AllMovie

Combining a part-documentary, part-fiction approach to the March, 1921 uprising of sailors at the port of Kronstadt (an island port in the Gulf of Finland, near St. Petersburg), director Jurgen Klauss has created an erudite synopsis of the nature of the rebellion. Lenin was faced with a food shortage in the early years of his regime and in an attempt to handle the crisis, forcibly took grain from the peasants and redistributed it to the cities and the military zones in the country. Since the grain was not enough to go around to begin with, this caused shortages everywhere and the peasants revolted in 1918 -- with the sailors at Kronstadt following suit in 1921. This portrayal of the Kronstadt revolt is set in a studio with stage props, and is clearly meant to illustrate the issues and the history at hand.