44
PARTISAN REVIEW
sitioned propaganda to "sell" industrialization and collectivization to
the masses. When
it
didn't get it quickly enough, it mobilized the
power of the State to force through its program, crushing all tenden–
cies which it didn't know how to use. In two years this policy had laid
waste the once-flourishing cinema industry as effectively as it laid
waste the fertile Ukrainian farmlands.
In the spring of 1930 a
piatiletka,
or plan, was announced for
theatre, cinema, sculpture and painting. Five years of normal develop–
ment in these arts were to be telescoped into the remaining three and
a half years of the Plan. "It sounds crazy," wrote Walter Duranty,
"but, as is often the case with the Russians, it is far less crazy than it
sounds. What it really means is that there will be a considerable
in–
crease in State funds to support art-with the proviso, of course, that
said art mJ.lst follow Socialist lines."ls According to the
piatiletka,
by
the end of 1933 the annual production of feature films was to
be
increased to 350, which is more than all the studios of Hollywood com–
bined produce in an average year. Mr. Duranty to the contrary, it
was
crazy.
The
piatiletka
for cinema was implemented by a decree bringing
all branches of the movie industry-including eqllipment factories–
under the centralized control of a new organization: Soyuzkino ("All–
Union Soviet Film Trust"). At the head of Soyuzkino, Stalin placed
Boris Shumiatsky, an energetic young bureaucrat. Shumiatsky's powers
were limited only by a general responsibility to the Supreme Eco–
nomic Council. His authority over mere directors like Eisenstein were,
of course, absolute, nor was he backward about asserting it. But
his
chief concern was not esthetic-though, as we shall see, he had ideas
here too-but administrative. His job was to rationalize the industry
so that it could fulfill its fantastic production quotas. Even among
their fellow bureaucrats, Shumiatsky and his aides were distinguished
by the fervor with which they played at 'American efficiency'. In
1930 the chief of Amkino gave an American audience a glimpse of
this dream world of 'Fordism':
"As
in other big industries, the business
is conducted by the Film Trust on a commercial basis.... The expen–
diture on negative film for the first negative is determined with a co–
efficient 1-7, and on the second negative 30 percent less. . . . The
norms for the personnel are fixed as follows: the director should
produce in the second year of the Plan, at least one and one-half
films, in the last year at least two films."
16
By now, Dovzhenko
is
eleven films behind his 'norm,' Pudovkin thirteen, and Eisenstein
fifo
teen. For years Wall Street has been trying to put movie production
on a 'commercial basis'. The bureaucrats have been even less success–
ful than the bankers.
