Cavendish, P; (2019) The Political Imperative of Color: Stalin, Disney, and the Soviet Pursuit of Color Film, 1931-45. The Russian Review , 78 (4) pp. 569-594. 10.1111/russ.12245.

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Abstract

This article examines the Soviet Union's attempt to acquire the technology of color film during the 1930s and early 1940s. It draws attention to the personal interest of Joseph Stalin in the acquisition of color film as part of the discourse of “cultured consumerism” that emerged following his speech to the first All‐Union Congress of Stakhanovites in November 1935. It analyses the research and development of color‐film technology in the early 1930s, the significance of the Disney Technicolor cartoons shown at the 1935 Moscow International Film Festival, the attempts to master a three‐color technology in the second half of the 1930s, and the relative failure of this initiative, which led to denunciations, arrests, and executions as part of the purges of 1937 and 1938. The article argues that color film was treated as a “consumer good” which offered diversity, product enhancement, and entertainment, but more importantly as an ideological weapon which could demonstrate the Soviet Union's ability to compete with Europe and North America in terms of technological progress. There has been growing interest in this phenomenon recently among Russian film historians, and some of the color films of the 1930s currently preserved in the Russian Film State Archive have been digitally restored and exhibited. However, the existing scholarship, which is still relatively meagre, has neglected to consider the political imperatives that gave rise to the phenomenon, or assessed the degree to which the production and distribution of color films during this period can be regarded as successful. Drawing upon archival documents and contemporary press reports, the article aims to make an important contribution to the existing political and cultural histories of the Soviet Union post‐1935. It discusses and analyses a number of color films on political subjects commissioned during the 1930s and released on politically significant dates. In particular, it draws attention to the importance of documentary newsreels in color which show the Physical Culture parades, and assesses their significance as historical documents which attest to the emerging color discourses of the Stalinist 1930s.

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