The Sixth of July (film)
7월 6일 (영화)
A 1968 Soviet black-and-white film about the Left SR uprising in Moscow in July 1918. Made at Mosfilm, it was directed by Yuli Karasik from Mikhail Shatrov's script of his own play, with music by Alfred Schnittke and Alla Demidova as Maria Spiridonova.
In depth
What kind of film is it?
The Sixth of July is a black-and-white historical film made at Mosfilm in 1968. It was dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the suppression of the uprising, and its release was tied to the coming centenary of Lenin's birth. Mikhail Shatrov adapted his own play for the screen, Yuli Karasik directed, Mikhail Suslov was the cinematographer and Alfred Schnittke wrote the music. In 1968 it won a special prize of the international jury at the Karlovy Vary festival in Czechoslovakia.
Yuri Kayurov plays Lenin, Vasily Lanovoy Dzerzhinsky and Alla Demidova Spiridonova. Armen Dzhigarkhanyan appears as Prosh Proshian, Vyacheslav Shalevich as Yakov Blumkin, Nikolai Volkov as Mirbach and Yuri Nazarov as Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich.
What is the story?
The film opens at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow on 4 July 1918. The Left SRs want to break the Brest peace, and Lenin wins the vote by arguing that there is no strength to fight Germany. The Left SR Central Committee then decides at an emergency meeting on 6 July to kill the German ambassador Mirbach. The killing is the signal for an uprising: building after building falls, and Dzerzhinsky and Latsis are arrested. The Bolsheviks send the delegates into the workplaces to organise the city, the Latvian Riflemen enter at dawn and put the uprising down, and the story ends when the congress resumes on 9 July.
How does it differ from the record?
The film's frame is the Soviet official reading, that the Left SRs tried to take power from the Bolsheviks. That reading is still disputed. Placing the decision to kill at a meeting on 6 July also departs from the record: Blumkin stated in 1919 that he was given his instructions on 4 July, and how the decision was made is still unclear. The event itself is treated in the entry on the Left SR uprising.