This is a relatively informative look back on the history of communism (in the West, not in Asia), starting with Karl Marx and carrying all the way through the infamous “kitchen debate” between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev. Not exactly free of political diatribes, the documentary still provides fascinating footage of scenes with Lenin and Trotsky, as well as more harrowing sequences of a Russian ship sinking during the Russo-Japanese war and the mutilated bodies of people killed during Stalin’s many purges. As the documentary progresses toward the 1950s, the narration has more in common with Cold-War rhetoric than neutral observation.

Made by Columbia Pictures.