"Battleship Potemkin" is communist propaganda. By definition, propaganda is media which is not necessarily false, but is often misleading, and by nature designed to persuade you towards a certain cause. Whether you are for, against, or neutral on communism, I can understand not wanting to watch propaganda. Still, you should watch "Battleship Potemkin" to know what communist propaganda looks like.
"Battleship Potemkin" tells the story of a group of sailors who stage a mutiny, a key event in the 1905 Russian revolution which was the precursor to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in which Russia changed its political system from monarchy to communism. Vladimir Lenin called this event the dress rehearsal for the revolution and so director Sergei Eistenstein uses this event to portray the dawn of Soviet Russia in a symbolic microcosm.
We begin on the seven seas, bathed in white daylight. Here on the Battleship Potemkin, the relationship between the sailors and their superior officers becomes tense, and finally comes to a breaking point when the officers feed the soldiers rotten meat which they refuse to eat. In an effort to suppress insubordination, the officers order the disobedient soldiers to be shot. A sailor named Vakulinchuk uses this moment to rally the sailors to mutiny. The mutiny is successful, but Vakulinchuk is killed. The other sailors bring his body to the city of Odessa where their story inspires the people of the city to give them food. In response, a troop of soldiers is sent to attack the civilians. In reality, there were riots in Odessa, and hundreds were killed in the state suppression of those riots, but it did not happen all in one afternoon on the giant staircase for which the city is famous. Still, let’s keep in mind that the Bolshevik Revolution did happen, and watching this movie can help us understand why it happened.
At the center of this movie is the universally understandable human need for food. In feeding the sailors rotten meat, the officers are saying that in the social hierarchy, only the people on top deserve to be healthy. When a sailor sees a plate with the Christian phrase “Give us this day our daily bread” on it, he sees the hypocrisy of Christians starving each other and breaks the plate. Later, as the officers are preparing to execute the sailors, they place a tarp over their heads, further dehumanizing them; in the background, a priest prays for the men to see reason. The priest first appears ghostly and mysterious, like a vision of a saint, but he is no ghost, vision, or saint, but a person working for an institution the owning class uses to control the workers, like the doctor who tries to deny the worms which are obviously in the meat. Finally, the people of the city help the sailors by sharing food. In fighting for the right to food, the sailors and the civilians are fighting for human rights. In contrast, the officers who cruelly threaten the death penalty on the sailors, and the soldiers who are sent to suppress the rebellion, are portrayed as heartless and mechanical.
When we experience this movie today, what is the best meaning we can draw from it? Answering this question can be as complicated as developing an ideal political system. So let’s focus on what we know. Everything in nature follows a principle of necessity—in other words, cause and effect. It was necessary for monarchy to exist; it was necessary for these sailors to rebel; it was necessary for the soldiers to suppress the rebellion, and so on. When I say “necessary” here I don’t mean “good,” I only mean it in the same way that it is necessary for you to fall to earth if you jump off a building. It is the nature of tyranny to mistreat people, it is the nature of people to fight back when they reach their breaking point, and it is in the nature of power structures to fight insurrections, and so on.
As for who should rule, there are a few more truths we can know. It is true that just because a king wants something, that does not mean it right. It is true that just because a majority of people want something, that does not mean it is right. And it is true that just because a dictator wants something, that does not make it right. So if what makes a ruler good is their wisdom to know what is good, then the real question is how we define goodness, and this is a question of ethics. Ethics often teaches us to let our decisions be guided by what will bring pleasure, joy, or benefit, but this then raises another question: is it better for a greater quality of pleasure to be experienced by a smaller quantity of people, or is it better for a smaller quality of pleasure to be experienced by a larger quantity of people? Perhaps, instead of focusing on the pleasure, we should make our top priority the reduction of suffering—to stop hunger, disease, and war as much as possible.
Speaking of war, the quote from Lenin at the start of the movie claims communism’s war against the owning class is the only just war, in a way, a war against war. I don’t know enough to know if he is right. But I do know that in the story told here, the rebels fought for human rights. And that for that fight, I believe humanity owes them a place of honor in our memories.