The film's French version title is La Russie sous les armes.In 1942, during the Second World War, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, led by Joseph Stalin faced a formidable foe in Nazi Germany.

Factory workers, farmers in their fields, educators and students in their schools, doctors in their hospitals, all symbolized the country's utilization of its cooperative energy to fight fascism.

Since the 1920s and 1930s, with great sacrifices made by the working class and peasants, the Soviet Union had been transformed through a series of Five-Year Plans, into the world's second greatest industrial power.

In the coming months, the Soviet military leaders planned to throw back the invading Nazi armada and regain lost territories.

"[9] In a similar move, the Province of Quebec through the Bureau de censure du Québec banned the film, along with Our Northern Neighbour, another NFB documentary that covered the same subject.

To ensure that Canadians from coast-to-coast could see them, each film was shown over a six-month period as part of the shorts or newsreel segments in approximately 800 theatres across Canada.

[12] Historian Malek Khouri, in analyzing Inside Fighting Russia and the role of propaganda in the NFB wartime documentaries, said.

"During the early years of the NFB, its creative output was largely informed by the turbulent political and social climate the world was facing.

World War II, Communism, unemployment, the role of labour unions, and working conditions were all subjects featured by the NFB during the period from 1939 to 1946".