Introduction

Apocalypse, Stalin is a television series in three parts retracing the meteoric rise of Joseph Stalin and the birth of the Stalinist ideology, broadcast on France 2 on 03 November 2015.

It was made after Apocalypse, the First World War, and before Apocalypse: Verdun.

It brings together known and previously unpublished period documents of the great events that led to his becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and leading the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The archive images have been restored and colourised. The series is directed by Isabelle Clarke and Daniel Costelle and narrated by Mathieu Kassovitz.

Outline of Part 01

The first part relates to the beginnings of Iossif Vissarionovich Djougashvili who will later become Stalin.

Born in Gori (unofficially on 18 December 1878) and officially on 21 December 1879 in Georgia from a seamstress and fervent orthodox mother and a shoemaker father who made a good living and quickly became an alcoholic.

Her mother pushes her son with atherosclerosis to the priesthood and struggles to finance her education. A brilliant pupil, he was expelled at the age of twenty for Marxist propaganda and became a bandit in the name of the “Revolution”; he is arrested and escapes many times.

He escaped in 1904 and met for the first time Lenin and then joined the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Workers Party of Russia. In November 1917, with Lenin, he participated in the seizure of power in Russia in the context of the First World War, which saw the Tsar’s regime collapse. The civil war is tearing the country apart. The Bolsheviks set up a regime of terror.

Joseph Djougashvili is noted and supported by Lenin makes himself indispensable: he becomes Stalin, “the man of steel”. He is “possessed”, as in the novels of Dostoevsky, by the Marxist faith with the only moral: “faith is above the law”.

June 1941. Hitler rushes into a war to the death against Stalin. He made grave mistakes that allowed the German army to make a startling breakthrough putting the Soviet Union in jeopardy. During the winter of 1941, the Germans are at the gates of Moscow, which can turn its destiny over and the world holds its breath.

Apocalypse: Stalin Series

• Part 01: The Possessed.
• Part 02: The Red Man.
• Part 03: The Master of the World.

Production & Filming Details

• Directors: Isabelle Clarke and Daniel Costelle.
• Narrator: Mathieu Kassovitz.
• Production: Une coproduction officielle France – Canada.
• Released Date: 25 October 2015 (France).
• Running time: 157 minutes (total running time).
• Country: France and Canada.
• Language: English.

YouTube Link