"Chapaev", 1934

Notes on "Chapaev"

• Based on the exploits of doomed civil war hero Vasily Chapaev as described by Dmitri Furmanov in the eponymous novel (summarized here).
• One interesting note from the summary of the novel, connects with something from Mao's Long March:  "Peasant women come to complain that the Red Army soldiers are looting. Some of the looting was senseless--taking diapers and a baby carriage. Chapaev gives the men one chance to turn in all the stolen loot. After that, anyone caught with stolen property will be arrested. He says the stolen property will be returned to the rightful owners, unless of course they're bourgeois, in which case the property will go into the regimental fund."
• Boris Babochkin just owns the role, and as a result of this performance was designated a People's Artist of the Republic in 1935, one of the few to achieve the honor before the age of 40.
• The baddies march under the skull and crossbones, always a bad move. 
• Chapaev also figures prominently in the computer game "Red Comrades Save the Galaxy".