Stalin commissioned this epic on the “Red Commander of the Ukraine,” Mykola Shchors, who strove to liberate his native land during the Civil War and the Revolution of 1917–19. For George Liber: “In creating this film, [Oleksandr Dovzhenko] skillfully negotiated between the conflicting demands of his own creative muse and Stalin’s interpretation of the Revolution and Civil War. In doing so, he took great risks and managed to square the circle, but at great emotional cost to himself.” Jay Leyda elaborated: “Shchors taught [Dovzhenko] the new difficulties of executing a suggestion from Stalin [but] Stalin’s original commission was surpassed. . . . Dovzhenko’s genius could take him more deeply into human motives [and] his humor was both more exuberant and more mordant. Shchors contains such a gallery of portraits of the many-faced enemy as no one but a fearless poet would risk—beyond realism. . . . As in all his best work, Shchors leaves in the memory burning images of death and of passionate life. . . . All the rhetoric of the film is outweighed by moving pictures . . . pictures that pour across the screen.”