I recently came across this documentary while looking for sources to evaluate for history project comparing Nazism and Stalinism in their treatment of enemies . The wikepedia page ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soviet_Story ) of the documentary seems to hold of a lot of culturally motivated criticism and some stuff I'm not entirely sure of, hence I wanted to know this communities opions of the same.
I also wanted to know if there are any glaring limitations to a documentary financed by the European Parliament when exploring collaboration between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Is the film regarded as biased?
Also is the documentary uniquely valuable to anyone comparing contrasting Nazi and Stalinist policies towarda Poland?
I've responded to such a question once at AHF so I'll use my old reply here.
The "documentary" is, unfortunately, little more than an agitprop piece rather than a serious attempt at an analysis. E. g. they seriously rely on the "General NKVD-Gestapo agreements of 1938", which is a ridiculous and obvious fake.
It's supposedly a super-secret agreement between Gestapo and NKVD signed by Beria and Mueller in Moscow on 11.11.38 in regard to cooperation in miscellaneous areas, such as:
военной промышленности,
самолетостроения;
экономики;
финансов;
научно-технического сотрудничества;
энергетики;
науки и техники;
в области сокровенных тайн, теозоологии, теософии, паранормальных и аномальных явлений, влияющих на социальные процессы и внутреннюю жизнь государств
military industry;
aircraft industry;
economics;
finance;
techno-scientific cooperation;
energy;
science and technology;
the area of occult mysteries, theozoology, theosophy, paranormal and anomalous phenomena influencing the social processes and internal life of states"
The two sides agree to wage a common war with the main enemies:
международным еврейством, его международной финансовой системой, иудаизмом и иудейским мировоззрением;
дегенерацией человечества, во имя оздоровления белой расы и создания евгенических механизмов расовой гигиены.
international Jewry, its international finance system, Judaism and Judaic worldview;
degeneration of mankind in the name of reinvigoration of the white race and creation of eugenic mechanisms of racial hygiene.
By degeneration the sides mean, among others:
рыжие;
косые;
внешне уродливые, хромоногие и косорукие от рождения, имеющие дефекты речи: шепелявость, картавость, заикание (врожденное);
ведьмы и колдуны, шаманы и ясновидящие, сатанисты и чертопоклонники;
горбатые, карлики и с другими явно выраженными дефекта ми, которые следует отнести к разделу дегенерации и вырождения;
лица, имеющие большие родимые пятна и множественное количество маленьких, разного цвета кожное покрытие, разноцветие глаз и т.п.
redheads;
ugly-faced, limp, those with crooked hands from birth, having speech defects: lisping, rhotacism, stutter (inborn);
witches and sorcerers, shamans and clairvoyants, satanists and devil-worshippers;
humpbacked, dwarfs and others having clear defects which should be classified as degeneration;
faces having large birthmarks and numerous quantities of smaller ones, skin surface of different color, different color of eyes, etc.
The fake first appeared in the 1990s in the antisemitic newspaper of the fascist "Pamyat" society. It re-appeared in the film in a slightly changed form, but the bogus content is the same.
Ironically, the film's author inquired the Holocaust denier David Irving about this document and even Irving was more than skeptical:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/History_07/Mueller_KGB.html
This fake is related to another one, the so-called Beria's racial instructions for NKVD (see the Russian historian Kostyrchenko's debunking at http://www.lebed.com/2002/art2969.htm).
Both fakes are clearly related to the writings of late New York-based antisemitic nutjob Gregory Klimov and his "theory of degeneration", which claims that so-called degeneration shows itself in the above-quoted physical "signs", that most Jews are degenerates and homosexuals, etc.
The use of such a blatant forgery with a straight face by itself absolutely discredits the film. I won't even go into the deceptive use of photos (using the Nansen photos of 1922 Russian famine to illustrate Holodomor victims) and other tricks. Needless to say, Soviet apologists had a field day with the mockumentary given how many easily debunked claims it makes, see http://rugraz.net/index.php/ru/istoricheskoe-dostoinstvo/mifi-o-rossii-i-cccp/1009-alexander-dyukov-the-soviet-story-the-tissue-of-lies
Those who care about pushing a particular ideological point, whatever the ideology, but don't care about historical accuracy are only shooting themselves in the foot.