Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky (November 4, 1886 – July 29, 1938) was the de facto executive producer

Executive producer

An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...

 for the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 film monopoly from 1930 to 1937. He was executed as a traitor in 1938, following a "purge"

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

 of the Soviet film industry, and much information about him was expunged from the public record as a consequence.

Shumyatsky was born in Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude

Ulan-Ude

Ulan-Ude is the capital city of the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located about southeast of Lake Baikal on the Uda River at its confluence with the Selenga...

) in the vicinity of Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the world's oldest at 30 million years old and deepest lake with an average depth of 744.4 metres.Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, it is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the...

 in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. He appears to have been active in Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 circles by 1903. Following the Russian Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 he was a party functionary in Soviet Siberia, including a stint as premier of the Far Eastern Republic

Far Eastern Republic

The Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state that existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of the Russian Far East...

 from November 1920 to April 1921. From 1923 to 1925, he represented Soviet interests in Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, and after that was in charge of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East

Communist University of the Toilers of the East

The Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921...

, and then a member of the Central Asian Bureau of the Party Central Committee back in Siberia.

In none of these capacities did he evidently have anything to do with film-making. Nonetheless, following a reorganization of the Soviet film industry he was selected by Stalin to become the head of Soyuzkino in December, 1930. When Soyuzkino was dissolved and replaced by GUKF on February 11, 1933, he remained in charge and even with expanded powers over all matters of production, import/export, distribution and exhibition.

He is considered by many to have especially targeted Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...

 for mistreatment within the industry. However, as the chief of the Soviet industry, and his job description thus requiring him to enforce Stalinist thinking therein, he had no real choice but to crack down on filmmakers who were seen as practicing formalism

Formalist film theory

Formalist film theory is a theory of film study that is focused on the formal, or technical, elements of a film: i.e., the lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing...

, by then considered an ideological evil, and Eisenstein, with his predilection for montage

Soviet montage theory

Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing...

 theory and experimental film

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

 making—not to mention his five-year absence in the West—was viewed with great suspicion within the industry and the government. It was Shumyatsky who had to ultimately give approval for Eisenstein to make Bezhin Meadow

Bezhin Meadow

Bezhin Meadow is a 1937 Soviet film famous for having been suppressed and believed destroyed before its completion. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, it tells the story of a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by sabotaging the year's harvest and the...

, the failure of which was a major factor in Shumyatsky's downfall.

Another factor that was turned against Shumyatsky by his opponents: following a visit to the USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, he returned to Moscow with a vision of moving the hub of the film industry to a spot near Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, where the climate and geography were similar to those of Hollywood and thus more amenable to year-round film-making. This vision extended to the building of an entire film community, to be called Kinograd—a highly expensive proposition.

Apart from the Bezhin Meadow debacle, Shumyatsky was unable to meet annual goals for film completions—something that did not escape the notice of his critics. In terms of size and resources, the Soviet film industry was far behind even the smaller countries of the capitalist West: in 1935, of a planned 130 feature films, only 45 were completed; in 1936, only 46 of 165; in 1937—his final year—only 24 of 62.

Shumyatsky was arrested on 8 January 1938, accused of collaborating with saboteurs within the film industry. On 28 June 1938 he was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad.