[CCIP]

The film itself is, in many ways, a product of its times - very much in the spirit of 1992, and remarkable considering what a huge change that is from just a few years before. Fascinating footage and fascinating overview - but history-wise, I think it's very much a romantic look that many unfortunately take for granted. Yes, Russia wasn't as backwards and hopeless as Soviet history may have portrayed it, but it was still a very troubled country, with poor and incompetent leadership, severe socioeconomic problems, and a difficult international position. The film romanticizes a Russia that we lost, along with Western alternatives, but ignores a lot of the real problems that existed on the ground.

I am particularly cynical of the positive portrayals of Nicholas II and some of the aristocratic leaders - Russia was plagued with leadership problems for hundreds of years now. They ranged from mad visionaries, to hopeless idealists, to conservative stalwarts, to incompetent fools - and not one fully effective. Nicholas II was somewhere between idealist and incompetent fool, and sadly with the worst traits of both. I don't doubt for a second that he was a wonderful family man and a lovely guy - but he was criminally irresponsible. Sorry, but him and his wife fully deserved their ultimate fate (though their children absolutely didn't) - and their elevation to sainthood is just another illustration of what's wrong with the Russian Orthodox church and Russian nostalgic conservatism. And a there are a lot of overtones of that here.

Russia was factually behind the West in many regards, and was suffering from a lot of anxiety precisely because of it. It was that anxiety that spilled out into desperate and extreme alternatives that never really took root in the west. Communism wasn't a Russian invention. But Russia was hungry for Western imports for a reason - precisely because as a society, it lacked a real center and a real balance. It did not have a strong a competent leadership, a working geopolitical strategy, or a sustainable and fair economy. The conservative, diverse, difficult culture (shaped by a difficult history) did not have much to offer to that moment in history.

A revolution had to happen. It was the inevitable and maybe even right thing for a rapidly collapsing society - a society that was collapsing not by conspiracy, but by sheer political, economic, military inefficacy. Just look at how this great, peak-form country of Russia did in the Russo-Japanese war and WWI. Noone is to blame for that but the "Russia that we lost" itself. But if the revolution had to happen, the tragedy was where it went and the way it was hijacked - by a ruthlessly competent, ideologically-bent minority movement. They knew what they wanted and knew how to get it, and were willing to do so no matter the cost. The rest is history. Of course the terror that was to come out of Lenin and Stalin does no more to redeem the unsustainability of the "Russia that we lost" than Putin's heavy-handed regime today does to redeem Yeltsin's all-too-familiar criminal incompetence in the time that this movie was made. Nor do the post-Soviet disasters do anything to redeem the crimes of the Soviet regime. Whether it's imperial Russia, communist Russia, or today's Russia, it's a sad and difficult place all the same. The real difference is that the Russia of 100 years ago had yet to live through most of the massive historical trauma that the 20th century had in store for it. Of course it's easy to look back and imagine yourself without all those historical scars, without the baggage of the World Wars and communist rule. It's easy to say "we didn't deserve this", but the fact is that the disaster was waiting to happen. It turned out a lot worse than it could've been, but no amount of trying to keep things the same would've averted it.

Otherwise it's great that the movie asks a lot of good questions, and shows scenes that for 70 years, noone really had a chance to freely examine. But it's not a Russia anyone should really miss. And while it offers valuable clues to how Russia (and any other country) should NOT be like, it doesn't really offer any good ways out of Russia's recurring cycle of tragedy. Maybe because really there isn't and can't be a Russia without this ongoing social, economic, political, and cultural tragedy.