Nevsky/Stalin

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The comment that instigated this thread (forget who posted it) was by someone who was horrified that Pynchon's name could be mentioned on the same page as a review of the movie Alexander Nevsky.  Keith then dismissed the movie as Stalinist propaganda.  Is this really how people view that movie?  Should all of Soviet-era film be dismissed as propaganda?  How about present-day Iranian cinema?  Is it all just Shiite propaganda?

Laura
-----Original Message-----
>From: Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com>
>Sent: Jun 5, 2007 10:27 AM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Nevsky/Stalin
>
>Spot on, Paul. I used the indefinite article simply to denote his official 
>position as intially it had been meant to be an administrative post from 
>which he could even have been dismissed. Of course, by that time (1930s) he 
>had become THE general secretary of the Central Committee which was 
>synonymous with the undisputed leader of the whole country.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Secretary_of_the_Central_Committee_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union
>
>This position became that important solely because Stalin usurped the power 
>pitting other influential party leaders one against another. In the 1920s 
>the general secretary wasn't a very high post, at the time  Trotsky, Kamenev 
>and Zinoviev were more influential than Stalin. My point was that Stalin saw 
>himself all the time as a great statesman like Ivan the Terrible but not as 
>a mythical warrior like Alexander Nevsky. Stalin had a book about Ivan the 
>Terrible in his library,  on its cover he wrote several times 'teacher, 
>teacher, teacher'.
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>Rather than "a" don't you mean "the" general secretary?
>>
>>There was no one in the nation more powerful or important.
>>
>>
>
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