Chapayev

Chapayev (1934) is a Soviet war drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Sergei and Georgi Vasilyev. Boris Babochkin plays Red Army commander Vasily Chapayev — a performance that turned a civil war figure into a permanent fixture of Russian popular culture.

The Urals, 1919. Chapayev's 25th Division pushes against Kolchak's White Army while a newly assigned commissar, Furmanov (Boris Blinov), tries to bring discipline to a man who leads on instinct. Across the front, Colonel Borozdin commands a veteran, battle-hardened regiment and can afford to wait. The script came directly from Furmanov's own memoirs — he served under Chapayev and wrote it down while the mud was still on his boots.

The film took the top prize at the 1935 Moscow International Film Festival. Chapayev himself crossed from cinema into folk legend, becoming the subject of a whole genre of Russian jokes that outlived the Soviet Union. Stream Chapayev (1934) online on iFILM.