The (Anti-)Marxist/Communist Propaganda: The Storming of the Winter Palace

The grandest, albeit possibly ideologically destructive, early Soviet mass spectacle is without a doubt The Storming of the Winter Palace (1920). The spectacle itself was directed by Nikolai Eureinov and involved 8,000 “actors” (although they were emphasized as “real,” and the director even went as far as to gather some of his actors from actual participants in the real event) plus the crowd of 100,000. Claire Bishop considered this to be the culminating event of the 1920 spectacles, and for good reason (scale, ideological message, etc.). But the work, in and of itself, is a massive contradiction, both the epitome of Soviet propaganda, as well as refuting the ideology that Lenin sought to portray through this (inter)nationalistic(-socialist) piece.

The work can be considered the ultimate form of Soviet propaganda for various reasons. The elimination of the proscenium, and the thrust of the spectacle into the public space almost (or always) forces those present to be included in the collective (a VERY important Soviet/socialist idea) nature of the work. This mass audience, coupled with the emotionally evocative scene of the “triumph” of the revolution over the “oppressive” imperialism, fetched just the sort of reaction that Lenin attempted with his monumental propaganda (just with a larger, more emotional, perhaps even revolutionary effect): a crweation of a strictly socialist history that was both real and relatable. This added a context that most Russians (yet still the “unified” socialists) could identify with, rather than depicting “great fighters for socialism” who were not even associated with Eastern European, let alone Russian, history. The sheer scope of the re-enactment also resulted in a rekindling (of sorts) of the revolutionary atmosphere of the actual event, perhaps counter to the mere intention of flag waving nationalism (+socialism) but it produced results, unlike the complex and proscenium-divided Proletkult theatrical performances. These spectacles, especially this one, harnessed the emotional appeal of the Italian serate on a broader, yet simplistic, scale.

However, there are subtleties in the production that are inherently anti-Soviet. For one, the grandiosity of the spectacle could possibly be likened to bourgeoisie forms of art that produce similar grandiose evocations (perhaps not in physical scale, but certainly in ideological determinism). However, this is merely speculative and certainly more substantive evidence would need to be presented before this claim could be made. A more tangible claim would be how the spectacles undermined the idea of the socialist collective (very ethnically diverse and widespread, i.e. transnational socialism). The spectacle most certainly idolized the Bolsheviks and placed them on a pedestal in the public consciousness by asserting that where all other socialist experiments have tried (and failed to sustain themselves) here the Soviets (or here interchangeable with Russians) have succeeded (a pretty obvious assertion of “Russian primacy”). That’s not a very “Soviet” performance at all. Also, the production is counterproductive to Lenin’s purist view of Marxist history– that history cannot be discarded but must be built upon by and for the proletariat– by making it so realistic that it implanted a new point of reference in the minds of the people as to how the Winter Palace fiasco actually went down. Basically, in their minds, this event was so real and fit a cleaner narrative that it became remembered as the “way it really happened.” And because Lenin and the Soviet commissioned these works, they allowed for this subversion of history and manipulation of the proletariat (the same people they were trying to free from the bonds of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie by the way).

So, along with being very propagandistic, the work can certainly be viewed as anti-propaganda as well (more so to the former in my opinion, because the spectacles, as Emma Goldman proposed, were quite mechanical and almost “oppressive” in nature, leading me to equate these events with the force-feeding of an ideology down the throats of citizens, i.e. propaganda).