In the proposed project I am going to study and analyze the anatomy and the mechanisms of how erotic power is constructed and distributed in so called ‘artistic documentaries’ produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In my research I will focus on the cinematic representations of the party leaders (and the party power in general) and their erotic dimension. I will argue that that from 1930s to 1940s Stalin not only steps out from Lenin’s shadow as a genuine leader of working class and subsequently of the Soviet Union, as it has been noted by Slavic scholars, but he also steps out and overshadows the eroticism which initially was embodied in Lenin’s character in these films and from the end of 1930s was transferred to Stalin. My argument is that if Stalin appears as a locus of heterosexual desire, Lenin first of all generates and evokes a homosexual one. I will try to contextualize this transference and rechanneling of desire in the light of 1930s homophobic stands and policies of the party.

A full-length study is available here.