In 1924, veteran Bolshevik Petrov, a resident of Tsaritsyn, begins carrying a letter to Vladimir Lenin, to inform him about Kulak brigands roaming the land and spreading death and misery.

In the Kremlin, Vyacheslav Molotov tells Anastas Mikoyan that now, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin will attempt to subvert the party by attacking Stalin, Lenin's devout disciple.

Stalin, mourning his teacher's passing, delivers a eulogy at the funeral, calling for all attendants and all the people of the Soviet Union to vow to maintain Lenin's legacy.

Director Mikheil Chaiureli began planning The Vow already in 1939, after the release of his previous picture, The Great Dawn[1] - which, set before the October Revolution, was the first film to clearly portray Stalin as Lenin's indispensable aide and acolyte.

[2] The production of The Vow was delayed by the Second World War,[1] during which the personality cult of Stalin was set aside in favour of patriotic motifs, to encourage the populace to resist the enemy.

[8] The film was approved by French censors, in spite of police protests that it would threaten public order,[8] although a scene negatively featuring Georges Bonnet was removed.

[10] In a 1949 article published in Les Lettres Françaises, Georges Sadoul called it "a film the qualities of which might offend the delicate, amateurish scholars and the admirers of Orson Welles...

[1] Richard Taylor noted that The Vow signaled a transformation in Stalin's cult of personality: rather than being seen merely as Lenin's successor, the premier was now also credited as a leader on his own right, by highlighting his role as the nation's savior during World War II.

[15] According to author Evgeni Dobrenko, Stalin's new status was hinted in another form: on the very month in which The Vow was released, the second part of Ivan the Terrible was sharply condemned by critics.

[10] According to Edvard Radzinsky, Pavlenko intentionally combined Christian motifs in the plot, to induce an identification of Stalin with Jesus; Lenin played the part of John the Baptist in selecting him as Messiah.

"[17] Antonin and Miera Liehm commented that upon its release, "a style was born" of pictures "with Stalin always at their center... that fulfilled Andrei Zhdanov's requirements in their entirety... And so became the model for other filmmakers.