Modernism as a Project

When we speak of modernism today, we generally refer to a European-centered historical formation associated with developments in science and technology, secularism, individualism, and the expansion of social relations beyond national borders. Modernism becomes intelligible and visible through the concepts, practices, and transformations that accompany it.

From philosophical and artistic perspectives, modernist thought is idealistic and purposive. Works identified as modernist through their engagement with new technologies and contemporary methods of social analysis frequently express the desire for a better society. The objective appears clear, a roadmap seems available, and decisive action is expected to lead society toward its destination.

In this essay, I examine Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda series as an example of early twentieth-century modernist cinema. My purpose is to consider Vertov’s position within both modernist thought and the early Soviet revolutionary process.

Kino-Pravda and Soviet Modernization

Consisting of twenty-three newsreel issues produced between 1922 and 1925, Kino-Pravda depicts Soviet Russia as it embarked upon an intensive process of modernization following the socialist revolution. A central phase of Vertov’s cinematic work began in 1922 with this series and with the publication of his manifesto “WE: Variant of a Manifesto” in the same year.

In Kino-Pravda, Vertov brings the practices of everyday Russian life to the screen. Rather than pursuing conventional ideas of cinematic beauty, the series adopts a direct and assertive style that claims to record facts. Vertov sought to capture aspects of everyday life that remained unseen, unnoticed, or overlooked by the naked eye. At times, he and his collaborators employed concealed or unobtrusive cameras in public environments such as streets, schools, and bars.

Vertov’s intention was to construct a cinematic image of the early post-revolutionary Soviet period. In doing so, he visualized the relationship between a state undergoing reconstruction and the society being reorganized around it.

Two recurring representations in Kino-Pravda are particularly important for understanding the Soviet state’s modernization project. The first is the intensive construction and operation of railways, which function in Vertov’s cinema as socialist and idealist symbols. The second is the growing number of citizens employed in state institutions and public projects after the revolution.

Vertov presents revolutionary Russia as having entered a race toward modernization. Technological developments and socioeconomic projects appear to place the country on a path previously followed by the already industrialized West. Kino-Pravda also visualizes the activities through which the Communist Party sought to establish an ideological foundation for communism within society.

Children constitute another important social group in the series. As the newest generation, they symbolize those upon whom the future of the revolution will be built. Vertov presents them as future guardians of the revolutionary project.

Railways, Speed, and Progressive Time

The prominence of railway construction can be interpreted in two ways. First, the railway signifies Russia’s rapid movement toward modernization. Second, faster transportation makes it easier for citizens to travel to work and participate in the country’s economic development. Speed consequently becomes one of the symbolic identities of the revolution.

Individuals travel rapidly to and from their workplaces, collectively contributing to the construction of the new Russia. This emphasis on movement relates to another central feature of Kino-Pravda: the progressive character of the new social order. The belief that society must continually move toward something better and more advanced is also fundamental to modernist thought.

In one sequence, Vertov shows the audience a clock. Its hands begin to move rapidly, after which the film cuts to accelerated images of workers hurrying through their daily routines. Speed becomes a necessary condition of revolution, while time is reduced to a secondary concept that must adapt itself to the pace of modernization.

Vertov appears to summon the equal citizens of a unified and solidaristic society to participate in the construction of comprehensive modernity. Yet this appeal can also be approached critically. The filmmaker calls citizens to action without clearly identifying the ultimate destination of their labor.

This leads to a fundamental question: what are these people working for? Are they working for “modernism,” a concept whose content can never be fully defined and which acquires meaning only through partial signs of progress?

There is a gap in Vertov’s image of Soviet Russia. What is the ultimate objective of the state’s efforts during this early revolutionary period? Could the idealistic state depicted by Vertov be pursuing modernization without a clearly articulated destination?

The Propagandistic Dimension of Kino-Pravda

Kino-Pravda can also be understood as propagandistic in certain respects. Vertov does not merely visualize the revolutionary process; he openly celebrates and supports it. In his cinematic vision, an advanced civilization can be produced only through the collective participation of its citizens.

Workers are the principal actors in the expanding economy, and the material burden of the new state rests on their shoulders. Yet some citizens remain isolated from the collective social body.

In one issue of Kino-Pravda, we see sick children confined to a sanatorium. I read this representation as a separation between the “sick” generation produced by war and its “healthy” members. The children may all belong to the generation expected to serve the revolution, but its sick members do not appear to participate in the social totality that Vertov repeatedly emphasizes.

From this perspective, traces of a social Darwinist logic can be identified in Vertov’s cinematic language. The revolutionary future appears to depend on healthy and productive bodies, while those unable to contribute are placed outside the visible unity of the collective.

This interpretation does not mean that the footage was necessarily produced to endorse such an exclusion. Rather, the organization of the images makes visible a tension within Vertov’s revolutionary modernism: the promise of universal social unity exists alongside an emphasis on health, productivity, labor, and usefulness.

Labor, Intellectuals, and Hegemony

Vertov’s emphasis on the working class clearly reflects his Marxist position. Nevertheless, the model of social progress represented in his films remains problematic. His image of social development becomes complete only through the productive sections of society. In this limited sense, Vertov’s position may be described as orthodox Marxist: workers occupy the center of history because they control and sustain the process of production.

Antonio Gramsci offers a useful perspective from which to question this model. Reflecting on the limitations of revolutionary insurrections and the problem of political leadership, Gramsci argued that a revolutionary class could transform society only by establishing hegemony—by obtaining intellectual and moral leadership across other social groups rather than relying solely on economic power or sudden political action.

For Gramsci, education and intellectual activity were essential to this process. As he famously argued, all people possess intellectual capacities, although not everyone performs the social function of an intellectual.

In Kino-Pravda, workers appear as the decisive actors in the chain of production. What remains absent, however, is a clearly articulated intellectual function through which their productive power might be translated into broader social leadership. They work, construct, travel, and participate, but the mechanism through which this activity becomes hegemony is not sufficiently visible.

The Communist Party does appear in the series through its activities, demonstrations, congresses, and campaigns. Nevertheless, Vertov does not fully examine the Party as the institutional force that mediates between productive labor and the formation of a new social order. Its presence is displayed, but its role within the balance of social power remains largely unexamined.

Vertov’s cinematic modernism therefore contains both an idealistic promise and a significant absence. Kino-Pravdacelebrates speed, technology, labor, solidarity, and collective development. Yet it leaves unresolved the destination of modernization, the position of those excluded from productive society, and the intellectual and political processes through which workers might transform economic importance into lasting social leadership.

References

Austrian Film Museum. “Kino-Pravda: Online Edition.” Collection Dziga Vertov.

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, 1971.

Museum of Modern Art. “Dziga Vertov.” Thomas Walther Collection.

Nas, Alparslan. “Dziga Vertov’un Sinema Dili Üzerine.” Birikim, 12 July 2008.