Also the same movement that opens the film. Great line from the deleted scenes, when the second conductor shows up in his PJ's. "That's Rwensky! He can't do subtlety!" "He's in his pajamas, I think subtlety is fucked"
Kruschev once said his greatest achievement as Premier of the USSR was specifically because when he was replaced, he was simply forced to retire, not executed or "died" as previous heads of the USSR had. I presume he felt it best not to push the subject as he accepted his "retirement" without argument lol.
Wait, which heads of the USSR before Khrushchev had been executed or otherwise killed? Krestinsky? Stalin died of natural causes (as far as we know) and Molotov outlived Khrushchev by like 15 years. Or are we talking high-profile political figures in general.
@@jameshagan2832before Krushchev, it didn‘t matter if you walked away. Other than the actual Trotskyists, the vast majority of Stalin‘s intra-party opponents recanted their criticism (even if it was minor) and accepted demotions or even exile. But still, all of them were killed. Of the several dozen Bolshevik leaders from the 1917-1923 period, the only ones that survived Stalin were Molotov and Alexandra Kollontai. And that‘s not even mentioning the thousands of people who got purged despite never actually voicing opposition to Stalin‘s policies. Krushchev‘s survival isn‘t down to deciding not to fight it out, it‘s because the Party was a fundamentally different organization after the deaths of Stalin and Beria. Not just specifically because of their deaths, but also because the surviving Bureaucrats understood that it was now longer necessary to allow for the existence of madmen like Beria. All serious threats to the party had long waned, and importantly they had integrated the Army leadership into their system.
Khrushchev in his speech to the party plenum was cussing Stalin. So from among the crowd some shouted 'why were you quiet then comrade'. Khrushchev stopped and asked 'please stand up and show yourself.' None stood up. Then Khrushchev said 'you see now why I kept quiet'.
That dude was psychopath. He locked up half of the Soviet Union. He even raped women and little girls. Beria was so notorious even Stalin feared him. Stalin wouldn’t trust Svetlana to be alone in a room with Beria.
@@michaellynes3540Imagine if he became the head of the Soviet Union? Imagine him during the Cuban Missile crisis and such holy moly and JFK having to negotiate with this thing...
@@APersonOnRUclipsX not necessarily. While being a disgusting creature, Beria waa very pragmatic. He would not have escalated it this much. But a lot more Soviet women would become his victim, so there is that.
Stalins daughter actually had one hell of a life. She fled Russia via India, moved to the states, joined an architects cult, and her daughter is a pro-American biker chick.
The story of the real Vasily is scarcely better, not too long after his father died he was put in prison. He was there until 1960 and he basically drank himself to death after he was released.
Stalin had a horrible influence on each of his children. Vasily was a useless drunkard who drank himself to death, Yakov died during WW2 as a POW in a Nazi concentrationcamp after his father refused to exchange him, Svetlana went onto a difficult odessey after which she died destitute (but at least free) in the USA. Also his second wife commited suicide as she could stand neither what he did to the USSR nor his demeaning behavior towards her.
The scene with Svetlana is probably the most defining moment of the movie, because it is the moment where there is finally some truth pushed around. Svetlana turns to look at Kruschev as if he is the bad one. Even in this last moment, Svetlana appeals to the notion that Beria had about Nikita being the antagonist. Nikita’s sobering response undercuts her, but the real question now looms: either Svetlana knew all along that Beria was the worst and was playing to his game as an innocent, or she truly did not understand the depth of evil in the system that benefited her, and she is truly shocked. You have to accept that Svetlana is at least for the moment, lost. She either benefited from the system and delighted in her ignorance and enjoyed the privilege she had been borne into, or she knew it as much and still played the game and would have sided with Beria and this time she just happened to lose. In either case, her statement to Nikita ignores the threat to his own life that Nikita felt. And had Svetlana sided with Beria and Beria won, would she had mourned all the same? And that’s how Nikita benefits Svetlana even as she antagonizes him: he does the things that will protect her and her brother. Because what Svetlana wants is not conducive to them staying alive. It has all become so contrived that they have to control the narrative to the point that they would have to kill her brother because the stories wouldn’t line up. It’s really an amazing and sobering scene that ties in all of the truly dark humor of the film.
@@funkkymonkey6924 yup. She was either completely ignorant, or just more of the same and playing dumb the whole time and had chosen Beria. In either case, she was playing innocent spectator when in reality she really had been a princess because of her father. Now she had to come to terms with her role that was giving her perks also meant she could find herself being shot and discarded, because that’s how she got her privileges in the first place.
She defected and wrote a book. The fact that she did those two things instead of being murdered is telling. After she was useful, she was no longer useful, but not dangerous. If she were a threat to anyone she never would have been allowed to live, let alone write a book and defect. The "Secret Speech" was still in the future, she waited, she was very clever. She was after all, Stalin's daughter.
In real life, Svetlana never left the Soviet Union until her defection to the United States in 1966, which caused a huge propaganda blow to the Soviet Union.
Actually she did leave the Soviet Union to go to India and immerse the ashes of her husband, Brajesh Singh, in the Ganges. It’s only because the Soviet Ambassador wouldn’t let her stay in India that she defected to the US.
@@URProductions Himmler was horrific, indeed, he had more genocidal intentions as compared to Beria. But Beria was a fucking serial killer and rapist in power. Himmler's public morals were less than zero, but his morals in personal life was still decent, Beria's morals in his profession were far higher than Himmler's but still absolute shit, but his personal life's morals were horrific. I mean, after his home was razed in the '90s they found corpses of women there, age would have been teenage to early twenties at time of death, he buried people under his dacha for refusing to be his slaves.
Why was Kruschev so eager to take power and become the new head of the Soviet Union? He completely outmaneuvered everyone in Stalins inner circle, when most of then were seen as one of the more likely candidates to take over.
@@polkka7797: Everyone had his ideas how to reform the USSR, yet they all had to keep silent under Stalin. Kruschev became the one who could call the shots.
"This is how people get killed: When their stories don´t fit!" - A piece of wisdom from Krushchev for Stalin´s daughter. Speech ability perk raised to 100.
The one line that always sticks in my head thinking about this movie, or the USSR as a whole (and pretty much encapsulates the movie) "I never thought it would be you..."
In the comic book version Death of Stalin; fictionally-Maria Yudina written a scathing letter to Joseph Stalin due to her family being placed in the gulags. It made him angry and a heart attack
In real life russian and eastern european historians who researched this episode of history after the fall of the soviet union in the 90's and early 2000's all concluded that she did write a letter to stalin in which she called him a evil man and said that she would pray for him an it is true that no repressions followed this unusually (for the soviet union) brave act of defiance. However the idea that this letter was a cause behind stalins heart attack is fiction.
@@marsapprentice8069 She didn’t call him an evil man, but she did say she donated some money he gave her to a church and prayed for God to forgive his sins. It was definitely a brave thing to write, but there was no direct insult, only an implied one.
Its a myth overall. There are generally huge amount of myth about how Stalin being "absurdly bloodthirsty". When you research real history, you may find out how many people, who may be considered to be dissidents, wrote to Stalin so he will help against persecutions, and - surprise - he did. Stalin numerous times helped Bulgakov. Both Pasternak and Shostakovich regularily met Stalin and asked for protection of some other artists, musicians or writers - and Stalin indeed provided it. So such letter wasn't anything exceptional - and for sure it didn't cause the stroke.
@@thedreamscripter4002 He wiped out the officer corps of the Army. He starved millions in Ukraine. He viciously moved the Tartars from Crimea. He expanded and filled the gulags. Stalin was a devil.
The death of Stalin closely mirrored the death of Mao. After he died, instead of his deputy like Beria taking the blame, the Chinese government, fed up with the whole ordeal of cultural revolution, blamed his wife Jiang Qing and 3 other people (known as the Gang of Four) for orchestrating the cultural revolution. The heir presumptive (like Malenkov) Huang Guofeng took over for a few years, but was eventually removed in favor of (Khrushchev) Deng Xiaoping who organized liberal reforms
Deng Xiaopeng is still the GOAT communist leader in China. Kept the peace internationally and brought an entire generation of Chinese into prosperity. They're the second most powerful country in the world because of him.
The entire conversation between Khrushchev and Svetlana is incredibly underrated. The entire movie, Svetlana is the one who feels powerful. She’s the one who everyone is trying to appeal to. Here, she’s rendered completely powerless.
Just put it together that the wonderful Ukrainian actor Olga Kurylenko carries the role of the pianist, Maria Yudina. A fine thing for a Ukrainian artist to play beautiful music over the corpse of an NKVD operative and a vicious dictator.
Thing is, after 1953 they did largely end the bloodshed. Soviet citizens weren’t free, and the police state remained, but the purges ended. They may have been out to steal from each other but they didnt kill people for fun or because frightened people didn’t fight back. In the long run that softer system lasted much longer. A version of it remains in Russia and in China today.
The repression was far more targeted, and psychiatric hospitals became the new way of treating dissidents, which while bad is far better than being sent to Siberia, and certain cities with large intellectual population and in great distance from Moscow actually even had parodies regarding their leaders, which they discussed and displayed openly. It became, even under the corrupt and stagnating rule of Brezhnev lesser violent and repressive than post-Mao China, they didn't treat their minorities like shit and never had something like Tiananmen Square. That being said if u did frequently criticize the leadership and disseminated dissenting views to your colleagues, you could be sent to a labour camp.
Kruschev was no slouch. He was in charge of Ukraine and the army - Ukrainian Front - army of armies - and did well. He was crude and essentially a smart peasant with savviness.
The scene at the very end when we see the future leader Brezhnev I wonder when we see certain footage of Putin in modern day Russia, who will take over from him whether by election or rebellion?
No fan of putin but I suspect the next guy will likely be worst but hopefully I am wrong and it will be another stalin to khrushchev situation but even that, as the movie shows, wasn't clean either.
Yes, but never again did it become such a bloodbath. They were all tired of having to fear for their life every day, so the leadership agreed on less brutal rules.
Khrushchev may have been the greatest leader of the USSR. While stalin industrialized the nation, won ww2, and turned a nation of shoeless peasants into the 2nd strongest nation in the history of the world he also did so with an iron fist (and maybe he had too) and committed countless atrocities to do so. Khrushchev instituted much needed reforms post stalin and began the process of moving away from the worst excesses of the previous regimes while maintaining their status as one of 2 superpowers post ww2 and when it was time to walk away he didnt fight it risking plunging the nation into civil war he conceded def and went home to rest allowing for the 1st peaceful transfer of power in the short history of the USSR.
He made sure that the Soviet order would be sustainable after fatigue from the fast changes of the Revolution up to post WW2 and transition after to an era of consolidation (and later decay) in the next decades.
I wouldnt put it like that. The soviets might have mobilized russia to win ww2, but in the end the country collapsed because they didnt do well in developing an economy. All they did was infighting and dreaming
Khrushchev was a revisionist who poisoned the soviet project with cynicism and used the secret speech to lay all the blame of all the conspirators at the feet of stalin, and gave way to the birth of the apparatchik as a class who choked the workers revolution to death and then in their own selfishness self destructed the entire union
@@unowno123the russian federation only succeeded the rsfsr in gdp in 2011, and hasn’t matched the gdp of the ussr to this day, with thirty years of capitalist economic management. clearly economically they were doing fine pre dissolution
It's because of the massive historical inaccuracy: Breznev was still a relative nobody at that time and not even at Moscow, so he would not have sat behind the head of sate at Moscow.
@@SmartassX1 the ban was never about Brezhnev lol. Besides, it's not specified WHEN exactly is the scene with Brezhnev sitting behind Khrushchev happened. It might be 1960 or 1962 when he wasn't a nobody.
@@asdf33395The Russian people loved this movie. The government…Not so much. You can find a clip of an old babushka saying “It’s all true, I lived through it.”
You'd think they would have enjoyed it, it basically shows the post Stalinist Soviet leadership as a bunch of good blokes doing their best they can in a less than ideal situation. Also, far from defaming his legacy Zhukov in the movie is a super awesome badass on the side of justice, if a bit rough around the edges. Just like the real Zhukov.
Nikita Khrushchev would be pivotal in the de-Stalinization of Russia. His popularity would be severely tarnished in time, though, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The failure of Operation Virtuous Mission and the forced cooporation with America in Operation Snake Eater would prove to be the last straw, and he was ousted from power shortly after.
I love how no one in this film, especially Khrushchev, is portrayed as a traditional hero. All their actions, including ousting Beria, are motivated by self-interest. Beria was right about one thing: none of them were actually better than him.
It is probably his greatest desire to be compared to Stalin but little Putin isn't fit to carry Stalin's jock, much less be anywhere in the same arena as Stalin. Putin at the end of the day is just another Beria wanna-be.
Kruschev did end Stalin's reign of terror. He throttled back Stalin's gulag system releasing hundreds of thousands of prisoners that really did nothing-just association or rumors of association in Stalin's paranoia. (Or the first to stop clapping at a Stalin speech.) He tried making the USSR a little more open and his "we will bury you" comment to the West was his idea to let Soviet advancements and the 'worker's utopia' show the world that his system was the best. However the cracks were already starting in a long era of internal decay and moroseness when complete control is implemented over a population by a few elites. Whatever system, always the same top dogs although I much prefer capitalism and the choices and standard of living it's produced.
Not only that, but he was not killed in the Kremlin. He was taken to the Lubyanka, down into the basement, and shot there. And it was on December 23rd, not on some nice bright sunny Spring day. There was probably three feet of snow on the ground. Very inaccurate.
Brezhnev retired Khrushchev on 500 ruble a month pension with his own dacha, etc, etc, etc.... pension was 62 times than average soviet pension of 8 rubles a month.... equality, egality, fraternity, with the workers....
Svetlana,do you know what happened to the ones your father helped to thrown out of power?it would happen to you and your brother too it would set a bad image to the world about SU's government
The US got the Stalins and the Hitlers. And as a rejoinder to the President of Russia, we also got some Cromwells... I'd pay cash money if any of them got into politics...
not really. That's a kids fantasy a bit like life is beautiful. It's not clearly affectionate to Hitler and the Nazis and making all the real world characters cute and witty. @@adamdavis6512
“The Soviet Union was prefect and Communism is perfect…it’s failing we’re that if its previous leaders.” Pretty much the reason every new Soviet tyrant echoed as to why the Soviet Union is failing and communism (economic fairytale) fails…constantly!
@@marccru the US embargo on Cuban trade started in 1958. China isn’t exactly as communist as it used to be, but the state still controls the economy far more than in the EU or US. Communism’s fall in the USSR was multifaceted and rather interesting, intersecting with an historic crash in the price of oil (and a Russian economy then as now too dependent on hydrocarbon production), social change, and political subterfuge.
Not only was the USSR not a communist society, it didn't even _claim_ to be a communist society. They claimed to be building socialism, with the eventual utopian end goal being to achieve communism. Now that was bullshit too, of course -- socialism is incompatible with imperialism, and whenever the two conflicted they chose to undermine socialism in service of maintaining the Russian empire -- but, you know.
I dont believe a single member of the politburo of the Soviet Union was a communist. Maybe they were when they started out - young and idealist. But by the time they reach that level the naive true believers will all have fallen away. Those guys were schemers, they were backstabbers, they were gangsters but most, most of all they were survivors. Each and every one of them was standing atop a pyramid of corpses of their own making. The doctrine is simply part of the rules of the game, to be utilised for their own selfish advantage. Even if such a thing as a benevolent dictator were possible, he would have the life expectancy of a mayfly before one of these vultures disposed of him. Unfortunately this is not a bug in the system - it's a feature.
For any classical music enjoyers like my own persona, the piece used in the coda is Mozart's Piano Concerto №23 in A Major, 2nd Movement.
thanks!
4😊@@Astro_Guy_1
Also the same movement that opens the film.
Great line from the deleted scenes, when the second conductor shows up in his PJ's.
"That's Rwensky! He can't do subtlety!"
"He's in his pajamas, I think subtlety is fucked"
Is the concerto recorded? Please say yes!
Recorded hundreds of times. Just find it in you tube!
Kruschev once said his greatest achievement as Premier of the USSR was specifically because when he was replaced, he was simply forced to retire, not executed or "died" as previous heads of the USSR had. I presume he felt it best not to push the subject as he accepted his "retirement" without argument lol.
Yeah he understood how the game was played there and knew it was time to walk away instead of being buried in the ground.
The real Game of Thrones.
He set the precedent with Malenkov, retirement and exile.
Wait, which heads of the USSR before Khrushchev had been executed or otherwise killed? Krestinsky? Stalin died of natural causes (as far as we know) and Molotov outlived Khrushchev by like 15 years. Or are we talking high-profile political figures in general.
@@jameshagan2832before Krushchev, it didn‘t matter if you walked away. Other than the actual Trotskyists, the vast majority of Stalin‘s intra-party opponents recanted their criticism (even if it was minor) and accepted demotions or even exile. But still, all of them were killed. Of the several dozen Bolshevik leaders from the 1917-1923 period, the only ones that survived Stalin were Molotov and Alexandra Kollontai.
And that‘s not even mentioning the thousands of people who got purged despite never actually voicing opposition to Stalin‘s policies.
Krushchev‘s survival isn‘t down to deciding not to fight it out, it‘s because the Party was a fundamentally different organization after the deaths of Stalin and Beria. Not just specifically because of their deaths, but also because the surviving Bureaucrats understood that it was now longer necessary to allow for the existence of madmen like Beria. All serious threats to the party had long waned, and importantly they had integrated the Army leadership into their system.
Khrushchev in his speech to the party plenum was cussing Stalin. So from among the crowd some shouted 'why were you quiet then comrade'. Khrushchev stopped and asked 'please stand up and show yourself.' None stood up. Then Khrushchev said 'you see now why I kept quiet'.
He also counted the fact that he was even asked to step down to be a big step in the right direction.
Thats the most Buscemi thing would say 😅
@@Vonwidtz "Boy, are you Fat!" Khrushchev was fat, Buscemi, not so much.
“I will _bury you_ in history!”
Easily my most favorite line of the film.
He really did, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about history and I didn't know who Beria was until this movie
@@CoffeeTable-pq5kn You musn't be very knowledgeable about history then
It's a condensation of a quote he made towards the USA during a speech
"History is on our side, we will bury you!"
@@Pangloss6413apparently he meant we will “out live you” but he fucked up when translating
@@MausOfTheHouse did you know there is such thing as history outside of 20th century Eurasian politics?
After Beira is shot the whole tone of the movie changes from black comedy and satire to harsh reality
That dude was psychopath. He locked up half of the Soviet Union. He even raped women and little girls. Beria was so notorious even Stalin feared him. Stalin wouldn’t trust Svetlana to be alone in a room with Beria.
The rest of the movie is like 5 minutes guy
Brezhnev: *I have my eyebrows on you.*
Eyebrow*
@@christiangrantz6906 I have 794 likes so far. Your "correction" is not needed.
@@johnroscoe2406 Unibrow*
@@URProductions 1.2k likes. Your "correction" is unnecessary.
@@johnroscoe2406 unneccesary*
Brezhnev looking over Chruchev's shoulder is gold.
Brezhnev smirking while looking at Khrushchev ❛❛You removed them? But who's gonna remove you?❜❜
I once wrote him a letter 😮
@@ianmangham4570 Who? Did Brezhnev give you a kiss?
@@brentsrx7 More like ass fook
5 seconds into the new Era of Beria being dead……
“I’m worried about Malenkov though.”
Could you blame them?
Can you ever trust a weak man?
It seems cruel until you find out what Beria did before Stalin died.
Probably not a coincidence that Stalin made sure his daughter was ever around him after he found out about his crimes against women
Had Khrushchev not acted quickly, Beria would have gotten away with the heinous crimes he committed when Stalin was alive.
@@michaellynes3540Imagine if he became the head of the Soviet Union?
Imagine him during the Cuban Missile crisis and such holy moly and JFK having to negotiate with this thing...
@@thesuperintendent4290don’t gotta imagine
We prob wouldn’t be alive
@@APersonOnRUclipsX not necessarily. While being a disgusting creature, Beria waa very pragmatic. He would not have escalated it this much. But a lot more Soviet women would become his victim, so there is that.
Stalins daughter actually had one hell of a life. She fled Russia via India, moved to the states, joined an architects cult, and her daughter is a pro-American biker chick.
Boy that was stupid....
lol
And ironically a Buddhist apparently.
Perhaps understandable, she doesn’t talk with her siblings much.
heavy William Hitler energy right there
She lived in Wisconsin. Which means there was a greater than 0% chance that she was a cheesehead
That animal, Blundetto, at it again
I can't even say his name...
I never forget!
What were we talking about again?
I did 20 years in the Gulag.
@@ignacio1171dont be too hard on yourself
Your brother Lavrentiy, whatever happened there...
The story of the real Vasily is scarcely better, not too long after his father died he was put in prison. He was there until 1960 and he basically drank himself to death after he was released.
Like so many Russians.
Actually sounds like the most Russian ending possible
yeah he was a truly sad story
Stalin had a horrible influence on each of his children. Vasily was a useless drunkard who drank himself to death, Yakov died during WW2 as a POW in a Nazi concentrationcamp after his father refused to exchange him, Svetlana went onto a difficult odessey after which she died destitute (but at least free) in the USA. Also his second wife commited suicide as she could stand neither what he did to the USSR nor his demeaning behavior towards her.
@@Nickname-ef9tv out of all of them, somehow Vasily is the saddest. There was a russian language mini serieis about him here on youtube
The scene with Svetlana is probably the most defining moment of the movie, because it is the moment where there is finally some truth pushed around.
Svetlana turns to look at Kruschev as if he is the bad one. Even in this last moment, Svetlana appeals to the notion that Beria had about Nikita being the antagonist.
Nikita’s sobering response undercuts her, but the real question now looms: either Svetlana knew all along that Beria was the worst and was playing to his game as an innocent, or she truly did not understand the depth of evil in the system that benefited her, and she is truly shocked.
You have to accept that Svetlana is at least for the moment, lost. She either benefited from the system and delighted in her ignorance and enjoyed the privilege she had been borne into, or she knew it as much and still played the game and would have sided with Beria and this time she just happened to lose.
In either case, her statement to Nikita ignores the threat to his own life that Nikita felt. And had Svetlana sided with Beria and Beria won, would she had mourned all the same?
And that’s how Nikita benefits Svetlana even as she antagonizes him: he does the things that will protect her and her brother. Because what Svetlana wants is not conducive to them staying alive.
It has all become so contrived that they have to control the narrative to the point that they would have to kill her brother because the stories wouldn’t line up.
It’s really an amazing and sobering scene that ties in all of the truly dark humor of the film.
I love how much of a smart ass she is, even when Beria would have happily killed everyone in this scene if allowed to take power.
@@funkkymonkey6924 yup. She was either completely ignorant, or just more of the same and playing dumb the whole time and had chosen Beria.
In either case, she was playing innocent spectator when in reality she really had been a princess because of her father.
Now she had to come to terms with her role that was giving her perks also meant she could find herself being shot and discarded, because that’s how she got her privileges in the first place.
@@jrodri14iiShe could have also been entirely traumatized and Stockholm syndromed behind Beria as a coping mechanism
She defected and wrote a book. The fact that she did those two things instead of being murdered is telling. After she was useful, she was no longer useful, but not dangerous. If she were a threat to anyone she never would have been allowed to live, let alone write a book and defect. The "Secret Speech" was still in the future, she waited, she was very clever. She was after all, Stalin's daughter.
I think she always knew, but as the "Big Bad's" daughter was protected. Champagne socialist dreck.
Kruschev went from class clown to head honcho quick
In real life, Svetlana never left the Soviet Union until her defection to the United States in 1966, which caused a huge propaganda blow to the Soviet Union.
It was hardly reported in Soviet Union so the blow was just something yankees got excited about having brought it about
yes she defected and no harm was made to her, soviet union was doing other staff😂
Actually she did leave the Soviet Union to go to India and immerse the ashes of her husband, Brajesh Singh, in the Ganges. It’s only because the Soviet Ambassador wouldn’t let her stay in India that she defected to the US.
These people don't seem Russian at all the script is filled with western disdain for russians
Beria, one of the most evil monsters that mankind produced.
Beria was a psychopath. His reputation labeled him as the Soviet Union’s Heinrich Himmler.
A long, long list . . . sigh . . . .
It's like Himmler, it always seems to be the second or third in command who's the most sadistic.
@@URProductions Himmler was horrific, indeed, he had more genocidal intentions as compared to Beria. But Beria was a fucking serial killer and rapist in power. Himmler's public morals were less than zero, but his morals in personal life was still decent, Beria's morals in his profession were far higher than Himmler's but still absolute shit, but his personal life's morals were horrific. I mean, after his home was razed in the '90s they found corpses of women there, age would have been teenage to early twenties at time of death, he buried people under his dacha for refusing to be his slaves.
@@URProductions Stalin saw Beria as his own little Himmler
3:27 Brezhnev smirking while looking at Khrushchev: ❛❛So, you removed them? But who's gonna remove you?❜❜
"Never thought it would be you"
Yeah, nobody thought it would be Kruschev.
Why was Kruschev so eager to take power and become the new head of the Soviet Union? He completely outmaneuvered everyone in Stalins inner circle, when most of then were seen as one of the more likely candidates to take over.
@@Alex-bs1iuhe wanted to reform the system, some men just think their ideas are better.
@@Alex-bs1iupower is like a drug. Some men crave power
@@jezalb2710 All men crave power to a degree, dictatorships just show the most obvious part of it.
@@polkka7797: Everyone had his ideas how to reform the USSR, yet they all had to keep silent under Stalin. Kruschev became the one who could call the shots.
One of the best movies in the last 10 years. Absolutely superb. Even after the 3rd watch still spotting new things
I can't imagine the amount of relief everyone there must have felt.
"This is how people get killed: When their stories don´t fit!" - A piece of wisdom from Krushchev for Stalin´s daughter. Speech ability perk raised to 100.
The weird thing about this movie is that Steve Buschemi looks more like Beria and the guy playing Beria looks more like Kruschev
"Go back to Georgia, Dead-boy!"
😂
He didn’t say “Go.” 😂
What a crazy "comedy" this movie was.
Sometimes reality is just insane
If you knew the history, it was a howler. If you didn't, I wonder what one would make of it.
@@DDd-hr6mz they'd assume it was propaganda
Simon Russell Beale's quite a trouper here, bursting into flames in front of everybody
Hot property in Hollywood.
The one line that always sticks in my head thinking about this movie, or the USSR as a whole (and pretty much encapsulates the movie)
"I never thought it would be you..."
Some fantastic actors in this film, it’s a classic that will get better with time
You know it's a good movie if Russia bans it
Russians banned a lot of bad movies too
american think good movie is Steven Seagal Movie 😂😂😂😂
@@amvfreak5148 I'm pretty sure Steven Seagal movies are not banned in Russia, but promoted.
@@amvfreak5148 Funny considering Steven Seagal is best buddies with Putin and has honorary Russian citizenship lol
@@amvfreak5148funny because they literally welcomed that fat lard to Russia
In the comic book version Death of Stalin; fictionally-Maria Yudina written a scathing letter to Joseph Stalin due to her family being placed in the gulags. It made him angry and a heart attack
In real life russian and eastern european historians who researched this episode of history after the fall of the soviet union in the 90's and early 2000's all concluded that she did write a letter to stalin in which she called him a evil man and said that she would pray for him an it is true that no repressions followed this unusually (for the soviet union) brave act of defiance. However the idea that this letter was a cause behind stalins heart attack is fiction.
@@marsapprentice8069Stalin died of a stroke.
@@marsapprentice8069 She didn’t call him an evil man, but she did say she donated some money he gave her to a church and prayed for God to forgive his sins. It was definitely a brave thing to write, but there was no direct insult, only an implied one.
Its a myth overall. There are generally huge amount of myth about how Stalin being "absurdly bloodthirsty". When you research real history, you may find out how many people, who may be considered to be dissidents, wrote to Stalin so he will help against persecutions, and - surprise - he did. Stalin numerous times helped Bulgakov. Both Pasternak and Shostakovich regularily met Stalin and asked for protection of some other artists, musicians or writers - and Stalin indeed provided it. So such letter wasn't anything exceptional - and for sure it didn't cause the stroke.
@@thedreamscripter4002 He wiped out the officer corps of the Army. He starved millions in Ukraine. He viciously moved the Tartars from Crimea. He expanded and filled the gulags. Stalin was a devil.
The death of Stalin closely mirrored the death of Mao. After he died, instead of his deputy like Beria taking the blame, the Chinese government, fed up with the whole ordeal of cultural revolution, blamed his wife Jiang Qing and 3 other people (known as the Gang of Four) for orchestrating the cultural revolution. The heir presumptive (like Malenkov) Huang Guofeng took over for a few years, but was eventually removed in favor of (Khrushchev) Deng Xiaoping who organized liberal reforms
I’d like to see that movie!
They should make a movie out of it.
Deng Xiaopeng is still the GOAT communist leader in China. Kept the peace internationally and brought an entire generation of Chinese into prosperity. They're the second most powerful country in the world because of him.
The entire conversation between Khrushchev and Svetlana is incredibly underrated. The entire movie, Svetlana is the one who feels powerful. She’s the one who everyone is trying to appeal to.
Here, she’s rendered completely powerless.
Just put it together that the wonderful Ukrainian actor Olga Kurylenko carries the role of the pianist, Maria Yudina. A fine thing for a Ukrainian artist to play beautiful music over the corpse of an NKVD operative and a vicious dictator.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
You should hope to never have the misfortune of meeting a ukrop
@@elricofmelnibone425I bet you voted blue
Honestly, they didn't even need the subtle look from Brezhnev at the end, his eyebrows revealed who he was from the start.
The use of the Mozart piece is absolutely and utterly perfect.
Zhukov was perfection in this.
"Dead boy!" had to be improve.
When you kick the one guy everyone hated from the group chat.
Oh Knucky. You never change.
Nikita "nucky" blundetto
@@mmeettwwoo Knucky knuckled down.
Thing is, after 1953 they did largely end the bloodshed. Soviet citizens weren’t free, and the police state remained, but the purges ended. They may have been out to steal from each other but they didnt kill people for fun or because frightened people didn’t fight back. In the long run that softer system lasted much longer. A version of it remains in Russia and in China today.
The repression was far more targeted, and psychiatric hospitals became the new way of treating dissidents, which while bad is far better than being sent to Siberia, and certain cities with large intellectual population and in great distance from Moscow actually even had parodies regarding their leaders, which they discussed and displayed openly.
It became, even under the corrupt and stagnating rule of Brezhnev lesser violent and repressive than post-Mao China, they didn't treat their minorities like shit and never had something like Tiananmen Square.
That being said if u did frequently criticize the leadership and disseminated dissenting views to your colleagues, you could be sent to a labour camp.
Kruschev was no slouch. He was in charge of Ukraine and the army - Ukrainian Front - army of armies - and did well.
He was crude and essentially a smart peasant with savviness.
Hands down, the best comedy of the decade.
The scene at the very end when we see the future leader Brezhnev I wonder when we see certain footage of Putin in modern day Russia, who will take over from him whether by election or rebellion?
Certainly NOT by election !
The country we all know as Russia, will probably die with Putin. I have no idea what comes next.
It's going to be really, really interesting to find out... hopefully we live long enough...
I don't think Putin will retire quietly. Most likely he'll follow Stalin's route and cling on tight until natural death
No fan of putin but I suspect the next guy will likely be worst but hopefully I am wrong and it will be another stalin to khrushchev situation but even that, as the movie shows, wasn't clean either.
It was quick,but not that quick, beria was tried and executed in december of that year.
Then Brezhnev died and Andropov took over then Andropov died and someone else and so on
It was Chernenko after Andropov.
Yes, but never again did it become such a bloodbath. They were all tired of having to fear for their life every day, so the leadership agreed on less brutal rules.
Yuri, We Hardly Knew Ye.
Overheard at the White House, "What do you mean another Premier died? I never met the old one yet"
@@barryandreev8333and then Gorbachev.
Khrushchev may have been the greatest leader of the USSR. While stalin industrialized the nation, won ww2, and turned a nation of shoeless peasants into the 2nd strongest nation in the history of the world he also did so with an iron fist (and maybe he had too) and committed countless atrocities to do so. Khrushchev instituted much needed reforms post stalin and began the process of moving away from the worst excesses of the previous regimes while maintaining their status as one of 2 superpowers post ww2 and when it was time to walk away he didnt fight it risking plunging the nation into civil war he conceded def and went home to rest allowing for the 1st peaceful transfer of power in the short history of the USSR.
He made sure that the Soviet order would be sustainable after fatigue from the fast changes of the Revolution up to post WW2 and transition after to an era of consolidation (and later decay) in the next decades.
I wouldnt put it like that. The soviets might have mobilized russia to win ww2, but in the end the country collapsed because they didnt do well in developing an economy. All they did was infighting and dreaming
@@unowno123Have you any idea of why and how the soviet union actually ended?
Khrushchev was a revisionist who poisoned the soviet project with cynicism and used the secret speech to lay all the blame of all the conspirators at the feet of stalin, and gave way to the birth of the apparatchik as a class who choked the workers revolution to death and then in their own selfishness self destructed the entire union
@@unowno123the russian federation only succeeded the rsfsr in gdp in 2011, and hasn’t matched the gdp of the ussr to this day, with thirty years of capitalist economic management. clearly economically they were doing fine pre dissolution
The Soviet Union if it was run by the cast of Snatch.
Americans when British people exist: “IS THIS A SNATCH REFERENCE?!”
Love this movie.
These scenes play out like scenes from The Sopranos. Makes you think.
I remember the alt history scenario that andropov's major reforms begin few years later after the assessination of brezhnev on 1969
Never saw it. It seems interesting.
Song?
Mozart's Piano Concerto №23 in A Major, 2nd Movement.
Ser Simon , you'll be missed
I don't think that was Beria's funeral though? Wasn't that just Khrushchev watching a concert with his wife?
Beria's funeral is that one guy simply sapping his ash with a shovel.
This is a really good movie. Please watch it if you haven't.
He didn’t swindle his way to the top for the power or love of country. It was solely for self preservation. Sound familiar?
I know why this was banned in Russia.
It's because of the massive historical inaccuracy: Breznev was still a relative nobody at that time and not even at Moscow, so he would not have sat behind the head of sate at Moscow.
@@SmartassX1yes and if there’s anything we know about modern Russia it’s how dearly they value truth 😂
@@SmartassX1 the ban was never about Brezhnev lol. Besides, it's not specified WHEN exactly is the scene with Brezhnev sitting behind Khrushchev happened. It might be 1960 or 1962 when he wasn't a nobody.
@@asdf33395The Russian people loved this movie. The government…Not so much. You can find a clip of an old babushka saying “It’s all true, I lived through it.”
You'd think they would have enjoyed it, it basically shows the post Stalinist Soviet leadership as a bunch of good blokes doing their best they can in a less than ideal situation. Also, far from defaming his legacy Zhukov in the movie is a super awesome badass on the side of justice, if a bit rough around the edges. Just like the real Zhukov.
They need a part two, Cuban Missile Crisis
I don’t understand the depiction of Svetlana. I thought she was always a victim of Stalin, and acknowledged his evil.
Unironically she was the most loved by Stalin, her mother was the victim of him, Vasily on the other hand is just....damn
nah she was a stalin's little princess since she reminded him or her mother who offed herself
Beria, whatever happened there....
😊😊😊
Is that guy with the black suit who look down at Nikita Krushchev at 3:38 Leonid Brezhnev?
Nikita Khrushchev would be pivotal in the de-Stalinization of Russia. His popularity would be severely tarnished in time, though, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The failure of Operation Virtuous Mission and the forced cooporation with America in Operation Snake Eater would prove to be the last straw, and he was ousted from power shortly after.
I love how no one in this film, especially Khrushchev, is portrayed as a traditional hero. All their actions, including ousting Beria, are motivated by self-interest.
Beria was right about one thing: none of them were actually better than him.
Read more about Beria and his predilection for children as "bed partners" and see if you still say that. An absolute monster.
Funeral ? 😟😟
You could say he had a cremation funeral as his body was burned and his ashes scattered to the wind
Beria never got a funeral. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered.
3:20 - beautiful soundtrack! Composer?
“…been a… busy old week”
Even stalin knew Beria was a monster.
Pretty sure this is an edit. I could've sworn the guy talking to khruschev said "can you every trust a *coward* ," not "weak man"
He says weak man. I own the movie and just checked it.
watched it in a different language maybe ?
Someday, there will be a movie made and it will be titled, THE DEATH OF PUTIN.
In the scale of things, Putin will never match a Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or Hitler.
It is probably his greatest desire to be compared to Stalin but little Putin isn't fit to carry Stalin's jock, much less be anywhere in the same arena as Stalin. Putin at the end of the day is just another Beria wanna-be.
@@deanpd3402that we know of yet
@@DonLoco3about as good an analysis of putin as I have heard
@@DonLoco3 more like a Russian Mussolini
Supreme leader Steve Buschemi.
Once Khrushchev got rolling, Beria discovered that he was out of his element.
Couldnt tell if this was satire or serious
A bit of both, the best kind :)
Life is funny
Bodies don't burn that easily, ask Hitler and Eva.................oh, yeh, right, sorry.
Why do their suits not fit?
Kruschev did end Stalin's reign of terror. He throttled back Stalin's gulag system releasing hundreds of thousands of prisoners that really did nothing-just association or rumors of association in Stalin's paranoia. (Or the first to stop clapping at a Stalin speech.) He tried making the USSR a little more open and his "we will bury you" comment to the West was his idea to let Soviet advancements and the 'worker's utopia' show the world that his system was the best. However the cracks were already starting in a long era of internal decay and moroseness when complete control is implemented over a population by a few elites. Whatever system, always the same top dogs although I much prefer capitalism and the choices and standard of living it's produced.
The movie is not accurate. Beria received a show trial and was shot afterward.
He did receive a show trial in the film. He was then immediately shot as he was being taken outside.
Not only that, but he was not killed in the Kremlin. He was taken to the Lubyanka, down into the basement, and shot there. And it was on December 23rd, not on some nice bright sunny Spring day. There was probably three feet of snow on the ground. Very inaccurate.
Not in Russian, not even an accent. It feels goofy.
Yep about as cheesy as those Jackie Chan movies
Brezhnev retired Khrushchev on 500 ruble a month pension with his own dacha, etc, etc, etc.... pension was 62 times than average soviet pension of 8 rubles a month.... equality, egality, fraternity, with the workers....
Who's got a light? 😂😂
Svetlana,do you know what happened to the ones your father helped to thrown out
of power?it would happen to you and your brother too it would set a bad image
to the world about SU's government
Hardly a funeral...
The US got the Stalins and the Hitlers. And as a rejoinder to the President of Russia, we also got some Cromwells... I'd pay cash money if any of them got into politics...
Toodaloo! *fire*
Sad, tragic, unhappy nation.
Shit knowin ya
Reminds me of the death of Cheese in the wire.
Beria understood that USSR and communism does not have future, he wanted to reform whole soviet system.
Putin was reelected, mega L.
Great movie! Lets communism destroy itself without effort. Every starry -eyed youngster beguiled by communism should watch this.
Now make an affectionate, whimsical movie about Hitler and the Nazi high command.
Didn't think so.
Jojo rabbit
not really. That's a kids fantasy a bit like life is beautiful.
It's not clearly affectionate to Hitler and the Nazis and making all the real world characters cute and witty. @@adamdavis6512
^
Stick to your shower arguments
I wouldn't exactly call this movie affectionate or whimsical. Satire elements aside, it's pretty much as dark as can be.
Closeopenonetwoone
Soviet caseoh
✋بيريا هو المشرف على مشروع صنع القنبلة الذرية السوفيتية فهو خدم أكثر من🐕🦺 خروشيف الأوكراني الذي أعطى جزيرة القرم الروسية إلى أوكرانيا 💰
Crimea is ukraine
He also was a prolific child diddler to the point that Stalin was afraid to leave his children alone with him
بيريا مغتصب أطفال
“The Soviet Union was prefect and Communism is perfect…it’s failing we’re that if its previous leaders.” Pretty much the reason every new Soviet tyrant echoed as to why the Soviet Union is failing and communism (economic fairytale) fails…constantly!
Communism always falls apart, when the part comes where the citizens have to give up all there shit.
The USSR post stalin didn't really have any individual tyrants it was more rule by bureaucracy. Chernobyl illustrated this perfectly.
@@marccru the US embargo on Cuban trade started in 1958. China isn’t exactly as communist as it used to be, but the state still controls the economy far more than in the EU or US. Communism’s fall in the USSR was multifaceted and rather interesting, intersecting with an historic crash in the price of oil (and a Russian economy then as now too dependent on hydrocarbon production), social change, and political subterfuge.
Not only was the USSR not a communist society, it didn't even _claim_ to be a communist society. They claimed to be building socialism, with the eventual utopian end goal being to achieve communism. Now that was bullshit too, of course -- socialism is incompatible with imperialism, and whenever the two conflicted they chose to undermine socialism in service of maintaining the Russian empire -- but, you know.
I dont believe a single member of the politburo of the Soviet Union was a communist. Maybe they were when they started out - young and idealist. But by the time they reach that level the naive true believers will all have fallen away. Those guys were schemers, they were backstabbers, they were gangsters but most, most of all they were survivors. Each and every one of them was standing atop a pyramid of corpses of their own making. The doctrine is simply part of the rules of the game, to be utilised for their own selfish advantage. Even if such a thing as a benevolent dictator were possible, he would have the life expectancy of a mayfly before one of these vultures disposed of him. Unfortunately this is not a bug in the system - it's a feature.
personally, I thought "the Godfather part two" better...
Beria had rights, you know.
He doesn’t deserve anything after what he did with young girls
So did all the people he arrested and tortured.
The Constitution says you do!
So the children he abused
Saul?
Anti communist nonsense.
Nuh uh
If you think anti soviet and anti communist are the same thing, you're an idiot. The Soviet Union was a shit show.
literally everything in this filmed happened aside from like a few things
we found putin in pavlos...silly rabbit
Are you a Communist?
Horrible movie
I enjoyed it
I enjoyed it
Great movie!