At the Politburo session of 11 June 1948, during the consideration of the production plan for films, Stalin said approximately the following (I'm quoting from the notes I kept from that session): “The film ministry is carrying out an incorrect policy in film production. They keep trying to produce more and more pictures. Their expenditures are high. The waste great. They don't worry about their budget. While we could be getting 2 billion in net profit from the cinema. They want to make sixty films a year. That's not necessary. It's incorrect policy. We need four or five artistic films a year, but good ones, remarkable ones. Plus a few newsreels and popular science pictures. But we're going about cinema extensively, as if it were agriculture. We need to make fewer films, but good ones. And expand the cinema's network, print more copies. We can't compare with the United States in the cinema. They have completely different goals for cinema. There they make a lot of pictures and take in tremendous income. We have different goals. Here I'm looking at the production plan for films. What a lot of nonsense they've got planned! < … > Here they have Night of the Commander [Noch' polkovodtsa]. Why? It's pointless. They'll end up with nonsense. Or Fellow Travelers [Sputniki]. Pointless. Or Tale of Tsar Saltan [Skazka o tsare Saltane]. What do we need this for? The film about Matrosov came out badly. We shouldn't be letting the republics have their way, they're spending a lot of money on cinema. And what are they putting out? Here they want to make Raid on the Carpathians [Reid na Karpaty]. What for? Vershigora is going to lie. Or Zaslonov. What is that? A hymn to arbitrariness. Or a film about the Nakhimovites. What on earth can you say about the Nakhimovites? There are so many military themes. We need A Great Force [Velikaia sila]. I just don't like the director. It would be good if Pyriev took over. < … > In general, all the important pictures have to be entrusted to experienced directors. There's Romm, who's good, Pyriev, Aleksandrov, Ermler, Chiaureli. Entrust those to them. Men like that won't let us down. Give them the color films, too. That's an expensive trick. Kozintsev is good. Lukov needs to be driven out. Pudovkin is good. Here we have Bolshakov … going on and on about how we need workers promoted for the job, how we should be entrusting young people. Well, you can make experiments like this at your own expense, not the state's. As regards documentaries: we need a picture about Lenin. Only it should be given to Romm. But here we have Belyaev. I don't know Belyaev. Or give Pyriev the one about Lenin….”

Voprosy istorii, no. 5 (1998): 24–25.