Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow

Absolutely amazing and startling documentary about the most terrible tyrant of the 20th century. Compared to Stalin, Hitler comes out of this as a buffoon, and an incompetent one at that. Perhaps Stalin's greatest victory was to leave to posterity so few living enemies that even today he is the subject of worship by so many Russians. This one evil and profoundly ambiguous man was the greatest mass murdered in history -- and the appalling scope of his crimes is made shockingly clear by the well-balanced, delicate survivors' accounts in this long video set.

Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen (see also "Stalin: Man of Steel" DVD from the History Channel). It does a marvelous job explaining the prelude to the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, especially the impact of the Stalinist purges in the late 1930s. The annihilation of the officer corps plus Stalin's disregard of warnings from the British and his own intelligence services (he had his own spies executed for warning of the pending Nazi attack)left Russia almost completely defenseless. Each episode begins with a brief introduction by Henry Kissinger, but the wonderful narration is by Nigel Hawthorne (Yes, Prime Minister). I check at least monthly to see if a DVD version has been released. So far, no luck.

This video is first class from first tape to last of the 5-volume set. The narration is thoughtful and thought-provoking and is enhanced by a tasteful, haunting music score. The title is as much a focus on the mind of Stalin as on the events of the war itself. Indeed, we are given some real insights into Stalin's actions that shock and surprise, and ultimately lead to the conclusion that in terms of cruelty and sheer madness, there is little to choose between Hitler or Stalin. A must to add to your collection of Russian history.

There is just something warped about this entire series; I got a strong gut feeling that a German apologist had written it. I found the entire series difficult to watch without wincing. I am not referring to the photography and footage, which were excellent. But it was the interpretation that rang distorted.

First of all, the "godlike" intros by the thoroughly discredited, disingenuous Henry Kissinger were off-putting, but immediately following those, the series' odd and inescapable pro-German slant manifests itself in nearly every scene. It's often masked by all the anti-Stalin screed --- I am certainly no fan of that monster --- but there is way too much sympathy for the "poor" Wehrmacht (regarding which, it is now being revealed that the Wehrmacht was even more deeply involved in the slaughter of Russians, Jews, POWs, etc., than had formerly been believed, and they were not just good boys serving in a bad cause). Kissinger and the narrator never (or very, very seldom) mention the word "Jew" even in regards to the concentration camps, saying rather that "people" were killed. The positive portrayal of various Nazi-welcoming collaborators and collaborating ethnicities made me uncomfortable as well.

I felt that there was definitely an effort to absolve the Russians themselves from Stalin's crimes and portray their victimization; I have no argument with that. But the movie never or seldom focuses on German atrocities wrought upon the Russians. In fact, there is actually a whole scene devoted to "shocked" German soldiers unearthing the bodies of Polish officers that Stalin had supposedly murdered. It may well be true, but the portrayal of the most brutal soldiers the world has ever known solemnly shaking their heads at a mass murder almost turned the scene into farce.

Besides the predictable, relentless hammering on Stalin (I mean, if the guy went to the bathroom, this film would have found a way to portray that as monstrous, murderous and a lie), there is very little about Hitler, who is never shown as a heartless monster, as is Stalin in every scene.

This is the kind of old-style documentary that is now widely discredited by the discerning, but hugely popular with audiences who feel they should know something about history, but don't want to think too rigorously about it. Wildly diverse snatches of archive footage are authoratively cohered by a single, autonomous, godlike voice (Nigel Hawthorne - and who could be more reassuring and trustworthy than Sir Humphrey?). The difficulties, ambiguities, contradictions, ellipses of history are ironed out into a flat, easily disgestible, historically negligible narrative. Prejudices are pandered to, witnesses and documents are only invoked if they fit the official line, and are not properly identified. The audience is assumed to be imbecilic, so we are repeatedly reminded how 'evil' Stalin was, and how 'mad' Hitler. Just in case you'd forgotten. There is something dubiously sensationalist and leering about a climactic montage of Hilter's remains, his teeth and skull.

This is what is known as Great Man history, the sort of thing you read in schoolbooks- major figures do things, the amorphous masses suffer. The episode I saw recently, 'Fall of the Swastika', despite the series title, was more about Germany than Russia. This kind of history is, ironically, ahistorical - by removing processes, archival research and oral testimony (what little there is is self-serving and mawkish), you are left with almost abstracted folklore. Compare this to Lawrence Rees' recent documentary on Stalingrad, flawed maybe, but bursting with intelligent documentary strategies, exhaustive detail and a willingness to acknowledge the intelligence of the viewer: it also leaves you reeling in sickening horror.

This documentary has almost no detail whatsoever, for fear of overwhelming the viewer with too much information. Indeed the whole thing would be reprehensible if it wasn't for the marvellous, shocking footage: seeing legendary history in the raw is always a disturbing frisson, and while many of the films seem remarkably sophisticated in editing and composition for traumatic on-the-spot incidents, no amount of cod-narrative can blunt the thrill of seeing a white-jacketed Stalin in colour joking with Truman and Churchill, the vile wonder of blazing German cities, the terror of concentration camps and firing squads.