Soviet Films 1938-1939 by Sergei Eisenstein
 
Foreign film critics and audiences have not been slow to note the dignity of theme, the freedom from trashy sensationalism that distinguished Soviet cinema output. I when one seeks the reason for this they are found to lie in the role the screen plays in the USSR, from which follows many special features of the organisation and activities of the cinema industry here
Most popular and most widespread of all the arts, closest to the masses, the cinema in the USSR is called upon to be an important agent in the general cultural development of the country. The advancement of the cinema industry has its place in the state five year plans which guide the progress of the whole country, and the leadership of the industry is concentrated in the hands of an important state body, The Committee on the Cinema Industry under the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR……..