Educational Media Reviews Online

Yale Strom’s documentary L’Chayim, Comrade Stalin! traces the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), a Soviet Jewish homeland established by Joseph Stalin in 1928, twenty years before the founding of Israel. Stalin encouraged Russian Jews to become communal farmers in this far eastern region of Siberia where they could cultivate their own identity and Yiddish culture. The JAR (often referred to by the name of its capital, Birobidzhan) attracted not only Russian Jews but also idealistic immigrants from many other countries including the United States. They arrived in Siberia to find makeshift shelters on uncultivated land, built homes from the ground up, and eventually established a Yiddish theatre, schools, and libraries. Jewish culture thrived in the region for a time but with Stalin’s later persecution of Jews, many renounced their Jewish identities and their traditions faded.

In 2000 Strom traveled by trans-Siberian railroad to Birobidzhan, asking people along the way to tell him what they knew about the JAR. L’Chayim, Comrade Stalin! combines scenes of Strom’s journey with contemporary interviews and archival material to examine the JAR’s past, present and possible future. Strom’s film also asks whether Jewish traditions have survived in the JAR and reveals the anti-Semitism alive in today’s Russia.

Strom has collected an abundance of rare archival material, including film of performances at Birobidzhan’s Yiddish theater, and excerpts from the 1936 propaganda film Seekers of Happiness, a story of Jews traveling to Birobidzhan to start new lives. His interview subjects include several people who have lived in Birobidzhan since the 1930s, including the directors of the city’s museum and its Jewish Center, a schoolteacher, and a man whose parents worked the original farms. Strom also interviewed two American women whose parents moved their families to the JAR in the 1930s, and several current residents of Birobidzhan.

Strom’s enthusiasm for his subject is apparent in the level of detail offered. The American women trace their childhood journeys to Birobidzhan city by city, mention items they packed for the trip, and one says her family saw a movie in San Francisco along the way. In spite of Strom’s obvious affection for his subjects, the historical context for what they say is not always clear. Remarks about immigrants being murdered or accused of spying are not clarified for those unfamiliar with Russian history or Stalin’s Terror. It can be difficult to glean from Strom’s interviews exactly what it is he wants viewers to understand.

The film is occasionally, and oddly, interrupted with a title card flashing the words “The Jewish Question” in red letters on a black background. Most of the spoken material is in Yiddish and Russian with English subtitles.

L’Chayim, Comrade Stalin! will be of interest to students of Jewish studies and history, but perhaps most useful as an in-depth study for those already knowledgeable in Russian history or the JAR.