BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN 101 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!

THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN- SCREENING WEDNESDAY 14TH, 9PM, STATION 40

lets learn from the past and build towards the future!

"The Potemkin uprising was a 1905 mutiny of the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin against their officers, which was part of the Russian Revolution of 1905. It later came to be viewed as an initial step towards the Russian Revolution of 1917, and was the basis of the silent film Battleship Potemkin".

"The Battleship Potemkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei
Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It is a fictional narrative film meant
to glorify a real-life event that occurred in 1905, the Battleship
Potemkin uprising, when the crew of a Russian battleship rebelled against their oppressive officers during the Tsarist regime. Potemkin has been called one of the most influential films of all time, and it was named the greatest film of all time at the World's Fair".

“To all civilized citizens and to the working people! The crimes of the autocratic government have exhausted all patience. The whole of Russia, burning with indignation, exclaims: Down with the chains of bondage! The government wants to drown the country in blood, forgetting that the troops consist of sons of the oppressed people. The crew of the Potemkin has taken the first decisive step. We refuse to go on acting as the people’s
hangman. Our slogan is: freedom for the whole Russian people or death! We demand an end to the war and the immediate convocation of a constituent assembly on the basis of universal suffrage. That is the aim for which we shall fight to the end: victory or death! All free men, all workers will be on our side in the struggle for liberty and peace. Down with the autocracy! Long live the constituent assembly!”

Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 41, pages 169.2-170.1.

A reference to the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin, which broke out on June 14 (27), 1905. The ship entered Odessa, just then in the grip of a general strike, but no use was made of the favorable conditions for joint action by the workers and sailors. The Bolshevik organization in Odessa had been weakened by arrests, and was not united. The Mensheviks were opposed to an armed uprising and tried to restrain the workers and sailors
from offensive operations. The tsarist government sent the whole of its Black Sea Fleet to crush the Potemkin mutiny, but the sailors refused to fire at the insurgent ship, and their commanders were forced to withdraw the fleet. After sailing the seas for eleven days, the Potemkin, short of food and coal, made for Rumania and there surrendered to the Rumanian authorities. Most of its sailors remained abroad. Those of them who returned were arrested and committed for trial.

The Potemkin mutiny failed but the fact that the crew of a major warship had gone over to the revolution was an important advance in the struggle against the autocracy. Lenin said the uprising was an “attempt to form the nucleus of a revolutionary army”


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin_uprising
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/00/4/potemkin.html
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