In his secret speech of 1956 to Soviet Communist Party leaders, Nikita Khruschev cited this film, in which Stalin is inaccurately portrayed as the head of the party in 1919 and as a Civil War hero, as an example of what he called the Cult of Personality.
The film takes place in May 1919.
Based on a play of the same name, written by Vsevolod Vishnevskiy or Stalin's 70th birthday in 1949. It also won the Stalin prize. The movie however didn't receive the Stalin Prize because Stalin was not pleased with the portrayal of himself by director Mikheil Gelovani. This is a rare case that a movie by Gelovani didn't win this award.
The historical facts in the movie are mostly based on the school book "History of the Communistic Party of the Whole Soviet Union (of the Bolshevics)", also known as "Short class of history of"which is shown in the movie right after the opening credits and was published in 1938. It was partly written by Stalin himself and was approved by him. The book became one of the most important propaganda books which was used for educational purposes in the Communistic party.
The scenes on the British ship were filmed on the battleship "Admiral Marakow". It used to be the Small battleship "Nürnberg" of the German Navy, which was given to the Soviet Union in 1946 as reparation.