The soviet political censorship and motion picture art in Russia in the period of the new economic policy

The article is devoted to the problem of the development of cinema in Soviet Russia during the period of the new economic policy. The author describes the activities of political control bodies, presented during this period by the General Department for Literature and Publishing, established within the framework of the People’s Commissariat of Education in 1922, and the Main Repertory Committee established in 1923 in the structure of Glavlit to censor the repertoire of all spectacular enterprises: theaters and cinemas, variety and circus venues, bars and restaurants, working clubs. The repertoire policy of the General Repertoire Committee in the field of cinema became the subject of special attention. The work contains a description of the basic principles and difficulties of censoring film production associated with numerous scattered film-making organizations, a significant number of commercially demanded, but ideologically unacceptable foreign-made films, an imperfect organization of the regulatory bodies themselves, duplicating their work. Since 1924, the control of film distribution has been tightened due to the introduction of additional age, territorial, and social restrictions when issuing permits for demonstration visas against the background of the alleged practice of closed shows. The consolidation of all the film distribution organizations under the auspices of Sovkino, which received the right to carry out preliminary censorship and issue permits, also contributed to the strengthening of control. A significant role in the popularization of scientific knowledge and the spread of the new ideology was played by the national educational cinema. Only with the approval of the state order practice in the film industry and the centralization of the supervising censorship bodies, was cinema fully controlled.