Watch Interplanetary Revolution (1924): The Most Bizarre Soviet Animated Propaganda Film You’ll Ever See

In 1924, Zenon Komis­sarenko, Youry Merkulov and Niko­lai Kho­dataev pro­duced Inter­plan­e­tary Rev­o­lu­tion, which might just be one of the strangest Sovi­et pro­pa­gan­da films ever pro­duced.

First, the film is ani­mat­ed using not only tra­di­tion­al cel ani­ma­tion but also col­lage and stop motion, giv­ing the work a queasy, dis­ori­ent­ing feel. A bit like look­ing at a paint­ing by Hen­ry Darg­er.

Then there is the film’s sto­ry. As an inter­ti­tle pro­claims, this is “a tale about Com­rade Con­in­ter­nov, the Red Army War­rior who flew to Mars, and van­quished all the cap­i­tal­ists on the plan­et!!” This already sounds bet­ter than John Carter.

The movie, how­ev­er, is rather hard to fol­low with­out either the appro­pri­ate amount of rev­o­lu­tion­ary fer­vor or, per­haps, hal­lu­cino­gens. Inter­plan­e­tary Rev­o­lu­tion opens with a wild-eyed, ax-wield­ing bull­dog with a top hat – a cap­i­tal­ist, obvi­ous­ly. Oth­er cap­i­tal­ists, with swastikas on their fore­heads, suck the blood from a hap­less mem­ber of the pro­le­tari­at. (By the ear­ly 1920s, Ger­many’s nation­al­ist right had adopt­ed the swasti­ka, and Sovi­et pro­pa­gan­dists quick­ly used it to brand cap­i­tal­ists as fas­cists.) Then the rev­o­lu­tion comes and a pant­less cap­i­tal­ist demon los­es his mind after devour­ing a copy of Prav­da. Next, the cap­i­tal­ists board a giant fly­ing shoe and fly off into space. From there, the film gets kind of weird.

You can watch the whole thing above. It’s also added to our list of Free Ani­mat­ed Films, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Dzi­ga Vertov’s Sovi­et Toys: The First Sovi­et Ani­mat­ed Movie Ever (1924)

Watch the Sur­re­al­ist Glass Har­mon­i­ca, the Only Ani­mat­ed Film Ever Banned by Sovi­et Cen­sors (1968)

Watch Dzi­ga Vertov’s A Man with a Movie Cam­era, Named the 8th Best Film Ever Made

“Glo­ry to the Con­querors of the Uni­verse!”: Pro­pa­gan­da Posters from the Sovi­et Space Race (1958–1963)

The Beau­ti­ful, Inno­v­a­tive & Some­times Dark World of Ani­mat­ed Sovi­et Pro­pa­gan­da (1925–1984)

Jonathan Crow is a writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions.