Film and book representations in modern European cinema

¶ … social conditions that spurred Marx's writing of the Communist Manifesto shared several interesting similarities, as well as numerous differences, with the social conditions that appeared as a result of the influence of the Communist Manifesto in the 20th century. Germinal, a book by Emile Zola, shows the social conditions that existed as communism was beginning to spread across the world. In contrast, the movie The Inner Circle chronicles the social conditions that existed after communism had swept across Europe and the Soviet Union.

Emile Zola's book, Germinal, depicts a society that existed before and during the time that the influence of communism was felt in Europe and the Soviet Union. Germinal depicts labor problems among coal miners in late nineteenth century France. Told through the eyes of a newcomer to the mines, Etienne Lantier, Zola's book depicts the lead character's struggles to improve working conditions by organizing worker resistance. Etienne organizes a strike that has an unpredictable and tragic outcome (Zola).

Germinal is a great study of the social conditions and aspirations of the working class man of the late 18th century. The novel shows a mining team in an aptly named mine called "Le Voreux," that is consumed by circumstances beyond their control. They are often destroyed by their difficult and tragic circumstances. The brutality and harshness of life in the mines is clear in this passage from Germinal:

"everything was plunged back into darkness, the picks beating out their heavy, dull blows; and there was nothing but the sound of heavy breathing, groans of pain and fatigue beneath the weight of the air and the showers from the underground streams" (Zola).

The inhuman working conditions of the mines and the tragedy of the worker's lives act as a metaphor for the social conditions that helped to spur the emergence of Karl Marx's eloquent body of work on economics and communist thought. Germinal shows that prior to the rise of communism, life for workers as capitalism first grew was often brutal and dangerous. As Marx often noted, workers were poorly rewarded for their efforts, while the owners of factories grew rich on the worker's efforts. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx argues the "worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range."

In Germinal, Etienne is aware of Marx's thoughts, and it is often Marx's ideology that drives his attempts to reform the working conditions within the mines. Etienne comments as his dreams of a better life for the workers begin to crumble, "Karl Marx's idea remained standing: capital was the result of spoliation, it was the duty and the privilege of labour to reconquer that stolen wealth."

Andrei Konchalovsky's movie, The Inner Circle, gives great insight into the social conditions that existed after communism swept the Soviet Union. The Inner Circle shows the terror of Stalin's regime through the eyes of Stalin's movie projectionist. The film's main character, played by Tom Hulce, is an idealistic and innocent little man who believes that his great boss, Stalin, only has the interests of the little man at heart. The majority of the film chronicles his day-to-day life, his patient waiting to see the great leader. When the projectionist finally talks to the great leader, Stalin's contempt for the little man is clear.

The Inner Circle is a disturbing insight into the blind allegiance to government that played a large part in legitimizing and making possible many of the great tragedies of the Stalinist era. Like millions of other Russians, the little projectionist seems to turn a blind eye to Stalin's brutality and despotism.

The social conditions that emerged in the Soviet Union after Marx's writings (as depicted in The Inner Circle) are on the surface remarkably different from the social conditions depicted in Germinal. The oppression of the workers in Germinal is clear and upfront. The mines owners and operators clearly exploit the workers for the owners' own profit. This could not be a greater contrast from the ideals of Stalin's regime shown in The Inner Circle. Stalin's regime promoted the equality and the power of the workers, and the little projectionist believes this ideology wholeheartedly.

A deeper analysis reveals that the social conditions within The Inner Circle are in fact much more sinister and unequal than the little projectionist believes. This is clearly shown by Stalin's clear contempt of the little projectionist. Therefore, The Inner Circle reveals that the social conditions that existed prior to the implementation of Marx's communist ideals are not qualitatively different from the social conditions that existed in the Stalinist era. Workers were considered second-class citizens, and exploited by those with more power in both the pre -- and post-Communist eras.

In many ways, the Soviet Union was the logical and inevitable outcome of inevitable distortion and misinterpretation of the writings of Karl Marx. Marx's "stress on the economic factor in society and his analysis of the class structure in class conflict have had an enormous influence on history, sociology, and study of human culture" (The History Guide). Marx's writings focused on freeing the worker from oppression and poor living conditions, and yet Stalin's regime, supposedly built on these ideals, served to stifle the freedoms of the people of the Soviet Union.