page_title: Moscow Strikes Back
section_title: Story
hierarchical_section_title: Moscow Strikes Back / Story
caption_attribution_description: English: Still from Moscow Strikes Back, Soviet documentary of the Battle of Moscow. Directed by Ilya Kopalin. 1 of 4 films to win the 1943 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
context_page_description: Moscow Strikes Back is a Soviet war documentary about the Battle of Moscow made during the battle in October 1941 – January 1942, directed by Leonid Varlamov and Ilya Kopalin. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
context_section_description: The film begins in Moscow, with civilians preparing defences in their streets. Men in civilian clothes with rifles prepare for battle. Women machine shell cases and prepare hand grenades. An apparently huge Stalin makes a battle speech in Red Square to thousands of cheering Red Army soldiers on parade with greatcoats, ushankas and fixed bayonets.
  Men, trucks, tanks and artillery advance into battle. Anti-aircraft guns fire into the night sky, which is crisscrossed by searchlight beams. A crashed German bomber is seen in close-up. Russian fighters and bombers are readied and armed.
  Artillery guns of many types fire many times. Tank crewmen scramble to their tanks and jump aboard. Tanks race across snow-covered plains towards the enemy. Snow camouflaged troops parachute behind enemy lines. They collect skis parachuted to them and go into battle, lying down under fire before attacking again.  Tanks rush from a forest across the snow, infantrymen riding on their rear decks or skiing into battle in large numbers. A tank is hit and explodes as the attack goes on. Russian infantry in greatcoats storm a village and clear the houses of surrendering German soldiers. Towns and cities are liberated. The Russian soldiers are greeted by smiling civilians. An old woman kisses several soldiers.
  German atrocities are shown. The elegantly preserved houses of the playwright Anton Chekhov and the novelist Leo Tolstoy are seen badly damaged, the museum exhibits destroyed. The bodies of murdered civilians are shown. Quantities of destroyed German armour and transport are scattered across the landscape. Captured artillery is to be used against the Germans. The bodies of dead Germans are seen frozen in the snow. Maps show the extent of the Russian advance. The front line has retreated far from Moscow.
caption: A crewman jumps aboard his snow-camouflaged tank
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