality, and their part in that
reality.”30 Miller, as well as some of the other historians, examines the Party Conference on
Cinema, which was held in March 1928.31 During this meeting, the conference members decided
it was crucial for the cinema to “reach the masses,”32 to become less dependent on Western
films, and that the need to eliminate social status revolving around the industry was vital. They
thought the most efficient way of achieving these goals was to make their political message more
entertaining. According to Miller, the government already knew that movies projected with
sound were more popular, but the lack of sound equipment and developers in the Soviet Union
forced them to look outside the country for that technology.33
It took the Soviet Union until 1935 to start manufacturing sound technology, which
Miller argues led to the start of the cinefication process in the late 1930s. Miller states, “The
Jamie Miller, “Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure,”
Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 1 (2006): 103.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid., 105.
32
Ibid., 105.
33
Ibid., 107.
27
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issue of sound was of central importance in persuading the peasantry throughout the USSR that
the Soviet political system was working for their interests.”34 Not only did the installation of
sound in the cinema industry pull in more moviegoers out of interest but also allowed the
government to project Soviet propaganda and ideology to a wider rage of viewers. Miller
believes this piece of technology was essential to starting the cinefication process, now that the
government knew it would be possible to reach a wider variety of people.
Jamie Miller later on wrote another work on Soviet cinema and the cinefication process.
Unlike his article, his book Soviet Cinema: Politics and Persuasion Under Stalin, published in
2010, attributes the start of the cinefication process not to sound but to the Soiuzkino and their
established decrees.35 Unlike his article that states the process started solely because of the
development of sound technology, in his book he claims the Soviet administrative body called
the Soiuzkino was responsible for stimulating the spread of the industry.
In his book, Miller starts by writing how the Soviet government wanted to develop Soviet
cinema as a tool of education and mainly “gain the support among the overwhelmingly illiterate
peasant masses in the civil war that followed the October 1917 Revolution.”36 The Soviet
government wanted to create a centralized industry that could be easily accessed by the masses
and provide “ideologically sound”37 material. Miller negates Kepley’s claim that the Five-Year
Plan triggered the start of the cinefication process. Miller claims that Stalin’s Five-Year Plan, the
Bolsheviks, and their micromanaging actually held back the development of cinema, not
Jamie Miller, “Soviet Cinema, 1929-41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure,”
Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 1 (2006): 111.
35
Jamie Miller, Soviet Cinema: Politics and Persuasion Under Stalin (London: I.B. Tauris,
2010), 19.
36
Ibid., vii.
37
Ibid., 15.
34
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improved it.38 Miller states that they were “stunting the growth and success of Soviet cinema.”39
He thinks that they were so concerned with micromanaging that they hindered the industries’
progress.
Miller also mentions the March 1928 Party Conference on Cinema but states that this
again just slowed down the growth process, because the conference led to centralized
government control over cinema.40 Miller claims that only when the Soiuzkino was instated in
1930 did the cinefication process start to take place. The Soiuzkino was the new cinema
administration body, “responsible for the broad leadership, planning, and regulation of the
cinema industry.”41 The Soiuzkino was in charge of overseeing the newly established
governmental decrees concerning “economic development of cinema.”42 These decrees were,
“establishing funds for the expansion and growth of the industry.”43 This took place between
1929 and 1930.
Because Miller’s article and book claim that two different causes started the cinefication
process, this led to confusion. In his book, he later clarifies this confusion when stating that
indeed the Soiuzkino and the government decrees started the expansion of the industry,
commencing the cinefication process, but it was sound that made the industry widely popular.
Because of his article and book having two very different theses, it makes it hard to understand
which one he is clearly supporting or if they really do intertwine. Or it could be showing the fact
that scholars, with more research and insight, can change their original thesis. Going off of his
theory in his book, he categorizes the process as taking place around the same time frame as
38
Jamie Miller, Soviet Cinema: Politics and Persuasion Under Stalin (London: I.B. Tauris,
2010), 15.
39
Ibid.
Ibid., 19.
41
Ibid., 19.
42
Ibid., 19.
43
Ibid., 19.
40
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Kepley does. He believes the expansion of the industry started in 1929 to 1930, much like
Kepley theorizes.
Unlike all of these historians, Kristin Roth-Ey jumps way out of the time frame we have
been looking at, as she is studying the post-Stalin era cinematic industry in her book Moscow
Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War,44
published in 2011. She bases her thesis into the 1960s and revolves it around the idea that the
westernization of Soviet film caused the massive expansion and construction of the Soviet
cinema industry. She does not really fit into the pattern of the other historians I am researching,
but does provide a valid argument with an abundance of research to convince the reader that this
was the start of the industry. It is important to use books like Moscow Prime Time to gain
perspective on how other historians, writing on a later periodization, still incorporate the
importance of early movie technology.
Through looking at these seven sources it is easy to see that not all historians agree on
when, what, or who was involved in the aspect of starting the cinefication process. As important
as this process is, there is no clear way of knowing which historian is correct in naming the time
frame revolved around this aspect or even who is correct in naming what started the process. No
two historians agree on the matter, which makes researching the topic difficult but writing on the
historiography easy. All the scholars but one used reputable sources so it is difficult to say that
the scholars all have differentiating answers because of lack of resources, seeing as they almost
all used archival and primary sources, including many of the same archives.
44
Kristin Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost
the Cultural Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011).
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