China on the Screen: The Phenomenon of the Soviet Animated Propaganda Film of the 1920s

This article considers the underexplored phenomenon of the animated propaganda film of the 1920s in the context of Soviet film production (more particularly, China on Fire from 1925, directed by Yu. Merkulov). The animated propaganda film is studied as a kind of “revolutionary manifesto” in the context of the “cultural revolution” and the processes of nation-building in the USSR. The aim of the work is to examine the Soviet agitation cartoon film of the 1920s with an “international” vision as a special visual and anthropological source that helped construct an ideological image of the USSR in the world. The research methodology is based on historical-anthropological and visual methods, using a constructivist approach, which involves the study of the creation/construction of the visual image of China in Soviet animation. The research draws upon the little-known data of scholarly and theoretical works in the field of early Soviet animation of the 1920s–1930s, as well as materials of the cinema periodicals of the period. Also, the article considers the characteristics of the first cartoon laboratories in the USSR and the process behind the production of animated propaganda films. Particular attention is paid to underexplored issues related to the scholarly and theoretical search of the well-known Soviet film-makers (A. Bushkin, D. Vertov, N. Vano, A. Ivanov, Yu. Merkulov, A. Ptushko, N. Khodataev, M. Tsekhanovsky) in the field of cartoon propaganda films. It is concluded that in the early Soviet animation, there was a pronounced interest in topical political plots in foreign countries with the non-capitalist way of development and, primarily, China. The cartoon China on Fire (1925) is analysed as a special visual and anthropological source with various techniques used by filmmakers in order to demonstrate traditional China and modern China on the screen. The author claims that China on Fire as the first full-scale propaganda animated film in the USSR is characterised by attention to the political situation of the time associated with the colonialists from different countries, their exploitation of oppressed peoples, a caricature on the European lifestyle, and the image of a “modern” socialist everyday life, ethnic and national development, as well as representation on the screen of a new socio-international community born of a revolution.