All My Lenins

All My Lenins, is a historical 1997 comedy film by Hardi Volmer. The topics are Russian Bolsheviks' coup d'état plans, World War I and Russian Revolution (1917). Plot In 1908, the young Estonian politician Aleksander Kesküla (Üllar Saaremäe) has escaped from Estonia, then part of the czarist Russian empire, to Switzerland. Kesküla is strongly concerned about the national oppression in the Russian empire. It is also the point of view of the famous Russian exile and bolshevik, Vladimir Lenin. (This role was played by Viktor Sukhorukov). Lenin believes czarist Russia to be "the prison of nations". Kesküla takes his last exams at the University of Bern. When World War I bursts into flame, Lenin views the Russian and German bourgeoisies to both have caused the war and so he begins to agitate "to end war even if Russia will be defeated." Kesküla sees his great historical chance and intends to use Lenin's leftist radicals in forwarding the revolution of the Russian empire. He elaborates mania grandiosa type plans in order to exterminate Russia forever and build upon the ruins of the great empire Gross-Estland (Great Estonia). The empire would incorporate all former Finnic territories, including Saint Petersburg. At first, he acts between Lenin and the German government to use German money to ignite revolutionary flames in Russia. Kesküla and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs make a deal to support Lenin financially: to pay for the brochures, leaflets and books of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin accepts German help but cannot really imagine in which he implicates himself. The Germans place their super-spy Müller (Andrus Vaarik) as the coordinator of the project. Kesküla and Müller educate five Russian men as Lenin's counterparts (doppelgängers). They want to be sure they can replace the real Lenin any moment something happens to him, and so they insure their rear. Thus develops the philosophical concept: counterparts are funny but dangerous. They could replace you any moment that anybody notices you seem to be an inconvenient character (like real Lenin was).