Trotskiy

I appreciated the reviews of this movie by dorin-93538 and Evil-Herbivore and agree with most of their comments. I would like to add my speculation as to the Russian government's motivation for financing and applauding this series.

Stalin still has significant support in today's Russia. Some of it may of it may be nostalgia for the days when things were simple and stable on the surface even if daily life was impoverished and there were a lot of things that couldn't be safely talked about. There may also be conscious political support for increased authoritarianism by Putin's government.

The Trotsky series supports rehabilitation of Stalin by making him appear a competent bureaucrat and Trotsky a wild and crazy fanatic who, at the end of his life, partially repents his deeds. In the West, Stalin rather than Trotsky is usually viewed as the bad guy.

The best thing about this flashy Russian miniseries is that is quite entertaining for most of its running time (it bogs down a little in the middle episodes). Not only it has lots of sex, but also Trotsky travelling around in a steampunk like train, hallucinations, bizarre dream sequences and even Matrix style gunfights. Clearly, the dour Russian cinema of Soviet times is long past.

The bad thing is that is quite inaccurate historically and downright invents a lot of stuff: for example, the central conceit of the series is the absurdity of Trotsky in 1940 telling the history of his life to his would be murderer, Frank Jackson (the alias of Ramon Mercader). Another absurdity - there are many - is an encounter between Trotsky and Freud in which the latter diagnoses fanaticism in the former.

On the plus side, the narrative structure is complex, with the story going back from the Russian revolution to Trotsky's youth to his exile in Mexico in 1940. We have many characters in the movie (including some real but obscure persons), and the plot at times is quite complex. The filmmakers obviously read a lot of history before doing this (even if they then distort it).

Trotskyists will complain about the portrayal of Trotsky, but I find it a compelling character, much more than Lenin (who is shown as a scheming opportunist) and Stalin (who is shown as an uneducated thug).

First let's address one point. The movie is not a reproduction of the events. It's not a documentary. It takes a lot of liberties when it comes to historical accuracy and the producers of the movie have stated that they have modified the plot to deliver a powerful message. Second, to understand the movie you need some knowledge of Russian history of the 20th century. It was made for the Russian public for whom it's their history. Without the history you will miss a lot of nuance which the movie is filled with. For example, many outside Russia have said that the series is racist and antisemitic, and it is so purposefully because that was the society back then. There were cases of "pogroms" - mobs of antisemitic people attacking Jewish communities. Antisemitism was rampant throughout Europe and not seen as something abhorrent as the lesson of ultra-nationalism came only after WWII. Now about the movie. After watching the series in Russian, re-watching it again and reading some reactions and articles about it I can say the movie did what it was supposed to do. Spark a conversation. Ardent socialists and communists (and I mean real socialists and communists, not social-democrats) took it as a slander piece to make Trotsky look bad by bad capitalist Russia. For westerners it seems to be hailing a bloody leader of the Russian Civil War and making a rock star out of him and here again the Russians fetishizing their Soviet past. It's neither. Hell, it's controversial series even in Russia. It shows what a revolution truly is. It's violent. It's not pretty. It's often led by fanatics and ends up costing lives, many lives. Is it worth the price? You decide. It wrestles with dilemmas about power and politics and does a good job. It doesn't give an answer and leaves you thinking. I won't deliver you what you should think of it, but it's definitely worth watching, though it asks from you some homework to do brushing up on your history of the 20th century. P.S. It gets an 8 because it delivers a powerful message but isn't particularly accurate in the historical detail. Still, get's the job done.

We live in a time of turmoil that could become more violent and destructive if we fail to learn from human history. This dramatized and often inaccurate version of historical events surrounding the Russian Revolution drives an important point home: violent revolutions are extremely destructive and risky. They unleash the darkest drives within people and allow sociopaths to take the reigns. The production (including the script, dialogue, acting, effects, sets, titles with historical detail on characters) is excellent. I was pulled in by the drama and was not let down. As a student of history who studied the Russian Revolution in grad school, I was aware of important distortions, but dramatic films are statements, not histories. This statement is well made. I am intrigued by the potential impact in Russian society today, where a dictator is willing to lie and kill to maintain power. Is this a statement about Russia today? Is it a statement to the world as the nativist, repressive and violent tendencies of governments are on the rise? Is it about the Russian past, an effort to remind the Russian people about what went down and what might happen again? Perhaps it is all these things. No matter it is a well done series, well worth watching.

Great series, great actors. Im a French Canadian so I only speak French and English, I listened to this on Netflix in Russian with French subtitles and loved it. There are some divergences from reality (I wont say to keep this spoiler free, but other viewers have reported somes here in other reviews if you would like to see) and its more of a sensational series that a documentary (think the recent Spartacus iteration on Starz, I think) but I had loads of fun watching it and learned some things on the life of this fascinating and polarizing historical figure. Just make sure to fact-check afterwards. For mature audience, as there violence, nudity, sex scenes and some very hard-to-watch antisemitic scenes (as that was the reality of this era).