The Cinema of Late Stalinism, the Soviet Frontiers

During the 1930s, the USSR's cinema helped to construct the image of the Soviet Union as a country under siege, surrounded by enemies (which was helped by cultural roots and centuries-old historical experiences). This situation changed in the post-war period. The cinema now helped the regime to raise awareness, justify and legitimize the country's new level of power, raised from a regional power to a world superpower. The USSR now had allies in the West and the East. It needed to break out of its isolationism and become part of a global economic, social and political system. It had friends and subjects to protect, including from itself, such as the groups opposed to Sovietization. It needed to defend its new borders, which were increasingly similar to those of Tsarist Russia. And it needed to become a maritime power in order to maintain this system. Its directors, even reluctantly, undertook this task.