The Soviet Story

Of thousands of films, books, and plays on the communist experience, this one stands out above all the rest — a monument to millions of innocent victims and a charge against a bloodthirsty socialist theory that killed almost two hundred million people in the 20th century and continues its murderous trail into the 21st.

The film was directed by a talented Latvian producer Edvīns Šnore.

In its synopsis Šnore writes: This is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe's most murderous regime has never been told.

The film argues that there were close philosophical, political, and military relations between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union before and during the early stages of World War II. It highlights the Great Famine: the infamous "holodomor" which wiped out seven million Ukrainians, the Great Purge in Moscow and elsewhere in the USSR with over eleven million murdered, as well as the Katyn massacre of tens of thousands of Polish officers.

The film sheds the light on Gestapo-NKVD collaboration in mass murder of Jews and German opposition, Soviet mass deportations, and inhuman medical experiments in the GULAG.

The Economist praises the film by saying: "Soviet Story" is the most powerful antidote yet to the sanitisation of the past. The film is gripping, audacious and uncompromising. The main aim of the film is to show the close connections—philosophical, political and organisational—between the Nazi and Soviet systems Those who keep a soft spot for Marxism may flinch to hear that the sage of Highgate referred to backward societies as Völkerabfälle (racial trash) who must "perish in the revolutionary holocaust." Or that the Nazi party in its early days idolised Lenin (Josef Goebbels said he was second only to Adolf Hitler in greatness).

This is a revelation for some. Ludwig Von Mises wrote about Nazism and communism as two forms of the same socialist tyranny for a long time. He analyzed "two patterns for the realization of socialism" when he wrote: The first pattern (we may call it the Lenin or the Russian pattern) is purely bureaucratic. All plants, shops and farms are formally nationalized (verstaatlicht); they are departments of the government operated by civil servants. Every unit of the apparatus of production stands in the same relation to the superior central organization, as does a local post office to the office of the postmaster general. The second pattern (we may call it the Hindenburg or German pattern) nominally and seemingly preserves private ownership of markets, prices, wages, and interest rates. There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs, but only shop managers (Betriebsfuhrer in the terminology of the Nazi legislation).

Both systems, as Von Mises pointed out, were inevitably doomed to result in "barbarism," as they promptly did.

The film features interviews with western and Russian historians such as Norman Davies and George Watson from Cambridge, Boris Sokolov, Russian writer Viktor Suvorov, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, members of the European Parliament and the participants, as well as the victims of Soviet and Nazi terror.

Eminent British literary historian George Watson proved in his research that Karl Marx is "the ancestor of the modern political genocide." Marx used the term "racial trash" (Völkerabfälle) in relation to a number of some European ethnicities who were left behind by economic progress and should be "disposed of."

As former Soviet dissident (now a dissident again under the Putin regime) Vladimir Bukovsky explains: "When Communists come to power, it does not matter where, let it be in Russia, in Poland, in Cuba, in Nicaragua, in China, initially they destroy about ten percent of the population" in order to restructure the fabric of society. Then the "real work" begins with destruction of the designated target groups: priests, peasants, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, certain ethnicities – Ukrainians, Chechens, Jews, Crimean Tatars and others.

The making of the film is timely as the FSB/KGB regime in Russia increasingly embraces its Stalinist roots. Joe Bendel of The Epoch Times, mentioned that producer Edvīns Šnore was burned in effigy by Neo-Soviet Russians for his in-depth survey of Soviet crimes against humanity: It is an ominous badge of honor. This film that you are not supposed to see in Putin's Russia tells us how the ultimate government inevitably becomes the ultimate evil.

A couple of reviewers here tried to trash The Soviet Story as a propaganda movie. It is not. It is a very angry, but accurate film. Some footage, however, is somewhat repetitive. I can see why. Unlike their Nazi colleagues, Soviet mass murderers were trying to conceal their crimes and did not leave us many pictures or film about their crimes. Even officers in the Soviet Army were not permitted to own a camera. They could be shot as "spies" just for having one. Nazis, on the contrary, were proud of their crimes and left us with a lot of pictures and footage of their victims.

I do not care how accurate is the episode with a wheel barrow cited in one of negative reviews. If Soviets murdered 40-60 million people of all nationalities wouldn't they occasionally toss some corpses from a train car? It is believable to me.

I agree with reviewers that Mr. Šnore does not like the USSR and current Russian rulers. Should he? There is an ongoing hysterical campaign orchestrated from Kremlin against him, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and "historical revisionism" i.e. exposure of socialist criminal regimes.

The Soviet Story is a must see for any friend of liberty. You can either watch The Soviet Story for free on YouTube or order a DVD from www.sovietstory.com.

This documentary focuses on the atrocities committed against innocent people, mainly by Stalin and other high ranking Soviet leaders in the name of Marxism and Communism prior, during, and after the Second World War.

The documentary consists of much original footage, newspaper clips, interviews with witnesses and even some present day footage, all very well edited and cut.

The story told in this documentary is the best one I've yet to see regarding horrible crimes committed against humanity, because it is very well substantiated in terms of source-material and historical argumentation. The delight of seeing this educational footage is strengthened even more due to its addressing of one of the most inconceivable facts in the post-WWII world: How Adolf Hitler was forever after unconditionally condemned by close to everyone across the globe for his crimes, and how Joseph Stalin was commemorated for aiding the Allies in liberating Europe of fascism, regardless of the fact that in total more than 20 million (some even claim up to 50 or 60 million) people was murdered by the hands of the Soviet Gulag State. A fact which nobody in the western world seems to care about.

What this documentary furthermore achieves which is what eventually made me give it the 10th star, was the fact that the story was told very honestly and very unbiased, unlike much historical media, and the scriptwriters have done an extremely well job in mastering the whole aspect of the stories, and not just focused on narrow one-sided details.

Regardless of the fact that most people see Hitler as the "far-right", and Stalin as the "far-left", this documentary raises the ultimate question: were they indeed that different, after all?

The movie is excellent. It is well known that winners are writing the history- so the truth of soviet mass murders and genocide is still not truly known for the world. The movie is well-structured and compares two parallel regimes, so opposite but at the same time so similar. People from the countries that were occupied by red plague, know these stories from they parents and grandparents. it is rough to realize for a western world- but the soviet Russia was in no case better than Nazi Germany. For Baltic States people for example, actually it was in number of times worse, the real "holocaust" was created by red army. I have spoken with a lot of people who were in WW2 (for example my grandpa and grandma and et.) and all of them are describing Germans as "at least culture nation" but red soldiers as "dirty brutal people with no honor and compassion". Number of killed persons was several times bigger by Stalin than by Hitler. So who was the worst dictator? That is the question that this movie adduces and it is good, there are so much to bring to daylight and rewrite the history.

I believe The Soviet Story is an excellent film. Some reviewers here seem to oppose this view. It is understandable. However, what I do not understand is why they use lies to denounce the film? For example, Mr Frank Roberts review here. Dear Mr Frank Roberts, if in your review you are telling the truth, answer the following:

A) Frank Roberts states: "there was a scene where corpses were being thrown from a wagon onto the snow, and in the film it's claimed that these were the victims of the Ukrainian famine. But these were in fact dead Russian soldiers from the First World War." >>> If so, why did these "Russian soldiers" had civilian clothes on them, Mr. Roberts? Moreover, I saw the film twice, the footage you mentioned was NOT used to show Ukrainian famine victims, as you claim. It was used to show victims of the Communist terror.

B) Frank Roberts states: "Another good example is the scene where several officers are shown drinking and giving a toast. The Soviet Story claims that this is proof of Nazi-Soviet collaboration. In reality there were no Russians present at that meeting." >>> Really? Who is then the officer in the Red Army uniform? A Japanese? What about the Order of the Red Banner on the officers chest?

C) Frank Roberts states: "Soviet Story tries to make the current Russian government look bad. How is this done? By showing a clip that the film claims involves Russian Neo-Nazis. Now what does this have to do with the Russian government? Nothing at all." >>> Who is the man performing Nazi salute in the film? Nikolay Kuryanovich. Was not Nikolay Kuryanovich a member of Russia's parliament?

It is quite understandable that The Soviet Story is so acrimoniously denounced by Communists and those who believe Stalin was "a successful manager". No surprise that some pro-Putin gang even burned the effigy of Edvins Snore in Moscow. The anger and hatred is clearly there. What is missing - is counter-arguments.

I have to make a comment for zvesda and its followers (do read his other review and please get that he is a pro-socialism pro-imperialism creature who could theoretically almost justify to the ignorant the enormously tragical mass murders of the Soviet Union). The most unbelievable thing is, though, that some would buy his strange endeavor - could be because of lack of knowledge.

Please also get that Russia has no enemies, as zvesda imperiously sustains, and that the theory of "hatred" is extremely dangerous and entails the majority of the citizens of a nation to incredible crimes justified by noble ideas such as "patriotism" and "defense from the enemy of the state". The documentary shows us the atrocities carried out by some dictators, and is not a personal attack to you, zvesda, or to the citizens of Russia, whether old or young (not to mention those crimes were against the Soviet Union's own citizens!). But stating expressions such as "the Jewish fascism" in today's Russia is mind-blowing (of course, the 20.000.000 killings in the Soviet Union, solely in terms of number, is quite mind-blowing too...).

Those atrocities did exist, whether you acknowledge it or not, and everyone should be reminded of the possible crimes of any dictatorship through fear, censorship, craziness, torture and murder. Whatever dictatorship that might be, at the shadow of whatever ideology.

It's hard to see the harsh images of afflicted children, women and men; but ignorance is never an excuse, and this documentary will definitely wake you up, if only to make you read a bit more about our recent and insane history.