Class 9: Bolshevik Historiography . October: Ten Days That Shook the World (meant to come out in 1927, but ran over time and came out in 1928) o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October: Ten Days That Shook the World Directed by Sergei Eisenstein and dedicated to the Petrograd Proletariats, 'the heroes of the revolution' Aired in the world of the silent screen First half the film is focused on 1917 First scene is of a monument of Alexander III - set in February . A woman stands on the monument and cheers on the thousands of men storming the city - a few men climb up on a ladder and attach ropes to the monument and bring it down . Thousands of men are rallying with guns and sickles The Provisional Government (PG) will continue to honour the commitments made to the Allied powers in WWI (scenes of warfare bombing, the front line, Russian army massacres, hungry wives and families in the Russian cities i.e. mass starvation and despondency) - PG depicted as disregarding the people's needs . April 3rd: Mass rally with banners and thousands of loyal proletariats are cheering for V. Ulyanov (Lenin), with cries of 'Long live the revolutionary soldiers and workers', 'no support for the Provisional Government', 'Long live the Socialist Revolutionaries', and 'No peace. No bread, No land.' . In reality, the crowd was not that large " July 1917, Another demonstration with banners: 'Down with the capitalist ministers', 'Down with the Provisional Government' (meeting outside the building where the Petrograd Soviets were housed) · Konstradt sailors are mutinying in the streets with banners (thousands are protesting on the streets of Nevsky Prospect) · Trotsky calls for calm and restraint but gunshots are fired into the crowd and the mass of people disperse in different directions, in panic . 'To the rescue of the banner': fights ensue as Bolsheviks attempt to run and save the revolutionary banners . The government calls for the bridges to close and cut off the workers' stations from the city (very dramatic music in the background of fast drumming)
. The victors (counter-revolutionaries) threw copies of The Pravda into the river - shots of Bolshevik banners in floating in the river, dead men lying on the floor . The First Machinegun Regiment called for solidarity within the workers . Shots of the Petrograd Committee of the Petrograd Soviets depicts the destruction caused and the chaos/ disarray it is in (ransacked, broken furniture, ripped banners, etc.) . The Minister of the Army, Minister of the Navy, Prime Minister, and other officials (i.e. 'the tsar's lackeys' such as Alexander Kerensky) convene to discuss the future of the nation · Kerensky idolises Napoleon · Pedagogical style of the film - Napoleon image is recurring in this film Art film with a political message Most of the masses did not enjoy this type of film as it lacked love stories, suspense, character development, plot/ storyline (esp. if watching without the subtitles since it jumps backwards and forwards) o