Updated January 24, 2018 18:13:51

Photo: Joseph Stalin was Russia's leader during WWII. (US library of congress / US army)

Russia says it has cancelled the release of Death of Stalin, a dark, satirical movie from British director Armando Iannucci, saying many Russians would find it an insulting mockery of the country's Soviet past.

The film, which focuses on back-stabbing and in-fighting among the Soviet leader's closest allies as they vie for power immediately after his 1953 death, was privately viewed by culture ministry officials and advisers.

Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said his ministry had received a number of complaints after the showing which had prompted him to withdraw its general release licence.

He said he had asked legal experts to make extra checks on its content.

"Many people of the older generation, and not only, will regard it as an insulting mockery of all the Soviet past, of the country that defeated fascism and of ordinary people, and what's even worse, even of the victims of Stalinism," Mr Medinsky said in a statement.

He said his ministry had told the film's distributor it was inappropriate to release the film on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the victorious World War II Battle of Stalingrad in which so many Soviet soldiers lost their lives fighting for a city which bore Stalin's name.

But he said the distributor had not heeded the warning.

"We don't have censorship," Mr Medinsky said.

"We are not afraid of critical and unpleasant assessments of our history, but there is a moral line between the critical analysis of our history and desecrating it."

Iannucci said he had not lost hope the Russian authorities would perform a U-turn.

"All the Russians we've shown the film to so far, including Russian journalists, have said how much they enjoyed and appreciated the film," he said.

"They say two things: 'It's funny, but it's true'. I'm still confident we can get it in cinemas."

'Bad blood'

Russia will hold a presidential election on March 18 which incumbent Vladimir Putin is expected to win easily.

Putin, who has dominated Russian politics for the past 18 years, has put patriotism at the centre of his rule.

Stalin was repudiated by the Soviet Union after his death.

Photo: Many Russians still credit Stalin with some of the country's greatest military achievements. (News Online Brisbane)

He is recognised as responsible for the deaths of millions, from policies that included the forced collectivisation of farms that caused famine, and from a succession of purges that saw mass executions and imprisonment at an archipelago of camps.

But the Soviet leader of the World War II era is still associated by many Russians with the country's greatest achievements.

Mr Putin has called Stalin "a complex figure" and said attempts to demonise him were a ploy to attack Russia.

Some of the people who attended the film's private viewing said they were disgusted.

"It's a despicable film," said Nadezhda Usmanova, head of the Russian Military Historical Society's Department of Information.

The group was involved in organising the pre-release screening.

"It's a bad film, it's a boring film, and it's vile, repugnant and insulting," Ms Usmanova said.

Elena Drapeko, deputy head of the culture committee in the State Duma — the Lower House of Parliament — said she found "extremism" in the movie.

"It's an effort to breed bad blood into the social harmony that has been reached in Russian society", said Ms Drapeko, who earlier in her career was a popular Soviet and Russian actress.

Reuters

Topics: film-movies, world-war-2, world-politics, offbeat, russian-federation, united-kingdom

First posted January 24, 2018 16:59:53