According to the Warners and to Davies, the film was inspired by Roosevelt himself. The U.S. Government had a major interest in showing the new ally – USSR – as a friendly and good nation led by “good leaders”. After several attempts (Robert Sherwood, Erskine Caldwell), Edward Koch – who had just written the screenplay of Casablanca – was hired to write the script. Michael Curtiz as the director and an excellent cast produced an incredible propaganda movie: USSR is an almost perfect place to live in, Stalin is a political genius, the Russians are good guys, Clemenceau and Chamberlain had full responsibility for the German-Russian treaty.

The film is a carefully produced, written, acted and directed lie. It also lies about the 1937 stalinist purge: Bucharin, Yagoda, Soholnikov, Trotzky were German spies!

“The picture represents such a daringly different approach to the screen medium – an adventure for which Warner Bros. deserves the utmost commendations – that it can’t possibly be reviewed as an ordinary film. It is truly a documentary; Hollywood’s initial effort at living history. […] There are many other sequences to bring out particular points, but by far the most interesting – and controversial – is a lengthy reaction of the famous purge trials of 1937. […] These confessions reveal that with the aid of Trotzky, the men on trial conspired with Germany and Japan to sabotage Russia’s preparations for defense […]. It’s espoused that the purge of the traitors in 1937 is giving the United Nations such a strong ally on the eastern front in 1943”. (Variety, May 5, 1943)