The Great Utopia

1917- 2017 One century from the October Revolution. The big dream, the vision shared by millions of people over the world left an indelible mark on the 20th century. It was a utopian dream that this documentary describes and tries to interpret. The "Great Utopia" narrates the fall of the Tzar, the breakout of the "October revolution", the domination of the Bolsheviks, the civil war, the failure of "war communism", Lenin's efforts to implement the new economic policy (NEP) and the huge explosion (and subsequent implosion) of the Soviet society: social progress, free commerce, agricultural production, education, women's position, visual arts, poetry, literature, theatre, music, cinema, architecture. It was a short-lived era of creativity and the Bolsheviks dreamy of spreading it all over the world. Indeed, many communist parties sprang that ended up forming the "Communist International", an institution meant to coordinate the workers' movements in capitalist countries. Millions of people also dreamy to visit the Soviet Union and admire the accomplishments of socialism. Finally, few did so. In the meantime, in the Soviet Union, after Lenin's death, the expulsion of Trotsky and Stalin's rise, the dogma of the "war communism" comes back with a vengeance; the main goals are industrialization and collectivization, two processes that are enforced violently causing bloody conflicts with the farmers. Arrests and deportations of millions of peasants to faraway Siberia as well as an imposed famine to a large population leads to the death of more than 5 million people: the term HOLODOMOR maybe known only to the initiated; it means "death from famine" and defines the mass starvation in Ukraine in 1932-34. Immediately after, the regime, having achieved its goal, looks triumphant events and consolidates its autocracy. The prophetic painting by Nikritin "People's Trial" illustrates the tragedy.