[In honor of May Day/International Workers’ Day, this week I’ve AmericanStudied some compelling cultural representations of communism in American history and identity. Leading up to this weekend post on contemporary communist culture!]
On two parallel
yet very different types of 21st century cultural commentary on
communism.
First things
first: it’s impossible to separate the question of how communism is portrayed
in 21st century American cultural works from our period’s resurgent
Russophobia. To say this as clearly as I can, critiques of Putin (and thus
of Putin’s Russia) are more than justified, and any attempt to stop such
critiques with accusations
of Russophobia is dead wrong. But we have to be able to engage both the
world and ourselves with nuance, and there’s no doubt that those specific and
justified critiques have the potential to morph into far more overarching and
problematic prejudice (as is also the case with justified critiques of the Chinese government
and the potential for sinophobia, an even more longstanding American
prejudice of course). Even though communism is a separate subject from
Russia, for a century now the two have been entirely intertwined in American history
and narratives alike, and so it’s important to acknowledge that continued,
complex connection in discussing current cultural representations of communism.
Moreover, two of
the last decade’s most interesting American cultural depictions of communism
have used famous historical periods in the Soviet Union as the lens through
which to do so (although interestingly, and certainly tellingly, both have been
in English and have used casts of mostly non-Russian actors). The satirical
film The Death of Stalin (2017) makes that mid-20th
century Soviet and world historical event into an over-the-top farce, and one
which I would argue is designed to appeal to American (or at least Western)
narratives about the ludicrous layers of bureaucracy and power struggles that
(from this perspective at least) really defined the supposedly communist and
egalitarian Soviet state. Cultural works are open to interpretation, and I’m
sure one could analyze Death of Stalin
as equally a commentary on the U.S. government (perhaps especially in the age
of our own cult-like
leader). But for this viewer, the film’s most farcical elements, combined
with the mostly non-Russian actors enacting them, seem to play into those
existing critiques of Soviet communism as hypocritical, fraudulent, and ultimately
failed.
There’s an even
more stringent and serious critique of the Soviet state at the heart of another
recent cultural work, the HBO
miniseries Chernobyl (2019). Without
spoiling every storytelling beat in a series I believe everyone should watch
(although of course we all have a sense of what went down at Chernobyl!), I’ll
note that the show’s final minutes have a great deal to say about the Soviet
Union’s reliance on propaganda and lies, and how much those elements directly
contributed to (indeed, in many ways caused) this global catastrophe. Yet Chernobyl is not a satire, and that
difference from Death of Stalin is
much more than just about tone or genre—at its heart, this show is about a core
group of courageous and good people doing their best to do the right thing, and
genuinely working together (at the direct risk and ultimate expense of their
own lives) to protect their comrades and (quite literally) save the world. To
my mind, that’s a pitch-perfect description of the ideals of a communist
society, ideals that their government consistently betrayed but that these
figures fought and died for—and ideals from which the U.S. in 2024 could learn
a great deal.
Next
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Communist cultural works, present or past, you’d highlight?
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