The Soviet Story (2008)

I am very interested in Soviet history and was looking forward to checking this out but sadly I couldn't take any more and switched off after about 20 minutes. Whilst some of the factual content was interesting and made me go back and re-examine other sources regarding the Soviet famine, the documentary's style is unwatchably sensationalist. The narrator's voiceovers are laden with faux-gravitas and incredibly pejorative language. He nearly spits the word 'communist' like he's leading a McCarthy-era US commie witch hunt.The interviews are very one-sided and strangely seem to have been conducted in the 1980s; why, given this was made in 2008, did they not interview current experts in the field instead of digging out old footage of historians from 30 years ago? What it lacks in evidence it tries to make up for by bombarding you with explosive sounds and graphics, which becomes very old very quickly.The overall quality of the documentary is about the level and style you'd expect from one of those shows constantly rerun of the History channel. I guess I've been spoiled by the high quality and measured tone of BBC historical documentaries, but this just feels tacky and lacking in objectivity to me. I'm really surprised by the number of glowing reviews this has received on here.

The horror was inexcusable but there is no mention of our own benefit from this horror. All the World, or at least the elites controlling all nations, were opposing the Soviets. Thirteen nations invaded to help the White Russians put down the Communist revolt. From the beginning Stalin knew well that Germany wanted a resource rich empire and that the Colonial powers had always thwarted any effort to compete with them in Africa and Asia, so they needed to go east. Stalin also had the Japanese threatening on his eastern border where they had been fighting since the Battle of Tsushima. He was desperate to industrialize and build a modern army but the rest of the World wouldn't help a communist country and refused all trade. It was only through confiscating the grain for sale on the international market that he managed to buy enough modern tools to start industry. Thinking the Japanese the lesser threat he built much of that industry in the East. In May of 1939 he attacked the Japanese and defeated them in what was the largest tank battle up to that time. Having started from a feudal society this was an amazing accomplishment. Without this attack by Stalin, well ahead of war in Europe, the army would have won the argument in Japan and joined Germany and Italy in attacking Russia from all sides. Instead the Navy won the argument and the Japanese went south. In August he signed the pact with Germany stalling off their attack and pushing his western boundary west to the centre of Poland. He may also have sent some resources to Germany, as depicted, again to stave off the attack he clearly knew was inevitable. Once Germany attacked the Russians fought back as best they could. They were the proletariat with no hundred year old military colleges so their command and control was the worst possible against German officers with a hundred year tradition behind them. They built more tanks and more planes in every month of the war than did the Germans but the planes especially were no match for the Messhersmits. It was a victory if a Russian plane could kill one German tank before it was shot down. In the largest tank battle ever fought at Kursk 100,000 Germans were killed or wounded vs. 850,000 Russians. They fought poorly, but if they hadn't been tying up the bulk of the German army, Britain would certainly have fallen and the Third Reich would be with us still. I repeat we are the major beneficiaries of Stalin's stealing of the grain, the nerve to attack the Japanese and the resolve to sacrifice any number of his 'comrades' fighting the Germans.

OMG Soviets were meanies. Who knew? I thought they were all about puppies and sunshine. Pardon my stupidity. ****** end sarcasm *******If the filmmaker didn't talk down to his audience, there could be an informative documentary here. But every other word is 'NOBODY KNOWS THIS BUT...'. Know what? I knew most of this already. There's some interesting details but the general takeaway is already widely known.1. Nazis and Soviets were originally Allies. Other than stupid Middle America, who doesn't know this? They invaded a Whole Country together. At best they could say is 'It's not widely spoken of by the Russians today'. With former KGB Putin at the helm, that's a more interesting angle to take. But this film treats it's audience with such naivety. Oh the Russians won't admit to Soviet crimes. Like that's some sort of news? Guess what? Neither do the Japs. You're not breaking any ground.2. Desperately trying to link National Socialism and Communism and thereby tar all left leaning politics. At times, it felt like an academic dissertation. At other times, it felt like selective arguments. I just kept thinking of George Orwell. These are just the various justifications of the same thing. TOTALITARIANISM. The justifications is secondary to the wish for total power. They don't care about the niceties of theories. It's all about total power. Like all powerplay, allies are just enemies in waiting. This doc completely ignores that Fascists and Commies fought in Spain and in Germany. Stalin can drop his idealism for those people because its the power that's more important.3. Doc tells us there was something called Gu -lag. Whatever! It's in everyday English language, but the documentary is treating it like discovering the Fountain of Youth. Just relax. There's a little bit good info here. Again you're not breaking any ground.4. Most naive of all. The Russian aren't being put to the fire over their Soviet past. Here's the most important History lesson of all. The winners always write the history.Overall it's taking on a good subject but doing it very poorly by treating its audience as idiots.

Watching this documentary will provide many interesting insights into history of the Soviet Union as well as the Nazi Germany through analysis of the documents, ideas of historians, memories of witnesses.Firstly, it should be noted that the documentary focuses on the critical discussion of mass killings, concentration practiced by the Soviet secret state. It is shown while citing K. Marx and Fr. Engels why the soviet leaders (Lenin, later Stalin) killed people, set up concentration camps seeking to establish their own authority.Secondly, the makers of the documentary revealed how the Nazi government used experience, some ideological ideas of K. Marx, and shocking experience of Lenin, NKVD to set up killing machine of Jews and other people of Germany.Thirdly, there has been shown how the Soviet officials and the Nazi government collaborated before World War II in order to improve killing machine mechanism and annex territories of free states in Europe. Later, the shocking crimes of the Soviet state has been shown in the Baltic countries.Finally, the film-makers have revealed shocking legacy dealing with justification of the communism crimes in some social groups of politicians in Russia.In conclusion, watching this documentary will form critical approach towards similarities of Communism and Nazism.