What are 5 reasons why Lenin and the Bolsheviks appreciated cinema?

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1. Spellbound (bigreda says

   The main reason was that Russia was a largely illiterate country when the Revolution and civil war broke out – and Russian wasn't spoken in much if the country. The Agitprop (Agitation and propaganda) department fitted out special Agitprop trains that toured the country showing plays and films. The films themselves can be cleverly edited to reflect not only "The truth" but to show people the way to think, who is who in the new government and what their roles can be. People like to talk about films, and what happened in them.

   So – in no particular order:
   1. Film is good for demonstrating ideas to an illiterate people
   1.5 Film is good for demonstrating ideas to people who don't speak the language of government.
   2. Film is cheap – much cheaper than producing and distributing a daily or weekly newspaper/
   3. Film is an effective method of propaganda – and Russian film-makers were amongst the best in the world – check out Sergei Eisenstein's films http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0QAjpeosgU&fe…
   4 Films can act as news – showing people what the government want people to see, and giving them an idea of how to think about this news
   5 Going to see a film would have been an incredibly memorable experience for a largely peasant population – the people are going to talk about the film to their friends, neighbours and family – to people who didn't see it, thus spreading ideas further.

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